text:
AFRICA THE MOTHER LAND
Discover Eastern Africa
East Africa is a region that begins in Tanzania in the south and extends north through the great grasslands and scrub forest of the savannas of Kenya and Uganda and then across the highlands of Ethiopia, including the Great Rift Valley. The region also comprises the countries of Somalia, Djibouti, and Eritrea, which are located in the African Transition Zone between North Africa and Subsahran Africa. Rwanda and Burundi are physically in East Africa but are covered in the lesson about Central Africa because of their border activities with the Congo.
The world's second-largest lake by surface area is Lake Victoria, which borders Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya. (Lake Superior, on the border between the United States and Canada, is considered the lake with the largest surface area.) Lake Victoria provides fish and fresh water for millions of people in the surrounding region. The White Nile starts at Lake Victoria and flows north to the city of Khartoum in Sudan, where it converges with the Blue Nile to become the Nile River. The source of the Blue Nile is Lake Tana in the highlands of Ethiopia.
Rainfall in East Africa is influenced by El Niño events, which tend to increase rainfall except in the northern and western parts of the Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands, where they produce drought and poor Nile floods. Temperatures in East Africa, except on the hot and generally humid coastal belt, are moderate, with maxima of around 25 °C (77 °F) and minima of 15 °C (59 °F) at an altitude of 1,500 metres (4,921 ft). At altitudes of above 2,500 metres (8,202 ft), frosts are common during the dry season and maxima typically about 21 °C (70 °F) or less.
The unique geography and apparent suitability for farming made East Africa a target for European exploration, exploitation and colonialization in the nineteenth century. Today, tourism is an important part of the economies of Kenya, Tanzania, Seychelles, and Uganda. The easternmost point of the continent, that is Ras Hafun in Somalia, is of archaeological, historical and economical importance
East Africa is the area where anatomically modern humans first appeared. There are differing theories on whether there was a single exodus or several; a multiple dispersal model involves the Southern Dispersal theory. A growing number of researchers suspect that North Africa was instead the original home of the modern humans who first trekked out of the continent. Most multiregionalists view Africa as a major wellspring of human genetic diversity, but allow a much greater role for hybridization.
Some of the earliest hominin skeletal remains have been found in the wider region, including fossils discovered in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia, as well as in the Koobi Fora in Kenya and Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.
The southern part of East Africa was occupied until recent times by Khoisan hunter-gatherers, whereas in the Ethiopian Highlands the donkey and such crop plants as teff allowed the beginning of agriculture around 7,000 B.C.
Lowland barriers and diseases carried by the tsetse fly, however, prevented the donkey and agriculture from spreading southwards. Only in quite recent times has agriculture spread to the more humid regions south of the equator, through the spread of cattle, sheep and crops such as millet. Language distributions suggest that this most likely occurred from Sudan into the African Great Lakes region, since the Nilotic languages spoken by these pre-Bantu farmers have their closest relatives in the middle Nile basin.
Discover Western Africa
Côte_dIvoire
Sierra-Leone
Cape-Verde
Sao-Tome-and-Principe
The 8 million square kilometers and 17 countries covered by this atlas encompass a wide range of landscapes from alluvial valleys in Senegal and Ghana, sandy plains and low plateaus across the Sahel, and rolling hills of Togo to rugged mountains with summits reaching over 1,500 m in Guinea and 1,800 m in Niger. Covering approximately one quarter of Africa, West Africa contains a broad range of ecosystems, bioclimatic regions, and habitats from rain forest to desert.
West Africa can be divided internally through its natural features. Geology, relief, climate, vegetation, soils, and the responses of people to the patterns of its biophysical resources through human land uses all tend to be arranged along east-west belts. West Africa is remarkable for its geological variety. Like most of Africa, the region is largely composed of ancient Precambrian rocks (at least 541 million years old; the oldest rocks may be about 3 billion years old), which have been folded and fractured over hundreds of millions of years.
For most of West Africa, continental conditions have existed since the Eocene or Oligocene, that is, since the last 23 to 34 million years. Most of West Africa's mountain massifs and highlands, such as the Aïr Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Adrar des Ifoghas, and the Fouta Djallon, originated as Precambrian folds (Church, 1966). Much later, volcanic activity in many of these highlands deposited additional layers of igneous rock. Volcanic outpourings have occurred throughout West Africa's geologic history, with major activity as recent as the Pliocene (2.5 to 3.6 million years ago), and even more recent activity in the Aïr and Tibesti Mountains.
Relief on its own is not the source of great regional diversity in West Africa. For the most part, West Africa is relatively flat and low, which sets it apart from the other major regions of Africa. Several major rivers, including the Niger, West Africa's longest river originate in the Guinea Highlands, where rainfall is heavy. Other major rivers rise from Guinea's Fouta Djallon, including the Gambia and Senegal. The Senegal River drains a major basin, the third largest in West Africa after the Niger Basin and the Lake Chad Basin.
Many separate basins are defined by smaller rivers that drain the land between the Atlantic Ocean and the basins of the Senegal and Niger Rivers. Ghana constructed the Akosombo Dam (completed in 1965) in a gorge where the Volta cuts through the Akwapim–Togo Range, creating the world's largest artificial lake, Lake Volta.
Most of West Africa, from the southern Sahara to the humid coastal countries, has only one rainy season, which lasts from one to six months. The area of two rainy seasons, a long one and a shorter one, is limited to the southern portions of the coastal countries from Liberia to Nigeria. In the summer the high pressure area is replaced by a depression, bringing warm, moist winds in from the Atlantic in the southwest.
Generally, the dry season lengthens and annual rainfall decreases with increasing latitude. Conversely, in the southern latitudes, rainfall increases and the dry season shortens, often to just four months (December to March). Maximum temperatures and temperature ranges also increase with latitude. In the humid south, temperatures vary little, whereas in the arid north one temperatures range from 0˚C to more than 45˚C .
Discover Southern Africa
Geographically, South Africa is defined through a series of plateaus that stretch across the nations of South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and the central portion of Angola. Within the plateaus, a wide variety of notable ecoregions exist, ranging from the grasslands in southern Zimbabwe to the vast Kalahari Desert. The Kalahari desert is featured in the South African plateau, and eventually rises to become the Great Escarpment. The area is defined by the sharp line of the Great Escarpment, which continues almost unbroken from the Zambezi River to Angola. Another notable mountain range in the region is the Drakensberg Range. This range boasts the highest point in Southern Africa, found at Mount Ntlenyana in Lesotho.
Southern Africa was the home to Homo erectus, an early hominid species with upright posture and hands and teeth resembling modern humans, according to the archaeological teams that have canvassed the region looking for evidence of early life. While many people believe that Homo erectus was a vital link in the evolution of humankind, the connection between H. erectus and modern–day humans is still disputed by a minority of scientists. While followers of the theory of evolution point to the find as a huge step in discovering the human past, there are some creationists who do not choose to believe that humans underwent a process of evolution.
Southern Africa hosts a wide variety of wildlife, although the animal population varies depending on the location within the region. In the semiarid plateaus which cover most of the region, Southern Africa exhibits much of the big game wildlife seen in the northeastern portions of the African continent, in particular antelopes, gazelles, zebras, elephants, and the big cats. Coastal areas of Southern Africa do not host the same varieties of big game that can survive on the plateaus.
The interior of Southern Africa consists of a series of undulating plateaus that cover most of South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana and extend into central Angola. Contiguous with this are uplands in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Coastal mountains and escarpments, flanking the high ground, are found in northern Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia, Angola, and along the Mozambique-Zimbabwe border. Coastal plains abut the Indian Ocean in Mozambique and the Atlantic in Angola and Namibia.
The Kalahari desert forms the central depression of the Southern African plateau. Its elevation rises to the Great Escarpment, which flanks the plateau in an almost unbroken line from the Zambezi River to Angola. Southern Zimbabwe and much of South Africa are within a region of scrublands and grasslands known as the veld. To the southeast of the veld is the Drakensberg range, which includes the region's highest peak—Lesotho's Mount Ntlenyana, at 11,424 feet (3,482 metres). In Namibia the coastal margin includes the extremely dry Namib desert, which, in the south, merges eastward into the great sandy expanse of the Kalahari.
Southern African climates are seasonal, ranging from arid to semiarid and from temperate to tropical. The seasonality is an important control on plant growth and a regulator of river flows. Droughts are common in much of the region. Four main types of vegetation are found: savanna woodlands (known as miombo forest) in the north, a series of dry woodlands to the south of these, arid and semiarid grassland, scrubland, and bushland in the Namib and Kalahari deserts and their environs, and Mediterranean vegetation along the southern coast.
In terms of natural resources, the region has the world's largest sources of platinum and the elements chromium, vanadium, and cobalt. The region also boasts uranium, gold, titanium, iron deposits, and diamonds.
Discover Northern Africa
The history of North Africa comes to the fore in both particular ingredients and dishes that are shared by most Maghrebi as well as in regional differentiation between specific dishes and ingredients. Islamization in the seventh century can, of course, be recognized in the prohibition of pork or wine, although flourishing vineyards can be found throughout North Africa. Arab influences that accompanied early Islamization, such as the consumption of rice, native east African vegetables such okra and mlûkhîa Jew's mellow and the use of fliyu and mint in meat and vegetable dishes, are more pronounced in east Algeria and Tunisia than in regions further removed from the Levant, such as western Algeria and Morocco. All three countries have adopted the Arab preservation technique of drying meat, called gedîd, in which salt and spices are rubbed into the meat, which is then left to dry in the sun.
The distinction between North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa is historically and ecologically significant because of the general barrier created by the Sahara Desert for much of modern history. The Sahara is the dominant feature of the North African landscape, and stretches across the southern part of the region. The Sahara serves as a geographical boundary between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa and marks a transition zone from the largely Arab identifying population of North Africa to black Africa of the south.
The Sahara desert has therefore played an important role in the history of North Africa. As the seafaring civilizations of the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and others facilitated communication and migration across the Mediterranean Sea, the cultures of North Africa became much more closely tied to Southwestern Asia and Europe than Sub-Saharan Africa. The Islamic influence in the area is also significant, and North Africa is a major part of the Muslim world.
The mountains have been of the utmost importance in the historical development of the area. They run generally from east to west, parallel to the Mediterranean coast, with their highest elevations in the Atlas ranges. They are not continuous but constitute separate blocks, especially in the coastal areas. Although it was in the mountains that precipitation was highest, the forest there was intractable, and early settlements tended to choose the plains and valleys between or south of the mountains.
The Mediterranean coast—separated from Europe by only 8 miles (13 km) at the Strait of Gibraltar—is extremely inhospitable for much of its length, offering few natural harbours and still fewer natural lines of communication into the interior. Even the major rivers, such as the Majardah (Medjerda) and the Chelif, are unnavigable. Only in northeastern Tunisia is the coastline more favourable, and the main movement of culture and conquest has naturally been from there westward.
North Africa has three main geographic features: the Sahara desert in the south, the Atlas Mountains in the west, and the Nile River and delta in the east. The Atlas Mountains extend across much of northern Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. These mountains are part of the fold mountain system that also runs through much of Southern Europe. They recede to the south and east, becoming a steppe landscape before meeting the Sahara desert, which covers more than 75 percent of the region. The tallest peaks are in the High Atlas range in south-central Morocco, which has many snowcapped peaks. The coastal strip in the area of Tripoli (Ṭarābulus) in western Libya is an extension of Tunisia's coastal plain. To the east some 800 miles (1,300 km) of the Surt Desert separates it from Cyrenaica at the eastern end of modern Libya. Settlement there was effectively confined to the Akhḍar Mountains and did not extend more than about 70 miles (110 km) south of the coast.
