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UK government to consider cutting air passenger tax to help Flybe: media – The Guardian
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain could cut air passenger taxes on all domestic flights to help rescue struggling regional airline Flybe, the BBC reported on Tuesday.
Finance minister Sajid Javid will meet later with representatives from the Department for Transport (DfT) and Business to discuss the tax and a possible deferring of Flybe's bill, the corporation said.
A possible deal could allow Flybe to defer a payment of more than 100 million pounds ($130 million) for three years, according to Sky News. Under the plan, Flybe's owners would be required to invest tens of millions of pounds in fresh equity into the company as a condition of any deal.
Flybe's flights appeared to be operating as normal on Tuesday, a day after news reports emerged suggesting it needed to quickly raise new funds to help it survive through the winter when demand for travel is lower.
That has heaped pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government which was elected in December. His Conservative party won new seats across regions served by Flybe, helped by a promise to improve connectivity between UK cities beyond London.
Flybe's network of routes include more than half of UK domestic flights outside London.
Based in Exeter, south west England, it connects smaller cities such as Southampton to Newcastle and carries 8 million passengers a year between 71 airports in the UK and Europe.
Air Passenger Duty is a tax of at least 13 pounds levied by the UK government on passengers departing from UK airports which the aviation industry has long opposed as making them less competitive compared to their European rivals.
Flybe has in the past argued that the tax disproportionately affects it, making its flights more expensive compared to its rail and road competitors, because passengers traveling on return flights within the UK will pay it twice.
The DfT and Flybe declined to comment, while the finance department could not immediately be reached for comment.
Should the government cut APD for domestic UK flights, other airlines such as easyJet and British Airways , which fly routes such as London to Edinburgh, would also benefit.
Flybe has 68 aircraft and about 2,000 staff and was already struggling financially when it was bought by Connect Airways, a consortium created by Virgin Atlantic, Stobart Group and investment adviser Cyrus Capital for $2.8 mln last year.
The airline, due to be rebranded Virgin Connect later this year, has suffered as the fuel price has risen in recent months, and news stories about its demise could cause a cash flow squeeze as potential customers stop booking.
Should Flybe collapse, it would be the second high-profile failure in Britain's travel industry in less than six months after Thomas Cook went into liquidation last September, stranding thousands of passengers.
That followed the collapse of UK holiday airline Monarch in 2017 and Flybe competitor FlyBMI last year.
(Reporting by Sarah Young, Editing by Paul Sandle and Kate Holton)
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The following was adapted from remarks recently delivered on a Munk Debates podcast: "Be it resolved, social media is a force for good in the world."
Social media itself is a misnomer. The internet is not a medium. The internet is not part of media. It's the reverse. Media is now being subsumed into the internet along with every other sector of society. It's not produced like a magazine or a newspaper. What social media is, instead, is conversation. Social media welcomes a few billion voices who are now heard, who would otherwise not have been heard in the hegemony of mainstream media.
I know this because I was a part of that problem in mainstream media. I was in a newsroom filled with old white men who look exactly like me, who were the ones making decisions yet didn't have the life experience of so many others. Recently, in The New York Times, University of Pennsylvania Professor Sarah Jackson wrote a wonderful op-ed about all the people who have been brought out by the internet, such as African Americans and survivors of gendered violence. People have used hashtags as platforms to be able to assemble and create movements; hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, and #YesAllWomen. I personally learned a great deal from the hashtag #LivingWhileBlack, which shed light on experiences that I did not have. Social media has allowed these marginalized communities to have a voice.
Social media has allowed these marginalized communities to have a voice
I fear that if we allow a rising tide of moral panic around the internet to enforce regulation, we could cut off these voices. We could have the unintended consequence of trying to go back to a past that amplified voices of the few, not the many.
The internet is yet young. After Gutenberg's press, it took a century and a half before anyone thought to invent a newspaper. We are 25 years away from the beginning of the commercial web. That is 25 years into this brand-new invention that is changing society and the way we live. Let's have some faith in our fellow man and woman and user that we will figure this out. We figured out printing. We figured out telegraphs. We figured out the telephone. We've even figured out television. We will figure out the internet. Don't shut off the value of the new voices we hear there.
I think we are trying to blame social media platforms for the behaviour of the people using them. The truth is, what we don't like is that behaviour and that is what we have to deal with. We have to establish a norm that says, "Don't encourage that behaviour. Don't feed the trolls." The behaviour we should be going after is not that of the platform. It is that of our fellow man and woman, our fellow citizen. And you renegotiate these norms through parenting and education and other things that take time.
We are trying to blame social media platforms for the behaviour of the people using them
What is really happening right now is society is relearning how to have a conversation with itself and we're screwing it up. We're doing it badly. We're trolling each other, we're letting bad guys come in to the medium and exploit it. Companies are doing greedy things. But this is all part of a long process, and we have to value the voices that we hear around us and stop concentrating on the negativity. We've got to start to look out for the nice flowers in the field, not just the dandelions. And we've got to understand that there are things of value that people are saying if only we will stop and listen.
Jeff Jarvis is the Leonard Tow Professor of Journalism Innovation and director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism in the City University of New York. He is the author of "What Would Google Do?," "Public Parts," "Geeks Bearing Gifts," and "Gutenberg the Geek" and is cohost of the podcast "This Week in Google." He's on Twitter @jeffjarvis.
For the last 66 years, Queen Elizabeth has skilfully walked the tight rope between being a bulwark of tradition, keeping things more or less as they have always been and skilfully adjusting as England and the world spun forward around her.
Nothing was ever new; just enhanced.
As the Queen has adopted new technologies — from televising her coronation and annual Christmas speech to increasing the use of social media — who can ever forget her "phone drop" to promote the Invictus Games or her arrival by parachute with James Bond at the opening of the London Olympics — she has, by and large, sought to preserve the decorous traditions of the British monarchy.
The give-and-take (or lack thereof) between tradition and modernity is precisely the tension that fascinates so many. It is this tension that is the dramatic underpinning of Netflix's biographical drama, "The Crown," which this week got some real-life experience to add to this theme.
