text:
1.11973–1978: Formation
1.21978–1980: Recording contract, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, and Duty Now for the Future
1.31980–1982: Mainstream breakthrough, Freedom of Choice, and New Traditionalists
1.41982–1987: Oh, No! It's Devo, Shout, and Myers' departure
1.51987–1991: Total Devo, Smooth Noodle Maps, and breakup
1.61991–1996: Hiatus
1.71996–2007: Reunion
1.82007–2013: Something for Everybody
1.92014: Hardcore Devo Tour, Bob Casale's death
1.102014–present: Current activities
2.1Timeline
6Further reading
American rock band
This article is about the band. For other uses, see Devo (disambiguation).
Devo performing live at the Forecastle Festival, in Louisville, Kentucky, 2010
Left to right: Gerald Casale (bass), Mark Mothersbaugh (vocals; keyboards), Bob Casale (keyboards; guitar), and Bob Mothersbaugh (guitar)
DEV-O
The De-Evolution Band
Akron, Ohio, U.S.
New wave[1][2][3]
synth-pop[2]
art punk[1]
post-punk[3]
art pop[4]
electronic rock[5]
geek rock[6][7][8]
Rykodisc
The Wipeouters
Devo 2.0
Jihad Jerry & the Evildoers
Bob Mothersbaugh
Gerald Casale
Josh Freese
Josh Hager
Bob Casale
Bob Lewis
Rod Reisman
Fred Weber
Jim Mothersbaugh
Alan Myers
David Kendrick
Jeff Friedl
clubdevo.com
Devo (/ˈdiːvoʊ/, originally /diːˈvoʊ/)[9] is an American rock band from Akron, Ohio, formed in 1973. Their classic line-up consisted of two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs (Mark and Bob) and the Casales (Gerald and Bob), along with Alan Myers. The band had a No. 14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", the song that gave the band mainstream popularity.
Devo's music and visual presentation (including stage shows and costumes) mingle kitsch science fiction themes, deadpan surrealist humor and mordantly satirical social commentary. The band's namesake, the tongue-in-cheek social theory of "de-evolution", was an integral concept in their early work, which was marked by experimental and dissonant art punk that merged rock music with electronics. Their output in the 1980s embraced synth-pop and a more mainstream, less conceptual style, though the band's satirical and quirky humor remained intact. Their music has proven influential on subsequent movements, particularly on new wave, industrial, and alternative rock artists. Devo (most enthusiastically Gerald Casale) was also a pioneer of the music video format.
1973–1978: Formation[edit]
The name Devo comes from the concept of "de-evolution" and the band's related idea that instead of continuing to evolve, mankind had begun to regress, as evidenced by the dysfunction and herd mentality of American society.[10] In the late 1960s, this idea was developed as a joke by Kent State University art students Gerald Casale and Bob Lewis, who created a number of satirical art pieces in a devolution vein. At this time, Casale had also performed with the local band 15-60-75 (The Numbers Band). They met Mark Mothersbaugh around 1970, a talented keyboardist who had been playing with the band Flossy Bobbitt.[11] Mothersbaugh brought a more humorous feel to the band, introducing them to material like the pamphlet "Jocko Homo Heavenbound",[12] which includes an illustration of a winged devil labelled "D-EVOLUTION" and would later inspire the song "Jocko Homo".[13] The "joke" about de-evolution became serious following the Kent State massacre of May 4, 1970. This event would be cited multiple times as the impetus for forming the band Devo.[14] Throughout the band's career, they have often been considered a "joke band" by the music press.[15][16]
The first form of Devo was the "Sextet Devo" which performed at the 1973 Kent State performing arts festival.[11][17] It included Casale, Lewis and Mothersbaugh, as well as Gerald's brother Bob Casale on guitar, and friends Rod Reisman and Fred Weber on drums and vocals, respectively. This performance was filmed and an excerpt was later included on the home video release The Complete Truth About De-Evolution. This lineup performed only once. Devo returned to perform in the Student Governance Center (featured prominently in the film) at the 1974 Creative Arts Festival with a lineup including the Casale brothers, Bob Lewis, Mark Mothersbaugh, and Jim Mothersbaugh on drums.
Front and back covers of Devo's first release, the 45 rpm single "Mongoloid" backed with "Jocko Homo" (1977), released on the band's Booji Boy Records
The band continued to perform, generally as a quartet, but with a fluid lineup including Mark's brothers Bob Mothersbaugh and Jim Mothersbaugh. Bob played electric guitar, and Jim provided percussion using a set of home-made electronic drums. Their first two music videos, "Secret Agent Man" and "Jocko Homo", which both appeared in The Truth About De-Evolution, were filmed in Akron, and Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, the hometown of most members. This lineup of Devo lasted until late 1975 when Jim left the band. Lewis would sometimes play guitar during this period, but mainly stayed in a managerial role. In concert, Devo would often perform in the guise of theatrical characters, such as Booji Boy and the Chinaman. Live concerts from this period were often confrontational, and would remain so until 1977. A recording of an early Devo performance from 1975 with the quartet lineup appears on Devo Live: The Mongoloid Years (1992), ending with the promoters unplugging Devo's equipment.[10]
Following Jim Mothersbaugh's departure, Bob Mothersbaugh found a new drummer, Alan Myers, who played on a conventional, acoustic drum kit. Casale re-recruited his brother Bob Casale, and the lineup of Devo remained the same for nearly ten years.
Devo gained some fame in 1976 when their short film The Truth About De-Evolution, directed by Chuck Statler,[18] won a prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. This attracted the attention of David Bowie, who began work to get the band a recording contract with Warner Music Group. In 1977, Devo were asked by Neil Young to participate in the making of his film Human Highway.[19] Released in 1982, the film featured the band as "nuclear garbagemen". The band members were asked to write their own parts and Mark Mothersbaugh scored and recorded much of the soundtrack, his first of many.[20]
In March 1977, Devo released their first single, "Mongoloid" backed with "Jocko Homo", the B-side of which came from the soundtrack to The Truth About De-Evolution, on their independent label Booji Boy. This was followed by a cover of the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction".
In 1978, the B Stiff EP was released by British independent label Stiff, which included the single "Be Stiff" plus two previous Booji Boy releases.[21] "Mechanical Man", a 4-track 7-inch extended play (EP) of demos, an apparent bootleg, but actually put out by the band, was also released that year.[22][failed verification]
1978–1980: Recording contract, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, and Duty Now for the Future[edit]
Live performance in Atlanta, Georgia, 1978: Bob Casale and Gerald Casale
Recommendations from David Bowie and Iggy Pop enabled Devo to secure a recording contract with Warner Bros. in 1978. After Bowie backed out of the business deal due to previous commitments, their first album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! was produced by Brian Eno and featured re-recordings of their previous singles "Mongoloid" and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction".[23] On October 14, 1978, Devo gained national exposure with an appearance on the late-night show Saturday Night Live, a week after the Rolling Stones, performing "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and "Jocko Homo".
The band followed up with Duty Now for the Future in 1979, which moved the band more towards electronic instrumentation. While not as successful as their first album, it did produce some fan favorites with the songs "Blockhead" and "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize" [sic], as well as a cover of the Johnny Rivers hit "Secret Agent Man". "Secret Agent Man" had been recorded first in 1974 for Devo's first film and performed live as early as 1976. In 1979, Devo traveled to Japan for the first time, and a live show from this tour was partially recorded. Devo appeared on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert in 1979, performing "Blockhead", "Secret Agent Man", "Uncontrollable Urge", and "Mongoloid". Also in 1979, Rhino, in conjunction with the Los Angeles radio station KROQ-FM, released Devotees, a tribute album. It contained a set of covers of Devo songs interspersed with renditions of popular songs in Devo's style.[24]
Devo actively embraced the parody religion Church of the SubGenius.[25] In concert, Devo sometimes performed as their own opening act, pretending to be a Christian soft rock band called "Dove (the Band of Love)", which is an anagram of "Devo". They appeared as Dove in the 1980 televangelism spoof film Pray TV.
1980–1982: Mainstream breakthrough, Freedom of Choice, and New Traditionalists[edit]
Devo gained a new level of visibility with 1980's Freedom of Choice. This album included their best-known hit, "Whip It", which quickly became a Top 40 hit. The album moved to an almost completely electronic sound, with the exception of acoustic drums and Bob Mothersbaugh's guitar. The tour for Freedom of Choice was ambitious for the band, including dates in Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Canada.[26] The band used a minimalist set including large custom light boxes which could be laid on their back to form a second, smaller stage during the second half of the set. Other popular songs from Freedom of Choice were "Girl U Want", the title-track, and "Gates of Steel". The band released popular music videos for "Whip It" and "Girl U Want". Devo made two appearances on the TV show Fridays in 1980, as well as on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, American Bandstand, and other shows. The band members often wore red, terraced energy dome hats as part of its stage outfit. The dome was first worn during the band's Freedom of Choice campaign of 1980. It reappeared in the 1981, 1982, and 1988 tours, as well as in most of their performances since 1997. Devo also recorded two albums of their own songs as elevator music for their fan club, Club Devo, released on cassette in 1981 and 1984. These were later re-released on the album E-Z Listening Disc (1987), with all but two of the original Club Devo songs. These songs were often played as house music before Devo concerts.
In August 1981, the band's DEV-O Live EP spent three weeks at the top of the Australian charts.[27] In 1982, they toured Australia and appeared on the TV show Countdown. Devo enjoyed continued popularity in Australia, where the nationally broadcast 1970s–1980s pop TV show Countdown was one of the first programs in the world to broadcast their video clips. They were given consistent radio support by Sydney-based non-commercial rock station Double Jay (2JJ) and Brisbane-based independent community station Triple Zed (4ZZZ), two of the first rock stations outside America to play their recordings. The late-night music program Nightmoves aired The Truth About De-Evolution.