Discover Central Africa
Sao Tome Principe
Central Africa, located along the equator, consists primarily of wide plateaus that are smooth in the central areas and more rough along the exterior of the region. The plateaus in the region exhibit a huge range in altitude, reaching up to 16,795 feet at Margherita Peak (the highest point in Central Africa) and descending into the ground in deep and narrow gorges near the Kouilou and Congo. Most of the terrain in Central Africa was shaped by climactic forces prior to human occupation. Ancient Glaciers also played a role in shaping the Central African geography, and cut the the Rift Valley into terrain on the border of the Congo.
Climatically the region is marked by hot and wet temperatures on both sides of the equator. Almost 400,000 square feet of forest line the equator, and three different types of forest are found in Central Africa. The forests are bordered by a band of semi-arid savannah terrain that is speculated to have been created by slash and burn farming techniques.
One of Central Africa's most famous national parks, Virunga National Park, exists within the borders of Congo. It is home to an unique assortment of native wildlife, including elephants, lions, hippopotamuses, warthogs, forest hogs, okapis, and mountain gorillas on the volcano slopes of the reserve. The Virunga National Park, however, is only one of many of the reserves found in Central Africa. Another notable national park is the Kahuzi-Biega National Park, which is famous for its mountain gorillas.
The landscapes of Central Africa are most often wide plateaus, which are smooth in the central part and etched at the periphery. The interior basin of the Congo River is joined to the Atlantic Ocean by a narrow neck traversing ridges parallel to the coast. The basin contains some marshlands in the region where the Congo, Ubangi, Likouala, and Sangha rivers converge and where Lakes Mai-Ndombe and Tumba are found. Its major part, however, consists of drier surfaces.
Higher plateaus, which extend through older sedimentary strata around the centre of the Congo basin, reach an elevation of 2,600 to 3,000 feet north of Brazzaville and exceed 3,000 feet near the Angolan border to the south. The landscape beyond the divide descends by steps toward Lake Chad. Southwest and south of the Chaillu Massif (3,000–3,300 feet in Gabon and Congo (Brazzaville) are ridges, traversed through deep and narrow gorges by the Kouilou and Congo.
The most rugged terrain lies on the eastern fringe of the Congo basin. North of Lake Kivu and of Rwanda, the Virunga volcanoes form an east-west–trending range. The highest point in Central Africa, Margherita Peak (16,795 feet), whose summit bears residual features of glaciation, is located on the eastern fringe of the Rift Valley on the border of Congo (Kinshasa) and Uganda.
The Congo River basin is second only to that of the Amazon in rate of flow. In the central part of the basin, the fan of quiet rivers constitutes one of the most attractive networks of navigable waters in the world, but this network is cut off from the Atlantic by a succession of rapids in western Congo (Kinshasa) between Kinshasa and Matadi. Downstream from Matadi the river becomes navigable again before entering its estuary. The rivers of the western region are navigable for only a few miles from their estuaries, though the Ogooué, in Gabon, which lies in a wider sedimentary coastal basin, is navigable for more than 100 miles.
Equatorial Central Africa is covered by an evergreen forest with an area of almost 400,000 square miles. This rainforest—an exuberant world of high trees, rich in epiphytes and lianas—takes three main forms: permanently wet marshy forests at the confluence of the Ubangi and Congo rivers; gallery forests, which are subject to periodic flooding, along banks and river floodplains; and, most extensive, forests of dry land, either featuring a single dominant species or, more often, harbouring a variety of species.
AllAfrica News: East Africa
Kenya: Risky Boat Rides to School for Baringo Learners As Lake Water Floods Roads January 19, 2021
[Nation] For learners at Loruk Primary and Loruk Secondary schools in Baringo County, it is a gamble between risking lives to get education or missing school altogether.
Kenya: We've No 'Idle' Cash to Spend, Say Governors January 19, 2021
[Nation] Governors have termed as dishonest a proposal by the National Treasury that counties turn to idle cash in their accounts to run services in the devolved units, saying there are no such funds.
Kenya: I'm Running for President Next Year, Declares Wa Iria January 19, 2021
[Nation] Murang'a Governor Mwangi wa Iria has said he will not abandon his quest to vie for president next year.
Kenya: Covid-19 Robs Kenya of Top Medical Brains January 19, 2021
[Nation] The Covid-19 scourge has robbed Kenya of big medical brains, with reports indicating several top specialists are currently battling for their lives at various health facilities.
Kenya: 2 Police Officers and a Cashier Arrested Over Daring Robbery at Prime Bank January 19, 2021
[Capital FM] Nairobi -- Two police officers and a Cashier have been arrested over Monday's daring robbery at Prime Bank's Mombasa Road branch.
AllAfrica News: West Africa
Rwanda/Uganda: 2020 CHAN - Rwanda, Uganda Settle for Goalless Draw, as Morocco Beat Togo January 19, 2021
[New Times] Rwanda and Uganda played to a goalless draw in their first game of Group C in the ongoing Total African Nations Championship (CHAN) on Monday, January 18 at Stade de la Reunification in Douala.
Nigeria: Covid-19 Vaccine Expected, but More Awareness Needed Up North January 19, 2021
[RFI] The number of coronavirus cases continues to rise in Nigeria as the national Centre for Disease and Control says more than 100,000 people have been infected, with Lagos, the economic capital, a hotspot.
Gambia: Gambia Intensifies Search for Suspected Cocaine Trafficker January 18, 2021
[The Point] The Gambia government has announced it has intensified the search for Banta Keita, the suspected cocaine trafficker, with an International Bench Warrant as Interpol issues Red Notice following the seizure of large quantities of cocaine weighing almost three (3) tons, valued at more than four (4) billion dalasis at the Banjul seaport on […]
Gambia: IMF Approves Us$28.8m for Gambia January 18, 2021
Gambia: Covid-19 - Gambia Registers 13 New Cases January 18, 2021
[The Point] The Gambia has registered 13 new positive coronavirus cases, bringing the total cases ever confirmed since March 2020 to 3,910.
AllAfrica News: South Africa
Taxis for Women - Putting the Brakes On Crime in South African City January 19, 2021
Their Mother Died in 2018. Since Then This Family of Five Has Survived On Child Support Grants January 18, 2021
[GroundUp] A young woman from Mpumalanga has been caring for her three younger siblings as well as her son since their mother died in 2018.
Covid-19 - This Second Wave Is Relentless, Say Paramedics January 18, 2021
[GroundUp] Covid-19 call-outs have replaced call-outs to trauma victims, say Cape Town paramedics interviewed by GroundUp.
Community Assistance Needed in Identifying Deceased Persons - Port Elizabeth January 18, 2021
[SAPS] Detectives in Nelson Mandela Bay District are appealing to the community to assist them in identifying and tracing the next of kin of three bodies found in separate incidents over the weekend and this morning.
KZN Government Tackles 'Demonic' Covid Agenda, 'Virus-Spreading' 5G and Arrival of Vaccine January 18, 2021
[Daily Maverick] The growing spread of disinformation surrounding alleged links between Covid-19 and the rollout of the 5G in South Africa is becoming a persistent headache for government and cellular network providers, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal.
AllAfrica News: North Africa
Angola: Angola, Algeria Reiterate Commitment to Fight Against Terrorism January 18, 2021
[ANGOP] Luanda -- Angola and Algeria reiterated Thursday in Luanda determination in fighting terrorism, after the countries voiced concern about the hotspots and instability in their sub-regions.
Algeria: Angolan President Gets Message From Algerian Counterpart January 18, 2021
[ANGOP] Luanda -- Angolan head of State João Lourenço received Thursday a message from his Algerian counterpart, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, as part of strengthening of bilateral cooperation.
Tunisia: Youths Clash With Police Over Economic Woes January 18, 2021
[DW] Tunis and at least five other Tunisian cities saw violent demonstrations linked to the 10-year anniversary of the Jasmine Revolution that ousted the country's longtime ruler.
Tunisia: Looted Assets in Switzerland - Civil Society Calls On President Saied to Request Extension of Freezing Measures January 17, 2021
[Tunis Afrique Presse] Tunis/Tunisia -- Civil society organisations have revealed that the value of the funds of the family of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Switzerland affected by the lifting of the freezing measure is estimated at 320 MD.
Tunisia: Covid-19 - 8 Deaths in Gabès and 75 More Infections Reported in Tozeur January 17, 2021
[Tunis Afrique Presse] Tunis/Tunisia -- Eight additional deaths due to coronavirus were recorded in the last 24 hours in Gabes, said Coordinator of the Health Monitoring Unit at the Regional Health Directorate Hassine Jabrane.
Centeral Africa
AllAfrica News: Ethiopia
Kenya, Ethiopia Won't Fight Because of Community Disputes - Administrators January 18, 2021
[Nation] Kenya and Ethiopia have vowed not to be drawn into waging war against by the longstanding disputes related to ethnic antagonism between the Gabbra and Borana communities.
South Sudan 'Ready to Mediate Between Sudan, Ethiopia' to End Border Conflict January 18, 2021
[East African] South Sudan's President Salva Kiir has expressed readiness to mediate between Sudan and Ethiopia to end their border conflict, said Sudan's Sovereign Council on Thursday.
Trump Sends African Asylum Seekers to Kenya in Night Flight January 18, 2021
[Nation] The Trump administration is continuing to deport African asylum seekers in its last few days before the inauguration of Joe Biden, who has promised a 100-day suspension of deportations, amid allegations of abuse of detainees, insufficient legal protections and inadequate precautions against Covid infection.
Gondar, Camelot of Ethiopian Epiphany Ready for Extraordinary 'Timket' Festivity January 17, 2021
[ENA] Addis Ababa -- Gondar, the ancient historical city and considered as the Camelot of Ethiopian epiphany (Timket), has finalized its preparation of the carnival that will be celebrated on Tuesday, announced the city administration.
Victims of Metekel Attacks Buried in Mass Graves - Taskforce Announces Curfew January 16, 2021
[Addis Standard] Addis Ababa -- Following the latest attack in Metekel zone of Benishangul Gumuz regional state in which several dozens of people were killed, a mass funeral was held on January 13 afternoon with the support from members of the National Defense Forces who are part of the special task force assigned by Prime […]
Maintaining the status quo, playing the victim card: How border dispute defining Ethiopia, Sudan The Ethiopian Herald BY DESTA GEBREHIWOT In a move that is upping the ante in the Ethio-Sudan border dispute, Khartoum has continued to illegally encroach on the two countries' borders, said the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicating that Ethiopia has […]
Eturbo News African passport is the flagship project of the 2063 Agenda aiming to remove restrictions on Africans' ability to travel, work and live within their own continent Apolinari Tairo – eTN TanzaniaJanuary 16, 2021 16:05 A single passport for all African nations is set to be introduced this year as the continent is forging its […]
Africa's infrastructure Ministers convened virtually to discuss the Continent's infrastructure priorities for 2021-2030 and to validate the outcome of the first extraordinary expert group meeting of the African Union Specialized Technical Committee on Transport, Intercontinental and Interregional Infrastructures, Energy and Tourism (STC-TTIIET) held on December 14, 2021. A large number of African Ministers and institutions […]
Ethiopian Herald BY Girmachew Gashaw Aid has become the best tradable commodity for powerful nations. And, a cutting donation has already become a means to impose the will of the strongest nations. Aid in fact appears to be a bargaining chip in the relation between the strong and the weak. In fact, Aid policy, is […]
By Quentin Velluet An increase in Internet traffic during the pandemic, fiber optics, competition on the cloud… 2020 has seen many advances in connectivity but three major challenges remain. Africa's digital economy will surely remember 2020 as some kind of huge pop quiz which received the following feedback: "Solid achievements to build on." COVID-19 has indeed […]
A Black American Traveler Shares His Experience of Visiting Africa for the First Time
Travel and Leisure In terms of African travel destinations, Morocco and Egypt were the only two that topped my must-see list for a long a time. But that recently changed following my first trip to Kenya. First, I should explain that I have a direct connection to Africa. My mother married my stepfather, who is from Freetown, Sierra Leone, and […]
AfDB president keen on working with Ethiopia
The Ethiopian herald The African Development Bank (AfDB) President, Akinwumi Adesina, has well appreciated the effort of the Ethiopian government to come up with a promising scheme for buttressing production and productivity and expressed willingness to work together. Akinwumi Adesina, who is also the former Honorable Minister of Agriculture, Federal Republic of Nigeria, and World […]
Sudan: The Flip-Flopper Reject AU Proposed Designated Experts
Last week it was Egypt, this week is Sudan turn to reject the AU proposal. Negotiations between Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt, in a long-running dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile, have reached a new impasse, after Sudan reject the proposal of AU designated experts. Last week, the three countries […]
AfCFTA Is The Stepping Stone To Continental Prosperity
Ethiopian Herald, by Girmachew Gashaw 'Merkato', the largest open market in Ethiopia, is filled with products imported from China, India, Singapore, Italy, and Malaysia, among others. One can, sometimes, find produces locally secured. And the reason for the retailers to look outwards and import non-African goods is the fact that trade regulations and tariffs make […]