The makings of this new episode began when the Queen's grandson, Prince Harry, and his wife, Meghan Markle, trademarked "Sussex Royal" and posted a photo to their Instagram account announcing their intention to step back from their royal duties, seek financial independence and take up a new life in North America, all the while honouring "our duty to the Queen, the Commonwealth, and our patronages."
While news coverage has been devoted to the announcement's substance, the medium here is equally as important as the message. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have effectively used social media to leap over their 93-year-old grandmother and family. The Queen of England now finds herself embroiled in a singularly modern predicament: an asymmetrical communications campaign that pits individuals against institutions.
Again and again, we have seen a similar dynamic play out in such situations. While institutions are hamstrung by tradition, bureaucracy, and red tape, individuals are empowered by social media to be self-defining, agile and swift.
Case in point: While Harry and Meghan could rush out their campaign as if it were a lifestyle-brand-in-a-box, (along with the post they launched a website, complete with glossy photographs, inspirational quotations from the likes of Desmond Tutu with web copy written in the tone of an Instagram influencer), the Queen had to resort to issuing her rebuttal statement in two sentences printed on Buckingham Palace letterhead.
The generational divide could not be more clear; nor the implications. This is not a fair fight.
While it may be unpleasant to go up against one's own family, this dynamic yields the couple a few distinct advantages. First, their new media relations strategy circumvents the depraved British tabloids, and their antiquated "royal rota" system.
While the Royal Family has tolerated no end of vitriol from the press (remember Waity Katie? Or Fergie, the Duchess of Pork?), rationalized by the adage, "We pay, you pose," Harry and Meghan seek to change the rules, an objective made all the more urgent by the press' clear double standard when it comes to covering Meghan Markle versus Kate Middleton.
As those same British tabloids have reported breathlessly on the behind-the-scenes machinations at work throughout this entire episode, another advantage has become apparent.
By staking out a clear, public position and then negotiating, the couple most likely stymied attempts by the Queen's courtiers to delay or dilute their plan. Declaring their intention for a clean break was perhaps the only way for Harry and Meghan to break through the institutional monarchy's resistance to doing things new.
But if there is a resistance to things new, the Queen, herself, demonstrated last week a willingness to enhance.
In the days since the launch of Sussex Royal, the Queen has followed a playbook of her own. She took charge, summoned all the influence of her court, gathered her family for the so-called Sandringham Summit, and after its conclusion, released a statement cautiously endorsing her grandson's plan.
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But the real news was how the statement was written. One royal historian, speaking to the BBC, remarked that its tone was "unusually personal" with its several references to "my family" or "my grandson." What's more, it abandoned the use of formal titles, referring instead to "Harry and Meghan."
Her Majesty demonstrated, once again, just what it means to enhance.
Jaime Watt is the executive chairman of Navigator Ltd. and a Conservative strategist. He is a freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @jaimewatt
Social media gets blamed for a lot of things but it's not all bad. Here's a little story about people helping people via social media.
It was a bit of Sunday fun for Victoria's John Carlow, recently. Well, I guess the story has a longer history than that. A few years ago Carlow bought an old Brownie Target 620 camera from a shop in Cowichan Bay. Carlow, a photographer, had initially intended to use it merely as a mantle decoration but recently he opted to prepare it for use again. He opened the body of the camera to discover a roll of 620 black and white film, shot, rolled and ready for processing.
What could possibly be on that film? Was the film even viable to process? How long had the camera been sitting in that store anyway? Where did it come from? Carlow had so many questions.
The Cowichan Bay thrift store he bought it from is long gone so that lead ended in a dead end.
"This shot film could be 40-plus-years-old for all I know," he said. "I sourced a lab in Vancouver that still processes 620 film. I got the negatives back and could tell the exposed film had suffered considerably… years..heat..etc… I had a local store process five of the eight frames on the roll that showed any exposure at all."
Luckily for Carlow, one image survived.
The photo, though battered and of poor resolution, showed an old building. Carlow's goal: to identify that structure.
Carlow posted it on his personal Facebook and Facebook and Instagram photography pages to no avail. It was suggested he pop on over to the Old Victoria Facebook page given members of that group love history.
"I posted first thing in the morning on the weekend and reaction was immediate," he said. "People thought [the camera] was a great story itself , and then the sleuthing and suggestions started."
Over the course of the day, the post generated a couple of hundred responses. Some guesses seemed close, some were off the mark completely, Carlow said.
"There were lots of guesses for the Cowichan Valley and rest of the Island, as Cow Bay is where the camera was purchased," he explained. "Some people just wanted to talk about the cars in the photo. Some people wanted to talk my last name and family history!"
Carlow said it wasn't until around dinner time that a Facebook user named Douglas Lewis was able to identify the structure in the fuzzy photo.
"He presented compelling and well documented evidence," Carlow explained. "Everything seemed very clear to me from that point on. There are one or two folks who aren't convinced, but they present no evidence to back up what they are saying."
The building? Mahon Community Hall on Saltspring Island.
The Island's Agricultural and Fruit Growers Association's agricultural hall was built in 1902 thanks to a loan from a man named Ross Mahon and, after his tragic drowning death in 1903, the Association named the new hall "Mahon Memorial Hall".
School District 64 bought the property in 1942 and a community supported restoration project took place in the early 1980s to upgrade the roof among other improvements. It's still used by the community to this day for concerts, theatrical performances, art exhibitions, craft sales and the like.
"I was very pleased and forwarded the information to the Islands Historical Society," Carlow said. "I'd like to present the photo for the archives."
The photo captivated Carlow so much, he even went to Saltspring Island to look at the building in person.
"We have walked past this area many times, but now it means so much more," he said. "I'm sure we would have figured it out eventually. I'm impressed by the amount of people that took to the story. It was a positive experience overall."
There you have it, a positive outcome all thanks to social media.
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Hey Buddy!, I found this information for you: "UK government to consider cutting air passenger tax to help Flybe: media – The Guardian". Here is the website link: https://canadanewsmedia.ca/uk-government-to-consider-cutting-air-passenger-tax-to-help-flybe-media-the-guardian/. Thank you.