In 1981, Devo contributed a cover of "Working in the Coal Mine", recorded during the Freedom of Choice sessions, to the film Heavy Metal. They offered the song to be used in the film when Warner Bros. refused to include it on the album. Warner then included it as an independent bonus single accompanying their 1981 release, New Traditionalists. For this album Devo wore self-described "Utopian Boy Scout uniforms" topped with a "New Traditionalist Pomp"—a plastic half-wig modeled on the hairstyle of John F. Kennedy. Among the singles from the album was "Through Being Cool", written as a reaction to their new-found fame from "Whip It" and seen as a response to new fans who had misinterpreted the message behind the hit song. The album's accompanying tour featured the band performing an intensely physical show with treadmills and a large Greek temple set. That same year they served as Toni Basil's backing band on Word of Mouth, her debut album, which included versions of three Devo songs, recorded with Basil singing lead.[28][29]
1982–1987: Oh, No! It's Devo, Shout, and Myers' departure[edit]
Oh, No! It's Devo followed in 1982. Produced by Roy Thomas Baker, the album featured a more synth-pop-oriented sound than its predecessors. According to Gerald Casale, the album's sound was inspired by reviewers alternately describing them as both "fascists" and "clowns".[30] The album's tour featured the band performing seven songs in front of a 12-foot high rear-projection screen with synchronized video, an image recreated using blue screen effects in the album's accompanying music videos. Devo also contributed two songs, "Theme from Doctor Detroit" and "Luv-Luv", to the 1983 Dan Aykroyd film Doctor Detroit, and produced a music video for "Theme from Doctor Detroit" featuring clips from the film interspersed with live-action segments.
The band's sixth studio album, Shout (1984), which featured extensive use of the Fairlight CMI digital sampling synthesizer, was received poorly, and the expensive music video they'd produced for their cover of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's "Are You Experienced?" was criticized by some as being "disrespectful", all of which caused Warner Bros. to buy out the remainder of Devo's contract.[31] Shortly thereafter, Myers left the band, citing creative unfulfillment.[32]
In the interim, Mark Mothersbaugh began composing music for the TV show Pee-wee's Playhouse and released an elaborately packaged solo cassette, Musik for Insomniaks, which was later expanded and released as two CDs in 1988.
1987–1991: Total Devo, Smooth Noodle Maps, and breakup[edit]
In 1987, Devo re-formed with former Sparks drummer David Kendrick to replace Myers. Their first project was a soundtrack for the horror film Slaughterhouse Rock (1988), starring Toni Basil. The band released the album Total Devo in 1988, on Enigma Records. This album included two songs used in the Slaughterhouse Rock soundtrack. The song "Baby Doll" was used that same year in the comedy film Tapeheads, with newly recorded Swedish lyrics, and was credited to (and shown in a music video by) a fictitious Swedish band called Cube-Squared. Devo followed this up with a world tour, and released the live album Now It Can Be Told: Devo at the Palace in 1989. However, Total Devo was not a commercial success and received poor critical reviews.[33][additional citation(s) needed]
In 1989, members of Devo were involved in the project Visiting Kids, releasing a self-titled EP on the New Rose label in 1990.[34] The band featured Mark's then-wife Nancye Ferguson, as well as David Kendrick, Bob Mothersbaugh, and Bob's daughter Alex Mothersbaugh. Their record was produced by Bob Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh, and Mark also co-wrote some of the songs. Visiting Kids appeared on the soundtrack to the film Rockula, as well as on Late Night with David Letterman. A promotional video was filmed for the song "Trilobites".
In 1990, Smooth Noodle Maps, Devo's last album for twenty years, was released. It too was a critical and commercial failure which, along with its two singles "Stuck in a Loop" and "Post Post-Modern Man", were Devo's worst-selling efforts; all failed to appear on the U.S. charts.[35] Devo launched a concert tour in support of the album, but poor ticket sales and the bankruptcy and dissolution of Enigma Records, which was responsible for organizing and financing the tour, caused it to be cancelled part way through.
In 1990, the members of Devo, bar Bob Mothersbaugh, appeared in the film The Spirit of '76. Two albums of demo recordings from 1974–1977, namely Hardcore Devo: Volume One (1990) and Hardcore Devo: Volume Two (1991), were released on Rykodisc, as well as an album of early live recordings, Devo Live: The Mongoloid Years (1992).
The band played one final show in March 1991 before breaking up. In an interview with Mark Mothersbaugh concerning their 1996 computer game Devo Presents Adventures of the Smart Patrol, he explained, "Around '88, '89, '90 maybe, we did our last tour in Europe, and it was kind of at that point, We were watching This Is Spinal Tap on the bus and said, 'Oh my God, that's our life.' And we just said, 'Things have to change.' So we kind of agreed from there that we wouldn't do live shows anymore."[citation needed]
1991–1996: Hiatus[edit]
Following the split, Mark Mothersbaugh established Mutato Muzika, a commercial music production studio, along with Bob Mothersbaugh and Bob Casale.[36] Mothersbaugh meant to further a career as a composer, and the latter worked as an audio engineer. Mothersbaugh has had considerable success writing and producing music for television programs, including Pee-wee's Playhouse and Rugrats, video games, cartoons, and films, where he worked alongside director Wes Anderson. David Kendrick also worked at Mutato for a period during the early 1990s. Gerald Casale began a career as a director of music videos and commercials, working with bands including Rush, Soundgarden, Silverchair and the Foo Fighters. In the wake of Devo's dissolution, Bob Mothersbaugh attempted to start a solo career with The Bob I Band, recording an album that was never released. The tapes for this are now lost, though a bootleg recording of the band in concert exists and can be obtained through the bootleg aggregator Booji Boy's Basement.[37]
While they did not release any studio albums during this period, Devo sporadically reconvened to record a number of songs for various films and compilations, including a new recording of "Girl U Want" on the soundtrack to the 1995 film Tank Girl[38] and a cover of the Nine Inch Nails hit "Head Like a Hole" for the 1996 North American version of the film Supercop.
1996–2007: Reunion[edit]
In January 1996, Devo performed a reunion concert at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The band performed on part of the 1996 Lollapalooza tour in the rotating Mystery Spot. On these tours and most subsequent tours, Devo performed a set-list mostly composed of material from between 1978 and 1982, ignoring their Enigma Records-era material. Also in 1996, Devo released a multimedia CD-ROM adventure game, Adventures of the Smart Patrol with Inscape. The game was not a success, but the Lollapalooza tour was received well enough to allow Devo to return in 1997 as a headliner. Devo performed sporadically from 1997 onwards.
In 1999, the Oh, No! It's Devo era outtakes "Faster and Faster" and "One Dumb Thing", as well as the Shout era outtake "Modern Life", were restored, completed and used in the video game Interstate '82, developed by Activision and released. Also that year, Mothersbaugh started the Devo side-project The Wipeouters, after their band in junior high,[39][40][41] featuring himself (keyboards, organ), Bob Mothersbaugh (guitar), Bob Casale (guitar), and Mutato Muzika composer Josh Mancell (drums). The Wipeouters performed the theme song to the Nickelodeon animated series Rocket Power, and in 2001 they released an album of surf rock material, titled P'Twaaang!!!.[42][43][44][45][46]
Around this same time, Devo's online fandom continued to grow, leading to 'Devotional', a Devo fan convention held annually in Cleveland, Ohio. The festival was most recently held in September 2022.[47]
In 2005, Devo recorded a new version of "Whip It" to be used in Swiffer television commercials, a decision they have said they regretted. During an interview with the Dallas Observer, Gerald Casale said, "It's just aesthetically offensive. It's got everything a commercial that turns people off has."[48] The song "Beautiful World" was also used in a re-recorded form for an advertisement for Target stores. Due to rights issues with their back catalog, Devo has re-recorded songs for films and advertisements.
In 2005, Gerald Casale announced his "solo" project, Jihad Jerry & the Evildoers (the Evildoers, including the other members of Devo), and released the first EP, Army Girls Gone Wild in 2006. A full-length album, Mine Is Not a Holy War, was released on September 12, 2006, after a several-month delay. It featured mostly new material, plus re-recordings of four obscure Devo songs: "I Need a Chick" and "I Been Refused" (from Hardcore Devo: Volume Two), "Find Out" (which appeared on the single and EP of "Peek-a-Boo!" in 1982), and "Beehive" (which was recorded by the band in 1974, whereupon it was apparently abandoned, with the exception of one appearance at a special show in 2001). Devo continued to tour actively in 2005 and 2006,[49] unveiling a new stage show at appearances in October 2006, with the Jihad Jerry character performing "Beautiful World" as an encore.
Also in 2006, Devo worked on a project with Disney known as Devo 2.0. A band of child performers was assembled and re-recorded Devo songs. A quote from the Akron Beacon Journal stated, "Devo recently finished a new project in cahoots with Disney called Devo 2.0, which features the band playing old songs and two new ones with vocals provided by children. Their debut album, a two disc CD/DVD combo entitled DEV2.0, was released on March 14, 2006. The lyrics of some of the songs were changed for family-friendly airplay, which has been claimed by the band to be a play on irony of the messages of their classic hits."[50]
Mark Mothersbaugh performing live with Devo at the Festival Internacional de Benicàssim, 2007 (Gerald Casale vacuum forms thermoplastic using an Art Deco lamp as a mold, with a hat liner, to make the "energy" helmets)[51]
In an April 2007 interview, Gerald Casale mentioned a tentative project for a biographical film about Devo's early days.[52] According to Casale, a script was supposedly in development, called The Beginning Was the End. Devo played their first European tour since 1990 in the summer of 2007, including a performance at Festival Internacional de Benicàssim.