text:
namespace System.Reflection
{
    // This Enum matchs the CorFieldAttr defined in CorHdr.h
    [Flags]
    public enum FieldAttributes
    {
        // member access mask - Use this mask to retrieve accessibility information.
        FieldAccessMask = 0x0007,
        PrivateScope = 0x0000,    // Member not referenceable.
        Private = 0x0001,    // Accessible only by the parent type.
        FamANDAssem = 0x0002,    // Accessible by sub-types only in this Assembly.
        Assembly = 0x0003,    // Accessibly by anyone in the Assembly.
        Family = 0x0004,    // Accessible only by type and sub-types.
        FamORAssem = 0x0005,    // Accessibly by sub-types anywhere, plus anyone in assembly.
        Public = 0x0006,    // Accessibly by anyone who has visibility to this scope.
                            // end member access mask

        // field contract attributes.
        Static = 0x0010,        // Defined on type, else per instance.
        InitOnly = 0x0020,     // Field may only be initialized, not written to after init.
        Literal = 0x0040,        // Value is compile time constant.
        NotSerialized = 0x0080,        // Field does not have to be serialized when type is remoted.

        SpecialName = 0x0200,     // field is special.  Name describes how.

        // interop attributes
        PinvokeImpl = 0x2000,        // Implementation is forwarded through pinvoke.

        RTSpecialName = 0x0400,     // Runtime(metadata internal APIs) should check name encoding.
        HasFieldMarshal = 0x1000,     // Field has marshalling information.
        HasDefault = 0x8000,     // Field has default.
        HasFieldRVA = 0x0100,     // Field has RVA.

        ReservedMask = 0x9500,
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


The programmed level course is tailored to produce well rounded graduates who are independent and marketable with the potential to become professional in tourism industry. The course will enable students to understand the board perspective of tourism and its related areas such as E-Tourism, Eco-tourism, Marketing Tourism and entrepreneurship as well as issues that affect the tourism industry. This course also will expose students with internship work experience in tourism industry that offers real hand-on experience.


text:
An image pipeline or video pipeline is the set of components commonly used between an image source (such as a camera, a scanner, or the rendering engine in a computer game), and an image renderer (such as a television set, a computer screen, a computer printer or cinema screen), or for performing any intermediate digital image processing consisting of two or more separate processing blocks. An image/video pipeline may be implemented as computer software, in a digital signal processor, on an FPGA, or as fixed-function ASIC. In addition, analog circuits can be used to do many of the same functions.

Typical components include image sensor corrections (including debayering or applying a Bayer filter), noise reduction, image scaling, gamma correction, image enhancement, colorspace conversion (between formats such as RGB, YUV or YCbCr), chroma subsampling, framerate conversion, image compression/video compression (such as JPEG), and computer data storage/data transmission.

Typical goals of an imaging pipeline may be perceptually pleasing end-results, colorimetric precision, a high degree of flexibility, low cost/low CPU utilization/long battery life, or reduction in bandwidth/file size.