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How To Find The Cheapest NBA Tickets For The 2021-22 Schedule
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Simple Science
Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - 00:00
http://www.myspace.com/thegetupkids
Hassle Records
There's plenty of bands out there who break up or go on a hiatus, then get back together, squeeze out a shitty release and go on tour to cash the cow even more. Not so with The Get Up Kids who reunited in 2008, played several shows and secretly recorded a bunch of new songs. Rather than releasing a single full-length, these guys opted instead to release 3 EPs throughout 2010. "Simple Science" is the first of those EPs and thus makes it the band's first new material since 2004's "Guilt Show". If this EP proves two things then it's that The Get Up Kids still have what it takes and - even more so -that they are most definitely not a one trick pony. Opener "Your Petty Pretty Things" may still sound like it belongs on "Something To Write Home About", "Keith Case" shows an entirely different side with a groove that Fugazi owned back in the day. And then there's the six minutes long closer "How You're Bound", which sees The Get Up Kids fooling around with electronics and a mellow pace. It makes us look forward even more to the other EPs.
Turbowolf - Turbowolf
The Get Up Kids - Problems
The James Cleaver Quintet - That Was Then, This Is Now
Frank Iero and the Patience - Parachutes


Prue Cormie is the Chair of the Exercise and Cancer Group within the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia and leads the Exercise and Sports Science Australia Cancer Special Interest Group. She is a Principal Research Fellow at Australian Catholic University and holds honorary clinical exercise physiologist positions at Peter McCallum Cancer Centre, Austin Health (Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre) and Royal Melbourne Hospital. Prue Cormie receives funding from NHMRC, Cancer Australia, Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, National Breast Cancer Foundation, Cancer Councils and the Victorian Government.
I'm part of Australia's peak body representing health professionals who treat people with cancer, the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia. Today we're joining 25 other cancer organisations to call for exercise to be prescribed to all cancer patients as part of routine cancer care.
Most doctors and nurses agree exercise is beneficial but don't routinely prescribe exercise as part of their patients' cancer treatment plan.
Cancer and its treatment can have a devastating effect on people's lives, causing serious health issues that compromise their physical and mental well-being.
Here's why exercise is a new contender in the fight against cancer. TEDxPerth.
Implementing exercise medicine as part of routine cancer care not only has the potential to change people's lives but to also save money. People with cancer who exercise have lower medical expenses and spend less time away from work.
Exercise specialists can prescribe exercise in a similar way that doctors prescribe medications; by knowing how cancer impacts our health, and understanding how certain exercises improve the structure and function of the body's systems.
Getting this much exercise may seem out of reach for many people with cancer. But exercise specialists who have experience in cancer care can help. They'll design an individual program based on the patient's disease, how they've responded to treatment and the anticipated trajectory of their health status.


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Q: Which DHT implementations are compatible with Python 3.x? Following on from this question about DHTs in Python, my question is the same except that I'm developing on Python 3.x - I only want to know about implementations of the DHT concept which are known to work with Python 3.
There seem to be plenty of DHT products, for example  Khashmir, however as far as I'm aware nobody has bothered to make these available to Python 3.x.

A: I don't think you'll get simultaneous 2.6 and 3.x support - that is not what Guido is recommending. To do that they'd have to maintain two equivalent parallel code-lines, because the same code is unlikely to work on both python 2 and 3.