2007–2013: Something for Everybody[edit]
In December 2007, Devo released their first new single since 1990, "Watch Us Work It", which was featured in a commercial for Dell.[53] The song features a sampled drum track from the New Traditionalists song "The Super Thing". Casale said that the song was chosen from a batch that the band was working on, and that it was the closest the band had been to releasing a new album.[54]
Devo performing live at Festival Hall, in Melbourne, Australia, 2008: Casale and Mothersbaugh.
Devo performed at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in March 2009,[55] unveiling a new stage show with synchronized video backdrops (similar to the 1982 tour), new costumes, and three new songs: "Don't Shoot, I'm a Man!", "What We Do", and "Fresh". On September 16, Warner Bros. and Devo announced re-releases of Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! and Freedom of Choice, as well as a subsequent tour, where they would perform both albums in their entirety.[56]
A new album, Something for Everybody, was eventually released on June 15, 2010,[57] preceded by a 12-inch single of "Fresh"/"What We Do" on June 10.[58] Devo was awarded the first Moog Innovator Award on October 29, during Moogfest 2010 in Asheville, North Carolina. The Moog Innovator Award has been said to celebrate "pioneering artists whose genre-defying work exemplifies the bold, innovative spirit of Bob Moog".[59] Devo was scheduled to perform at Moogfest, but Bob Mothersbaugh severely injured his hand three days prior, and the band was forced to cancel. Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale collaborated with Austin-based band the Octopus Project to perform "Girl U Want" and "Beautiful World" at the event instead.[60]
The band split from Warner Bros in 2012 and launched a new "post-Warner Brothers" website that would offer "new protective gear" and "unreleased material from the archives in vinyl disc format".[61] In August of that year, the band released a single called "Don't Roof Rack Me, Bro (Seamus Unleashed)", dedicated to the Republican Party presidential candidate Mitt Romney's former pet dog Seamus. The title refers to the Mitt Romney dog incident of 1983, when Romney travelled twelve hours with the dog in a crate on his car's roof rack.[62]
On June 24, 2013, the group's former drummer Alan Myers died of stomach cancer[32][63] in Los Angeles, California. He was 58. News reports at the time of his death incorrectly cited brain cancer as the cause.[32][64][65] One month later, Devo released their Something Else for Everybody album, which collected "Unreleased Demos and Focus Group Rejects" from 2006–2009.[66] Gerald Casale had earlier teased the album in a 2012 interview with Billboard magazine.[67]
2014: Hardcore Devo Tour, Bob Casale's death[edit]
On February 17, 2014, founding member Bob Casale died of heart failure at age 61.[68] Shortly afterwards, the group, now a quartet, embarked on their Hardcore Devo Tour, a ten-show tour across the US and Canada between June 18 and July 2, 2014.[69] Partial proceeds for the ten shows went to support Bob Casale's family after his sudden death. The show featured the group performing material written during 1974–1977.[70] The June 28 Oakland show was filmed and later released as the concert film Hardcore Devo Live!, released on Blu-ray, DVD, and Video on Demand on February 10, 2015, accompanied by CD and double-vinyl audio releases.[71][72]
2014–present: Current activities[edit]
After a short break, Devo continued to tour for the rest of 2014.[69] Josh Hager joined the band at this time, playing both keyboards[73] and guitar.[74] On April 29, 2016, Devo performed at Will Ferrell and Chad Smith's Red Hot Benefit.[75] On May 22, Robert Mothersbaugh Sr., father of Mark, Bob, and Jim Mothersbaugh, died. Robert portrayed General Boy in various Devo films.[76]
On September 23, 2017, the official Twitter account for the band's Are We Not Men? documentary film, which had been in production since 2009,[77] stated that "the film was finished years ago" and that "mm [Mark Mothersbaugh] is blocking its release".[78] Jeff Winner, who was consulting producer for the Devo documentary, went on to state that he and Pemberton had "delivered the film that was contracted, and on schedule. It's now in the hands of the band to decide when/how it's released/distributed."[79]
After a hiatus from live performances, Devo headlined the Burger Boogaloo festival in Oakland, California, on June 30, 2018. Comedian and former Trenchmouth drummer Fred Armisen filled in for Josh Freese on drums.[80] On October 12, 2020, Devo performed at the Desert Daze festival, with Jeff Friedl on drums.[81]
In January 2021, Funko released two Devo Funko Pops inspired by the group's "Whip It" and "Satisfaction" music videos.[82] One month later, the band starred in Devolution: A Devo Theory, a television documentary based entirely on their theory of devolution,[83] which had been completed in 2020.[84] In September, Devo performed a short three-date tour of the USA, including a show at Riot Fest.[85] These performances marked the return of Josh Freese on drums,[86] who had not played live with Devo in over five years.
Shortly afterwards, Gerald Casale announced the release of an official Devo potato-based vodka through the Trust Me Vodka brand. The packaging for the drink was themed around Devo imagery and featured original artwork. It was signed by the group's co-founders Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh, as well as Bob Mothersbaugh.[87]
On October 24, 2021, John Hinckley Jr posted on Twitter that he had not received any royalties for Devo's song "I Desire" in 35 years. "I Desire" had been written by Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale for their 1982 album Oh, No! It's Devo, inspired by a poem written by Hinckley that was published in a tabloid newspaper, following his attempt to assassinate then-current president Ronald Reagan. Hinckley had been adequately credited for his contributions through a co-writing credit on all releases. Casale claimed that Devo were not at fault, as it was the publishing company's duty to pay him, not the band's.[88]
Devotional 2021, an annual convention for Devo fans, was held on November 5–6, with the annual 5KDEVO race taking place on the 7th.[89] On November 15, it was announced that Devo would perform a one-off show at the Rooftop at Pier 17 on May 18, 2022, in order to make up for their cancelled Radio City Music Hall gig in September 2021.[90] Tickets went on sale on the 18th.[91]
In December, it was announced that rare images of Devo would feature in a book of rock photography from 1977–1980 titled HARD + FAST, to be released on February 1, 2022. The book will also include a 7-inch single of live recordings from the band, which were also released on SoundCloud prior to the book's release.[92] The recordings were dated 1977, but the performances are identical to those found on an audience bootleg recorded on October 10, 1978.[93]
Devo were nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, 2021 and 2022.[94][95][96]
On May 14 and 15, 2022, Devo performed at the Cruel World Festival at the Rose Bowl's Brookside golf course in Pasadena, California.[97]
Gerald Casale – bass guitar, vocals, bass synthesizer (1973–1991, 1996–present)
Mark Mothersbaugh – vocals, keyboards, guitar (1973–1991, 1996–present)
Bob Mothersbaugh – guitar, vocals (1974–1991, 1996–present)
Josh Freese – drums[98][99] (1996–present)
Josh Hager – guitar, keyboards (2014–present)
Bob Casale – guitar, keyboards, backing vocals (1973–1974, 1976–1991, 1996–2014; his death)
Bob Lewis – guitar (1973–1974)
Rod Reisman – drums (1973)
Fred Weber – vocals (1973)
Jim Mothersbaugh – electronic percussion (1974–1975)
Alan Myers – drums (1976–1986; died 2013)[32]
David Kendrick – drums (1987–1991, 1996–2004)[a]
Jeff Friedl – drums (2008–2014, 2019)[b]
Neil Taylor – drums (2008)
Pete Parada – drums (2011)
Brian Applegate – keyboards, bass guitar (2014 Hardcore Tour)
Alex Casale – bass guitar (2014 Hardcore Tour)
Ed Marshall – bass guitar (2014 Hardcore Tour)
Fred Armisen – drums (2018 Burger Boogaloo)
Main article: Devo discography
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!. (1978)
Duty Now for the Future (1979)
Freedom of Choice (1980)
New Traditionalists (1981)
Oh, No! It's Devo (1982)
Shout (1984)
Total Devo (1988)
Smooth Noodle Maps (1990)
Something for Everybody (2010)
^ David Kendrick performed with Devo at several 2002–2004 shows (including their tour of Japan (commemorated on the "Devo – Live in the Land of the Rising Sun" DVD) as well as the 2004 Nike Run Hit Wonder) due to the unavailability of Josh Freese. In addition, Kendrick also continued to play drums on all Devo studio tracks in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This would include "It's All Good", "Are You Ready", and "Go Monkey Go".[100]
^ Ashes Divide drummer Jeff Friedl (formerly of Eagles of Death Metal and Puscifer) performed with Devo on June 5, 2010, at the KROQ Weenie Roast in Los Angeles, and accompanied Devo on other selected dates between 2008 and 2013 due to Freese performing with Weezer. Friedl returned for several performances in late 2014 following the "Hardcore Devo" tour for similar reasons, and also played drums on a few tracks from the 2013 compilation album Something Else for Everybody.
^ a b Long, Pat (May 2, 2009). "Pat Long meets new wave 80s oddballs Devo, who are intent on making a comeback". The Guardian. London. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
^ a b "Devo". AllMusic. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
^ a b Ring, Julian (June 24, 2013). "Devo Assemble Synthetic Blues in 'Auto Modown' – Song Premiere". Rolling Stone. New York City. Retrieved December 3, 2015.
^ Aston, Martin (October 1995). "Devo: Where Are They Now?". Q.
^ Steinberg & Kehler (2010), p.355.
^ Chaney, Keidra (January–February 2015). "The Evolution of Nerd Rock". Uncanny. No. 2. pp. 129–133.
^ Freed, Nick; Salgado, Christina (March 14, 2014). "The Greatest Nerd Rock Records of All Time". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved February 17, 2021.
^ Topić, Martina (2014). "Taste, Kitsch, and Geek Rock: A Multiple Modernities View". In DiBlasi, Alex; Willis, Victoria (eds.). Geek Rock: An Exploration of Music and Subculture. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 25–44. ISBN 9781442229761.
