text:
How Federal Workers Could Fight the Shutdown
Ben Beckett
Ryan Haney
Federal workers have dealt with low pay, degraded working conditions, and repeated employer lockouts. If they want to improve their conditions, they'll have to organize.
The White House is shown during a partial shutdown of the federal government on December 24, 2018 in Washington, D.C. Win McNamee / Getty
The federal government shut down on December 22, locking out almost 400,000 workers and forcing another 400,000 deemed "essential" to show up to work without pay. Many of these workers are union members, affiliated with the American Federal Government Employees (AFGE). The union is rightfully suing the federal government, claiming that it is illegal to require workers to work without paying them.
But a more militant labor movement could respond to the shutdown very differently, seizing the "choke points" within the US economy and society that federal workers are strategically positioned to take advantage of.
For example, what if Transportation Security Administration workers decided to refuse orders to work without pay, leaving the airport security gates unstaffed during the busiest season for travel? The airlines would be effectively shut down by a TSA agent "wildcat," with passengers reluctant to board unsecured flights.
Meanwhile, there's a potential army of 400,000 furloughed federal workers, not just in D.C. but based at government offices across the country. What if, taking a note from the yellow vests movement in France, these workers established "picket lines" blocking major roads and highways, halting all nonemergency traffic? Certainly that traffic would also include package delivery trucks and tractor trailers hauling goods for their own high-demand peak season, many of them driven by Teamsters who are contractually protected when they refuse to cross picket lines.
Imagine the political fallout of this massive economic disruption, all because Trump wants a border wall. Even the MAGA hat-wearers would likely prefer a safe flight home and their packages delivered on time over a wall that they will never even see. The reopening of the government under these conditions would be a massive victory of the labor movement, a product of our own collective efforts rather than that of closed-door negotiations between legislators and the White House.
But unfortunately, this Christmas wish for the labor left was not granted. The reality is informed instead by many years of defeats and organizational setbacks for federal workers.
In the World as It Is
The ongoing holiday lockout is the most recent insult the federal government has hurled at its workers. But pay and benefits have been deteriorating for years, and conditions look set to degrade even faster in the near future.
According to data compiled by Government Executive, civilian federal workers have received an annualized raise of 1.48 percent per year since 2008, including three years of zero raises under President Obama. During the same period, workers' health insurance premiums increased up to 7 percent a year, though more recently the increase has been smaller.
And this year, President Trump not only threatened a wage freeze for federal employees, he also proposed cutting their retirement benefits by $143.5 billion. Congress counter-proposed a 1.9 percent wage increase, but with the government shut down and no budget resolution in sight, it is unclear whether federal workers will receive raises or maintain their pension benefits this year. A recent study found that federal workers' salaries are already 31 percent below comparable jobs in the private sector on average, though the disparity varies greatly by job title.
In 2013, a sixteen-day government shutdown effectively locked out 800,000 workers and forced another 1.3 million to work without pay.
This year, the government briefly shut down twice in January and February, and shut down a third time on December 22. This time about 800,000 workers are affected in total, with roughly half locked out and the other half working without pay. More workers could be affected soon as additional agencies run out of reserve funds they used to remain open the first week of the shutdown.
It appears that the current Congress has given up on passing a budget to restore those workers to their jobs, and the earliest the new Congress could take up a budget resolution is January 3, when its members will be sworn in.
Meanwhile, as rent day looms with no paychecks in sight for federal employees (or contractors) the Office of Personnel Management suggested furloughed workers try to barter carpentry or painting work with their landlords in lieu of rent.
A Better Future?
With gridlock in Washington and 0 percent raises even in recent years when a Democrat was in the White House, there's little reason to hope the federal government will become a better employer anytime soon.
If federal workers want to stop the attacks on their livelihoods and their dignity, the only realistic path is the same as for any group of workers facing a mean and unpredictable boss, cuts to pay and benefits in real dollars, and unexpected furloughs: they need to organize.
Federal workers won't be consistently treated with real respect and dignity until they can present a credible threat to shut down the government — on their terms, not their bosses'.
As recent teacher strike waves across the country have shown, walking off the job en masse gets stronger results for public workers much faster than years of concerted lobbying outside the workplace. And in 1970, postal workers went on a nationwide strike and won significant raises as well as bargaining rights beyond those to which other federal workers are entitled.
Currently, more than 800,000 non-postal civilian federal workers are represented by the two largest federal unions, with roughly 700,000 represented by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and 150,000 represented by the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).
But while federal workers may join unions, unlike private sector workers, they are legally barred from collectively bargaining on critical matters like wages, hours, working conditions, benefits, or job classifications. They are also forbidden to strike or picket (except for informational pickets on non-work hours). In other words, federal workers may not legally engage in many of the core practices of organized labor.
Federal workers' unions as they currently exist may be well-intentioned, but they are working under a legal scheme that hobbles their ability to organize for what their members really need. Federal workers need unions — and a movement — willing to fight to change unfair laws that give the employer unilateral say in the most critical workplace matters.
The Left must push sympathetic elected officials to amend federal law to grant federal workers the same legal rights that other workers have, including the right to strike. But ultimately, neither the law nor working conditions will change without workers organizing for themselves, with tens or hundreds of thousands of them willing to take direct action on the job.
That means identifying workplace leaders and common grievances, developing plans for escalating action on the shop floor, and electing leadership prepared to take on the boss — even when doing so carries risks.
And those risks are real. Failed strikes — whether at government or private employers — are incredibly demoralizing and often have serious material impacts on workers. The risks are higher when the act of striking is illegal. The last time federal workers went on strike in 1981 — 13,000 air-traffic controllers — the results were catastrophic for the union and the workers. Almost all the workers lost their jobs, they were banned from ever working for the federal government in any capacity, and the union was decertified.
No one should take those risks lightly. Building democratic, member-driven unions capable of changing the law — and, in the interim, breaking it— will be a long, uneven process fraught with setbacks. But history has shown that illegal strikes in themselves are not what is truly dangerous for workers — what is dangerous is unsuccessful strikes. Half-hearted organizing might be more dangerous than no organizing at all.
There are two alternate futures for federal workers. The first is to let the stability, benefits, and sense of higher purpose that motivate many people to become public servants wither away under a series of ever more aggressive right-wing governments. The other is stable employment, reasonable wages and benefits, and respect for the critical work civil servants do every day.
To achieve this second future, federal workers need to organize to win at the workplace. To complement workplace organizing, they also need to support class-struggle politicians like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib, while also pushing them to change the terms on which federal workers negotiate with the government. If current union officials oppose that vision, it may be necessary to elect new ones, though the main target should always be the boss. Federal workers should start to organize towards that vision today.
Ben Beckett is a union steward in New York City and a member of New York City DSA.
Ryan Haney is a rank-and-file union member in Texas.
The federal government shut down on December 22, locking out almost 400,000 workers and forcing another 400,000 deemed "essential" to show up to work without pay. Many of these workers are union members, affiliated with the American Federal Government Employees (AFGE). The union is rightfully suing the federal government, claiming that it is illegal to […]
Public Sector Workers Should Have the Right to Strike
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Transformational Vision
Matt Stone
Jeremy Gong
When the Mailmen Rebelled
Paul Prescod


Provider of nurse staffing services to small and medium-size hospitals in the United States. The company provides its nurses with individualized compensation packages, free life insurance, medical benefits, private furnished housing and reimbursement for licensure expenses.
This information is reserved for PitchBook Platform users. To explore Health Talent Group's full profile, request access.


"I was shocked at how clean he managed to get them, I honestly didn't think it could be done after trying so many other people."
Our carpet cleaning provides deep carpet washing and carpet restoration results, our customers and landlords look our results that even thou our coverage is mainly Wimbledon, South London and Surrey we are usually travelling to other surrounding areas because they love our results. Our service is for both residential and commercial customers alike. Our services range from basic carpet steam cleaning, to stain removal, rug cleaning and carpet deep cleaning.
Our focus is the satisfaction of every customer we work for. We strive to go the extra mile to ensure the cleanest carpets and rugs you've ever seen. Continue scrolling to read plenty of satisfied customers' and our carpet cleaning reviews.
Good work, very clean. He regularly cleans my Football Club and I trust him so much so he has his own set of keys. Courteous and does exactly what he says he's going to do. I have already recommended him.
We were really happy with the result of our carpet cleaning. Mark was absolutely excellent, he went above and beyond in ensuring our carpets are spotless, he is a perfectionist and wouldn't leave until he was satisfied with the result. I couldn't recommend Mark highly enough, perfect workman with extremely affordable prices and perfect result.
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For any Mines sponsored overnight trip.
WHEN MUST I REGISTER TRIPS TO OFF CAMPUS LOCATIONS?
If the university/department makes the arrangements and has the agreement with the lodging location the trip is considered school-sponsored. Overnight, school-sponsored trips: If the university/department or registered student organization sponsors student(s) on an overnight trip, for example to see a play in Chicago, and the department rents hotel rooms. Short-stay "away" trips: If the university/department or registered student organization sponsors short-stay "away" trips of more than one night for its students, all locations used during the trip, controlled by the institution during the trip, and used to support educational purposes should be registered. An example is a three-week marine biology study trip to Florida. Any classroom or housing space specified in the agreement between the institution and a third-party providing space is reportable. Third-party contractor: If the university/department has entered into a written agreement with a third-party contractor to arrange housing and/or classroom space for a school-sponsored trip or study program (either domestic or foreign), it is assumed that the contractor is acting on behalf of the school as the school's agent, putting the institution in control of this space. Study abroad programs: If your department sends students to study abroad at locations of facilities that the university/department/third-party contractor rents or leases for your students in a hotel or student housing facility, you are in control of that space for the time period covered by the agreement.
WHAT DOES NOT NEED TO BE REGISTERED AS AN OFF CAMPUS TRIP?
If students make the arrangements and chooses the hotel it is NOT a school-sponsored trip. No agreement: If the university/department (or contracted third-party) does NOT have an agreement for the space used, your department does not control the space and are not required to count it. For example, there are some situations, such as sports tournaments, for which the host institution makes all of the housing arrangements for the visiting students. In these situations, the visiting institutions do not have a written agreement for the use of the space and are not required to report for the housing in which their students are located. Another example, students travel with a university sponsored trip. During the trip, students meet with the professor at a local cafe for an hour each week for a lecture. There is no written agreement to use the cafe space (the location was chosen by the professor out of a matter of convenience), therefore, the cafe is NOT a reportable location. Field Trips: You are NOT required to register non-overnight field trips to locations the university/department does not own or control. Host family situations do not normally qualify as reportable locations unless your written agreement with the family gives the university/department significant control over space in the family home.
Any faculty, staff, or volunteer who lead the trip or travel along and have responsibility for (expected to take action on behalf of the University if required) students during the trip are considered Campus Security Authorities. This person/s should also be entered into the CSA web-form on the Clery Liaison website.
Location students will be staying.
If yes, please fill out PART V below. If no, please submit form.