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Posted on 24th Aug 2022 by Shaun_Wren
The Batman Sequel Has Found A Co-Writer
Matt Reeves is moving full steam ahead with his Batman universe as he's found a co-writer to help pen the sequel to one of the greatest comic book movies ever made.
Mattson Tomlin has once again answered Reeves' Bat-signal, and the dynamic duo will be hard at work on the Robert Pattinson-led Caped Crusader follow-up. The news was revealed after Reeves signed a first-look deal at Warner Bros.
Despite not having a named credit, Tomlin did work on The Batman during issues with the third act. However, the writer will be working on the project from the ground up this time.
Plot details are kept closely guarded and it hasn't been confirmed if Barry Keoghan will reappear as The Joker, despite the reveal near the end of the film and the deleted scene that was posted online.
The Hollywood Reporter has even revealed writing for the sequel hasn't even begun yet but will get going in the coming weeks.
Tomlin is rising highly within Hollywood as a top writer working on several shorts and indie projects before receiving a number of credits over the past few years with Netflix's Project Power which starred Jamie Foxx, and the Olivia Cooke, Jack O'Connell-led Little Fish.
Elsewhere in 2021, he wrote and made his directorial debut sci-fi thriller Mother/Android. Now he's working on the Terminator tv series, an adaptation of the video game Mega Man and a Netflix adaptation of the BOOM! Studios comic book co-created by Keanu Reeves called BRZRKR.
Following the announcement of Matt Reeves' first-look deal, it says to me is WB will have two different DC universes, with The Batman Universe completely separate from the new DC Universe the studio wants to create.
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Tagged with:DC FIlms, DC Movie News, Film, Matt Reeves, Mattson Tomlin, Movie, News, The Batman, Warner Bros
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AlphaBeaticles
Features // Published Work
TV comment
Lennon 80
jamieosborne15
AlphaBeaticles. Part 10: All I've Got To Do
To date there have been over 72 billion books written about the 1960's. 84 billion of those have been about the Beatles. There is, however, still one topic that is yet unfettered ground: lips and their importance in the cultural paradigm shift from old to new in 1960's culture.
Lips did exist before the decade began, of course, let's not be silly, but also: did they? Well, the answer's still yes, but let's explore anyway.
I'm Henry the Eighth, I am
Lennon has an upper lip which is brutal in a devastating way - Maureen Cleave
Cleave, later of 'more popular than Jesus' fame, was amongst the first and, indeed the only, to point out the importance of 1960's lips. She peered at him, immediately in thrall of being in the presence of all four alien beings at once when at the bequest of the Evening Standard she first was asked to interview a pop group. A serious and extremely insightful writer, she questioned what the point was of interviewing teen stars just when such a thing had come into being in the UK until the very moment she found herself face to face with three sat behind someone she felt had the presence, face and more importantly upper lip of Henry VIII.
As the Royal families of Europe found themselves diminished, deposed, deaded or disgraced having played their insestual part in two world wars and numerous domestic barny's, they were forced, if they had eyes to, witness the lips of a triumvirate of commoners rise to levels of ubiquitous prominence and influence that Henry VIII himself would have pursed his lips at.
It is something that appears, perhaps only to me, that there are three central sets of lips, and as an extension, nasal areas that arrived in the early '60s that seemed to forever change the way we saw, heard and thought about the world. The lips and noses all seemed the same, on very different faces and in two different countries.
John Lennon had a nice set, we've established that. Bob Dylan and Peter Cook possessed the other two. Or Four. Which all depends on how you look at it.
One can imagine the Queen, should she even have noticed, what with being busy sitting down and looking (I'm taking the third series of the Crown as my only primary source of evidence, not being remotely bothered to research her) as perhaps having some sense of security with the likes of Peter Cook - he of a public school and Oxbridge breeding that seemed to lead naturally to the Foreign Office. He had a feline quality to his upper middle class grace. A handsomeness that leads people of all sexual orientations to lustful envy, and a wit that illuminated the West End, Broadway, Cambridge Footlights (all at roughly the same time) and 'time machine' dinner parties that included around the table at different points both McCartney and Mr. Fab Rapier himself, Lennon.
Cook disarmed with his Establishment etiquette and subverted with his scathing takes on key public figures, from masters of war to judge envious coal miners to serving Prime Ministers. Everyone was fair game, and they were in the case of Harold Macmillan, forced to sit and smile as they came into view. From this point on, no one was out of harm's way, and the modern British cynicism of those in power was born. A rug had been pulled, and so quick was it that for now everyone was left standing.
Cook executed his flights of slightly menacing fantasy with a delicate, feminine feline sneer. Fragile lips that curled around his teeth under the protection of a straight imperial nose. His top lip lured you in and cut to the quick as a smile lurked beneath, softening the blow. It was only a joke, but it took your arm off.
Perception of society permanently altered, it can be argued that Cook got all he had to do done by the time that The Beatles were releasing All I've Got To Do in 1963. So quickly, he did more than what he had to, and much more than what was expected. He was propelled into the limelight with a destiny, force and brilliance similar to those other men in slim tailored suits from three hundred miles north. He, like two of those others, proffered from a symbiotic give and take relationship with a partner who squeezed ambition and drive out of the other. Cook & Moore were probably the closest popular culture got to replicating the chemistry of the Lennon/McCartney partnership.
Cook's career is littered with brilliance, but as he ventured into acting and the dreaded world of the '70s chat show, his individualistic and un-pinpointable wit remained his best vehicle. His only car, but it was an Aston Martin DB5 with All He Could Do on the number plate.
A silhouette of a sloped nose, with thin lips leading to a devilish and unnerving mouth was also to be found in New York City in 1962, having burrowed its long way home from Minnesota. In a pinser movement in a cultural war, waged against the tide of form and function of normal societal behaviours, Bob Dylan was absorbing and subverting every damn idiom he could find, as Lennon was across the big blue. The means were similar, the ends too, the journey inverted.
Performing folk ballads with an electricity he'd ultimately harness in three years' time, a direct result of the to and fro between England's Beatles and America's Voice, he found a truth in old things that could be made anew with the power of his personality. Driving rhythms and an ugly/beautiful voice, Dylan found a way to harness similar traits to Lennon - wordplay, iconoclasm, acerbic wit, rebellion - into a solo career in a way that Lennon would have been unlikely to do. Perhaps Dylan had enough of Lennon & McCartney's qualities combined to achieve what neither would have been able to do alone, whilst remaining absolutely singular.
All I've Got To Do. All I Really Want To Do. Similar titles, nothing more? They do the same thing with different material.
All I've Got To Do is John channeling Smokey Robinson's Miracles or Arthur Alexander's plea through a Northern English filter. Irregular strumming rhythms, a deceptively complex time signature and an oddly chorded introduction marks this out as an early outlier of Lennon originality. Taking something familiar (to American not British ears), and making it something entirely other.
Ringo's steady loping swing and a darkly, lustful vocal make this a rarely covered Beatles' song for good reason - in anyone else's hands, its colour changes from shadow to light. Even the Beatles didn't play it live. This isn't just palatable R&B, this is blue and black and it's beautiful. It's dark and deftly harmless. Light and heavy. No mean feat, and not in part thanks to George Martin.
Weaving a purposefully darker mood, foretold by the daringly bleak cover of With The Beatles, All I've Got To Do and other Lennon cuts (You Really Got A Hold On Me) is John sneaking in sex, lust and a slight air of menace and possessiveness to an unsuspecting audience of young girls, boys and radio's cheeriest establishment pop-pickers. Lennon could do nothing but sneak in his naughty feelings through the back door and upstairs to his little bedroom while Mimi looked the other way, and he does it here and elsewhere during the early Beatles' career in broad daylight. All I've Got To Do indeed. Naughty boy.
All I Really Want To Do is Bob Dylan taking Pete Seager's hand and leading him to the axe to find it not plugged in. The American folk idiom of 1964 was earnest and traditionalist to the point of chin strap bearded dullardry. Melody and entertainment made way for storytelling and technical nous, and little else. Then came Dylan, with his irony and his horizontally harmonic dramatic interpretation. Taken from the 1964 Another Side of Bob Dylan album, a playlist of humour, sarcasm and pop songs wrapped up in the traditional uniform of acoustic guitar and sincerity, Bobby shifts the paradigm of a protest singer from political to personal. He even parodied this self later, lifting the melody and metre of Motopsycho Nightmare for the cod American biography of Bringing It All Back Home's Bob Dylan's 115th Dream. Surrealist political art meets proto-psychodelic rock. When you're onto subverting yourself, you're onto something other than folk.
Dylan believes every word of what he sings, he's just not singing what's expected of him and for now he gets away with it. At the Newport Folk Festival where iconic performances of Chimes of Freedom and Ballad in Plain D he was the darling of the scene, cheekily subverting expectations with breezy newness and originality. With All I Really Want To Do he takes a solemn ode to love and converts it to a yodelling, laughter punctuated paean of friendship (a la 'I'll buy you a diamond ring, my FRIEND').
The swift shift from political to personal is the rug pulled under foot party trick played on the resurgent but staid folk scene. Barely ever to be taken seriously ever again, the American folk movement suffered its own Peter Cook Harold Macmillan moment.
All He Could Do. All I Really Want To Do. All I've Got To Do. Conjoined by lips, noses and wits, and like the tongues that poked through, they split the 1960's wide open and blew a raspberry at all expectations laid bare.
They nose
All I've Got To Do
Alphabeaticles. Part 16: And Your Bird Can Sing.
Alphabeaticles. Part 15: And I Love Her
Alphabeaticles. Part 14: All You Need Is Love
Jamie's Books
jamieosborne@hotmail.com
©2019 by Jamie's Books & Screenplays. Proudly created with Wix.com