Some functions may be algorithmically linear. Mathematically, those elements can be connected in any order without changing the end-result. As digital computers use a finite approximation to numerical computing, this is in practice not true. Other elements may be non-linear or time-variant. For both cases, there is often one or a few sequences of components that makes sense for optimum precision and minimum hardware-cost/CPU-load.

See also
 Image processing

References

Image processing

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
\section{Introduction}

In the following short note, we consider \emph{Calabi--Yau varieties} defined as smooth varieties with trivial canonical bundle and satisfying $H^i(X,\mathscr O_X) = 0$, for $0 < i < \dim X$.  An important feature of Calabi--Yau varieties in characteristic zero is the smoothness of their deformation spaces.  There are many proofs of this property (see \cite{Bogomolov,Tian,Todorov,ZivRan}) based both on analytic and algebraic methods.  The situation turns out to be very different in characteristic $p>0$.  In \cite{Hirokado} Hirokado constructed a projective Calabi--Yau threefold over a field of characteristic three which does not lift to characteristic zero, and therefore its deformation space over the ring of Witt vectors is not smooth.  Examples of non-liftable Calabi--Yau threefolds appeared also in works of Schröer \cite{Schroer}, and Cynk and van Straten \cite{Cynk_vanStraten}, however the constructions worked only for finitely many primes $p$.  More precisely, the examples of Schröer were defined over fields of characteristic two and three, and those of Cynk and van Straten over fields of characteristic three and five (the approach of \cite{Cynk_vanStraten} also led to the construction of non-liftable Calabi--Yau algebraic spaces for special values of $p \leq 1000$).

The goal of the present note is to use the recent results of \cite{Totaro} concerning failure of Kodaira vanishing on Fano varieties to construct non-liftable projective Calabi--Yau varieties over fields of characteristic $p \geq 5$.  Our main contribution is the following theorem combining the results of Proposition~\ref{thm:construction1} and Proposition~\ref{thm:construction2} given below.

\begin{thmi}
For every algebraically closed field of characteristic $p \geq 5$ there exist projective Calabi--Yau varieties of dimension $2p$ and $2p+1$ defined over this field which do not lift formally to any extension of the ring of Witt vectors.
\end{thmi}

\noindent Our examples arise as anticanonical sections and two-to-one coverings of Totaro's Fano varieties violating Kodaira vanishing.  We now recall the necessary properties of those varieties.  From now on, by $k$ we denote an algebraically closed field of characteristic $p \geq 5$, and by $W(k)$ the associated ring of Witt vectors.  Let $N = p+2$, and let ${\pi \colon {\rm Fl}(1,2,N) \to {\rm Gr}(2,N)}$ be the natural projection from the partial flag variety to the Grassmanian of two-dimensional subspaces ${\rm Gr}(2,N)$.  The variety $X$ is defined by the Frobenius pullback of $\pi$, that is, the diagram:
\[
\xymatrix{
  X \ar[r]\ar[d] & {\rm Fl}(1,2,N) \ar[d]^{\pi} \\
  {\rm Gr}(2,N) \ar[r]_(0.45){F} & {\rm Gr}(2,N).
  }
\]

\noindent Since ${\rm Fl}(1,2,N)$ is isomorphic to the projectivization $\bb{P}_{{\rm Gr}(2,N)}(\mathscr S)$ of the tautological vector bundle $\mathscr S$ on ${\rm Gr}(2,N)$, the variety $X$ is in fact isomorphic to $\bb{P}_{{\rm Gr}(2,N)}(F^*\mathscr S)$.  By \cite[Theorem 2.1]{Totaro} we know that there exists a very ample divisor $A$ on $X$ satisfying the following properties:
\begin{enumerate}
  \item $\mathscr O_X(A)$ restricts to $\mathscr O_{\bb{P}^1}(1)$ on the fibres of $\pi$,
  \item $-K_X = 2A$, \label{it1}
  \item $\chi(X,\mathscr O_X(A)) < 0$, \label{it2}
  \item $H^i(X,\mathscr O_X(A)) = 0$ for $i \geq 2$. \label{it3}
\end{enumerate}

\section{Non-liftable Calabi--Yau varieties}

In this section, we provide two examples of non-liftable Calabi--Yau varieties in characteristic $p \geq 5$.  The main technical tool that we use to infer non-liftability is the following standard lemma.  For the sake of completeness we provide a simple proof.

\begin{lemma}[{cf. \cite[page 4]{Totaro}}]\label{lem:non_liftability}
Let $Y$ be a smooth projective variety over $k$ satisfying $H^2(Y,\mathscr O_Y) = 0$.  Assume that there exists an ample invertible sheaf $L$ such that ${\chi(Y,L \otimes \mathscr O_Y(K_Y)) < 0}$.  Then $Y$ does not lift formally to any ramified extension of $W(k)$.
\end{lemma}
\begin{proof}
We assume the contrary, that is, we take a discrete valuation ring $(R,\mathfrak{m})$ with residue field $k$ together with a scheme $\mathscr Y_{\rm formal}$ over $\mathrm{Spf}\, R$ and an isomorphism ${\mathscr Y_{\rm formal} \otimes k \isom Y}$.  Since $H^2(Y,\mathscr O_Y) = 0$, we see that the ample line bundle $L$ deforms over $\mathrm{Spf}\, R$ and therefore by the Grothendieck algebraization theorem there exists a scheme $\mathscr Y$ over $\Spec(R)$ together with a relatively ample line bundle $\mathscr L$.  Using invariance of Euler characteristic, we observe that
\[
\chi(Y,L \otimes \mathscr O_Y(K_Y)) = \chi(\mathscr Y_{\eta},\mathscr L_{\eta} \otimes \mathscr O_{\mathscr Y_\eta}(K_{\mathscr Y_\eta})),
\]
where $\eta$ is the geometric generic point of $\Spec(R)$.  By Kodaira vanishing in characteristic zero we know that the last quantity is equal to $H^0(\mathscr Y_{\eta},\mathscr L_{\eta} \otimes \mathscr O_{\mathscr Y_\eta}(K_{\mathscr Y_\eta}))$, and is therefore positive.  This gives a contradiction, and hence finishes the proof.
\end{proof}

We are now ready to provide our constructions.  The first construction is a smooth divisor inside the anticanonical linear system of variety $X$ described above.

\begin{prop}\label{thm:construction1}
Let $Y \in \linsys{-K_X}$ be a smooth divisor on $X$.  Then $Y$ is Calabi--Yau variety which does not formally lift to any ramified extension of $W(k)$.
\end{prop}
\begin{proof}
First, we prove that $Y$ is in fact a Calabi--Yau variety.  The condition $K_Y = 0$ follows from adjunction $\mathscr O_Y(K_Y) \isom \mathscr O_X(K_X + Y)_{|Y} = \mathscr O_Y$.  In order to prove that $H^i(Y,\mathscr O_Y) = 0$ for $0 < i < \dim Y$, we use the long exact sequence of cohomology associated with the sequence
\begin{align}
0 \ra \mathscr O_X(K_X) \ra \mathscr O_X \ra \mathscr O_Y \ra 0. \label{eq1}
\end{align}
Indeed, we see that the sequence
\[
\ldots \ra H^i(X,\mathscr O_X) \ra H^i(Y,\mathscr O_Y) \ra H^{i+1}(X,\mathscr O_X(K_X)) \ra \ldots
\]
is exact, and the side terms vanish by Kempf vanishing, since $X$ is a homogeneous variety and $0$ is a dominant weight, and Serre duality.

To prove that $Y$ does not lift, we twist \eqref{eq1} by $\mathscr O_X(A)$ and to obtain
\[
0 \ra \mathscr O_X(K_X+A) \ra \mathscr O_X(A) \ra \mathscr O_Y(A) \ra 0.
\]
The bundle $\mathscr O_X(K_X+A)$ restricts to $\mathscr O_{\bb{P}^1}(-1)$ along the fibres of the projection
\[
\pi \colon {\rm Fl}(1,2,N) \to {\rm Gr}(2,N),
\]
and hence all its cohomology groups vanish.  Consequently, we see that
\[
\chi(Y,\mathscr O_Y(A)) = \chi(X,\mathscr O_X(A)) < 0.
\]
This prevents $Y$ from being liftable by Lemma~\ref{lem:non_liftability}.
\end{proof}

\noindent Observe that, taking the Stein factorization $Y \to Y' \to {\rm Gr}(2,N)$ of the natural projection, the scheme $Y$ is a small resolution of a double cover of ${\rm Gr}(2,N)$.  Moreover, it is easy to see that $Y'$ is liftable, confirming an expectation of Langer that every Calabi--Yau variety is a small resolution of a singular liftable Calabi--Yau.