text:
Q: Why is the sum of /proc/pid/stat CPU greater than /proc/stat In /proc/<pid>/stat I add user cpu, system cpu, child user and child system cpu together for all processes. I take a delta from a previous sample.
Immediately after I sum the user, nice and system CPU from /proc/stat which should be for the entire box. Again I take a delta.
The sum from the processes is almost always slightly greater than that for the overall processor and I can't figure out why.

A: There are a few reasons why that would be the case, the most obvious one is that the per-process accounting uses different logic for counting different things.
Two specific examples:

*

*The system stat has a nice column that counts user time spent in nice tasks (lower priority) - which you didn't specify that you use, so I'm guessing you didn't sum it. In the process this will be counted as standard user time.

*iowait time - which also you didn't account for - is likely counted in the process stat as system time. But its a bad idea to also count in iowait time as it is very unreliable account of actual time, as man proc explains:

iowait (since Linux 2.5.41)
(5) Time waiting for I/O to complete.  This value is not reliable, for the following reasons:

*

*The  CPU  will not wait for I/O to complete; iowait is the time that a task is waiting for I/O to complete.  When a CPU goes into idle state for outstanding task I/O, another task will be scheduled on this CPU.

*On a multi-core CPU, the task waiting for I/O to complete is not running on any CPU, so the iowait of each CPU is difficult to calculate.

*The value in this field may decrease in certain conditions.

Lastly, I have to note that I believe this type of accounting is useless as it can never be accurate enough for any serious purpose - system and process counters are processed in different parts of the system for different purposes and will never match to any useful degree.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Members > kp >
Recent Content by kp
College Football 2022
I've got a feeling Saban knows he's not going to win with players like that.
Post by: kp, Jan 28, 2023 at 10:23 PM in forum: Sports Board
Might be a good candidate for the job at Alabama!
Post by: kp, Jan 27, 2023 at 1:07 PM in forum: Sports Board
Is it.just me.or does.it seem like 15 foot putts.are.like 4 foot putts before. It seems like guys are rolling ing 15 to 20 foot putts more often...
Candidates for OC include Charlie Weis Jr. who was an analyst at Alabama a few years ago. Milwee the QB coach at Texas might work. He was also at...
It would interesting following her down the fairway!
Post by: kp, Jan 24, 2023 at 9:34 AM in forum: Sports Board
Alabama up to number 2!:cool:
These kids need someone to give them good guidance.
Post by: kp, Jan 20, 2023 in forum: Sports Board
If he left because of NIL, then I don't feel sorry for him at all. Business is business.
Yeah, our basketball team may actually make the playoffs!:D
And y'all called me Lou!;)
Terry, Alabama has to be the surprise team of the year...they are ranked higher than the Alabama football team.:confused:
Bill, I think I'll go the other way. I'll watch less football overall.
Nope, Alabama's defense was not up to Alabama standards. I wondering what "analysts" we have in the stable?
Terry, I agree. I think Cincinnati may have been an exception, and it was the reason UCF didn't make the playoffs even though they were...
Only because Notre Dame wanted it to be a 3700 mile away game!:cool:
Find all content by kp
Find all threads by kp

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
In Syria, IRGC banks on reconstruction boom
Ed Blanche
Sunday 19/03/2017
Payback. Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani (L) welcomes Syrian Prime Minister Imad Khamis (R) for their meeting in Tehran, last January. (AP)
Beirut - Syrian Prime Minister Imad Khamis, during a visit to Tehran, signed five major economic agreements with Iran that were widely seen as a reward for the Islamic Republic's support for sustaining the beleaguered Damascus regime of President Bashar Assad through six years of war.
The memorandums of understanding (MOUs) signed on January 17th included the provision of 5,000 hectares of land for agriculture, another 1,000 hectares for mining, primarily phosphates, and building oil and gas terminals. There was also an exclusive licence for a mobile phone service potentially worth billions of dollars.
These deals are expected to provide a massive boom for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which controls the Syrian regime's military and intelligence apparatus and the vast and powerful business and industrial empire it has built up in Iran over three decades with the blessing of the clerical regime in Tehran it keeps in power.
The IRGC, spearheaded by its elite foreign operations arm known as al-Quds Force, has provided the ground forces, including Lebanon's Hezbollah and Shia militias recruited in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan totalling an estimated 10,000 fighters. Because of this, it is well placed to secure these contracts and reap the benefits.
"Iran increasingly treats Syria as one of its own provinces," observed Karim Sadjadpour of the Middle East programme run by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "They saved Assad from falling and now seem to feel entitled to help themselves to the Syrian economy."
There is no doubt that the troops and treasure Tehran poured into Syria after the war there erupted in March 2011 — including a $3.5 billion credit line opened in 2013 and boosted to $4.5 billion in 2015 — were what averted the total collapse of Assad's crippled and corrupt regime dominated by Syria's Alawite minority, a Shia offshoot.
Syria's official news agency SANA quoted Khamis as saying the deals signed in Tehran were an expression of Damascus's appreciation of Iran's support. "We greatly appreciate Iran's major role in combating terrorism and standing by the Syrian people in every way, politically and economically," he declared.
The Syrian National Council, which represents an array of groups opposed to Assad, branded the Tehran deals as "looting". That is a widely held view among Syrians, who consider the Iranians more as conquerors than saviours.
The Syrian war afforded the Iranians the opportunity to establish a permanent and controlling stake in Syria as the Mediterranean anchor of the Shia empire they are seeking to build westward from the Arabian Gulf to dominate the largely Sunni region.
That involves establishing a large-scale business link through which Iran can consolidate its expansionist strategy. To some extent, this is masked by plans for the reconstruction of Syria once the fighting ends.
A May 2015 report by Naame Shaam (Letter from Syria), a group of activists founded by Lebanese Fouad Hamdan and Syrian Shiar Youssef after the war began to monitor the Iranian presence in Syria, caustically observed that "reconstruction efforts in Syria are actually part and parcel of the war".
The key element in the IRGC's vast economic empire in Iran is Khatam al-Anbia, established during the 1980-88 war with Iraq as the IRGC's construction and engineering arm.
In the post-war reconstruction of Iran, the IRGC invested in leading Iranian industries but its business holdings really took off in 2005 when wartime IRGC officer Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president and handed out big contracts to his former comrades.
Since then the IRGC's business interests have expanded in all directions, with the support of the clerical regime — the IRGC reports directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with no parliamentary oversight — and has become Iran's biggest and wealthiest business conglomerate, with at least 800 subsidiaries in Iran and abroad.
In 2012 alone, it reportedly secured 1,700 government contracts worth billions of dollars. The IRGC's holdings embrace mobile phone networks, oil companies, carmakers and shipping, most of them acquired over the last 15 years or so in a $120 billion privatisation binge with the blessing of the clerical regime the IRGC keeps in power.
Many of the companies the IRGC controls refuse to open their books to government inspection — a measure of the political and economic power of this sprawling business empire.
Khatam al-Anbia dominates Iran's construction business and is widely expected to secure lucrative reconstruction contracts inside Syria — and probably in Iraq as well — once post-war rebuilding gets under way. That is still a distant prospect but perceived to be coming closer.
A peace settlement will open a vast reconstruction programme in Syria, where large tracts of most major cities and towns have been reduced to rubble, the national infrastructure largely destroyed and the economy, in deep trouble even before the war, laid waste on a scale not seen since the second world war.
The Iranians are expected to secure a lion's share of the fat contracts that will be awarded once the shooting stops.
Abdullah al-Dardari, a former Syrian deputy premier for economic affairs who is expected to join the World Bank as an adviser on reconstruction in the Middle East, estimates that rebuilding Syria will cost $350 billion.
"Iran's financial assistance is an investment, not an act of charity," the US-based global security consultancy Stratfor noted in a February 6th analysis. "Tehran views the money it is funnelling into Syria as a long-term insurance policy for its continued influence with Damascus, regardless of who is in charge. These economic ties will ensure that Iran has even greater leverage over Syria than it does over Iraq."
Naame Shaam observed in a September 2014 report: "There is abundant evidence that the Iranian regime has established and is exercising authority in Syria, both directly through its armed forces and militias and indirectly through the Syrian regime."
In a later report, Hamdan and Youssef concluded that the relationship between Iran and Syria — one the only Shia power in the Muslim world and the other ruled since 1970 by a regime dominated by the Alawite sect, a Shia offshoot — has changed since the war began.
"From historically being mutually beneficial allies, the Iranian regime is now effectively an 'occupying force' with the responsibilities that accompany such a role," they said.
Written By Ed Blanche
Ed Blanche is a regular contributor to The Arab Weekly. He has covered Middle Eastern affairs since 1967.