^ "Info From Jerry Casale". Clue Free. Archived from the original on February 6, 2005. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
^ a b "Devo Bio". Clubdevo.com. Archived from the original on October 11, 2007. Retrieved September 11, 2007.
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^ "Jocko-Homo Heavenbound". F. W. Alden (1873–1955). Retrieved August 19, 2011.
^ Wengrofsky, Jeffrey, De-evolution in the 21st-Century: The Avant-Garde as Derriere-Garde: In Conversation with Mark Mothersbaugh Coilhouse Magazine |Retrieved on May 20, 2020
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^ Azerrad, Michael (August 11, 1988). "Total Devo". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on October 16, 2017. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
^ "The Spawn of Devo: Visiting Kids". Dangerousminds.net. April 26, 2012. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
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^ Roberts, Randall (December 5, 2007). "Are you not Devo? You are Mutato". LA Weekly. Retrieved August 4, 2015.
^ Brunelle, Alex. "S016 – The Bob I Band: Live @ The China Club – Los Angeles, CA 1992". Booji Boys Basement. Retrieved April 19, 2017.
^ Rosen, Craig (March 25, 1995). "'Tank Girl' Set shoots From Hip". Billboard. Vol. 107, no. 12. pp. 10, 44. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
^ "Devo Members Resurrect Junior-High Basement Band". MTV. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
^ "DEVO". Juice Magazine. September 1, 2001. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
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^ Gdula, Steve. "Devo Enters Time Warp With Wipeouters". ABC News. Retrieved January 21, 2019.
^ "Devo Members Reunite As Surf Band". Billboard. March 7, 2001. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
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^ "Devo Enters Time Warp With Wipeouters". ABC News. April 3, 2001. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
^ Kogon, Bennett (April 26, 2017). "Meet the Wipeouters: DEVO's surf-rock alter egos created for a children's show". DangerousMinds. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
^ "Devo Cleveland Tickets, Beachland Ballroom September 16–17". Cleveland Scene. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
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^ Gerald Casale, (1994-05-18) History of Rock and Roll Interview
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^ "Synth Pioneers DEVO New Song "Watch Us Work It" in Dell Commercial". ModulateThis.com. August 4, 2007. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
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^ "Devo at SXSW". Gratefulweb.com. January 17, 2009. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
^ Graff, Gary (September 17, 2009). "Devo inks new record deal, suits up for tour". Reuters. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
^ "Devo - Something for Everybody Album Reviews, Songs & More". AllMusic. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
^ "Fresh/What We Do - Devo". AllMusic. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
^ "MoogFest 2010 Announces Devo as Recipient of Moog Innovation Award". Moogfest.com. September 8, 2010. Archived from the original on November 12, 2011. Retrieved August 19, 2011.
^ Pareles, Jon (November 1, 2010). "Honoring the Moment When Music Met Moog". The New York Times. Retrieved August 19, 2011.
^ "From the Desk of General Boy". ClubDevo.com. March 1, 2012. Archived from the original on March 4, 2012. Retrieved March 3, 2012.
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^ Doerschuk, Andy (June 26, 2013). "Alan Myers Dies Of Stomach Cancer". Drum Magazine. Archived from the original on July 23, 2013. Retrieved July 19, 2013.
^ Roberts, Randall (June 26, 2013). "Alan Myers, longtime Devo drummer, has died". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on June 27, 2013.
^ "Devo drummer Alan Myers dies of brain cancer". Associated Press. June 26, 2013. Archived from the original on June 30, 2013.
^ "DEVO Music | CLUBDEVO". Retrieved October 27, 2021.
^ Flanary, Patrick (August 23, 2012). "Devo Parts With Warner Bros., Bites Romney in New Song". Billboard. Retrieved January 22, 2013.
^ Duke, Alan (February 18, 2014). "Devo's Bob Casale dead of heart failure, brother says". CNN. Retrieved February 18, 2014.
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^ "8/27/14: Josh2 Whip It | CLUBDEVO". Retrieved October 27, 2021.
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^ "DEVO Live Guide - 2016 to 2020". huboon.com. Retrieved October 27, 2021.
^ "R.I.P. Devo Figure Robert 'General Boy' Motherbaugh". Exclaim.ca. Retrieved May 23, 2016.
^ Lambert, Alix (December 12, 2012). "Director Tony Pemberton Talks Russia, Film and Devo". Filmmaker. Retrieved August 13, 2015.
^ Documentary, DEVO (September 23, 2017). "It is sad. For us too. The film was finished years ago, mm is blocking its release". Twitter.
^ Documentary, DEVO (September 23, 2017). "We delivered the film that was contracted, and on schedule. It's now in the hands of the band to decide when/how it's released/distributed". Twitter.
^ "Fred Armisen at DEVO Rehearsal". Clubdeco.com.
^ Blueskye, Brian. "Desert Daze may be your last chance to see Devo. 'No plans' for farewell tour, bassist says". The Desert Sun. Retrieved October 27, 2021.
^ "DEVO Funko Pop! Figures | CLUBDEVO". Retrieved February 4, 2021.
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^ Major, Michael. "'HARD + FAST' Shares Unreleased Devo Tracks". Broadway World. Retrieved December 16, 2021.
^ Devo (live concert) - October 10th, 1978, Starwood, West Hollywood, CA (audio only), retrieved December 16, 2021
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^ Greene, Andy (February 2, 2022). "Rock Hall of Fame: Eminem, Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie, Duran Duran Lead Nominees". Rolling Stone. Retrieved February 7, 2022.
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^ "DEVO: Biography: Info & Bio". ClubDevo.com. Archived from the original on November 2, 2016. Retrieved October 31, 2016.
^ "Josh Freese". Drummerworld.com. Retrieved October 31, 2016.
^ "Billboard article on possible new album". alt.fan.devo.narkive.com. 2006. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
Steinberg, Shirley R.; Kehler, Michael (2010). Boy Culture: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0313350818.
Dellinger, Jade; Giffels, David (2003). We Are Devo! Deviants in a Post-Modern World. SAF Publishing. ISBN 0-946719-49-7.
Lewis, Bob. Readers vs. Breeders: Didactical Works re De-Evolution, originally appearing in Los Angeles Staff, 1972, cleveland.com
Lewis, Bob (2006). "Some thoughts on Devo: the first Postmodern Band" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 18, 2006. Retrieved November 18, 2008.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Devo.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Devo.
Devo at AllMusic
Devo discography at Discogs
Devo at IMDb
Devo's channel on YouTube
Devo – encyclopedia.com
"Devo Live Guide" – Comprehensive guide to Devo's live performances
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978)
Now It Can Be Told: DEVO at the Palace (1989)
DEVO Live: The Mongoloid Years (1992)
DEV-O Live (1999)
Live in Central Park (2004)
Devo Live 1980 (2005)
Hardcore Devo Live! (2015)
E-Z Listening Disc (1987)
Devo's Greatest Hits (1990)
Devo's Greatest Misses (1990)
Hardcore Devo: Volume One (1990)
Hardcore Devo: Volume Two (1991)
Hot Potatoes: The Best of Devo (1993)
Adventures of the Smart Patrol (1996)
Pioneers Who Got Scalped: The Anthology (2000)
Recombo DNA (2000)
This Is the Devo Box (2008)
Something Else for Everybody (2013)
B Stiff (1977)
Mechanical Man (1978)
Theme from Doctor Detroit (1983)
Watch Us Work It (2008)
Song Study (2010)
"Mongoloid"
"Jocko Homo"
"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"
"Be Stiff"
"Secret Agent Man"
"Girl U Want"
"Whip It"
"Freedom of Choice"
"Through Being Cool"
"Beautiful World"
"Working in the Coal Mine"
"Peek-a-Boo!"
"That's Good"
"Are You Experienced?"
"Here to Go"
"Disco Dancer"
"Watch Us Work It"
The Men Who Make the Music
Human Highway
We're All Devo
The Complete Truth About De-Evolution
Devo Live
Devo Live 1980
Hardcore Devo Live!
Characters (Booji Boy
General Boy)
Church of the SubGenius
Devo Presents Adventures of the Smart Patrol
Energy dome
Mutato Muzika
The Beginning Was the End
"Dare to Be Stupid"
"The Mutants Are Revolting"
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Devo&oldid=1135548811"
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April 10th, 2018 | blog | Comments Off on Why Custom Cabinets?
I bet we have your attention now as we used one of the scariest words in the kitchen remodel business…CUSTOM. Hold on, come back and sit down. We are going to explain about custom cabinetry, and let you know why you might want to consider them, and why they are not really scary at all. You know how little kids are afraid of the monster under the bed, and in reality, there is nothing there? So you go and get the flashlight, shine it under there, showing them the truth, and then they can rest easy. That is similar to how we handle custom work in a remodel as we shine the light toward your direction with our wealth of knowledge. There really is nothing to be afraid of, and the really weird thing is, choosing to do custom cabinets in your North Palm Beach or Fort Lauderdale abode can actually save money. Our designers at Distinguished Kitchens and Baths are here to show you how.
So what is custom cabinetry anyway? Does it mean that each piece in your new kitchen has gone through the gauntlet being individually chosen, designed, and worked out, with odd measurements, then painstakingly (and expensively) built on site? Not at all. What custom cabinetry means is that you and your designer decide and prioritize exactly what you need, then expertly fit any space while ensuring you maintain a proper form and function. It means that we take care of the details to ensure your desires are made to your exact needs in the factory, and then installed in your North Palm Beach or Fort Lauderdale home. Of course, there is a cost associated with certain customizations, and it is your designer's job to guide you through the process, gaining you the most value in your investment. Choosing custom cabinetry where needed often saves money. For instance, cabinetry for tight spaces, odd spaces, or special usages will be designed to specifically fit your needs, saving wasted space in your kitchen, as well as providing a proper aesthetic.