We now proceed to the second construction, which is the $\bb{Z}/2\bb{Z}$ cyclic covering of $X$ ramified along a smooth divisor inside $\linsys{-2K_X}$.

\begin{prop}\label{thm:construction2}
Let $D \in \linsys{-2K_X}$ be a smooth divisor and let $Y$ be a $\bb{Z}/2\bb{Z}$ cyclic covering ramified along $D$.  Then $Y$ is Calabi--Yau variety which does not formally lift to any ramified extension of $W(k)$.
\end{prop}
\begin{proof}
Let $D \in \lvert -2K_X \rvert$ be a smooth divisor, and let $p \colon Y \to X$ be a $\bb{Z}/2\bb{Z}$-covering ramified over $D$.  We claim that $Y$ is a non-liftable Calabi--Yau variety.  First, we observe that the canonical bundle of $Y$ is isomorphic to $p^*\mathscr O_X(K_X - K_X) = \mathscr O_Y$, and that
\[
H^i(Y,\mathscr O_Y) = H^i(X,\mathscr O_X \oplus \mathscr O_X(K_X)) = H^i(X,\mathscr O_X) \oplus H^{n-i}(X,\mathscr O_X) = 0
\]
for $0 < i < \dim X$.  To conclude we use the vanishing $H^i(X,\mathscr O_X(K_X+A)) = 0$ and projection formula to see that
\[
H^i(Y,p^*\mathscr O_X(A)) = H^i(X,\mathscr O_X(A)) \oplus H^i(X,\mathscr O_X(K_X + A)) = H^i(X,\mathscr O_X(A)),
\]
 and hence we can apply Lemma~\ref{lem:non_liftability}.
\end{proof}

We remark that apart from non-liftability the above examples also fail to satisfy the Kodaira vanishing.

\section{Open questions}

It would be interesting to know if similar constructions work for $p = 2,3$, which could lead to low-dimensional examples.  An easy idea to obtain non-liftable threefolds, is to take a complete intersection inside different Fano varieties included in \cite[Theorem 3.1]{Totaro}.  Unfortunately the exhibited ample line bundle satisfy weaker positivity properties and the straightforward arguments does not work.  Moreover, it is a peculiarity of characteristic $p > 0$ geometry that Calabi--Yau varieties could be unirational, and therefore it is natural ask if our varieties satisfy this property.

In \cite{Ekedahl} Ekedahl provides a detailed analysis of deformation spaces of non-liftable Calabi--Yau threefolds constructed by Hirokado and Schröer.  This suggests the following questions concerning deformation theory of Totaro's Fano varieties and our Calabi--Yau varieties.

\begin{question}
Is the deformation space $\Def_{X/W(k)}$ of Totaro's example isomorphic to ${\rm Spf}\, k$?  What do the deformation spaces of our Calabi--Yau varieties look like?
\end{question}

It is worth noting that, since the dimension of varieties considered in this paper is greater than $p-1$, the classical results of \cite{Deligne_Illusie} can not be directly applied to reason about mod $p^2$ liftability of examples of Totaro and ours.  This leads to a simplified version of the above question.

\begin{question}
Do the examples of Totaro or Calabi--Yau varieties constructed in this note lift to Witt vectors of length $2$?
\end{question}

\noindent A positive answer to the above would shed some light on the necessity of assumptions used in proof of Kodaira vanishing included in \emph{loc.cit}..  One possible approach to study the deformation theory of Totaro's variety $X$ would be to take advantage of the structure of a projective bundle, that is, analyze the natural transformation of deformation functors $\Def_{X/W(k)} \to \Def_{F^*\mathscr S}$, where $\mathscr S$ is the rank two tautological bundle on ${\rm Gr}(2,n)$, induced by the pushforward of the relative $\mathscr O_{X}(1)$.

\section*{Acknowledgements}

We would like to thank Burt Totaro, Adrian Langer and Stefan Schröer for helpful discussions.

\bibliographystyle{amsalpha}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


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Some senior employees of the Zambia Information Communication and Technology Authority (ZICTA) are selling confidential information the authority obtained through Simcard registration.
A source at the Ministry of Transport, Works, Supply and Communication has disclosed that a number of ZICTA employees headed… by Director of Corporate Affairs Mofya Chisala a Patriotic Front cadre have been divulging confidential information on Mobile Phone subscribers to third parties. The source said the information is normally sold to people who would want to know phone activities by business competitors, spouses or just lovers.
The source named other ZICTA employees involved in the scam as a Mr. Boniface Siakakonge in-charge of security who was recently brought to ZICTA from Anti Corruption Commission in unclear circumstances by Mofya Chisala who is also anxiously waiting to take over from Margaret Chalwe Mudenda as Director General when Mrs. Mudenda's contract expires in June 2014.Others in the scam are a Mr. Clifford Chomba who is manager connections and a Mr. Namakando who is Manager revenue. The source said Boniface Siakakonge who is a very junior officer has even been allocated a personal to holder vehicle Nissan Hardbody.
"From the money they are making by selling confidential information, Boniface has become big headed. Last week we hear he even went to an extent of picking up a quarell with his boss Choolwe Nalubamba. We need help from you the Watchdog to expose this like the way you exposed that Siame from Zambia Revenue Athority (ZRA) who has finally been fired.That Mofya boy who coincidentally is also from ZRA is messing up ZICTA. I know you you can even find out where they meet to exchange information" the source said.
The source said Mofya is abusing his office especially that he was in-charge of the Simcard registration committee at ZICTA." You know all Simcard registration data is kept at ZICTA and Mofya was in-charge of the simcard registration excercise so he is taking advantage of priveledged information" the source said.


text:
Q: I have two versions of Texlive on Ubuntu and I don't know how to indicate that one should be used I recently ran into a problem when compiling a doc, where latex indicated a missing package, while Ubuntu indicated that it was installed. The missing package in question is pst-node.sty but I think that's irrelevant.
All the packages in the compilation came from /usr/local/texlive/2013/texmf-dist/tex/latex/. Indeed, when I do
echo $PATH

the only tex-relevant path I get is
/usr/local/texlive/2013/bin/x86_64-linux

But kpsewhich pst-node.sty returns nothing. However:
$ locate pst-node.sty
/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/latex/pst-node/pst-node.sty

And using Synaptic, I can indeed see that pst-node is installed, through the texlive-pstricks package.
My question: how can I have only one LaTeX distribution on my computer? I'm happy keeping the one managed by Ubuntu (for simplicity), as I do not need very fine-grained Latex package management.

A: I could not install packages using tlmgr (I guess because, as jon pointed out, TL2013 is not maintained anymore).
So I ended up using tlmgr uninstall to remove the TexLive "vanilla" installation, remove its path from $PATH, and reinstall the Ubuntu version from scratch. It is good enough for me for the meantime, although it's true that I ended up installing giant Debian/ubuntu packages just to have access to a few LaTeX packages.
I will probably look more into reinstalling Vanilla properly, without Ubuntu getting confused, thanks to the links provided here.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


In the reflective essay, the student will demonstrate their competency in three (3) of the degree-specific student learning outcomes, and develop a Professional Information Philosophy that is grounded in the learning outcomes.
Master of Library and Information Science learning outcomes.
Master of Science in Information Management learning outcomes.
In the reflective essay, the student will discuss how s/he has developed as an information professional during the School. The student will discuss three (3) of the degree-specific student learning outcomes, and demonstrate how he/she has become proficient in these learning outcomes.
Of the three learning outcomes, one is randomly selected by the School, and is announced to students at the beginning of each semester. The selected learning outcome will be posted on the E-Portfolio website the second week into the semester, and will be included in the email sent to student body announcing the dates associated with graduation application and E-Portfolio submission.
The student will choose the other two student learning outcomes to reflect on in the Essay. In the Introduction section, the student needs to clearly identify, justify, and cite the learning outcomes he/she chooses to include in the E-Portfolio.
In the main body of the reflective essay, the student discusses how he/she developed as an information professional, and demonstrates how he/she became proficient in the three learning outcomes. For each learning outcome, the student uses 300-400 words to demonstrate their understanding of the learning outcome, and use 2 course artifacts to support their competency in each of them.
As a concluding piece of the essay, the student will include his/her stance or philosophy of the information profession. The student will gird the philosophy piece using readings of the research, professional literature, personal experiences, and the learning outcomes. Students can address questions like: What is an information professional?; What are the characteristics, qualities and knowledge that will be most important to you as an information professional?
The final product will be a 1300-1700 word reflective essay, with suitable and ethical citation practices followed (final word count excludes bibliography). Please note that this is not a personal history or review of courses taken during the School. Instead, it is an articulation of your growth as an information professional and your adoption of a personal professional philosophy.
You may submit the reflective essay in .doc, .docx, .rtf or pdf formats. Please do not submit the essay in .zip or .rar format.


text:
Marc Almon is a filmmaker based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Almon is best known his work as the producer of the Canadian feature films Blackbird and Weirdos.

Career
Almon was chosen to be a participant in the Atlantic Filmmakers Co-op Film 5 program for young directors. He subsequently gained credits as a producer, director and writer on a number of award-winning short films, including The Wake of Calum MacLeod   and D'Unee Rive a l'Autre (director: Maxime Desmons), which have screened at international film festivals and have aired on CBC, Global, BBC, Bravo! and the Sundance Channel.

Almon was nominated for a Genie Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2008, won the National Screen Institute Drama Prize in 2010,  was a finalist for the TIFF Pitch This! competition, and attended the Rotterdam Lab and Trans Atlantic Partners co-production training program.

Almon's film Blackbird made its debut at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the Best Canadian First Feature Award. Blackbird continued to screen and win awards around the world, including the Grand Prix at Cannes Junior 2013.

In 2013, The Hollywood Reporter named Almon was named a member of the Next Gen: 20 Young Canadian Stars On the Rise in Hollywood.