A Christmas Carol tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, the miserly old man who receives a Christmas Eve visit from the ghost of his partner, Jacob Marley, warning him to mend his selfish ways. During the night, three spirits appear before Scrooge, showing him visions of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future, finally revealing the possible results of his unloving, uncaring life. A Christmas Carol has an irregular performance schedule. Although most shows are scheduled for 10:00 AM or 12:00 PM, the days on which the shows are scheduled vary. Please visit TicketMaster or call the box office for a comprehensive list of performance dates. Special Dinner Theatre performances are scheduled for Wednesdays, December 6 and 20. On these dates, dinner begins at 5:30 PM, followed by the show at 7:30 PM.


BCT Group is a family-owned building company operating in Melbourne's Inner West. Award-winning builder Bevan Uren established BCT Group in 2012 driven by a passion to create a construction company where the focus was on building respectful and transparent relationships with clients, contractors and suppliers. In 2016, his son Travis joined the company as a project manager. BCT Group specialises in alterations, additions, and renovations. We do extensive two-storey additions, residential and commercial renovations as well as small scale commercial fit-outs. We thrive on getting the job done within budget and on deadline. We use fixed price contracts and have an established team of professional contractors and suppliers who share our commitment to exceptional quality. Choosing to invest in a building project or renovation is a big decision and the process can be a daunting one. That's why BCT Group provides you with all the information you need to make an informed decision when appointing a builder. You'll get a detailed scope of works, budget, list of inclusions, schedule and preliminary contract as part of our project proposal. We'll also support you throughout the building process by offering expert advice and keeping you constantly updated on the progress of your project through our regular site meetings. With BCT Group looking after you, you can tackle your building project with confidence and peace of mind.
Z&H Building Development Pty. Ltd.
Z&H Building offers dedicated design and construction service to our clients. Our mission is to make your building journey as easy and satisfying as possible. At Z&H Building, we will exceed your expectations by utilizing the highest possible standards of designing and project management. Our previous experience has seen us successfully completing numerous designs and projects from tenancy fit-outs to complete buildings.
Taking Comfortable Living and Energy-Efficiency to New Heights Providing a green sustainable building service to help create the living space of your dreams Beowulf Builders PTY LTD is an industry leader in thermal comfort and healthy living. Nominated for the excellence in building awards four times, they are a recognised Environmental and Sustainable Building Company. Specialists in taking an existing home and turning it as energy efficient and comfortable as possible. Reducing household bills and improving the environment that you and your family grow up in. Beowulf Builders are passionate about Green Efficient Building for the sake of future generations.
At Hilstin, we bring the value, punctuality and innovation of a large builder, with the superior workmanship and personal attention that only a boutique-sized firm can offer. From Initial Design and concept through to handing over the keys, we can guide you through the entire Building and Design process.
Thomas Archer Homes are a boutique building and design company owned and run by Director's Frank Tarulli and Matt Daly. With over 30 years combined experience in the building industry, Thomas Archer Homes are built to last a lifetime and capture the essence of a stylish, relaxed and contemporary Australian lifestyle. Each home is designed with the ultimate layout and floor plan in mind, to ensure a harmonious flow from the minute you step inside. It's the incredible passion and attention to detail that is evident in every Thomas Archer Home that sets us apart and is distinguishing Thomas Archer Homes as a name synonymous with quality and architecturally inspired designs. From the first consultation you will be offered a very personalized service, a service that will continue through your design and build, right to your final handover and beyond. Our clients are the most important asset to our business and we pride ourselves on working closely and collaboratively with you to achieve your dream home.
AlphaQ Property & Construction is a one stop shop building and development company. We can guide your project from land purchase to hand over, for investors we even offer a rental management service. Town planning, building permit, sub division management and of course, budget conscious construction.
Based in Melbourne's inner eastern suburbs, Makhmalbaf has a reputation of delivering spectacular homes with amazing attention to detail. Makhmalbaf specialises in custom built luxury homes for clients who appreciate a passion for building in a market dominated by volume builders.
Luxury custom home builder servicing Melbourne for over 25 years. Whether one home or 16 townhouses, our promise to you, as your dedicated builder, is a one-of-a-kind custom home designed and built with the highest level of design talent, personalized service and premium, top-of-the-line building materials.
ABH is a custom house builder based in Melbourne, Australia. ABH has the capability to handle all types of residential work. Whether it be a complicated renovation/extension, a multi residential development with basement or a highly detailed architectural designed home, ABH specialise in all facets of building. ABH's reputation for both skill and integrity has resulted in achieving distinction for there capacity to deliver high quality and high complexity building works. This has led to numerous HIA top home awards and industry admiration over Albert's extensive career. The director Albert Bardoel, has a career spanning over 40 years with a portfolio in excess of 2000 completed homes & projects. ABH is a third generation builder with Albert's father having started operations in the 60's and Albert's son David, currently project manager for the company. Our team consists of a full time site supervisor (Brendan), project manager (David), estimator/contract administrator (Anton) and labourer (Tony). Whether you have plans already to build your dream home/project or simply want to know where to start to take your first steps in the whole process, please feel free to contact us.
Dimona Constructions is a rapidly expanding building company which has developed a reputation for quality, timely service, and competitive pricing. Dimona Constructions is quickly becoming a well-respected and sought after building company of luxury homes in Melbourne. We pride ourselves on attention to detail, extensive industry knowledge and have excellent communication with our clients and contractors. We are committed to overseeing every aspect of the project and with continuous training always aims to stay on top of new ideas, innovations and designs. At Dimona Constructions we are a passionate, hardworking and motivated team who is always ready to help build your dream home whilst making the building process a positive and satisfying experience.
Whether renovating or restoring, creating your new dream home or redesigning your outdoor living space Richard Lewis's eye for detail, excellent communication skills and commitment to quality, ensures all Lewis Grant Builders' projects are completed in a timely and professional manner. Utilising a team of local skilled contractors, Australian made materials where available and limiting concurrent projects enables us to deliver construction excellence.


38 years ago today, the Mars 2 orbiter releases a descent module towards the surface of Mars.
The descent module separated from the orbiter on 27 November 1971 about 4.5 hours before reaching Mars. After entering the atmosphere at approximately 6 km/s, the descent system on the module malfunctioned, possibly because the angle of entry was too steep. The descent sequence did not operate as planned and the parachute did not deploy. Mars 2 was the first manmade object to reach the surface of Mars. The landing site is unknown.
Mars 3, practically at the coat-tails of its sibling, made a descent a few days later, and landed softly.
Today I wrote a toy script, which might get integrated into the Perl 6 book we're writing.
The script shuffles a full deck of cards, draws two hands from it, and compares them. Could easily be extended into a full-fledged poker game. Here it is.
Writing it was remarkably fun, and it shook out a couple rakudobugs.
I originally had that last one as Straight where Flush, but I think the Flush computation is faster, so I put that one first, according to some fail-fast principle.
The script also raised the question "how does one get all the values of an enum", and TimToady gave the tentative answer SomeEnum::.keys, but this does not work in Rakudo yet.


text:
/*
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Stockpot.BusinessLogic.Tags;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace Stockpot.WebApi.Controllers
{
    [Route("api/[controller]")]
    public class TagsController : ControllerBase
    {
        private readonly TagsService _tagsService;

        public TagsController(
            TagsService tagsService)
        {
            _tagsService = tagsService;
        }

        [HttpGet]
        public async Task<IActionResult> Get()
        {
            var ingredients = await _tagsService.Get();
            return Ok(ingredients);
        }

        [HttpPost]
        public async Task<IActionResult> Post([FromBody]CreateUpdateTagDto createDto)
        {
            await _tagsService.Add(createDto);
            return NoContent();
        }