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Southwestern College Devore Stadium
Complicated earthwork and drainage challenges were no match for Team BBC on this project. How did we engineer a solution and earn LEED Gold?
LEED Gold
Green Building, Higher Education
Strategic Game Plan Delivers LEED Gold for Southwestern College
The $45.1 million Devore Stadium Improvement Project included a new Field House, new athletic fields, and a new central plant at Southwestern College. Designed and targeted to achieve LEED® Silver certification from the United States Green Building Council, the project team exceeded the College's expectations, delivering a LEED® Gold project.
The 64,000-square-foot, four-story field house encloses the campus-facing end zone. The state-of-the-art facility contains team locker and training facilities at the playing field-level, strength and conditioning facilities on the second level overlooking the field below, and four new classrooms. It also includes a 140-seat mixed media auditorium on the third level featuring views of the stadium and beyond, in addition to Health and Exercise Sciences department faculty offices, and tutorial spaces for student-athletes on the top floor. The architectural character of the field house reflects the Mayan-theme of the existing campus.
New synthetic turf was installed for both DeVore Stadium and the football practice fields, providing low-maintenance playing surfaces that require little water. The new 6,000-square-foot central plant is the foundation of the campus' sustainable design strategy. It contains two chillers, two cooling towers, four boilers and 13 pumps, providing high-efficiency cooling and heating for new and existing campus buildings.
One of the most notable challenges faced during construction arose during the earthwork phase of construction. Our team discovered a significant amount of ground water with a constant flow that completely saturated the soil.
Presented with this challenge, our team engineered a solution to suppress the water and divert it away from the building. We achieved this by implementing aggressive dewatering measures, and installing two additional drainage systems and an engineered building pad. Despite what turned out to be a six-month set-back, the water challenge was solved and the project still completed on time for the first football game of the season.
"The outstanding professionalism demonstrated by the Balfour Beatty team is one of the main reasons for the total success of the first major Proposition R project for Southwest Community College," said Steven L. Crow, Ed.D. Vice President of Business and Financial Affairs, Southwestern College. "Specifically, the team's exceptional construction management efforts led to LEED Gold certification and the timely resolution of a significant ground water drainage challenge during the height of construction. Both of these accomplishments speak volumes to what can be expected from professional construction managers."
As a testament the team's excellence, the project has won prestigious industry awards including:
"Project of the Year", Buildings New Construction" award winner from the Construction Management Association of America's (CMAA) San Diego Chapter
"Ribbons and Shovel", Green building design or improvements" award winner from the City of Chula Vista
"Outstanding Project", Sustainable Engineering Project" award winner from the American Society of Professional Estimator's (ASPE) San Diego Chapter
Balfour Beatty Construction Wins "Project of the Year" Award for ...
Balfour Beatty Construction has been honored by the Construction Management Association of America's San Diego Chapter with the "Project of the Year" award.
Southwestern College Wins ASCE Award
The American Society of Civil Engineers awarded the Southwestern College Field House and Football Fields with Outstanding Project in the Sustainable Engineering category.


Reducing the number of high potential incidents (HiPos) - which are incidents that could have resulted in a fatality or serious injury if circumstances had been slightly different - continues to be a safety priority.
Our HiPo rate fell from 0.021 in 2016 to 0.019 in 2017.
We record our safety performance KPIs based on the industry-wide Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rules. The key measures are shown below.
As extrapolated from figures published by the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers Safety Performance Indicators – 2017 data.


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Positive thinking: How Unmind helps employees manage their mental health
Kane Fulton, April 15, 2019 ⏱ 4 min read
Working as a Clinical Psychologist in the NHS for more than a decade, Nick Taylor, co-founder and CEO of B2B mental health platform Unmind, became interested in how organisations can benefit by helping their employees thrive.
Taylor had been promoted into a leadership role in a management team tasked with managing high levels of absenteeism and turnover while retaining talented workers and hiring new ones.
"I became quite fascinated by corporate wellness," he says. "It's a mutually beneficial scenario for an organisation to look after its people – employees benefit through having an environment to thrive, and the organisation benefits because they're firing on all cylinders."
Determined to implement a strategy that would allow the NHS to better support its workforce, Taylor sought a solution, in the process turning one room in his house into something that "resembled the notes scene in the film 'A Beautiful Mind'". It was then that his question unexpectedly changed.
"I'm not saying I had the lead character's mind, but my walls were plastered with Deloitte and Gallup reports that I'd printed off and scribbled on," he says. "I went from wondering how to help the NHS look after its workers to thinking why other organisations weren't doing the same thing."
Taylor formulated an "incredible business case" for a solution, and after scouring the landscape to make sure his idea was an original one, the clinician-turned-entrepreneur launched Unmind alongside three cofounders in 2016.
Based in central London, Unmind currently partners with enterprises with more than 1,000 employees, and counts Square Enix, John Lewis Partnership, William Hill and Made.com among its customers. Once partnered, an organisation's entire workforce gets 24/7 access to Unmind's tools, training and assessments which are available on mobile devices and desktop.
The company also works with partners to create bespoke content that uses language that Taylor says, "resonates with people in that organisation from a cultural perspective and helps lift a metaphorical fog that exists around mental health services".
The company's tools are clinically validated, meaning that users are assigned a unique profile score on an 'Unmind Index' that correlates with "gold standard" mental health assessments. Unmind determines where users are on a mental health spectrum and directs them to appropriate services – such has employer assistant programmes, private medical insurance or mental health advocates – if required.
Crucially, by offering digital support at the point of need, Taylor says that Unmind is able to help employees proactively. It also allowed the company to scale the product internationally and help more people while "keeping it affordable".
Proactive versus reactive
Unmind's proactive approach is its key differentiator and critical in helping people maintain positive mental health, explains its founder, who designed the platform to address three specific frustrations he encountered working in the NHS.
"As a therapist, every time I sat down with someone, I wished I'd met them months before and that shouldn't happen," he recalls. "The earlier you get to someone, the better the health outcomes and the less the person's going to suffer."
Taylor's second frustration lied in people not being able to access information especially helpful to people with conditions such as mild anxiety and depression. "Cognitive behavioural therapy, positive psychology or mindfulness isn't rocket science," he says. "People shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get it."
The women of Unmind
Taylor's final bugbear was a lack of focus on prevention. Unlike dental health, which uses positive messaging and promotes daily brushing by displaying photos of pearly white teeth on packaging, he criticises mental health for using negative language and "black and white images of people holding their heads in their hands".
"Mental health is incredibly cool and really amazing, and something we should nurture and love," he says. "That's where it belongs, and if we start talking about it in that language instead of focusing on mental ill-health then we will get people to engage in prevention."
In addition to using positive language, "talking about coping, calmness and happiness rather than stress, anxiety and depression", Unmind directs users to relevant learning and development content that can be taken in bite-sized chunks. Additionally, a social component lets users praise their co-workers for behaviours that have a positive impact on mental well-being.
"We know there are certain behaviours that are really good for mental well-being, so let's get people promoting it to one-another to get them more entrenched in organisational culture," says Taylor.
Breaking stigma
Instead of promising organisations specific measurable benefits like ROI or reduction of absenteeism, which are "incredibly difficult to prove", Taylor says that Unmind can help break stigma around mental health, which leads to positive outcomes.
"An employee that's feeling depressed might not tell their employer that – they might say they're taking a day off because they have a cold," he says. "However, if the organisation uses Unmind, that person may feel that it is enough of a safe space for them to state the real reason – that they're feeling depressed.
"It's about understanding that there are data outputs as a result of rolling out Unmind, but we're not going to promise X, Y and Z. Instead, we'll work with organisations as partners and understand what that data means to them."
Unmind recently raised £3 million investment from Felix Capital to improve the product, and Taylor says that he was "blown away" by the VC firm's support.
"The most important thing for us is that we can make a tangible difference to somebody's life around mental health," he says. That's what gets us out of bed in the morning – we're driven by that purpose – so we needed to ensure that any institutional investor who came onboard understands and supports us around that. We've always felt that with Felix and his team."
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Nine launches to help businesses sell product subscriptions in a few clicks
What can we learn from the application phase of the Lawtech Sandbox Pilot?
By Jenifer Swallow, January 5, 2021