In 2015, Almon became the chairman of Screen Nova Scotia, an organization which represents Nova Scotia film, television and digital media.  In this role he was involved in negotiations with the provincial government about changes to the film tax credit.<ref>"The Rick Howe Show". News 95.7.  Apr 14, 2015</ref>

Marc executive produced the film Your Money or Your Wife  in 2015 and produced Weirdos in 2016.

FilmographyTransit (2001)The Wake of Calum MacLeod (2006)D'une rive à l'autre (2009)The Fiddler's Reel (2010)Blackbird (2012)Your Money or Your Wife (2015)Weirdos'' (2016)

References

Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Film producers from Nova Scotia
Film directors from Nova Scotia
People from Halifax, Nova Scotia


text:
Diversity falls short on the big screen
Latinos are 'almost invisible' in movies, a six-year USC Annenberg study finds
BY USC Annenberg staff
Katherine Pieper discusses data collected for a film study. (Photo/courtesy of USC Annenberg)
Steve McQueen may have been the first black director to win an Academy Award for best picture (12 Years a Slave), but 2013 was otherwise business as usual in Hollywood regarding on-screen diversity.
The Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative (MDSCI) at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism released a study demonstrating that diversity on screen falls far below that of the U.S. population. The study found that individuals from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups comprise just over a quarter (26 percent) of all speaking characters. Researchers assessed every character who spoke one or more words on screen — more than 25,000 characters in all from the top grossing films released in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2013.
The voices heralding that 2013 was a banner year for black characters in film must be thinking of a few salient examples.
While films such as The Butler, 42, Holiday or The Best Man might be notable examples of diversity, the new study revealed that they do not represent the full story.
"The voices heralding that 2013 was a banner year for black characters in film must be thinking of a few salient examples," said USC Annenberg Professor Stacy Smith, the study's author and director of the initiative. "In reality, we saw no meaningful difference in the representation of characters from underrepresented backgrounds across the six years we studied."
Hispanics and Latinos get minimal representation
Characters from Hispanic/Latino backgrounds were the most underrepresented across the groups studied. Just 4.9 percent of characters were identified as Hispanic or Latino, despite representing 16.3 percent of the U.S. population and purchasing 25 percent of all movie tickets.
"Hispanics and Latinos are one of the fastest-growing groups in the U.S.," said Marc Choueiti, one of the study's authors. "If popular films were the only way to gauge diversity, viewers would be completely unaware of this. Individuals from this group are almost invisible on screen."
Individuals from all underrepresented groups face a similar plight in animated films. Across three years examined (2007, 2010, 2013), less than one-eighth of characters were from any underrepresented group. The high occurred in 2013 when 12.4 percent of characters were from diverse backgrounds, while in 2007, 8.1 percent of speaking characters were from underrepresented racial and/or ethnic groups. The year 2010 was the worst, when a mere 1.5 percent of characters reflected any racial and/or ethnic diversity.
"Animated characters often live in imaginary worlds," Smith said. "But even when the constraints of reality are removed, underrepresented characters still seem to be an impossibility."
Examining diversity behind the camera, 2013 also was on par with prior years. "There were seven black directors of top-grossing films last year, and none of them were females," Smith said.
In fact, only two of the 23 unique black directors across the 600 films studied were female. According to Smith, "Hollywood has basically shut out women from underrepresented groups who want to direct popular films."
The MDSCI releases yearly in-depth analyses of the prevalence and portrayal of gender and race/ethnicity in film. More than 65 students at USC Annenberg worked on the study, including a team of 17 Harnisch Foundation/MDSCI interns.
On-screen prevalence of underrepresented characters
Just over a quarter (25.9 percent) of the 3,932 speaking characters evaluated were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. A full 74.1 percent were white, 14.1 percent black, 4.9 percent Hispanic, 4.4 percent Asian, 1.1 percent Middle Eastern, 1 percent American Indian or Alaskan Native and 1.2 percent were from "other" races/ethnicities. No meaningful change has been observed in the frequency of any racial/ethnic group on screen in 600 popular films between 2007 and 2013.
The prevalence of underrepresented characters across film genres was evaluated in 2007, 2010 and 2013. Less than 15 percent of all characters are from underrepresented groups in animation. Between 2007 and 2010, there was a 6.6 percent drop to 1.5 percent, followed by an increase between 2010 and 2013 to a high of 12.4 percent. Action and/or adventure movies increased and then decreased in the percentage of underrepresented characters. Comedy showed a slight increase across the three years evaluated, from 23.1 percent to 27.8 percent, but failed to cross the threshold for meaningful change.
Nearly a fifth of all films in the sample (17 percent) depict no African-American or black speaking characters across their unfolding narratives. Fifteen films depict black characters as 2.2 to 5.9 percent of the cast and another 22 movies portrayed black characters in 6 to 10 percent of the cast. Taken together, over half of the movies in the sample are under indexing in comparison to U.S. population statistics. Only 14 percent of the movies showed black characters at or within 2 percentage points of U.S. Census (10.8 to 14.5 percent).
Male characters within each racial and/or ethnic group outnumbered females from the same racial and/or ethnic group. The percentage of female characters ranged from the high of 37.3 percent of Hispanic/Latino characters to 23 percent of characters from "other" races/ethnicities.
Portrayal of characters from underrepresented groups
Hispanic females (37.5 percent) were more likely than females from all other races/ethnicities to be shown partially or fully naked on screen. In comparison to black females (23.5 percent), white females were more likely to be shown with some exposed skin (31.9 percent) and Asian females were less likely (18.2 percent).
Hispanic males (16.5 percent) were the most likely to be shown in tight, alluring or revealing clothing. Asian males (13.7 percent) were more likely than white males (8.3 percent) to be depicted in sexy attire. In terms of some nudity, male characters from "other" (18.2 percent) races/ethnicities were more likely than white male characters (9.9 percent) to be shown partially or fully nude.
Black males were the most likely to be shown in a committed relationship (68.4 percent). Further, white (58.1 percent) and Hispanic (57.1 percent) males were more likely than "other" males (37.5 percent) to be depicted as boyfriends or spouses. Asian males were the least likely to be depicted in a romantic relationship (28.6 percent).
Prevalence of black directors in top-grossing films
The study assessed whether each film in 2013 was directed by an African-American or black director. A total of 107 directors were attached to the 100 top-grossing films. Only seven (6.5) were black.
Although there were seven total directors, two of them repeated across the sample, leaving only five unique black directors in 2013. There were no black female directors of the top 100 grossing movies in 2013. Across the six-year sample, there are only two black females represented across 23 unique black directors in all six years and 600 films.
Films without a black director were responsible for casting black characters in 10.8 percent of speaking parts. Black directors, conversely, cast black characters in 46 percent of all of the speaking roles. This is a 35.2 percent increase and is consistent with our previous research.
More stories about: Academy Awards, Cinematic Arts, Diversity, Entertainment
Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave (Photo/Fox Searchlight)
USC study finds a dearth of racial diversity in films
A new study from USC Annenberg shows it's business as usual when it comes to employing underrepresented races and ethnicities in the industry.
Michaela Coel in I May Destroy You. (Photo/Courtesy of HBO)
The most significant social impact films of 2020, all streaming at home
This list of 15 movies and shows, compiled by the Media Institute for Social Change at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, highlights the stories that traumatized, moved and inspired us this year.
USC School of Cinematic Arts faculty members shot movie scenes virtually with the use of an iPhone and Zoom. (Photo/USC School of Cinematic Arts)
How a Hollywood hitmaker-turned-professor brought virtual filmmaking to USC
Gail Katz has produced smash successes like Air Force One and The Perfect Storm. Now, she's helping students at the USC School of Cinematic Arts embrace a new era of filmmaking.
Noemi Lujan Perez (Photo/Courtesy of Noemi Perez)
Connecting African Americans and the national parks: USC Gould alumna uses law to do it
Noemi Perez uses her USC Gould law education to link predominantly African American sorority Zeta Phi Beta and the National Parks Service.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Volvo is developing new three-cylinder engines to power its future line-up of sedans, crossovers and SUVs. This was revealed by Mr. Derek Crabb, the company's powertrain engineering head and the executive director for the company's motorsports division. Derived from the company's current line-up of four-cylinder Drive-E range of engines, the first will be a petrol mill and is expected to be ready by 2016 to power mid-level luxury cars below the S60, V60 and the XC60.
The decision of getting into three-cylinder units has mainly been driven by the stringent emission regulations. Volvo currently has an average of 120g/km in Europe, a number which it will have to bring down to 75g/km by 2020, to suit the Australian regulations. While it has tried to stay away from hybrid powertrains for now, the company says that it might be viable and necessary to turn to electric power by the next decade. In such a case, these three-cylinder engines could play an important role in the company's future hybrid powertrains.
Mr. Crabb further added that the Drive-E range will be upgraded biennially to get better performance, emission and efficiency numbers. While the company's Drive-E range has as many as four variants each for the petrol and diesel engines, the three-cylinder range might not be as diverse. The first engine will be a 1.5-litre unit based on the four-pot version, minus one cylinder. The engineering involved however, won't be as easy as it sounds and is expected to go into production only by 2016.