        [HttpPut("{id}")]
        public async Task<IActionResult> Put(int id, [FromBody]CreateUpdateTagDto updateDto)
        {
            var changes = await _tagsService.Update(id, updateDto);

            if (changes == 0)
            {
                return NotFound();
            }

            return NoContent();
        }

        [HttpDelete("{id}")]
        public async Task<IActionResult> Delete(int id)
        {
            var changes = await _tagsService.Delete(id);

            if (changes == 0)
            {
                return NotFound();
            }

            return NoContent();
        }
    }
}
*/

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Honesty is the best policy, but that doesn't mean it's always well received.
Honest feedback, or what I like to call 'constructive criticism' is often needed, even welcomed in the work place. It's how we improve in all matters, be it social skills or work skills.
Every now and then however, an employee takes an exception to the feedback we give them, and sometimes with unpleasant consequences.
Recently, I was faced with such a case. Anyone involved in HR will encounter either bitter or resentful ex-employees at some stage, and hopefully by sharing this story, I can help prepare others in the HR family for similar situations!
When temp workers go bad. Forgive me for the corny intro, but this is how it happened!
This particular young lady was new to the temping game, and feeling sympathetic, I thought I would cut her a break. I thought the best way I could help her was to provide informative and honest feedback about how she could improve for next time – normally with a temp that struck out so quickly, there would be no next time! At the time I thought it was well received and appreciated by her.
A few weeks later I find out she wasn't quite as appreciative as I had thought. I discovered from my client that the former temp had taken matters into her own hands and made direct contact with not our client themselves, but their client! A 3rd party warehouse supplier – with a phone call straight to the top to upper management.
Needless to say, the senior manager was not impressed but I get the feeling that was the whole point. The jilted temp had gone on a smear campaign to teach us a lesson; a lesson not to mess with her. And we paid heed – we haven't had anything more to do with her since!
As a recruiter I would like to say we get it right all the time, but when you're dealing with hundreds of people and placing them in jobs or rejecting their applications, you're bound to make a few errors. The important thing is that these errors become lessons and not repeats.
Which makes me think, what should I have done differently?
Should the feedback have been more guarded? Perhaps not so honest and upfront? The simple answer is no. Curbing your feedback for fear of retribution is not feedback at all. It's hiding behind the fence in case the dog bites. It's called constructive for a reason.
No, it goes back to the root – trusting your team's feedback no matter what. If I looked back further into the recruiting process for this job, I could pick out some red flags that I may have failed to spot.
One of my recruiters came back from the interview and said they had taken an instant dislike to her. I should have known that something wasn't right then and there, and trusted the recruiter's good judgement.
Sometimes some people really do have a chip on their shoulder the size of Gibraltar. No amount of helpfulness or niceness on your part is going to appease them – they feel they are owed the world.
There's a saying in recruitment 'you are only as good as you last placement' and believe you me it was echoing through my head all day long as we went into damage control mode.
Primarily that, even after all these years of training, experience and practice, recruitment demands constant refinement and adjusting. The best advice I have for anyone hiring staff is to stick to your principles, don't rush in and trust your gut but trust others' gut too. If it looks like a duck, quack likes a duck then leave the duck alone and go and find a golden goose!


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Tag: Go for Good Enough
A Dissertation is a Thousand Cranes
Being from a working-class background, I grew up identifying "work" as something with visible, tangible results. My stepdad poured concrete. His work was a series of discrete tasks. That is not to say it didn't take skill–it absolutely did–but at the end of the day, when his work was done, there was concrete where there had been no concrete. My grandfather was a machinist. When his work was done there was a thing where there had been no thing. My mom was a secretary and a large part of her job was archiving documents. She started the day with a pile of documents to archive and at the end of the day they were archived. That's how you knew that work was done.
Academic work is not like that.
Writing, in general, is not like that.
You sit down at your computer and you start to write. Then you start to edit. You might end the day with more words than you started with. You might end the day with fewer words than you started with. If you track your word count over time you will see a steady increase, but even then there often isn't a tangible product at the end of the day to show that you did something other than sit at a desk all day. And that's on the good days! The days when you actually get to write. There are other days where you go down research trails that may or may not lead somewhere. (Well, they all lead somewhere, but they often don't lead where you expect them to.) There are days where you are mired in meetings or days when teaching takes all of your energy and you feel like you didn't make any dissertation progress.
Without concrete proof that you are moving forward, the ebb and flow of writing can feel discouraging and self-defeating.
To help myself fight this discouragement I made a seemingly small decision on a completely ordinary day. At the time, I was using this little post-it sized to-do lists I'd gotten at Target. I had enough space to write about five tasks on each one and, because they were square, they were perfect for origami. I decided that, when I completed all five items on my to-do list, I would fold it into a paper crane.
I had no idea how to make paper cranes.
I finished the to-do list and looked up a YouTube paper crane tutorial.
I made a crane.
There it was, sitting on my desk, a little reminder that I had completed the tasks I had set for myself.
The next day, I decided to try the same thing. I made a small to-do list. I completed it. I made another paper crane.
Now I had two cranes and two tangible reminders that I had completed all my tasks for the day. When I started there was no crane. When I finished a crane existed. This was a form of work that made sense to me.
I found that this method helped keep me focused on my progress rather than what I didn't get done.
About a week into this I thought, "Wouldn't it be neat to make 1000 cranes and turn them into streamers for my dissertation defense?" It's said that, if you make 1000 cranes you get a wish. Maybe I could use them to wish to become a doctor.
Reader, I did it.
I made 1000 cranes.
They weren't all to-do lists. I also used the hard copy drafts of my dissertation that I printed out to edit. (You can get about 4 cranes out of an 8.5×11 piece of paper, btw.)
Was it great to have my crane streamers in the room when I defended my dissertation? Absolutley.
Do I still have them? Of course.
Here's what making 1000 cranes taught me.
You will get bad advice. You will recover. Remember when I told you that I didn't know anything about making paper cranes and searched a YouTube video to learn how? Well, the first video I found was not a good tutorial. I don't think the maker of that video new how to make a crane either. As a result, my first dozen "cranes" aren't, technically, cranes. They kind of look like cranes, if you squint. When I realized that these first cranes didn't look right I found another tutorial which I followed religiously until I could make a crane with my eyes closed.
You will feel crazy. Here's the thing about making 1000 of anything. At first, it will be fun and cute. People will comment on it saying, "What a neat idea!" or "How fun!" Once you get about 30 of them and they are strewn across your desk people will stop commenting. They are no longer cute. They are messy and a little weird. When you have to get a box to store your first 100 cranes in you will start to wonder if you are crazy. Once you reach 500 it will feel like there's no point in stopping. Once you reach 925 you will wonder if you *really* have to make it to 1000. Once you hit 1000 you will be so incredibly proud of yourself.
It's not about one crane. Remember back in step one when I said that my first dozen cranes were made incorrectly? Well, they weren't the only ones. Even after I learned to make cranes there were still days when I made bad ones. The paper wasn't perfectly square or my fold was off. The thing is, though, when you make 1000 of anything what each individual one looks like isn't as important as what they look like together. Let me tell you, friends, those 1000 cranes together are a beautiful sight to behold.
Ask for help. It may sound odd given everything I've said up to this point but making 1000 cranes was actually the easy part. I severely underestimated the difficulty of making streamers out of 1000 paper cranes. I'm also not what you would call a "crafty" person. This meant that I was about a week out from my dissertation defense and had no streamers and felt frustrated and overwhelmed. I reached out to see if any of my friends wanted to come over, watch movies, and make streamers. I will be eternally grateful to the people who came over and engaged in that ridiculous activity to make this dream come true.
Celebrate. You did something difficult. Show it off! Be proud of it! Tell people about it! Do your favorite thing! You earned it.
A dissertation, it turns out, is remarkably similar to making 1000 cranes.
You will get bad advice from faculty who think grad school hasn't changed since they were in it, from abusive advisors, from bitter grad students. You will recover. Your ability to course-correct is unlimited.
You will feel crazy. At first it will be exciting (and intimidating), then it will feel boring (and daunting). You will feel crazy. Then you will feel like you might as well keep going since you've gotten this far. You will feel crazy. Then you will wonder if you really wanna finish this thing. You will feel crazy. Then you will be done and feel glorious.
It's not about the individual words or sentences. It's not that words aren't important, because they are. It's just that there's no reason to get hung up on individual words or sentences that don't sound "perfect" because it's about the totality of the thing you are doing. It's about the book, not the paragraph. Just keep writing. You might come back and find those sentences you agonized over weren't so bad after all.
Ask for help. Find people you trust. Ask for help. Do this often.
Celebrate. Celebrate fiercely. Celebrate the little wins and the big wins. Celebrate.


We know that there are no two jobs the same. That is why we service every customer individually, making sure that every specific need is met. Depending on the industry that you work in, you may have different requirements. That is why we have broken down the industries that benefit the most from uniform services into categories. We explore some of the options by industry to help you gain an understanding of some of the customization that can be done with a uniform service.
When developing product solutions we keep in mind key attributes, such as comfort, functionality, and durability to help employees feel more comfortable wearing protective apparel during their time on the job.
New technology allows scrubs to be made with softer, more tactile-friendly fabric. These fabrics also enable scrub designers to produce an improved, more tailored fit for different body types.
Clean comfortable patient gowns ensure patients have a consistently positive experience, leading to higher patient satisfaction scores for your hospital or clinic.
Determine if the primary purpose of the coat is to protect the wearer, to product, or to simply enhance a business image. Then choose from a wide selection of traditional lab coats, physician coats, lab jackets, counter coats, and smocks.
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Lint-Free Glass Towels are great for those delicate items that need to be handled with special care. Clean wine glasses and cutlery with the fine cloth for the cleanest utensils for your guests.
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Lebanon is located in Wilson County, Tennessee. There are roughly 24,327 residents, living in 9,424 households. The average temperature for Lebanon this time of the year is low of 46F and high of 71F. On average, Lebanon gets about 4.22 inches of precipitation in April. Most residents are home owners (57%), have a high school diploma (51%) and are single, no kids (40%).