April 5, 2019; Munich – As part of its on-going efforts to aid in efficiently on set, ARRI is announcing new successor products to its current range of Bottom Dovetail Plates and Studio Bridge Plates (SBP) with enhanced features. These new Pro Camera Accessories will establish new standards in versatility and improve the professional usability of ARRI and third-party cameras.
The new ARRI Bottom Dovetail Plates come in four different sizes (150 mm/6", 300 mm/12", 450 mm/18", and 600 mm/24") to best accommodate a variety of configurations. Made of aluminum alloy, all plates are weight-optimized to be both lightweight and robust. One release button at each end of the plate now allows for the camera to be easily slid onto or released from the plate at both its front and back end. A thread on each side offers additional security when needed and both stopper screws are stored safely in their parking position when not required. Each plate includes multiple ¼-20" and 3/8-16" mounting holes and attaches natively to O'Connor 2060, O'Connor 2575, O'Connor 120EX, and Sachtler Cine 30 fluid heads.
The shortest ARRI Bottom Dovetail Plate, 150 mm/6", is best suited for camera carts, car mounts, Steadicam, or any applications for which balancing is not necessary. The standard plate for all prime lenses where minimal balancing is required is the 300 mm/12". The 450 mm/18" plate fits perfectly with smaller and medium zoom lenses where a bit more balancing is required. Finally, the perfect solution when working with large and heavy zoom lenses where maximum balancing is required is the 600 mm/24" size plate. An additional rod support for stabilizing the rods in the front is available for either the 15 mm Studio or 19 mm Studio.
With the help of the Studio Bridge Plates, cameras can be adjusted on the Bottom Dovetail Plates for perfect balancing. The new SBP-1 comes in two sizes (SBP-1 15 mm and SBP-1 19 mm) to accommodate different rod sizes. Unlike other bridge plates, the SBP-1 can be attached from above at every position eliminating the need to slide it from the back or from the front; the SBP-1 automatically locks into the sliding position. Pushing the lever to the front locks the plate securely and an extra safety locking lever prevents the SBP-1's unintended release from the bottom plate. The ARRI 3/8-16" interface on the right side with holes for anti-twist pins offers the possibility to affix additional accessories. Attachment screws at the bottom of the SBP-1 are able to be adjusted by four different tools (HEX 4, HEX 5, HEX 5/32", and a flat-head screwdriver) provides flexibility. As with the previous models of ARRI's Studio Bridge Plates, the new SBP-1 is both lightweight and robust.
The Bottom Dovetail Plates and the SBP-1 will start shipping end of May, 2019. You can find full details of the accessories available for all ARRI cameras at www.arri.com.


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BGT winner Jon Courtenay set to return to Suffolk next month
Published: 12:13 PM October 15, 2020
Updated: 12:58 PM December 1, 2020
Jon Courtenay, who grew up in Ipswich and Martlesham Heath, won the Britain's Got Talent final. Picture: Dymond/Syco/Thames/ITV plc - Credit: Archant
Britain's Got Talent winner Jon Courtenay is returning to his home county for two gigs at Trinity Park next month just weeks after the eyes of the nation were on him in the final of the talent show.
Jon Courtenay is returning to Suffolk for two gigs in November. Picture: NIGEL SIMMONNDS - Credit: Archant
He will be headlining the two-day Halloween Country Show at the home of the Suffolk Show on November 6 and 7 – dates that were booked before he won the final of the TV competition.
MORE: Suffolk's Jon Courtenay wins Britain's Got Talent
Festival organiser Nigel Simmonds said he decided to contact Courtenay after reading that he originally came from Suffolk during the build-up to the semi-finals of the competition: "I went through his agent who came back to say he was very pleased to have a booking in his home area.
"After he won, I left it a couple of days and then checked again – and I was told he was really looking forward to the fact that one of his first shows since winning would be in his home area. We're thrilled that he's coming to us."
There are 200 seats available for each of the two performances – the audience will be sat at socially-distanced tables undercover and will have to wear masks while moving around. The whole site has been designated as Covid Secure for performances like this.
As well as Courtenay, the festival will include locally-based country acts from around the region.
Mr Simmonds said: "It seems that Jon is a fan of country music so he's really looking forward to joining us."
Tickets for the shows should be booked in advance, and Mr Simmonds is hoping that they will "go like hot cakes" now that it is known who will be topping the bill.
He said: "I'm afraid I don't have a website so people will have to just ring me up on the numbers that are on the leaflet – I hope that my phones will be red-hot!"
Although this will be Courtenay's first visit to Suffolk since winning the show, he will be returning next year when a show at the Ipswich Corn Exchange is included in a major national tour that was announced earlier this week.
MAIN: Jon Courtenay set to play Ipswich Corn Exchange
In winning the ITV show, the comedy singer won the top prize of £250,000 and a place on the bill for this year's Royal Variety Performance – and made a national name for himself that could be the springboard for a glittering career in showbusiness.
Ipswich Live News
Suffolk Live News


(c) more than half the employee's compensation for a representative period represents commissions on goods or services.
Note that the "regular rate of pay" language, referenced in the above federal test, applies on a workweek basis. This means that the average of compensation for two or more weeks does not satisfy this requirement.
If you have any questions about overtime or your rate of compensation in California, contact San Francisco employment lawyer Arkady Itkin to address your concerns about wages.