Contact us today at Distinguished Kitchens and Baths, and let us show you that there is no bogeyman in custom cabinetry. DKB Cabinetry: Custom. Cabinetry. Redefined.


For the last 13 years, Kabbalah Experience has thrived due to the support of our loyal students, our generous benefactors, and the support and friendship of our community partnerships. We have learned about each other, celebrated life together, and collaborated on building inclusive, spiritual community welcoming of YOU. Our community partners are leaders in every way and we list them here in solidarity and with gratitude.
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Tag Archives: personal
How to care for and recover personal items after bushfire
The burnt out remains of a house in the Southern Highlands town of Wingello. There are three main factors to consider when thinking about the impact of bushfires on your personal treasures – smoke, heat, and water.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Vanessa Kowalski, University of Melbourne
The devastation wrought by the Australian bushfires has been immense and, as the fires continue to burn, the final loss won't be known for many months. While the impact on the environment, human and animal life is overwhelming, for many individuals the loss of personal items such as photographs, documents, artwork and personal treasures is significant.
Heirlooms and artworks are often cherished for the people, events and experiences they represent rather than their monetary value or cultural importance. They can be integral to understanding our personal history, culture and identity.
While damage to them can be heartbreaking, even a badly damaged family treasure may hold immeasurable personal significance.
For those threatened by bushfire, planning for the preservation of your treasured items can start now. Planning resources are available online. For those who have been affected by fire damage, you may still be able to salvage items.
There are three main factors to consider when thinking about the impact of bushfires on your personal treasures – smoke, heat, and water.
The most obvious damage from smoke is soiling.
The most obvious damage from smoke is soiling. Soot, ash and other particulate matter are usually dark and greasy. When deposited on the surface of an object, colour and detail are obscured. Damage from high heat exposure can result in blistering, melting, warping, charring and partial or complete loss.
If water has been used to put out the fire, water related damage can be an issue. Water can cause shrinkage, distortion, discolouration, mould and partial or complete loss of original material.
The possible damage to your items will depend on the material types. Here are some tips for handling them.
Paintings can be affected by all three factors.
• If an artwork is framed, it is recommended that you leave the frame in place. Exposure to high heat can soften the paint layer, which may cause it to stick to the frame. A specialist should remove the work from the frame.
• The particulate nature of smoke means that it can cause abrasion as the soot is wiped away. Get advice before undertaking any cleaning. Do not use water.
• Assess the surface for loose material (lifting paint, blistering). Take care when handling to ensure no loss of fragile material. Retain any loose elements in a Ziplock bag. These can be reattached later.
Paper documents, prints and photographs
Though potentially affected by all three factors, water damage can be the most severe for these items, with the risk of mould.
• Allow wet items to slowly air dry, indoors if possible. Increase indoor airflow with fans, open windows, air conditioners, and dehumidifiers. Do not use hair dryers, ovens, irons.
• Photo albums can stick together. Do not try to open them. Ask a conservator for advice.
• Dry paper documents and photos can be cleaned of soot with a vacuum and dry sponge.
Dry photos can be cleaned of soot with a vacuum and dry sponge.
Textiles (i.e. sporting memorabilia)
Textiles can be affected by all three factors.
• Handle with care, as they may be fragile.
• Low powered vacuum removal of soot may be possible if fabric is not weak (shedding).
Glass, metal and ceramic objects
These items can be affected by high temperatures and smoke. Heat can distort shape (melting) or alter surface finishes (i.e. glaze on pottery). Such damage is usually irreversible. Smoke damage can leave a darkened layer of soot on the surface.
• Care is need when removing soot to ensure abrasion of the surface doesn't occur.
• Heat can make these objects brittle. Care is needed when handling.
• Use gloves when handling. Skin oils can damage the surface.
What else can you do
You may not be able to save everything, so focus on prioritising what is most important to you. Personal safety is the highest priority when entering damaged buildings. Wear protective clothing, footwear, goggles, gloves and masks to protect from hazardous material and possible mould spores.
Items may be more fragile than they look, so consider using something rigid to support them when lifting and transporting such as a piece of tray, pieces of cardboard, box, a plastic container or lid.
Retain any items that are recognisable, it may be possible to restore them.
The national conservation body, the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Materials, provides a number of useful fire recovery resources.
Details for accredited conservators can also be found through the AICCM website. A conservator will be able to provide advice on how to best approach the recovery and ongoing preservation of your heirlooms and artworks.
Vanessa Kowalski, Painting Conservator, Grimwade Conservation Services, University of Melbourne
Posted in news, Australia, bushfires	| Tagged article, Australia, belongings, bushfire, bushfires, care, items, news, personal, recover | Leave a comment
Rising reliance on personal income tax signals need for bolder reforms
Phil Lewis, University of Canberra
The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) has just released a report on trends in Commonwealth taxation receipts. While supporting the expectations of a budget in balance by 2019-20, it exposes worrying trends in the balance of the burden of taxes in Australia. In particular, its analysis of trends in the composition of tax revenue identifies an increasing reliance on personal income tax.
The PBO shows that tax revenue from labour (mostly income tax) was 8.6% of GDP in 1971-72. By 2015/16, this had risen to 12.6% of GDP. Over the same period, tax collections from capital (mostly company tax) as a percentage of GDP was virtually unchanged, from 3.3% to 3.2% – although this increased noticeably during the "economic boom", which ended when the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) hit in 2007.
Taxes on consumption (such a GST and excise duties) were 5.3% of GDP in 1971-72 and 5.7% of GDP in 2015-16. While the introduction of the GST in July 2001 raised consumption taxes temporarily, revenue from both GST and particularly excise taxes has been in decline as a percent of GDP since.
Figure 2 from the report shows these trends over the decades.
Trends in revenue from categories of Commonwealth taxes.
Source: ATO data and PBO analysis
The main emphasis of the PBO report is on the period since 2001-02. The chart below shows the increased reliance on income tax and declining importance of taxes on consumption and capital.
What is driving these shifts?
The main reason for the rise in income tax revenue is "bracket creep" as incomes increase and taxpayers move into higher marginal tax brackets. This is due to successive governments not fully indexing tax brackets to increases in CPI or average earnings.
Meanwhile, consumers have been changing their tastes and responding to prices by altering their consumption patterns. The so-called "sin taxes", or rates of excise duties on alcohol and tobacco, have increased significantly over time.
This has been particularly true for tobacco where the volume of consumption has fallen as fewer people smoke and those who do smoke less. However, the percentage fall in consumption has been less than the percentage rise in tax, so tobacco tax revenue has risen.
For alcohol, consumers have been switching from more highly taxed beer to wine, which is more lightly taxed. For instance, a full-strength beer from your bottle shop carries a tax of $37.10 per litre of alcohol. A moderately priced bottle of wine bears a tax less than half that ($17.60 per litre).
What might be considered a distortion in the taxing of alcohol means that changes in tastes towards drinking wine reduce tax revenue. The system of taxing alcohol is distorting in that encourages changing consumption habits away from beer drinking to wine.
Fuel excise is levied on a number of fuels but revenue comes mainly from petrol sales. The indexing of fuel excise rates was abolished in 2001 before being reintroduced in 2014. This reduction in the real excise rates was accompanied by significant reduction in the volume of fuel per household, from 11.4 L/km in 2001 to 10.6 L/km in 2016, as vehicles became more fuel-efficient.
The combination of reduced real excise rates and reduced consumption have reduced fuel excise revenue as a percentage of GDP.
The GST, one of the principal aims of which was to provide a broadly based growth tax, is declining in relative importance. This is mainly due to the exemptions from the GST base. For instance, spending on education and health, which are exempt from GST, is growing faster than spending on other goods and services. There is also some loss in revenue due to online purchases from overseas, which the government is trying to address.
As the share of consumers' spending continues to switch from GST-liable to GST-exempt items the share of GST revenue will continue to fall.
Company taxes have diminished in importance in Australia and elsewhere because of the way multinational companies can arrange their tax liabilities across national borders to minimise tax. However, there is also worldwide recognition of the need to reduce company tax rates because of the detrimental effects these have on investment and growth.
The need to cut 'deadweight loss'
When discussing taxes economist often refer to "deadweight loss", which is the loss to the economy over and above the amount recouped in tax revenue. When revenue is taken from individuals or companies this results in less of a service or good being produced.
It is argued that governments should put more reliance on taxes that cause less distortion – less deadweight loss. That is, they should have as little effect on individuals' and firms' behaviour as possible.
A broad-based GST is efficient because all goods and services bear the same tax rate and therefore will not change relative consumption. It is exemptions that bring about inefficiency by encouraging consumption of untaxed items and discouraging consumption of taxed items. Taxing wine more lightly than beer encourages wine consumption at the expense of beer.
The Australian Treasury has named company tax and income tax as having the "biggest deadweight loss" of all the Commonwealth taxes. International research backs this up. The deadweight loss falls on consumers and shareholders but mostly on workers and wages through lower investment.
The Treasury estimates the deadweight loss of company tax could be more than half the revenue raised from taxation. For income taxes, the deadweight loss is estimated to be 21 cents for every dollar of revenue. This comes about from reduced incentives to work, save or invest.
The PBO report suggests that with continuing trends in taxation revenue the budget's reliance on personal income tax will increase if current levels of Commonwealth taxation are maintained as a percentage of GDP. While proposals to reduce company tax rates will reduce inefficiency of taxes somewhat, a heavy and increasing reliance on personal income tax points to the need for substantial tax reform. But that's something neither major party seems prepared to do.