text:
The day a Trump mob stormed the capitol
OpinionColumnists
By Donald Lambro |
From the start of President Trump's administration, it was clear that he didn't and wouldn't accept the Constitutional rules that have long governed our nation.
Shortly after Trump told a crowd of his supporters outside the White House Wednesday that they should never accept defeat, hundreds of his army of fans broke their way into the Capitol's legislative chambers in what amounted to a full-scale insurrection against our government.
They smashed windows and climbed through them. Some were seen climbing the outside walls of the Capitol, then breaking their way into the hallowed Senate chambers and throughout other congressional offices across Capitol Hill.
Tear gas canisters were fired across the white marble floor of the Capitol's rotunda, official papers were scattered throughout other chambers and its offices. Trespassers were casually walking across the Senate floor, inspecting congressional papers on lawmaker's desks.
This was a rebellion against the government by a mob that eventually numbered in the thousands, Capitol Police said.
Many rioters carried poles bearing Trump flags, while others brandished Confederate flags.
Their anger was fueled by Trump's charges that his reelection was "stolen," which it was not, but the claim was repeated by the hordes of protesters. When interviewed by reporters, rioters kept repeating the lies they had heard from Trump, having bought into them hook, line and sinker.
Capitol Police said it was the most brazen attack on Congress since terrorists hijacked a plane more than 19 years ago, intending to fly it into the building.
Triggering the protests was a procedural function in the Senate chamber to receive the Electoral College votes that would clearly seal President-elect Joe Biden's victory over President Trump.
That's when Vice President Pence, who was presiding over the chamber's session, was told by Senate officials that a mob had broken into the Capitol and was immediately whisked away by Secret Service agents.
The boxes containing the electoral votes were taken away to the parliamentarian's office for safekeeping. Later, when the all-clear announcement came, the boxes were returned to the Senate chamber. Soon thereafter, Biden would be declared the winner of the presidency.
Until that point was reached, the argument in the chamber was still about who had won the presidency, and who was responsible for the rioters that had stormed the Capitol.
Sen. Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York said that Trump was responsible for the break-in, calling Trump "a demagogic president" who had "pushed our country to the brink of ruin."
As the debate in the Senate chamber continued, with the two parties blaming each other, Sen. Mitt Romney said, "What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the president."
In the end, it had been one of the most violent episodes in the history of Congress.
One woman was shot and later died. Three other protesters succumbed to medical emergencies. The Senate stopped its proceedings. The House had its doors barricaded, and guns were drawn by police guarding the entrance. The Capitol Police said no one would be allowed to come or go from the premises.
"Murder the media," read a message written on one door. "We will not back down," read another message left in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Biden condemned what he called an "unprecedented assault on American democracy, "unlike anything we've see in modern times."
"This is not dissent. It's disorder. It's chaos," he said. "It borders on sedition, and it must end now."
(Donald Lambro has been covering Washington politics for more than 50 years as a reporter, editor and commentator.)
Donald Lambro
Happy heavenly birthday to a Mexican fisherman
Editorial: Biden's biggest challenge will be bridging political divide
The toll of violence
California still lags behind in vaccinations


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Jean I de Saxe (1468-1532) est un électeur et comte palatin de Saxe.
Jean I de Saxe (1801-1873) est un roi de Saxe.


TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Florida Gov. Rick Scott has signed a school safety bill passed by the Legislature in response to the Valentine's Day mass shooting that killed 17 people at a high school.
The bill signed Friday falls short of what Scott and the shooting's survivors wanted. It also marks Scott's break with the National Rifle Association.
It raises the minimum age to buy rifles from 18 to 21, extends a three-day waiting period for handgun purchases to include long guns and bans bump stocks that allow guns to mimic fully automatic fire. It also creates a so-called "guardian" program that enables teachers and other school employees to carry handguns.
Student activists from the school where the shooting took place followed the bill's track closely and called it "a baby step."
The National Rifle Association is expressing disappointment after Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a gun control bill.
Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action, says the bill "punishes law-abiding gun owners for the criminal acts of a deranged individual."