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Georgia early voting hits new record in Senate runoff
Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/georgia-early-voting-hits-new-record-senate-runoff
Source image: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/georgia-early-voting-hits-new-record-senate-runoff
Early voting in Georgia's runoff election is breaking records, with more absentee ballots returned and voted than in any midterm runoff ever.
Gabriel Sterling, the Georgia secretary of state's chief operating officer, tweeted Friday morning that the count was at 116,362.
"That's about 8% of turnout so far. And, they can still be returned up to 7 p.m. on election day at the County Elections HQ," he said.
Sterling also said in a Friday tweet that "I imagine we've already eclipsed 2018 voting."
HERSCHEL WALKER SAYS GEORGIA'S RECORD SENATE RUNOFF VOTER TURNOUT 'LOOKS GOOD FOR ME'
Signs that encourage people to vote are seen outside a polling station on Nov. 29, 2022, in Atlanta.
(Alex Wong/Getty Images)
On Thursday night, he said the state had seen 293,795 voters that day, meaning it would "likely break 1.8 million before the Tuesday election."
"To put that in perspective, the last midterm runoff had less than 1.5 million votes total in the four-week runoff in 2018," Sterling added.
More than a quarter million voters turned out on Monday for the race.
Residents wait in line to vote early outside a polling station on Nov. 29, 2022, in Atlanta.
About 7 million people are listed as active voters in Georgia, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's Georgia Active Voters Report.
Early voting concludes on Friday and election day is set for Dec. 6.
OBAMA TAKES AIM AT WALKER AS HE RALLIES WITH WARNOCK AHEAD OF GEORGIA SENATE RUNOFF ELECTION
Former President Obama campaigns with Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., at a rally Dec. 1, 2022, in Atlanta.
(Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The contest, which The Wall Street Journal notes is one of the most expensive in congressional history, could help raise the Democrats' Senate majority by one, should Warnock best Republican challenger Herschel Walker.
The candidates have garnered support from some of their parties' heaviest hitters.
Former President Obama stumped for Warnock in Atlanta on Thursday – his second trip to the Peach State in just over a month.
Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker speaks during a campaign rally on Dec. 1, 2022, in Columbus, Georgia.
President Biden is poised to support Warnock from afar, with appearances in Boston.
Walker, who has campaigned with Sens. Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, said earlier this week that he believes the record turnout looks "good" for his bid.
"I think the people that are coming out from what I hear and see, it's going to be a good thing for us," he told Fox News.
Former President Trump will hold a tele-rally with Walker ahead Tuesday's runoff, Republican sources confirmed to Fox News. However, the former president will not travel to the Peach State to hold an in-person rally with Walker.
Fox News' Danielle Wallace, Paul Steinhauser and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Julia Musto is a reporter for Fox News and Fox Business Digital.
Biden admin education panel stacked with critical race theory-supporting activists, GOP senators say
Warnock supporters divided on whether Biden should seek a second term in 2024: 'Time for someone new'
Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/west-virginia-house-passes-bill-expanding-advocates-authority
West Virginia's House of Delegates unanimously passed a bill Wednesday to expand the authority of the state foster care advocate to investigate allegations of abuse and neglect.
Before the 100-member House voted in unison in favor, Deputy House Speaker Republican Matthew Rohrbach said the bill is "really going to help to make this system accountable, which I think is something that everybody in here wants."
Foster Care Ombudsman Pamela Woodman-Kaehler's office is located within the Department of Health and Human Resources' Office of Inspector General. But she works independently as an advocate for foster children and parents, investigating complaints and collecting data about the state's foster care system.
Her position was created in 2019 when the number of children under state foster care had swelled to about 6,900, up more than 60% from 2015, as the state continued to be ravaged by the national opioid crisis.
WEST VIRGINIA ADVANCES PUBLIC SCHOOL MANDATE ON 'IN GOD WE TRUST'
She is a former child protective services worker in Harrison County and was the state coordinator for a federally-mandated review panel of the state's Bureau of Children and Families.
The bill advanced to the Senate Wednesday specifies that Woodman-Kaehler's office has the authority to investigate deaths, abuse and neglect involving children in the juvenile justice system.
The West Virginia House OKs a bill expanding the states foster care advocates authority. This bill will investigate abuse and neglect allegations.
The bill also would protect the identities of people providing confidential information during investigations, prohibiting the ombudsman and her staff from being required to disclose information about investigations or identify informants in judicial or administrative proceedings. It makes all memoranda, work product, notes and case files developed and maintained as part of an official investigation confidential, and not subject to discovery, subpoena or other means of legal compulsion.
Woodman-Kaehler told a House Health and Human Resources Committee meeting that the bill would help build trust between her and people reporting abuse and neglect, and encourage more people to come forward with information during sensitive investigations.
"This frees up the ombudsman to give them much more control," Rohrbach said Wednesday.
Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/indiana-gov-holcombs-public-health-expansion-passes-legislative-panel
The Indiana governor's proposal for a broad expansion of county-level public health programs won its first endorsement from state legislators on Wednesday.
The state Senate's health committee voted 12-0 in support of a bill laying out the responsibilities that local health departments would have if county officials accept a major increase in state funding being sought by Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb.
State Health Commissioner Dr. Kristina Box, several medical organizations and business groups urged lawmakers to support the plan, pointing to Indiana's poor national rankings in areas such as smoking, obesity and life expectancy.
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION EXTENDS COVID-19 PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY YET AGAIN
The governor's plan would direct $100 million in the next state budget year and $200 million in the following year toward boosting Indiana's county public health department funding from its 45th-place national ranking. The state now directs about $7 million a year to county health departments, which are primarily funded by local taxes.
While county officials would have the option of accepting the money and expanding services, some opponents with grievances over government-ordered COVID-19 precautions told the committee they feared the plan would result in the state health department gaining more authority.
The bill approved by the committee would establish "core public health services" to be provide by county departments. Those would include access to required childhood vaccinations, emergency preparedness, restaurant and sewage system inspections, communicable disease prevention and smoking cessation programs.
Indiana State Health Commissioner Dr. Kristina Box speaks alongside Gov. Eric Holcomb on the proposed expansion of the state's public health infrastructure
(AP Photo /Tom Davies)
A commission appointed by Holcomb found that all but about six of Indiana's 92 counties are spending less than half the national median per person on public health efforts.
"Where you live in Indiana currently determines whether your local health department can provide you the full range of public health services," Box told the committee.
Leaders of the Republican-dominated Legislature have generally supported Holcomb's proposal but have not committed to granting his full funding request. Lawmakers might not make that decision until a new state budget plan is completed in April.
Statewide organizations representing county officials told the committee Wednesday they believed local leaders would keep control by deciding whether to opt into the expansion program or maintain state funding levels.
Some county leaders, however, said they believed the expansion would eventually lead to state control of local health departments.
INDIANA AG FIGHTS COVID-19 MISINFORMATION, POINTS FINGER AT GOVERNMENT HEALTH AGENCIES
"I would prefer the state to provide grants on a topic-by-topic basis with local control on whether to accept the grant or not and how we handle that guidance, not mandates, from the state after the COVID destructive mandates," said Brad Rogers, a Republican county commissioner from northern Indiana's Elkhart County.
Senators cited concerns about long-term health problems across the state, while plan opponents who spoke focused on issues such as complaints over federal approval of COVID-19 vaccines and Holcomb's executive orders early in the pandemic for business closures and a face mask mandate. One opponent argued the plan would lead to what he called more government "tyranny."
Similar grievances were aired to Indiana lawmakers as they debated a proposal last year that failed to win passage aiming to severely limit the COVID-19 vaccine requirements that businesses could impose on employees.
"We have high infant mortality rates," Republican Sen. Vaneta Becker of Evansville said as she voted in favor of the health plan Wednesday. "We have high obesity, lots of health issues in the state that need to be addressed."
Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/president-bidens-physical-delayed-travel-schedule-white-house-says
President Biden will receive a physical examination on Feb. 16 after weeks of delays that a spokesperson attributed to a "busy and evolving travel schedule in recent weeks."
Biden, the oldest president in history, is expected to announce his bid for re-election in the coming weeks. He would be 86-years-old by the end of his second term.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced a series of questions on Biden's physical in the new year and promised a shared report by the end of January.
BIDEN GRABS NBC REPORTER'S HAND AS HE STEPS UNDERNEATH HER UMBRELLA TO ANSWER HER QUESTION
President Biden will receive a physical on Feb. 16 after broken promises from the White House to have one conducted by the end of the past two months.
(Screenshot/Twitter)
"He will have one before the — by the time the end of this month is out," Jean-Pierre said in January. "We will share the information. We will have more to share about that before the month is over."
This followed a promise from Biden himself in November to have a physical conducted by the end of December.
"I've gotten my — I will get — part of my physical is already done, and I'll be getting it before the end of the year," Biden said.
BIDEN'S FINAL WEEK OF CAMPAIGNING PLAGUED WITH GAFFES: 'WHAT'S HIS NAME?'
The White House said President Biden's delayed physical is due to his busy travel schedule.
While the White House said the delay is due to his travel schedule in January, Biden spent time at his Delaware properties every weekend that month — 13 days in total. Other travel included Mexico for a summit, then trips to Kentucky, Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, California and New York to tout his policy agenda.
BIDEN DAILY GAFFE AVERAGE: THE PRESIDENT IS BATTING NEARLY A THOUSAND
President Biden last had a physical in November 2021.
(Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Speculations on Biden's health follow the delayed physical, consistent mental gaffes and an eight-hour stay at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in January as first lady Jill Biden had two cancerous skin lesions removed. The president's last physical was reported in November 2021 and detailed his prescriptions for high blood pressure and blood thinner treatments.
Patrick Hauf is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.
Business27 mins ago
Politics27 mins ago