Phil Lewis, Professor of Economics, University of Canberra
Posted in Australia, economy, news, Politics	| Tagged article, Australia, economy, income, news, personal, Politics, reform, reliance, rising, tax, taxation | Leave a comment
My Health Record: Deleting personal information from databases is harder than it sounds
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has announced that the My Health Record system will be modified to allow the permanent deletion of records.
Robert Merkel, Monash University
Since the period for opting out of My Health Record began on July 16, experts in health, privacy and IT have raised concerns about the security and privacy protections of the system, and the legislation governing its operation.
Now federal health minister Greg Hunt has announced two key changes to the system.
First, the legislation will be amended to explicitly require a court order for any documents to be released to a law enforcement agency. Second, the system will be modified to allow the permanent deletion of records:
In addition, the Government will also amend Labor's 2012 legislation to ensure if someone wishes to cancel their record they will be able to do so permanently, with their record deleted from the system.
But while this sounds like a simple change, permanently and completely deleting information from IT systems is anything but straightforward.
My Health Record: the case for opting out
Systems designed for retention, not deletion
The My Health Record database is designed for the long-term retention of important information. Most IT systems designed for this purpose are underpinned by the assumption that the risk of losing information – through a hardware fault, programming mistake, or operator error – should be extremely low.
The exact details of how My Health Record data is protected from data loss are not public. But there are several common measures that systems like it incorporate to greatly reduce the risks.
At a most basic level, "deletion" of a record stored in a database is often implemented simply by marking a record as deleted. That's akin to deleting something on paper by drawing a thin line through it.
The software can be programmed to ignore any such deleted records, but the underlying record is still present in the database – and can be retrieved by an administrator with unfettered permissions to access the database directly.
This approach means that if an operator error or software bug results in an incorrect deletion, repairing the damage is straightforward.
My Health Record: the case for opting in
Furthermore, even if data is actually deleted from the active database, it can still be present in backup "snapshots" that contain the complete database contents at some particular moment in time.
Some of these backups will be retained – untouched and unaltered – for extended periods, and will only be accessible to a small group of IT administrators.
Zombie records
Permanent and absolute deletion of a record in such a system will therefore be a challenge.
If a user requests deletion, removing their record from the active database will be relatively straightforward (although even this has some complications), but removing them from the backups is not.
If the backups are left unaltered, we might wonder in what circumstances the information in those backups would be made accessible.
If, by contrast, the archival backups are actively and irrevocably modified to permit deletion, those archival backups are at high risk of other modifications that remove or modify wanted data. This would defeat the purpose of having trusted archival backups.
Backups and the GDPR's 'right to be forgotten'
The problem of deleting personal information and archival backups has been raised in the context of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This new EU-wide law greatly strengthens privacy protections surrounding use of personal information in member states.
The "right to erasure" or "right to be forgotten" – Article 17 of the GDPR – states that organisations storing the personal information of EU citizens "shall have the obligation to erase personal data without undue delay" in certain circumstances.
How this obligation will be met in the context of standard data backup practices is an interesting question, to say the least. While the legal aspects of this question are beyond my expertise, from a technical perspective, there is no easy general-purpose solution for the prompt deletion of individual records from archived data.
In an essay posted to their corporate website, data backup company Acronis proposes that companies should be transparent about what will happen to the backups of customers who request that records be deleted:
[while] primary instances of their data in production systems will be erased with all due speed … their personal data may reside in backup archives that must be retained for a longer period of time – either because it is impractical to isolate individual personal data within the archive, or because the controller is required to retain data longer for contractual, legal or compliance reasons.
Who might access those backups?
Data stored on archival backups, competently administered, will not be available to health professionals. Nor will they be available to run-of-the-mill hackers who might steal a practitioner's credentials to gain illicit access to My Health Record.
But it's not at all clear whether law enforcement bodies, or anyone else, could potentially access a deleted record if they are granted access to archival backups by the system operator.
Under amended legislation, such access would undoubtedly require a court order. Nevertheless, were it to be permitted, access to a deleted record under these circumstances would be contrary to the general expectation that when a record is deleted, it is promptly, completely and irrevocably deleted, with no prospect of retrieval.
Opting out of My Health Records? Here's what you get with the status quo
Time required to work through the details
In my view, more information on the deletion process, and any legislative provisions surrounding deleted records, needs to be made public. This will allow individuals to make an informed choice on whether they are comfortable with the amended security and privacy provisions.
Getting this right will take time and extensive expert and public consultation. It is very difficult to imagine how this could take place within the opt-out period, even taking into account the one-month extension just announced by the minister.
Given that, it would be prudent to pause the roll-out of My Health Record for a considerably longer period. This would permit the government to properly address the issues of record deletion, as well as the numerous other privacy and security concerns raised about the system.
Robert Merkel, Lecturer in Software Engineering, Monash University
Posted in Australia, Health and Fitness, news, Politics	| Tagged article, Australia, databases, deleting, difficult, health, information, My Health Record, news, personal, Politics, security | Leave a comment
From 'Toby Tosspot' to 'Mr Harbourside Mansion', personal insults are an Australian tradition
The insults have becoming increasingly personal, but they don't always work.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Frank Bongiorno, Australian National University
The insults have been flying thick and fast. Malcolm Turnbull is "Mr Harbourside Mansion", "Top Hat" Malcolm, "the slick merchant banker", "the top end of town" man. It is a measure of the unhappiness in the Coalition that not all of these epithets were invented by Labor.
Meanwhile, Bill Shorten is, according to Turnbull, a "sycophant", a "groveller", a "man who abandoned workers" while he "tucked his knees under" the table of billionaires like the late businessman Richard Pratt.
The red faces, raised voices and flying spittle that accompany the parliamentary trade in insults are meant to convey passion and spontaneity. But we can be confident the lines have been sorted well in advance.
Turnbull's insults, for example, made in parliament just recently, largely repeat things he said in February last year when he called Shorten "a social-climbing sycophant" and "would-be tribune of the people". On the other side, Labor has been seeking to present Turnbull as an out-of-touch Sydney snob from the day he took office.
Do such insults work? We know from the research of Australian political scientists – such as my colleagues here at the Australian National University who produce the Australian Election Study – that elections have become increasingly personalised. Most voters do not comb through policy documents. Rather, they use the party leader as a means of making judgments about the things that matter to them.
An evening with the treasurer: how governments belt out budget hits and hope someone is listening
So, the Labor Party hopes that, if it can make enough mud stick to Turnbull, it can present him as unqualified to make decisions about the welfare of ordinary people. Being so rich, they suggest, he is out of touch with their concerns.
The Coalition hopes that if it can make its mud stick, Shorten will be seen as a self-serving opportunist who built a union and political career by taking advantage of the workers he was supposed to represent.
There is nothing new here; the appeal on each side is a traditional one.
Labor cartoonists of a previous era would often draw Mr Fat – an obese capitalist – complete with top hat, tails and cigar, the very embodiment of greed and excess. They would sometimes set him beside a brawny, manly worker determined to resist his wiles.
Phil May, 'Poverty and Wealth; It all depends on the position of the bundle', Bulletin, c. 1887.
State Library of New South Wales via Monash University Publishing
The anti-Labor images of the union boss as a parasite on the working man, and of the Labor politician as self-serving careerist, have existed as long as the Labor Party itself.
Political name-calling and insults are sometimes like water off a duck's back. But others can stick. The radical Daniel Deniehy's lampooning of William Wentworth and his followers in 1854 for wanting to create "a bunyip aristocracy" of titled men to fill a colonial upper house was recalled for generations. (Personally, I've always thought the funniest jibe was Deniehy's suggestion that James Macarthur's coat of arms as "Earl of Camden" should include a rum keg, a reference to his father's role in the commerce and politics of early New South Wales.)
Paul Keating's question about an Andrew Peacock leadership comeback – "Can a soufflé rise twice?" – was perfect in every way, as was his designation of Liberal leader John Hewson, "the feral abacus".
But Keating's quips went down better with the press gallery and the intelligentsia than the ordinary punter, and he had to endure insinuations that an enthusiast for Italian suits and French clocks could not be a true Labor man.
Bob Hawke, more than Shorten, acquired a large coterie of "close personal friends" among the rich and the filthy rich. But this was probably an advantage in his early days as prime minister, when he talked of consensus between workers and bosses in the national interest. As the feeling developed that his friends were doing very nicely while most others were doing it tough, the term "rich Labor mates" became shorthand for the idea that Hawke and Keating had sold out the workers.
Hawke was "the silver bodgie", a reference to the colour of his still luxuriant hair, somewhat like that of a 1950s "bodgie", a stylish youth somewhat in the James Dean mould.
But some of our political leaders have had nicknames that were more distinctly pejorative. The Sydney Bulletin called Australia's first prime minister, Edmund Barton, "Toby Tosspot": he had been known as "Toby" much of his life and a "tosspot" was a vulgar term for an enthusiastic drinker.
"Affable Alfred", for Deakin, was affectionate but could be used by opponents sarcastically when he wasn't being quite so affable. "Jolly John", for John Gorton, sounds affectionate, until you recall that it was a reference to his erratic personal behaviour.
"Honest John" – for Howard – was mainly used ironically rather than descriptively. But Howard's own claim that Kim Beazley lacked "ticker" is usually seen as having worked on voters looking for strong leadership and doubtful the Labor opposition leader could provide it.
Mis-red: why Bill Shorten is not a socialist
Robert Menzies' critics on the left called him "Pig Iron Bob" after his role, as a member of the Lyons government, in opposing union bans on the shipping of pig iron to Japan. The epithet, which stuck throughout his long career, was intended to remind people of Menzies' poor judgment and association with the policy of appeasement of the Axis powers. It was a potent rhetorical weapon during the 1940s and even became the subject of radical folksong but, as the years of his prime ministership rolled on after the war, it seemed to do him no obvious harm.