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Police: 5 Hurt In 'Terror-Related' Underground Explosion Near Port Authority Bus Terminal
Suspect In Custody Identified By Police As 27-Year-Old Akayed Ullah December 11, 2017 at 11:23 pm
Filed Under:Janelle Burrell, Juliet Papa, Local TV, Marla Diamond, Port Authority Bus Terminal, Port Authority Bus Terminal explosion, Port Authority explosion, Reena Roy, Times Square
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A calm commute Monday morning turned into chaos when police said a crude homemade pipe bomb exploded in an underground walkway near the Port Authority Bus Terminal, injuring at least five people.
Police said the "terror-related" incident happened around 7:20 a.m. in the passageway on West 42nd Street between 7th and 8th avenues, which connects the Port Authority Bus Terminal to the Times Square subway station.
Surveillance video from the scene shows a cloud of smoke filling the underground walkway after police said 27-year-old Akayed Ullah's homemade device exploded.
"This was an attempted terrorist attack," Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference Monday morning. "Thank God the perpetrator did not achieve his ultimate goals."
The device was attached to his body using Velcro and zip ties, NYPD Deputy Police Commissioner John Miller said. Sources say the bomb only partially detonated after malfunctioning.
EXTRAS: Traffic/Transit Changes | Videos | Photos
"The preliminary investigation at the scene indicates that this male was wearing an improvised explosive device attached to his body," O'Neill said. "This device was intentionally detonated by the subject."
Video from the underground hallway shows the moment the device exploded. Investigators believe it detonated after Ullah touched two wires together, closing an electrical circuit possibly made with Christmas light wires attached to a nine-volt battery. A short piece of metal pipe was packed with low intensity explosive material and a handful of screws intended to cause injury.
Port Authority police moved quickly and strategically, arresting Ullah at gunpoint on the spot. Officers Sean Gallagher, Drew Preston, Jack Collins, and Anthony Manfredini rushed in to subdue the injured suspect and remove his bomb vest.
"The right cops were in the right place this morning," Port Authority Patrolman Benevolent Association President Paul Nunziato said.
O'Neill said Ullah had burns and wounds to his body and was taken to NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, where steel barriers blocked off the driveway and about a dozen police officers stood guard outside.
In a statement sent to CBS2 late Monday on behalf of the Ullah family, Council on American-Islamic Relations New York chapter Albert Fox Cahn said the family is "heartbroken by this attack on our city today and by the allegations being made against a member of our family."
"Our family like all families is committed to the safety and wellbeing of all New Yorkers. But we are also outraged by the behavior of law enforcement officials during this investigation," the statement continued. "Today, we have seen our children, as young as 4 years old, held out in the cold, detained as their parents were questioned. One teenage relative was pulled out of high school classes and interrogated without a lawyer, without his parents. These are not the actions that we expect from our justice system, and we hope to see better in the days and weeks to come."
At least five other people who were in the area of the blast were also hurt. Authorities said they all took themselves to the hospital with minor injuries and were sent home to recover by late Monday evening.
Veronica Chavez was with her son Alex after being treated for ringing in her ears. He translated her defiant words to CBS2's John Dias.
"Nothing is going to change," she said. "I will still eventually go back to work. We can't be scared."
Now hearing three minor injuries in addition to suspect at #PortAuthority . He was wearing improvised explosive device. @wcbs880 pic.twitter.com/gHd1vu0lmz
— Marla Diamond (@MDiamond8) December 11, 2017
The incident essentially put Manhattan on lockdown, initially shutting down subway service on multiple lines through the area and several major roads across the city, including the West Side Highway.
Heavily armed NYPD units could be seen patrolling the streets outside the bus terminal on 42nd Street at 8th Avenue.
Emergency crews 8th Ave #1010wins pic.twitter.com/YRyne4E5Hu
— Juliet Papa (@winsjuliet) December 11, 2017
Bomb-sniffing K-9 units and counterterrorism officers were also brought in to survey the scene. The normally busy area was empty after police evacuated the area.
Police say the suspect is of Bangladeshi descent and has lived in Brooklyn for the past several years.
"He did make statements but we're not going to talk about that right now," O'Neill said.
Sources say Ullah told investigators he was inspired to strike by the terror group ISIS, but authorities were working to determine whether he had any direct connection with the group.
Akayed Ullah. (credit: Image via CBS2)
Speaking from the scene, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo acknowledged that New York City is "an international target," but said terrorists will not win, 1010 WINS' Juliet Papa reported.
"The reality is we are a target by many who would like to make a statement against democracy, against freedom," he said. "We're not going allow them to disrupt us. That is exactly what they want and that is exactly what they're not going to get."
.@nyc311: If unable to reach someone who may have been impacted by the incident today @ Port Authority Bus Terminal call 311.
— NYCEM – Notify NYC (@NotifyNYC) December 11, 2017
Police said New Yorkers should also expect to see a greater police presence throughout the city, but said there are no other specific and credible threats at this time.
"I think it's wonderful they haven't shut it down. They've opened it up, they did what they had to do, and New Yorkers are gonna keep moving on and not let something like this stop them," commuter James Blihar said.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted Monday morning that President Donald Trump was briefed on the situation.
.@POTUS has been briefed on the explosion in New York City
— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) December 11, 2017
Sanders followed up during the afternoon White House press briefing to call the incident terrorism and praise responders on the scenes.
"These brave first responders and other who rushed to the scene are heroes. On behalf of the president and a grateful nation, we would like to thank them and commend them for their bravery.
"This attack underscores the need for Congress to work with the president on immigration reform that enhance our national security and public safety," Sanders added. "We must protect our borders, we must insure that individuals entering our country are not coming to do harm to our people, and we must move to a merit-based system of immigration."
Security expert Manny Gomez spoke to CBS2 about the possibility that the suspect was a suicide bomber.
"We don't know yet but if it was that would be a game changer because that has not happened within the continental U.S.," he said.
Monday's incident came just weeks after police said a man drove a rented pick-up truck down the West Side highway bicycle path, killing eight people and injuring a dozen others on Halloween.
The suspect in that case, 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov, was shot by a police officer after his truck hit a school bus. He pleaded not guilty in federal court last month.
"This is New York City. We don't live in fear," Commissioner O'Neill said Monday. "But if you see something suspicious, you have an obligation to come forward and tell us."
Ullah is expected to face federal terror charges as soon as Tuesday.
Police asked anyone with information to call the Terror Hotline at 888-NYC-SAFE.


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Señal News > Content > Deals
TERRAMEDIA AND BROKEN FLAMES JOIN IN "FAULTY ROOTS" FILM
TerraMedia will provide financing, production and distribution support on the film to help ensure the it has an important social impact and meets its commercial goals.
Ella Greenwood, writer and director and Jie-Ming Chung of TerraMedia
Broken Flames Productions announces a partnership deal with social impact agency TerraMedia on its film, "Faulty Roots". Jie-Ming Chung and Mikkel Juel Iversen of TerraMedia will serve as Executive Producers on the film. The pair will provide financing, production and distribution support on the film to help ensure the film has an important social impact and meets its commercial goals.
Written and directed by Ella Greenwood, "Faulty Roots" is a coming-of-age film set in England which focuses on youth mental health. It tells the story of a depressed teen who is forced to spend the summer with an insufferably cheerful childhood friend who tries to "fix" her with childlike playdates while struggling with his own genetic illness. The cast includes "Gavin & Stacey" star Melanie Walters and Sanditon actress Kayleigh-Paige Rees, who will also produce, and filming is set to start in late 2021.
Ella Greenwood says: "TerraMedia is the ideal partner for such an important story, as a company it has an excellent understanding of what it takes for a film to be a success and a track record of nurturing films with real social impact. But just as important is how both Jie-Ming and Mikkel believe in the message behind the work in 'Faulty Roots', a film that puts a spotlight on the mental health of young people. So many are suffering and struggling in silence thanks to the pandemic, but this has always been a major issue. That's what I want to show in this film. Depression changes the way you look at everything and 'Faulty Roots' highlights the importance of friendship, family and why we all need a proper, caring support network. The team at TerraMedia understand this, and its why I'm so happy to have them on board."
Jie-Ming Chung of TerraMedia adds "'We need films to help us understand, humanise and sympathise with the many ways that people experience depression. 'Faulty Roots' does that. Ella and Kayleigh's honest ambition and dedication, in person and through film, to fostering mental wellbeing in young people is truly inspiring and desperately needed."
The film is supported by stem4, a charity promoting positive mental health in teenagers and those who support them including their families and carers, education professionals, as well as school nurses and GPs through the provision of mental health education, resilience strategies and early intervention. "Faulty Roots" is also being produced in association with U.K. Production Company Shakespeare Sisters with Hillary Shakespeare and Anna-Elizabeth Shakespeare serving as Executive Producers.
Depression changes the way you look at everything and 'Faulty Roots' highlights the importance of friendship, family and why we all need a proper, caring support network. The team at TerraMedia understand this, and its why I'm so happy to have them on board." Ella Greenwood Written and directed of "Faulty Roots"
Broken Flames Productions TerraMedia Faulty Roots Jie-Ming Chung Mikkel Juel Iversen Ella Greenwood


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Graticule Lake är en sjö i Antarktis. Den ligger i Östantarktis. Australien gör anspråk på området. Graticule Lake ligger  meter över havet. Den högsta punkten i närheten är  meter över havet,  kilometer sydost om Graticule Lake.