Thanks for stopping in–Welcome to my digital hub for thoughts, leadership and topic discussions.
The formal intro: I'm a high-performing, innovative, outcome-oriented leader with experience leading organizations in established and start-up environments. A proven leader with a track record of delivering measurable business results through calculated strategy and effective business process implantation in key business areas: marketing, product, operations and sales.
The NOT so formal intro: I'm a Colorado native and make sure to enjoy the 300+ days of sunshine with my family–The time I spent working in NYC was great for my early self but as I've grown into what makes my heart happy, I wouldn't trade my CO lifestyle for anything (well……not for most things at least). I love the mix of technology, entrepreneurial spirit and growth that I've found thrives in CO–just a few of the many reasons I love to call this wonderful state, and plentiful life I live, home!
I subscribe to a few key success factors that you will see as themes within my blogs–Success breeds freedom and success happens when hard work and preparation meet opportunity. The best leaders surround themselves by high performing teams that push the envelope and are committed to the same outcome!
I manage a cutting edge digital agency with a team of driven sales, product, design and fulfillment specialists! My day to day role gives me a unique perspective on the digital industry, traditional media platforms, and managing in a workforce that bridges generations!
Preach on preacher……Read on reader!


Before this weekend, I didn't know about Charlie Louvin, or the Louvin Brothers. But I should have.
I have to give many thanks to WKCR (89.9 FM in NYC), the Columbia radio station, for preempting their regular programming on Saturday, Jan. 29, to celebrate the life and work of Charlie Louvin, who died on Jan. 26. WKCR filled six commercial-free hours with the sublime sounds of Charlie and his brother Ira, who died in a car accident back in 1965.
The Louvin Brothers are country legends. Their style of close harmony, as the sub-genre came to be known, with Charlie's tenor as the bottom voice, and Ira's amazingly high tenor as the top, was absolutely entrancing to me this Saturday, first in my car, then in my apartment. And Charlie's guitar-playing and Ira's mandolin-playing are excellent.
I should mention that Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion, which I had watched for the first time a few days prior, really grabbed my ear and had it wanting to hear more American, country-tinged, Protestant church-inspired music. The scene where Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin sing "Goodbye to My Mama," and the melody shifts, mid-song, to that of "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," was such a beautiful moment, that I cracked an old hymnal from my family's Methodist church and flipped to "When I Survey" so I could play in on the piano.
I'm really glad I was introduced to the Louvin Brothers' amazing repertoire of country gospel, and, later in their career, more pop-oriented songs, and I hope you enjoy it too.
This entry was posted in RIP and tagged Charlie Louvin, Louvin Brothers. Bookmark the permalink.
Wow, what a great sound. "Satan is Real" should be featured in any and all film adaptations of Flannery O'Connor stories. Thanks for sharing.


The selling bias prevails around the European currency on Wednesday and is now motivating EUR/USD to extend the sideline theme in the low-1.1700s.
The pair is down for the second day in a row, extending the rejection from Monday's tops in the boundaries of 1.1800 the figure against the backdrop of increasing concerns over the US-China trade war.
In fact, the risk aversion sentiment re-emerged among traders after the US threatened to impose an extra $200 billion tariffs on Chinese products and the subsequent retaliatory answer by China, all rendering in moderate losses in Asian markets earlier today.
Looking ahead, ECB's M.Draghi, Y.Mersch, P.Praet and D.Nouy are due to speak in an ECB event, whereas June's Producer Prices and the weekly report by the EIA are only due across the pond.


Before the rainbow flag travelled up the pole to mark the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT) on May 17, Councillor Gord Perks reminded the crowd that there will always be a need for the support of PFLAG.
For the second year in a row, Perks read the City of Toronto proclamation at city hall. Councillors Kristyn Wong-Tam, Paula Fletcher, Pam McConnell, Joe Mihevc, Adam Vaughan, Sarah Doucette and Janet Davis stood on either side, some holding a rainbow flag.
Mayor Rob Ford did not attend. He also skipped the Proud of Toronto IDAHOT rally on May 16.


The 2007 convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod mandated a Task Force on Synodical Harmony appointed by the Board of Directors and Council of Presidents. After more than three years of work, this task force has issued a final report with a number of possible strategies.
We pray the blessing of God as we bear "with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. 4:2b-3).
Learn more about "Witness, Mercy, Life Together."
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