Highly personal assaults can backfire badly. The best example from Australian politics is Country Party leader Earle Page's savage attack on Menzies in 1939 for failing to enlist in the first world war. Menzies had wanted to serve but already had brothers at the front, so remained behind as the result of a family decision.
Page's career never recovered from the disgust that his attack induced. That didn't stop the mischievous Labor firebrand, Eddie Ward, from later joking that Menzies' brilliant military career had been cut short by the war. It's a tough place, the federal parliament.
Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University
Posted in Australia, news, Politics	| Tagged article, Australia, insults, news, personal, Politics | Leave a comment
Barnaby Joyce takes personal leave after horror day
Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra
Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce has abruptly gone on personal leave until the end of June, after a horror day in which he shifted the onus to partner Vikki Campion for the widely-criticised sale of their TV interview.
Facing a mounting public backlash from colleagues, Joyce blamed media intrusion and said Campion had felt "screwed over" by it.
A clip of the interview, for which Channel 7 reportedly paid $150,000, was shown on Tuesday night, with a emotional Campion saying "I couldn't help it. You can't help who you fall in love with."
The full interview, which features the couple and their new baby Sebastian, will be aired on Sunday. They say the money will be put in a trust fund for Sebastian.
Joyce looked visibly under strain during the day and sources said he was not in a good head space.
He sought leave from the Nationals whip, Michelle Landry, and he has been granted a parliamentary pair by Labor – which means the numbers in the House of Representatives will not be affected.
He will miss the June sittings, not returning to parliament until it resumes in August, after the winter recess. Government sources said his actual leave from work was until the end of June.
He immediately drove from Canberra on Tuesday evening.
Joyce said that he would not charge for an interview if it was just with him as a politician.
But "they wanted an interview obviously to get Vikki's side of the story and like most mothers she said, 'seeing as I am being screwed over and there are drones and everything over my house in the last fortnight, paparazzi waiting for me, if everybody else is making money then [I am] going to make money out of it'," he told the Australian.
He said they had "tried just burning this out and that didn't work," and argued privacy protections were inadequate.
"If we had a proper tort of privacy we would never have had to do this."
Senior Coalition figures, picking up the public reaction, have come out in open criticism of the deal. Prime Minister Turnbull, speaking on Tasmanian radio station LAFM, said the paid interview was "not a course of action that I would've encouraged him to take". Turnbull said he would leave the matter for a "private discussion" with Joyce. But in the event, the two did not talk on Tuesday.
Revenue Minister Kelly O'Dwyer told the ABC "most Australians are pretty disgusted" by Joyce's action.
Nationals leader Michael McCormack said "I wouldn't do it", telling Fairfax Media: "At the end of the day all politicians are judged by the court of public opinion and that is what people think of them at the ballot box on election day."
McCormack had particular reason to be angry at Joyce – the controversy took attention from the recruitment of crossbench senator Steve Martin to the Nationals, which was announced on Monday.
Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
Posted in Australia, Barnaby Joyce, National Party, news, Politics	| Tagged article, Australia, Barnably Joyce, leave, National Party, news, personal, Politics | Leave a comment
Budget policy check: does Australia need personal income tax cuts?
Saul Eslake, University of Tasmania
In this series – Budget policy checks – we look at the government's justifications for policies likely to be in this year's budget and measure them up against the evidence.
In this piece we look at the need for personal income tax cuts.
A large proportion of any cut in personal income tax – especially if the cuts were skewed towards lower and middle-income households with a higher propensity to spend – would likely provide a greater direct stimulus to the Australian economy than an equivalent cut in company tax.
Cutting personal income taxes seems likely to provide much more of a boost to the Australian economy than cutting company income tax. As the government's own published modelling shows, the benefits of its proposed cuts to the company income tax rate are small relative to their cost.
Do we need income tax cuts to provide relief from financial hardship?
The treasurer and I have been working on how we can provide more tax relief for hard-working middle income Australian families.
– Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
Over the last five years, household spending has grown by just 2.6% per annum in real terms, on average – of which more than half has been the result of population growth – compared with an average of 3.6% per annum over the preceding 12 years. Even with that lower growth rate in their spending, households have reduced their saving rate, from around 7% of disposable income five years ago to around 2.5% in 2017. That's the lowest saving rate since before the financial crisis.
The key reason for this "squeeze" on household spending and saving is of course the ongoing weakness in the growth rate of household disposable income. Over the past five years, real per capita household disposable income has grown at an average annual rate of just 0.4%, compared with an average of 2.6% per annum over the preceding 12 years.
One reason for this is that Australian households have been paying an increasing proportion of their income in taxes. In the years prior to the onset of the financial crisis, almost every budget included personal income tax cuts in some form or other.
By contrast, there have been no changes to Australia's personal income tax scale since 2008 – apart from the increase in the tax-free threshold (paid for by an increase in the bottom rate) in 2012, the temporary surcharge on top-rate taxpayers which applied between 2014-15 and 2016-17, and the increase in the threshold for the second-top rate (from A$80,000 to A$87,000) which took effect in the 2016-17 financial year.
As a result, in 2017, Australian households in aggregate paid 19.5% of their taxable incomes in income and other direct taxes – the highest proportion since 2005, and continuing a steady rise since 2011.
Households are also spending almost two and a quarter percentage points more of their after-tax disposable incomes on education, health, insurance and other financial services, and utilities than they did five years ago.
Given all this, it's little wonder that household spending in more "discretionary" areas has been so weak in recent years.
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/okPTL/1/
Well-targeted personal income tax cuts could thus help to ameliorate this multi-faceted "squeeze" on household incomes, and provide a direct boost to the economy.
Do we need income tax cuts to make up for the fact that we haven't had a pay rise in a while?
It's been a long time since any Australians had a decent pay rise…this is a real pressure on Australians…we can give them some relief when it comes to their personal income tax.
– Treasurer Scott Morrison
The other major reason for the very slow growth in real household disposable income over the past few years has been the unprecedented slowdown in wages growth. Wages have risen at an average annual rate of just 2.2% over the past five years (only 0.3 of a percentage point above the inflation rate), down from 3.7% per annum over the preceding 12 years.
Although, as RBA Governor Phillip Lowe noted in a speech that "the latest data suggest that the rate of wages growth has now troughed", he went on to warn that the pickup which the RBA expects "is likely to be only gradual".
Recent experience in other advanced economies clearly suggests that the unemployment rate needs to be lower for longer than in previous business cycles before wages growth starts to pick up. So even assuming that Governor Lowe is right, it may be one or two years before Australian households can expect any meaningful improvement in their financial position from faster growth in their wages or salaries.
Well targeted personal income tax cuts could help provide at least some offset to this likely continuing stagnation in wages growth over the next year or so.
Targeted personal income tax cuts could reduce the squeeze on households and make up for persistent low wages.
Of course, it remains crucial that any cuts in personal income tax be sustainable – that is, that they are not funded by bigger deficits, and do not materially detract from the task of putting the nation's public finances on a sounder footing. This is so we are better placed to withstand any unforeseen economic shocks.
And it's important to remember that government spending has moved to what appears to be a permanently higher level as a proportion of GDP since the financial crisis. The government's underlying cash payments averaged 25% of GDP from 2011-12 through 2017-18, up from 24% from 2001-02 through 2007-08. That also represents a constraint on the scope for tax cuts.
However, the apparently greater improvement in the budget so far this financial year, compared with what was forecast as recently as last December's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, could give the government a little more latitude for financially sustainable personal income tax cuts in the upcoming budget.
Perhaps the most sustainable way of providing the "relief" which the treasurer says many Australian households need, would be to abandon the tax cut for companies turning over more than A$50 million a year. The government hasn't been able to get these through the Senate. These cuts would do far less to boost the Australian economy than well-targeted personal income tax cuts of a similar order of magnitude.
Saul Eslake, Vice-Chancellor's Fellow, University of Tasmania
Posted in Australia, economy, news, Politics	| Tagged article, Australia, budget, economy, news, personal, policy, Politics, tax, tax cuts, taxation | Leave a comment
The US, Russia and China: a twisted tale of personal ego, profound mistrust and foolish nationalism
In Russia and China, Donald Trump now faces two centres of power that are no longer willing or feel the need to comply with America's interests and priorities.
Reuters/Carlos Barria
Joseph Camilleri, La Trobe University
Alarm bells are ringing a mere three months into Donald Trump's presidency. The two global flashpoints, Syria and North Korea, are worrying enough.
More troubling still are America's relations with Russia and China. These are now mired in angst, uncertainty and mutual suspicion. They underlie the failure to create a viable system of crisis prevention and crisis management.
Global power shift
Trump's first 100 days as president have dramatically demonstrated this failure. For all the rhetoric about "making America great again", Trump is rapidly discovering that the US has limited capacity to impose its will on the rest of world.
The trend is visible everywhere – in international trade and finance, diplomacy, and numerous conflicts around the world.
In Russia and China, the US now faces two centres of power that are no longer willing to comply with America's interests and priorities.
Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has been busy reasserting its influence after years of humiliation following the break-up of the Soviet Union.
Starting from a low base, China has sustained over the last three decades the most remarkable rate of economic growth in modern history. Now it is seeking to exert the political influence commensurate with its new economic status.
America's relative political decline goes back to its military defeat in Vietnam. Temporarily obscured by the end of the Cold War, it became fully apparent during the Bush and Obama years. But Trump is the first president to have run on a platform openly stating that the US is in decline and promising to reverse the trend.
Militarism not isolationism
In his inauguration speech, studded by more references to "America" than any inauguration speech in US history, Trump vowed:
We will make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And we will make America great again.
The nationalist card – the one unifying plank of his otherwise chaotic discourse before and since his election – is meant to strike a chord with the many disenchanted Americans hankering for a "golden age" that has long since passed. Trump now faces the immense challenge of delivering on this pledge despite intractable problems at home and abroad.