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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Clincial Education & Training
Larry Rayburn
Diplomate in Analytical Psychology, Texas Seminar of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts.
M.A, counseling psychology, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 1999
B.A. Prescott College, 1974
Nature and the Work against Nature; Men's and boys' psychology; Clinical practice, including the tension between the archetypal and personal; Psychoanalytic ideas and their interface with Analytical Psychology; Understanding the collective life of our time through the lens of depth psychology; History of the Southwest. Also: playing music, being outdoors, river rafting.
Contact Larry
C. G. Jung Institute of Santa Fe
The Jung Institute maintains an email list for notices and ongoing communication. We never share your contact information.
© 2023 Santa Fe Jung | Site by Go West Design


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I have never been afraid of death, even now that I feel it closest to me
10 Nov 2009 – Human Rights I have never been afraid of death, even now that I feel it closest to me. I can sense it and I'm familiar with it, for it is an old acquaintance of this land and this people. I'm not writing about death but about justifications for death, now that they have translated it to restoring justice and freedom, can one be afraid of future and destiny? "We" who have been sentenced to death by "them," were working to find a small opening to a better world, free of injustice, are "they" also aware of what they are working towards?
I started life in city of Kermanshah, the city that my country people consider grand, the birthplace of civilization in our country. I soon noticed descrimination and oppression and I felt it in the depth of my existence, this cruelty, and the "why" of this cruelty and trying to resolve it made me come up with thousands of thoughts. But alas, they had blocked all the roads to justice and made the atmosphere so repressive that I didn't find any way to change things inside, and I migrated to another resort: "I became the pishmarg of Koomaleh," the temptation to find myself and the identity that I was deprived of made me go in that direction. Although leaving my birthplace was difficult but it never made me cut ties with my childhood hometown. Every now and then I would go back to my first home to revisit my old memories, and one of these times "they" made my visit sour, arrested and imprisoned me. From that first moment and from the hospitality (!!) of my jailers I realized that the tragic destiny of my numerous compeers also awaits me: torture, file building, closed and seriously influenced court, an unjust and politically charged verdict, and finally death…
Let me say it more casually: after getting arrested in town of Kamyaran on 29/4/87 and after a few hours of being a "guest" at the information office of that town, while handcuffs and a blindfold took away my right to see and move, a person who introduced himself as a deputy of the prosecutor started asking a series of unrelated questions that were full of false accusations (I should point out that any judicial questioning outside of courtroom is prohibited in the law). This was the first of my numerous interrogation sessions. The same night I was moved to the information office of Kurdestan province in city of Sanandaj, and I experienced the real party there: a dirty cell with an unpleasant toilet with blankets that had probably not seen water in decades! From that moment my nights and days passed in the interrogation offices and lower hallway under extreme torture and beatings and this lasted three months. In these three months my interrogators, probably in pursuit of a promotion or some small raise, came up with strange and false accusations against me, which they better than anyone knew how far from reality they were. They tried very hard to prove that I was involved with an armed attempt to overthrow the regime. The only charges they could pursue was being a part of "Koomaleh" and advertising against the regime. The first "shobe" of Islamic republic court in Sanandaj found me guilty of these charges and gave me 10 years sentence in exile in Ramhormoz prison. The government's political and bureaucratic structure always suffers from being centralized, but in this case they tried to de-centralize the judiciary and gave the powers to re-investigate (appeal?) the crimes of political prisoners, even as high as death penalties, to the appeal courts in Kurdestan province. In this case the prosecutor Mr. Kamyaran appealed the verdict by the first court and the Kurdestan appeals court changed my verdict from 10 years in prison to death sentence, against the Islamic republic laws. According to section 258 of "Dadrasi Keyfari" law, an appeals court can increase the initial verdict only in the case that the initial verdict was less than minimum punishment for the crime. In my case, the crime was "Moharebeh" (animosity with God), which has the minimum punishment of one year sentence, and my verdict was a 10 year sentence in exile, clearly above the minimum. Compare my sentence to the minimum sentence for this crime to understand the unlawful and political nature of my death sentence. Although I also have to mention that shortly before changing the verdict they transferred me from the main prison in Sanandaj to the interrogation office of the Information Department and requested that I do a video interview confessing to crimes I have not committed, and say things that I do not believe in. In spite of a lot of pressure I did not agree to do the video confession and they told me bluntly that they will change my verdict to death sentence, which they shortly did, and demonstrated how the courts follow forces outside of judiciary department. So should they be blamed??
A judge has been sworn to stay fair in every situation, at all times and towards every person and look at the world from the legal perspective. Which judge in this doomed land can claim to has not broken this swear and has stayed fair and just? In my opinion the number of such judges is less than fingers on one hand. When the whole judicial system of Iran with the suggestion of an interrogator (with no knowledge of legal matters), arrests, tries, imprisons and executes people, can we really blame the few judges of a province which is always repressed and discriminated against? Yes, this house is ruined from its foundations…
This is in spite of the fact that in my last visit with my prosecutor he admitted that the death sentence is unlawful, but for the second time they gave me the notice for carrying out the execution. Needless to say that this insistence on carrying a death sentence under any circumstance is the result of pressure from security and political forces from outside of the judiciary department. Said people look at life and death of political prisoners only from the point of view of their paychecks and political needs, nothing else matters to them other than their own goals, even if it is about the most fundamental right of other human beings, their right to live. Forget international laws, they completely disregard even their own laws and procedures.
But my last words: If in the minds of these rulers and oppressors my death will get rid of the "problem" called Kurdestan [the province], I should say, what an illusion. Neither my death nor the death of thousands like me will be remedy to this incurable pain and perhaps would even fuel this fire. Without a doubt, << each death points to a new life [ or beginning ]>>.
Ehsan Fattahian
Sanandaj Central prison
17/8/1388http://beyan.eu/expand.php?id=205


The Johnson Cemetery site currently consists of a single mound and associated village, but may originally have had a second mound. The existing mound was first described in the early 20th century as about 14 feet tall and pyramidal in shape. Currently, the mound is 12 feet in height and its shape has suffered from erosion. Johnson Cemetery, an early 20th century African American cemetery, is located on the mound's summit.
Professional archaeologists excavated a portion of the southern slope of the mound in 2013. They determined that it was built in stages by Native American people during the Late Mississippi Period, beginning around AD 1300 or thereabouts. Prior to the building of the mound, Native people prepared the area underneath it by removing the topsoil to expose the fine levee sands underneath. Then they conducted a series of rituals that resulted in the deposition of multiple thin layers of ash, burned soil, and charcoal. These deposits contained many artifacts, including pottery and food remains such as maize. Immediately after these events took place, the first stages of mound building commenced. This evidence suggests that feasting or other community-wide eating events may have an important association with mound building at the site, a pattern that has been documented at other mound sites in the southeastern United States.


Lucy is nearly 21. She has come to France as an English assistant.
Lucy talks about her family and her pets.
Lucy loved seeing the Divergent film series at the cinema with her friends.
Over the last holiday Lucy went skiing in Austria.
I find that French people have been very patient with me.


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Q: How to open up a JAR in a Linux GUI application? what is a linux command to open .jar file in gui mode in linux so that I can see inside the .jar file by double click?
Gui for .jar file should open so that i can see inside the .jar file.

A: You can just unzip the JAR file (using standard "unzip") or you can use gnome-open to look inside.


Being a Psychology graduate from Duke has definitely shaped my professional success. The top-notch training I received, starting from my first semester as a freshman, helped me define my own interests and shape my passions into a rewarding and profitable career.
To aspiring Psychology students, I would say follow your interests and desires. My first class in Social and Personality Psychology had me talking about it non-stop to my fellow freshmen hallmates well into the night -- that's how I knew I had found something that was actually interesting to *me,* and not something that I was "supposed to" be interested in. It took me awhile to realize that I didn't have to be on the pre-med track in order to do well professionally or financially, but I wouldn't have discovered that had I not been so carefully listening to my intuitive compass. Don't limit yourself just because all your friends are pre-law or pre-business or pre-med. Take as many classes in different areas as you'd like.