On the international stage, he has chosen to rely on showing off America's unmatched military might. This position is supported by some of the most powerful voices in the US military and political establishment.
Soon after taking office, Trump gave the military expanded authority in the conduct of operations against Islamic State in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. In support of the Saudi bombing campaign against Houthi forces in Yemen, the US carried out 70 airstrikes in March alone. This is more than twice the number for all of 2016.
In the first two weeks of April, the Trump administration:
announced plans to increase US military spending (already four times greater than China's and nine times greater than Russia's) by US$54 billion;
launched 59 Tomahawk missiles against an air force base in Syria, from which a chemical attack on civilians was allegedly conducted;
dropped the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in its arsenal on a cave and tunnel complex in eastern Afghanistan; and
threatened military action against North Korea.
Yet the utility of military power is diminishing. As one centre of power declines and another rises, new faultlines and tensions emerge, and with them new uncertainties. This helps explain why the US finds it so difficult to set a clear policy direction for relations with Russia and China.
The Russia conundrum
In the case of Russia, Trump's task has been greatly complicated by the findings of the US intelligence community that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 US election.
Hoping to deflect attention from his campaign's links with Russia, Trump has allowed relations with Russia to continue on their downward slide. Perhaps it was never his intention to reset the US-Russia relationship.
In any case, he is under considerable pressure from his most senior security advisers to act tough with Russia. Almost certainly, he failed to appreciate that his actions and statements on Syria would provoke Putin's fury.
The end result is clear. In Trump's words, US relations with Russia have reached "an all-time low". Not surprisingly, he has now reversed his previous position on NATO, and announced the alliance is "no longer obsolete".
Russia, for its part, remains unbending in its support of the Assad government in Syria. It has mercilessly denounced the illegality of the US missile attack, and used its veto power to block a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for his use of chemical weapons.
And now Russia has forced the US to accept a significant watering down of the UN Security Council resolution condemning North Korea's latest missile launch.
Russia has been busy reasserting its global influence under the leadership of Vladimir Putin (left).
Reuters/Danish Siddiqui
China's rise
During his election campaign, Trump repeatedly lambasted China for its currency manipulation and threatened to apply tough restrictions on Chinese exports. Before and immediately after his election he flaunted America's commitment to Taiwan's security, and challenged China's military build-up in the South China Sea.
Yet the tone has since changed markedly. Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the US became an occasion to discuss differences on trade and agree to a 100-day plan for reducing the current US trade deficit with China.
At least in public, Xi stuck to his script about the virtues of bilateral co-operation. Trump presented the talks as forming the basis for "an outstanding relationship".
The North Korea crisis has exposed the limits of US power. Neither increased US economic sanctions nor the threat of military action are likely to force the North Korean regime into submission.
The US needs China's help to have any chance of reining in North Korea's nuclear ambitions. China's response has been to increase pressure on North Korea while issuing a stern warning to both parties.
And so, the relationship remains at best unpredictable. As much as China and the US need each other, the hawks in the Trump administration – and there are many – will not easily abandon their plans to contain China, challenge its claims to sovereignty in the South China Sea, and maintain the US military's pre-eminence in the region.
However, none of this will halt China's rise.
The months ahead are less than promising. The use and threat of force will do nothing to resolve any of the longstanding conflicts in the Middle East or east Asia.
The projection of military muscle and modernisation of nuclear arsenals are far more likely to produce greater local and regional instability, and heighten the risk of miscalculation from any of the three major centres of power.
Trump and Putin lead countries that hold some 14,000 nuclear weapons, or close to 95% of global stockpiles. These arsenals cast a shadow over US-Russian security, which seems likely to darken with the advent of new technologies and rising levels of mistrust and suspicion.
Pursuing "America First" or "Russia First" policies in conditions of such mutual vulnerability is an exercise in futility.
A more profitable course for these three centres of power is to recognise each other's legitimate interests, expand the opportunities for economic and diplomatic co-operation, and develop a co-ordinated approach in the management of actual and potential flashpoints.
To bear fruit, such efforts need to have solid foundations – in particular decisive steps to eliminate nuclear weapons, enhance the effectiveness of international law, and strengthen the UN's capacity for conflict management and peace-building.
Professor Camilleri will explore these issues in depth at a keynote lecture to be delivered at St Michael's on Collins, Melbourne, on May 9 and 16.
Joseph Camilleri, Emeritus Professor of International Relations, La Trobe University
Posted in China, Donald Trump, news, Russia, USA, Vladimer Putin	| Tagged article, China, ego, foolish, mistrust, nationalism, news, personal, Russia, USA | Leave a comment
Australia: NSW – Bushfire Story (One Person's Story)
The link below is to an article that reports on one person's experience in the devastating bushfires currently impacting on homes and lives in NSW, Australia.
http://www.biblesociety.org.au/news/im-christian-house-just-burned
Posted in Australia, bushfires, New South Wales, news	| Tagged article, Australia, bushfire, bushfires, devastating, experience, homes, impacting, lives, New South Wales, news, NSW, person, personal, story | Leave a comment
Iran: Persecution News Update
The link below is to an article reporting on persecution news from Iran, where prison guards have raided cells of Christians and stolen personal items.
Guards Raid Cells of Christians in Evin Prison
Posted in Christianity, Iran, Islam	| Tagged article, cells, Christian, Christianity, Christians, guards, Iran, Islam, items, Muslim, muslims, news, Persecution, personal, prison, raided, stolen | Leave a comment
Australia: Gillard Survives While Labor Dies
The ALP has completed its quest for personal destruction by sticking with Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd ruling himself out as leading the ALP ever again. It is a sad day for the ALP, except for the fact that the ALP doesn't realise it is. In my view they have ensured they will be in opposition following the federal election, completely ignoring the views of those they are asking to vote for them. I anticipate that the ALP will now suffer an enormous hiding unless ALP supporters can somehow see past the disregard that the party has shown to them and votes for a Prime Minister they don't want.
The link below is to an article covering the latest dramas unfolding in Canberra throughout the day:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/martin-ferguson-joins-labor-exodus-following-failed-leadership-coup/story-fnhqeu0x-1226603503254
Posted in ALP, Australia, Canberra, Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, news, Politics, video	| Tagged ALP, anticipate, article, asking, Australia, Canberra, completed, completely, Day, destruction, dies, disregard, dramas, election, enormous, ensured, federal, following, hiding, ignoring, Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Labor, leading, opposition, party, past, personal, Prime Minister, quest, realise, ruling, sad, shown, sticking, suffer, supporters, survives, unfolding, video, views, vote, votes | Leave a comment

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Although the 2017 season only ended 3 weeks ago, we're already looking ahead to next season.
Liberty Media released the 2018 F1 season before the current season ended, an unusual step. Hockenheim is back as the host of the German Grand Prix, whilst the French Grand Prix will return after a decade-long absence. Here's the calendar in full: circle the last weekend in March in your calendars, you won't want to miss the season opener in Melbourne, Australia.


text:
Home Feature Calgary Community Looking for a place to happen
Calgary Community
Looking for a place to happen
Andrea Cox
Courtesy Andrea Cox
A mixture of old and new, Killarney brings family and inner-city living together
The original settlers who founded the inner-city community of Killarney/Glengarry back in 1910 named it after their home county in Ontario.
The area is now a vibrant hub for those looking for an eclectic and connected community offering everything from walkability to schools, community gardens and dog parks.
"I can literally walk to everything that I need from coffee shops to hot yoga. Within a five-minute drive I can be at Westhills Shopping Centre with the Superstore or at Westbrook Mall, 17th Avenue or Marda Loop. It's incredible," says Sue Abrams, who purchased a town home in the area five years ago and hasn't looked back.
Although it was annexed to the city in 1910, Killarney didn't experience development in one fell swoop and evolved gradually beginning in the prewar years.
"Builders didn't operate as they do today, where whole communities come online at once," said designer and home builder Shane Rennie of Rectangle.
"They would buy one or two plots of land and build on those, so at the time you could be living next to a vacant lot for 10 or 15 years."
In the 1950's when most of the bungalows in the neighbourhood sprouted, a typical lot size spanned 50-feet wide and 120-feet deep. Today, distinctive styles of homes from different eras are sprinkled throughout the neighbourhood – mid-century bungalows stand alongside 1940's wartime homes and pre-war one-storey clapboard structures.
Adding to the mix, a bevy of new build multi-family product including duplex, four-plex and condominium designs, along with single-family contemporary infill product have hit the scene. This adds another 1,100 dwellings to the community since 2013 for a total of 3,854 homes. More are on the way and with 66 new homes currently under construction. Even with the bustle of new build construction, the beauty of the inner-city environment is retained.
Full-sized trees abound, as do parks and amenities, and an old-school sense of community connectedness. Here people know their neighbours, they say "Hi" to each other in the morning and chat on the street as they walk their kids to school.
Affordability in the area has increased, allowing buyers to move closer in from the suburbs to take advantage of the convenience of the inner-city lifestyle.
Two years ago, Miles Timothy moved from the far northwest into a two-bedroom condominium at the Casel, a funky, urban, mixed use condominium development on 17th Avenue. At podium level he can access an organic market, a specialty wine store, a hip coffee shop and one of Calgary's most highly rated restaurants – Cassis.
"It was the centralness of the area that attracted me. It's close to a lot of the things that I like to do and to amenities, whether it is going west to the mountains or to the pubs and restaurants on 17th Avenue," he says.
"There is everything you need here."
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This past week the San Diego Sisterhood welcomed 10 new spouses during the pinning ceremony at an intimate setting downtown. Bringing this unique group of ladies together to connect with one another helps to create greater resiliency within the families of NSW.
Thank you to those who support us in continuing our mission to make these families stronger.