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Photo courtesy of Film Movement.
'Rafiki,' Trevor Noah's 'The Daily Show,' & More, Earn 2020 GLAAD Award Nominations
The GLAAD awards recognize "fair, accurate and inclusive representations" of the LGBTQ community in media.
The nominations for the annual GLAAD Media Awards, which "recognize and honor media for their fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community and the issues that affect their lives," have just been announced, and several of our favorite shows this year have earned nominations.
Wanuri Kahiu's groundbreaking film Rafiki earned a nomination in the "Outstanding Film Limited Release" category. The acclaimed lesbian love story was the first Kenyan film to screen at Cannes. We caught up with the director to discuss the film back in May of last year.
Moments With: Wanuri Kahiu youtu.be
Also nominated is Trevor Noah for an episode of The Daily Show entitled "Jacob Tobia - Promoting a 'Gender-Chill' Exploration of Identity with 'Sissy," in which he interviews LGBT rights activist, producer and writer Jacob Tobia. You can check out the interview below, in which the two discuss what it means to openly explore gender identity.
Jacob Tobia - Promoting a "Gender-Chill" Exploration of Identity with "Sissy" | The Daily Show www.youtube.com
Other notable nods include Ava Duvernay's When They See Us the impactful limited series, chronicling the lives of the Exonerated Five, as well as HBO's Watchmen.
Netflix's coming-of-age comedy Sex Education earned a nomination for "Outstanding Comedy Series." The show features a standout storyline centering on Rwandawn-Scottish actor Ncuti Gatwa's character Eric, who unexpectedly earns the support of his Nigerian father after coming out.
You can check out the full list of 2020 nominations via GLAAD's website.
'The Daily Show' with Trevor Noah ›
Wanuri Kahiu's 'RAFIKI' Is the First Kenyan Feature Film To Premiere ... ›
Wanuri Kahiu Speaks on the Overwhelming Response to 'RAFIKI' at ... ›
Video: Wanuri Kahiu On How 'Rafiki' Took the World by Storm Since ... ›
RAFIKI ›
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah - Series | Comedy Central Official ... ›
Rafiki review – groundbreaking lesbian romance aims to change ... ›
glaad awards lgbt lgbtqia lgbtq rights television rafiki kenya trevor noah south africa the daily show awards awards shows film
Photo by Robert Szaniszlo/NurPhoto via Getty Images.
Sport24 reports that Kenyan athlete and marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge has been nominated for Sportsman of the Year in the 2020 Laureus World Sports Awards.
He's made the prestigious nominations list alongside Lionel Messi, Tiger Woods, Lewis Hamilton and Rafael Nadal.
Things Take Time In The Empire of Sheep
An in-depth look at two hip-hop albums that capture the state of affairs in South Africa: YoungstaCPT's 3T and Stogie T's The Empire of Sheep.


for this historic inner city parish of traditional Catholic faith and practice with a distinguished history of ministry to the needy.
and to work collaboratively with other parishes and agencies to serve the wider West End community.
The post will be for three years.
which has changed out of all recognition in recent decades.
clergy and deanery colleagues, and ministering a much-needed sense of hope and enterprise.
We are praying for you as you read.


So I installed at least 20 other themes, and none of them would do … so I basically wasted a day with that. I've decided to keep the one I have for now, although there are myriad problems with it. For one thing, it doesn't translate well to mobile devices; for another, it looks terrible on a huge screen. I figure as long as people aren't viewing it in a 27-inch screen, it'll do for now.
I then have a tab that will focus on the local film scene and talk a little about its history and also its future.
There will be a movie gallery where I can insert select trailers from my featured film festivals.
There is an interview tab for my interviews.
There is a resources tab, where I will have a map of all the local film festivals, a timeline of the more well-known films that were shot in Sonoma County, and an event calendar for 2016 showing all the local film festivals in the area.
I hope this will be enough to satisfy the project! I feel like I don't have enough meaty historical research here, but I also feel as if I'm running out of time to get it all together. I figure I'll do my best and get it done on time!


Isabel Marant's 'Dicker' boots are a cult style that It girls turn to season after season. Crafted from brown suede that looks army-green in some lights, this Western-inspired pair is set on a stacked 55mm Cuban heel that provides all-day comfort. They'll go with everything from cropped jeans to bohemian dresses - it just depends on the occasion.


Everyone needs to own at least one of these beautiful linen pillows. Elegance exudes throughout all the products made by this manufacturer. The products are very affordable yet radiate elegance. Start with this gray decor pillow. It's charming message says to Be Our Guest. Be Our Guest is what you want to feel the moment you enter into a room, whether at a friends home or especially if the owner isn't there to greet you personally. If this pillow is for your company this pillow gives the right feeling you want to express to your guests. The fabric is 100% European linen with a beautiful scrolling embroidered message. This small Be Our Guest linen cushion is the perfect pillow decor to enhance your home: on a small chair, on the bed, or the couch saying welcome to your guests. This pillow, and all the other products from this company use hypoallergenic synthetic down so you don't have any trouble. It's also the perfect decor pillow for the following type of businesses to use featuring a welcome message to guests.
Features: gray pillow white ruffle, 100% European linen, embroidered Be My Guest, size 12" x 16"
We found this manufacturer right down the street from our house.Crown Linen Design believes we should be happy in our home, whether we are sitting at our kitchen table, dining room table, bedroom, or bathroom. Their linen producers, who are from Eastern Europe, provide some of the worlds finest linens. Timeless, classic, and elegant designs, these linens are now your opportunity to pass down beautiful heirlooms just like your grandmother's linens. Another reason for Crown Linen Designs is to provide an economic opportunity for the people of Eastern Europe and for a chance to bring beauty to their lives. We love linen and their linen gives everyone an opportunity to own beautiful linen, give beautiful linen as a gift, and enrich everyone's lives with beautiful surrounds.


Joining the AVA team this summer is a fantastic opportunity to make great money, meet awesome guests, make a ton of new friends, build your knowledge in the kitchen, receive discounts for family and friends and enjoy complimentary AVA Rafting & Zipline tours at any of our three locations!
Job Summary: Play a direct role in enhancing guests experience by helping prep meals for our Full-day and Overnight rafting trips.
AVA strives to deliver the very highest level of guest service while bringing awareness and understanding of the surrounding wilderness to our guests. As leaders in our industry, we set examples in safety, professionalism, outdoor skills and guest service, while providing low-impact environmental recreation. If you are interested in joining the AVA team this summer, then apply today!


It can be configured for a true PC COMM port connection, or INVERTED TTL when connecting to another microcontroller or TTL serial device. Baud rate is dip-switch selectable to 2400, 9600 or 19200 bauds.
The SERIAL_LCDA can be controlled by an I2C interface at 100KHz.
Supports LCD modules with any combination of up to 80 characters.
Communication can be RS232, TTL or I2C.
Interface with up to 16 keyboard keys.
Connect up to 16 displays over the same interface.
The user can design and load upto 8 custom characters.
Module size: 52.0mm(L) x 35.0mm(W) - Comes completely assembled and tested.


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Rene Gonzalez Architect
GLASS Residential Tower Proposal / Terra Group + Rene Gonzalez Architect
by Alison Furuto
© Michael Klausmeier
Terra Group + Rene Gonzalez Architect recently unveiled their design for GLASS, a new residential tower composed of 10 full-floor units located at 120 Ocean Drive in Miami Beach. The 18-story, all-glass building is located in the South of Fifth neighborhood, which has become, over the past decade, one of the most expensive destinations for luxury high-rise living in Miami Beach. Delicate and sensorial, the design of GLASS is a considered a response to its setting in Miami Beach, specifically intended to allow one to experience the surrounding natural landscape. More images and architects' description after the break.
With a clear strategy to utilize iconic design as a differentiator, David and Pedro Martin of Terra Group tapped Gonzalez to design his first residential tower. Conceived as a site-specific structure that responds to the natural environment, GLASS will be the newest addition to a prestigious neighborhood that has dramatically changed the definition of contemporary luxury residential development on the southern tip of Miami Beach. It is also the last tower that will be erected in the South of Fifth area, due to zoning restrictions, and is therefore garnering heightened attention from potential buyers.
"The design for GLASS had to be out of the box, yet understanding of the context and history of South of Fifth and Miami Beach," said David Martin, president and COO of Terra Group. "I couldn't think of anyone better than Rene to execute such an intimate building. He has impeccable style and an understanding of both interiors and exteriors, which not many architects possess. We're proud to have collaborated on his first residential high rise."
Gonzalez, who specializes in creating memorable architectural spaces and projects of various scales and typologies, approached the design of GLASS aiming to reflect and capture the natural landscape of sand, sea, and sky. The building dematerializes as it rises, with its exterior almost disappearing into the atmosphere and its compositional use of fritted, patterned glass. Light and ethereal, GLASS is a response to its site, context, and environment, maintaining the essence of place through its architectural design, its materials, surface textures, and tonal color.
The building's entrance is an immersive environment - at once luxurious and elemental, with natural light and areas with water that evoke the beach. Referencing the visual effect of waves meeting the shore and receding into the sand, the porous Coquina stone, which contains fragments of shell and coral, becomes gradually interspersed with small rectangles of smooth, blue Macauba quartzite that reaches a greater density at the elevator, signaling the transition between sand and sea. The pool level is all about water. Framing a view of the Atlantic Ocean from the deck, tropical vegetation moves in the breeze. A video installation showing patterns of light underwater animates the ceiling of the pool lobby.
Just as the gradient color shifts from deep to shallow water, or the color of the sky changes as the eye travels upward from the horizon line, the experience of ascent within the building communicates this idea of movement. Conceived as an experiential space, the elevator contains an interactive installation by artist Ivan Toth Depeña, programmed to express the transition from water to sky with luminous, enlarged pixels of light and color patterns at each level.
The tower itself conveys the qualities of the sky. Open floor plans with 360-degree views and expansive terraces with sliding doors blur the boundaries between indoor and outdoor space. Inside, the ceilings of each of the ten exclusive units echo this natural element with grayscale tones, darker at the lower floors and lightest at the level of the penthouse.
Mirrored walls at every entry reflect an expansive view of the ocean. Indicating the shift between night and day, each foyer also contains a custom ceiling combining a translucent latex surface and a programmable lighting system. The density of lights is carefully choreographed at each level, evoking the star-lit canopy of both urban and rural skies.
Terra Group
Projects Unbuilt Project Interiors Architecture Residential Miami BeachResidentialUnited States
Cite: Alison Furuto. "GLASS Residential Tower Proposal / Terra Group + Rene Gonzalez Architect" 12 Jun 2013. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/386176/glass-residential-tower-proposal-terra-group-rene-gonzalez-architect/> ISSN 0719-8884


TOP PRICE: Auctioneer Geoff Hodgins, RFDS community engagement officer Jacinta Cullen, CEO Greg Sam, Daniel Sugars, Landmark, vendor Brendon Duncan, Glen Park, and buyers Kim and John Cramp, Mount Gipps Station, Broken Hill, NSW.
The ADWDA Inc. is the Australian breed organisation for breeders of the Australian Dorper and White Dorper Sheep.
ADWDA aims to facilitate the incorporation of the Dorper and White Dorper breeds into the Australian sheep industry and will work in a cooperative manner with all sectors of the Australian Sheep and Sheep Meat Industry to achieve this aim.
In order to develop the Dorper and White Dorper breeds in Australia the ADWDA will focus upon education and the dissemination of information to both its members and the farming community.
Under the ADWDA stud book it will be necessary to register rams only, however the facility will be available for those wanting to register ewes should they wish to do so.
An Appendix flock system will be allowable for those wishing to upgrade to purebred Dorpers and White Dorpers.
We encourage members to use performance recording as a tool to enhance their breeding programs.
Above all else, we understand that we exist as a service to the members of our organisation . Our aim is to offer them cost effective service that meets their needs.
discounted access to Association run workshops and field days.
Interested in becoming a member of the ADWDA?
Email: secretariat@australiandorper.com.au to learn more.
Information for New and Prospective Members.


Eating clean is recommended for good health, and we all know we should eat "whole" and "natural" foods. But it's hard to determine what's natural and what's processed, which is why shopping for whole foods isn't as easy as it sounds.
Processed foods have damaging effects on health, and they also reduce your intake of whole foods. Processed foods are altered to contain preservatives, chemical additives and are calorie-laden, so they have a low nutrient content.
Here are some simple tips that will help you ditch processed foods for more nutrient-rich options.
We look for calorie, fat and sugar content on nutrition labels, but you should also be looking at ingredient labels because the ingredients list is a good indicator of how processed a food is. If the foods contain more than 5 ingredients and you read unfamiliar items that seem like chemical additives than the food is most certainly processed.
A majority of whole foods, such as vegetables, fruits, fresh herbs, meat and fish, nuts are sold without industrial packaging. Add these items to your shopping cart.
The next time you have to restock your kitchen, buy foods from your local grocery stall instead of a supermarket. The fruits and vegetable sold will be in season and that's when they are most nutritious.
Buy bread, biscuits and milk products from your local bakery and dairy, and your meat and fish from your local meat market. Locally grown products are also more environment-friendly.
Whole grains are nutrient-dense and rich in fibre. Ditch all the white grains and flour for brown rice, quinoa, oats and whole grains. When grains are processed and flour is refined, nutrients are misplaced, and calories become more concentrated. Always choose whole grains when possible.
By cooking your own meals you have full control on what you eat. You can choose whole ingredients and cut out processed foods from your diet. You don't need advanced cooking skills to prepare simple meals. Use simple recipes and techniques to keep you satiated and inspired.
There's no denying that fruits and vegetables are the most nutrient-packed foods and most of us don't consume enough of them.
HFCS products are worse than white sugar and only contain empty calories. It is a definite indicator of food products that have been thoroughly processed.


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International News: Closure of Argentina's long-standing PR firm Aja Espil & Asociados comes as surprise to other local agencies
November 20, 2000 by DIEGO DILLENBERGER
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA: Aja Espil & Asociados, the oldest PR agency in Argentina, has closed its doors.
Its founder and president, 70-year-old Rodolfo Aja Espil, is seriously ill and has been unable to take care of the business since the beginning of the year. The local PR scene was surprised this week by the news that severance packages were already in place for its nine remaining executives.
But the biggest surprise for most Argentine PR practitioners was that there has been no serious effort made by his heirs, nor by his employees, to save the brand by selling to a multinational PR consultancy or an established local firm.
'It was really surprising to me, since I expected a better solution for such a traditional brand,' said Alejandro Zaia, president of local powerhouse ZC&M.
Aja lost several accounts this year, but sources close to the agency still put its sales volume at half a million pesos (dollars 500,000) a year.
Aja's original partners separated during the 1990s to launch their own PR firms: Juan Carlos Lynch later sold his agency to Porter Novelli and Federico Baraldo is now a partner in Baraldo Dell'Oro Trigo. Both rank within the top 10, much higher than Aja.
The local market now has its eyes on Alan McCrea Steele, the former CEO of Aja, who was brought in from Edelman Miami to lead the agency.
Sources say Steele has had several offers to join some of Aja's former rivals, since he could shore up the closed firm's former clients and executives.


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Brenda Starr, Reporter: The Collected Daily and Sunday Newspaper Strips Volume 1
Dale Messick
While female comic artists had been working regularly in newspaper comic sections for quite some time, the 1940 debut of Brenda Starr, Reporter was something brand new. For the first time in comic history an adventure strip had a strong woman at the center of the story.
She was a rarity in newspaper strips of the day, a working woman in the big city. One who more than held her own with the men in the office and who got the story when she was supposed to.
Over time the determined redhead grew in popularity. The strip began to appear in more newspapers. The dialogue was snappy and her fast-paced adventures inspired millions of young women and men. Prior to Brenda Starr newspaper strips created and drawn by female artists tended to focus on fashion, flappers, dancers, housewives and kids with their dogs.
By the fifth panel of her first appearance Brenda gets up from her desk and walks into her editor's office demanding a crack at a major story. She simply can't take being placed on the sidelines any longer. This was type of energy from a woman that was only seen on movie screens, and even than usually in comedies.
A take charge woman like this hadn't been seen in the comic strip section before. Brenda was first. In fact it would be another full year before the mightily iconic Wonder Woman would even appear in comic books.
Reprinting a collection of story lines from her first six years in newspapers, Brenda Starr, Reporter: The Collected Daily and Sunday Newspaper Strips Volume 1 by Dale Messick is one rollicking reminder of how good the best of golden age newspaper strips could be.
Her start came in greeting card art but Dalia Messick knew she could crack the male-dominated world of newspaper comics. Even as a little girl she had been making her own comic books. When she got older and as she gained experience, Dalia began to submit strip ideas to the syndicates and editors.
For well over a decade Ms. Messick went the established route and submitted ideas to the powers that be. But something was different about her work. She didn't create the normal type of strip. The women in her submissions were stronger and seemed determined to make their way in a man's world.
In a must-read appreciation t the opening of this reprint volume award-winning herstorian and writer Trina Robbins outlines Ms. Messick's journey through the twenties and thirties. Ms. Robbins gives the reader valuable insight into not just the importance of Ms. Messick's accomplishments, but also reminds us how good the artist was at what she did.
Brenda's origin storyline is strong and to the point. Not a minute is wasted. You can feel that Ms. Messick is almost bursting at the seams, dying to take the character anywhere she can. The action moves quickly and with a tremendous sense of momentum.
Brenda gets a scoop, has the story stolen by a male colleague, she is placed in mortal danger, goes undercover and in one famous scene is shackled to a radiator in handcuffs. Her shirt torn and her costume frayed she sends an S.O.S out through the radiator. This is a woman in charger of her own rescue.
This detailed color volume reprints Brenda's first appearance as well as significant storylines from her first six years in print. Editor and publisher Daniel Herman recently explained to New York Journal of Books why Hermes Press decided to eschew the more commonplace template of printing strips in a strict chronological order.
"I wanted to create a book that gave an overview of the early strips. If we had printed the first two or three years of Sundays we never would have gotten to one of the most famous storylines of the feature, The Beastly Twins continuity in year three. After the origin storyline, many critics agree that the strip meanders around a bit until it finds it style. By 1944 the strip is incredibly strong. Ms. Messick is coming up with one winner after another. Plus real continuity doesn't start until five years into the strip when the dailies start and tie in with the Sundays."
Reading The Beastly Twins storyline you can see Mr. Herman's point. Ms. Messick's pen line has grown more detailed and her sense of shadow and space has expanded. While other sections appear in color, Hermes elected to reprint the story straight from the original art work for this story which, stripped of the color as it appeared in newspaper pages, highlights Ms. Messick's incredible skill as an artist.
A good Brenda Starr story contained a gutsy young reporter and plenty of intrigue. But there was also plenty of fashion, romance, exotic locations and flat out action. Sure, the boys had adventures strips galore. There was Buck Rogers in space, Tarzan in the jungle and a ton of detectives in every city in America.
But before Brenda Starr appeared, no one had seen a woman get in a scrap, take a black eye, laugh it off and go right back to work trying to get the story. Nor had they seen one with such an accurate shot with a book as she manages to nearly knock unconscious several of the men in her office when they fail to grasp how dangerous it is to mess with her!
Filled with original art, an appreciation of Ms. Messick's creative process, posters from movies and Ms. Robbins' insight into what it took to get Brenda to the page, The Collected Dailies and Sundays: 1940–1946 will still thrill new readers over 70 years after Brenda Starr first appeared.
Ready to take her place with the greats, Brenda Starr and the work of Dale Messick are prime for rediscovery.
Mark Squirek has written for Comic Book Marketplace, Comics and Games Weekly, Hogan's Alley, and other magazines, including book reviews for the weekly email newsletter Scoop. He has also published several short stories in the pulp fiction genre for Pro-Se Press. In 2006 Broadway World named him Playwright of the Year for his one-act play, SOD.