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Posts Tagged 'Australian Labor Party'
When should free speech and personal beliefs take a back seat to the greater good?
In 2012 Australia, you can affirm anything you like, even if it's unjust, narrow-minded or based on a belief that may be less than sound. Unfortunately, there's no rule that dictates free speech needs to be well thought out and factual. When this is considered in the context of the free speech of a private citizen versus that of an elected official, it raises a pertinent question: should the personal beliefs of politicians take a back seat in order to champion the causes of the people who elected them, even if the causes don't align with their individual faith or opinions? Should free speech apply to politicians while they are acting on behalf of the greater population?
A great many words have been, and will be, written about tennis champion Margaret Court's views on homosexuality, especially in the lead-up to the Australian Open. Gay rights activists are planning on using the arena that bears her name as a quasi protest site during the event, and have called for it to be renamed because of her outspoken opinion. I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen of the protesting persuasion, but she's entitled to express her views, however ludicrous and bigoted they may be.
I'm an advocate for equality and same-sex marriage. I've written numerous pieces centering on the subjects, but I think Margaret Court should be allowed to speak. I believe her opinions are that of a narrowed-minded zealot and based on irrational religious beliefs, but I also assert that she is entitled to have and air them. Does hearing her purport that same-sex marriage would "legitimise what God calls abominable sexual practices" anger me and make me want to smack my head against a wall? Absolutely, but it's her individual point of view. I've got mine. You've got yours. While I'd relish the opportunity to debate our differences of opinion, I learnt a long time ago that arguing with any sort of fanatic is futile: trying to have a rational, intellectual discussion with someone who isn't flexible in their beliefs or accepting of facts and new ideas is never going to work. That said, providing we don't incite hatred or endanger public safety with our opinions, we should be free to express them, whether privately or publicly, without fear of condemnation or reprisal.
There has been limited media coverage about the annual neo-Nazi Hammered Music Festival, most of which has focused on why this hate-filled, disgusting celebration of white pride is allowed to take place. As abhorrent as this event may be, it's being held on private property, presumably out of sight and earshot of those who don't want to hear it. Whether you wish you acknowledge the fact or not, attendees and performers are just as entitled as the rest of us to think and believe what they want. They aren't spewing propaganda or spouting their preposterous views to the masses, and they aren't airing their personal opinions publicly, unlike many who use the spotlight to constantly reiterate their beliefs.
Margaret Court has used her celebrity to broadcast her beliefs and faith, as well as raise the profile of her church, but is there really a problem with this? While some of her statements, including the affirmation that homosexuality is a choice, may be insensitive and not based on fact, she is free to say it. She's not provoking violence or abuse against the gay community, and she is not acting on behalf of a group, nor is she an elected official.
What if Margaret Court was in a public position of power? What if she was a Member of Parliament? What about Premier of Western Australia? If she was Prime Minister, should she be free to express her deepest and most closely held beliefs while in that position? In my opinion, no. Someone who has been entrusted to act on behalf of a large, diverse group needs to be able to forgo their personal agenda and take their narrow-minded views, be they religious or not, out of the equation when making decisions that impact the community as a whole.
Source: tracker.org.au
In Australian politics, there are currently several high-profile elected individuals with very strong religious views who have no qualms about letting these beliefs guide them while acting in their official capacities on behalf of the Australian people. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, a practising Catholic, was quoted in December 2009 in the Herald Sun as saying, "I think it would be impossible to have a good general education without at least some serious familiarity with the Bible and with the teachings of Christianity." While he has, on several occasions, suggested that politicians should not rely on religion to justify decisions or a specific point of view, his comments make it clear that his faith plays a very strong part in his thought process and rationale. Independent MP Bob Katter is on the record as stating that marriage equality is a stupid idea that "deserves to be laughed at and ridiculed". I'm not disputing that they have the right to harbour these beliefs, where's the line at which the personal views of politicians are required to take a back seat to a more broad-minded, progressive and socially acceptable perspective that's representative of the views of their constituents?
Tony Abbott and Bob Katter are not alone in expressing their dogmatic views while acting on behalf of the people. In 2011, John Murphy, Labor MP for the seat of Reid in western Sydney, kicked the political hornet's nest when he advised members of the Australian Labor Party who support same-sex marriage to "join the Greens". Is this petulant "my way or the highway" approach reflective of the attitude of his electorate? I think not. One person's obstinate, black or white view should not be allowed to take precedence over the collective view of the almost 90,000 constituents in the electorate of Reid.
It may sound ridiculous and incredibly hypocritical to promote free speech in one paragraph and then suggest in the next that elected officials need to look past their own personal views in order to take a stance that, while not aligning with their own beliefs, fairly reflects what the community stands for and wishes to see achieved. Perhaps there is an element of hypocrisy to it, but politicians need to recognise that we have entrusted them to be our collective voice, and for this voice to be clearly heard, they have to look at the big picture, which often falls outside the line of sight that their bigoted or conservative blinkers allow.
For Australia to transform into a genuinely modern and forward-thinking society, we need to be led by free thinkers who can accept that personal religious views have don't have a place in 21st century politics. We need strong leaders who make decisions based on fact and community sentiment, and who don't feel compelled to constantly promulgate their individual beliefs and agendas; they need to remember that as a politician, they are the mouthpiece for twenty-two million voices, not just one. If our current politicians are unable to separate state from the church, mosque or synagogue, they need to step aside and make room for people who can.
When it comes to a group of individuals who have been empowered to represent the people and make untainted, logical choices based on fact for benefit of the collective group, there are occasions where free speech and faith are going to have to ride shotgun.
Tagged with ALP, Australian Greens, Australian Labor Party, Australian Open, blog, blogging, Bob Katter, Christianity, faith, free speech, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, Herald Sun, John Murphy, Margaret Court, marriage equality, musings, opinion, philosophy, politicians, politics, Reid, religion, same-sex marriage, society, the Bible, thoughts, Tony Abbott
A ridiculous spat by The Kat in the Hat
There are things that genuinely deserve to be ridiculed. Ten gallon hats in Canberra, for example. After reading this article today, I'm going to add anything that comes out of Bob Katter's mouth to the list. As far as the Independent MP is concerned, the push for marriage equality in Australia is a stupid idea, and "deserves to be laughed at and ridiculed".
I find it concerning that an elected member of parliament is laughing off a change that will give all Australians equal opportunity to marry, thus removing the discrimination that currently surrounds the act of marriage in this country. After reading Bob's comments and observing the make up of the crowd, I'm surprised that someone at the pro-marriage rally didn't have a banner saying "Discrimination's okay, if you're gay!"
During his speech, he alluded to the fact that gay, one of "the most beautiful words in the English language" has lost its original meaning in modern society, and homosexuality is to blame. Bob seems to have forgotten that as languages develop, words often gain new meanings, both official and colloquial. I'm currently rereading The War of the Worlds. In it, H.G. Wells frequently uses the word ejaculate. When he penned the story in 1898, the word was used in a totally different context, and while it's amusing to read "his landlady came to the door, loosely wrapped in dressing gown and shawl; her husband followed ejaculating" with a 2011 mindset, it demonstrates how easily the meaning of words can evolve.
On what was apparently the day for it, Barnaby Joyce also jumped on the ludicrous statement bandwagon when he suggested that same-sex marriage would be detrimental to his four daughters. According to Senator Joyce, "we know that the best protection for those girls is that they get themselves into a secure relationship with a loving husband…". What the fuck? While it would probably be pertinent to point out to him that a Y chromosome doesn't necessarily signal a protected, secure relationship, he's missing the big picture. Legislating same-sex marriage will mean equality for all, so while his daughters would still be able to marry men, they would also have the freedom and right to marry women, if that was their choice. I find his comment about not wanting any legislators "to take that right" away from him – yes, his right – archaic and somewhat disturbing, but it's a discussion for another day.
I've said it once, and I have no doubt that I'll say it again: there is no room in politics or the public education system for religion. These battlefields need to be the domain of clear, free thinkers, who are prepared to take an open mind into investigating changes to benefit us all, representative of the views of majority Australia. It has again been demonstrated that when people are asked to make decisions, on behalf of every Australian, that clash with their singular personal beliefs, emotion and bias come to out to play, while rational argument is relegated to the corner, wearing the dunce's cap.
Posted in Politics, Society
Tagged with ALP, Australian Labor Party, Barnaby Joyce, Bob Katter, Christian, free choice, Independent MP, John Murphy, Julia Gillard, Kevin Andrews, Liberal, Liberal Party of Australia, marriage, marriage equality, politics, religion, same-sex marriage
If it looks like a duck and swims like a duck…
There was a report published in the Medical Journal of Australia today with a finding which will come as no surprise to anyone, but will hopefully force those responsible to admit there is a problem. The topic of this report: lead pollution in the city of Mount Isa and the associated health impacts, especially for children.
According to the report, co-authored by Associate Professor Mark Taylor from Macquarie University, there is no doubt that the major source of environmental lead pollution in the city is from "the historic and ongoing mining and smelting activity" – activities which have formed a main focus in the community for over 80 years. The report then goes on to say that the "purported lack of knowledge of the lead source is no longer a tenable response" from stakeholders.
Can Xstrata and the State Government honestly affirm that they didn't think the pollution – and resulting health problems – was primarily being caused lead production in Mount Isa? Is it just me, or is the smelting stack that rises over a quarter of a kilometre into the sky over the city a somewhat obvious clue? Not according to Xstrata, who have been fervently suggesting that the main cause of the problem lay with the high natural mineralisation of lead in the Mount Isa area. Plausible deniability seems to be a good angle, especially given the current legal action taking place against the mining giant.
In the lead screening program run by Queensland Health in Mount Isa during 2006-7, it was found that:
Results of the study show that the average blood lead level for the children tested was 5.0 μg/dL, the lowest with 1.3 μg/dL and the highest with 31.5 μg/dL. Forty-five children (11.3% of those in the study group) had blood lead levels greater than or equal to 10 μg/dL. Of these, two children (0.5% of the study group) had blood lead levels greater than 20 μg/dL.
To make sense of this, consider that μg/dL is a unit of measurement which equates to the micrograms of lead per 100 millilitres of blood, and that similar testing of children in uncontaminated, urban areas returned a result of around 2 μg/dL. That's right, the children tested in Mount Isa as part of the study had lead levels, on average, twice that of those in other areas, with the highest result being over fifteen times the norm. There is undoubtedly a major problem in Mount Isa with lead pollution, and it would now seemingly be confirmed that the primary cause of the pollution is the mining operation taking place in the city. Given that there hasn't been any testing on older children in Mount Isa, it is impossible to ascertain the full impact the lead levels will have, but Associate Professor Taylor states in the report that ""…there's an effect on their behavioural patterns, ADHD, school scores and lifetime outcomes."
One can only hope that the release of this glaring report in such a well-respected publication prompts an authentic reaction from both the State Government and Xstrata, instead of the specious response to date. I am surprised Bob Katter, the Federal Member for Kennedy, hasn't made more of a noise about this issue. One of the qualities I admire most about him is his predilection to call a spade a spade. He generally doesn't seem too fussed with who he upsets in trying to be heard, but I am at a loss as to why the man under the ten gallon hat has been so quiet about an issue which is having a direct impact on his constituents.
NB: I have sent Bob Katter an email with a copy of/link to this post in the hope that he will respond with his thoughts – we will see what happens.
Posted in Health, Politics
Tagged with Associate Professor Mark Taylor, Australian Greens, Australian Labor Party, Bob Katter, Federal Member, health problems, Kennedy, lead, lead pollution, Macquarie University, Mark Taylor, Medical Journal of Australia, MIM, mining, Mount Isa, Mount Isa Mines, Mt Isa, Queensland Government, Queensland Health, smelting, State Government, Xstrata


I am first and foremost a family man.
Being involved in designing and creating a piece of jewellery that is an everlasting representation of the love that exists between two people, is an incredible honour.
Being a perfectionist can be trying for my wife and family. But, when it comes to my jewellery creations, there is no room for average. I strive and achieve perfection with every single commission. A piece never passes my quality checks until I am satisfied it has met my exacting standards of perfection.
That is why every piece I design and create comes with a lifetime guarantee.
When I was young my dad became the owner of a large jewellery workshop in Bradford. At one time, 20 guys were creating and repairing jewellery at the bench.
I spent hours in that workshop. A jewellery workshop has all your senses tingling. It was a magical place for a young boy. I can be right there now again - a certain smell, or sound can transport me right back.
Whilst I grew up around jewellery, I didn't intend to become a jeweller. By the time I finished university, the family business now included two retail stores. Dad asked if I could help out, "until you decide what you want to do," he said.
I joined and immediately loved the work. I got my diamond grading qualifications and spent time learning the ropes on the bench. The store I ran became a drop-in centre. All kinds of waifs and strays would call in for a chat and a coffee. We made friends with everybody. I learnt all aspects of jewellery design and worked with a great team of people.
The work I always enjoyed the most was creating bespoke pieces of jewellery for clients. It was challenging and complicated. For me though this was important work. I'd experienced how emotionally attached clients became to a piece of jewellery made just for them. So, when the time came for me to follow my own path, this is what I set out to do.
Nearly 15 years on and I absolutely believe the unique jewellery I create is superior in every sense to mass-produced high street jewellery. A tailor-made piece of jewellery has far more intrinsic value. Jewellery this special is weighted with extra sentiment.
Thanks to technology and experience, I am now able to guarantee that commissioning a unique piece of jewellery is totally risk-free. Without doubt it is the most interesting and exciting way to purchase jewellery.
I will be in touch shortly to find out exactly how I can help you.


Disclosure: I am a member of the Everywhere Society and Everywhere has provided me with a product for review for this post. However, all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.
On January 12, 2010 the country of Haiti suffered horrific damage from an earthquake. "Haiti's earthquake was a 7.0 magnitude on the Richter Scale; injuring 300k+, leaving 250k+ dead and leaving 1M+ homeless." Five years later the country is still recovering. Thru the Heart of Haiti program and Macys.com consumers can purchase gifts that give hope. I'm happy and excited to share what I have learned about the Heart of Haiti program and how you can get a piece of Haitian art for yourself.
But first I'd love for you to watch this video that tells you more about the Heart of Haiti .
I received a set of the Heart of Haiti Erzulie set of cocktail napkins. The napkins are just beautiful. The linen is so soft and the needlepoint skill is amazing. Each of the napkins is handmade so they are all originals. These are definitely items that I will treasure and share with all of my houseguests. I'm still not sure where I will use them but I definitely want to frame one of the napkins. Red is my favorite color and I love hearts.


Black Russian is a quite compact plant which produces large fruits of approx. 100 grams after about 75 days. The dark mahogany red fruits are not only very unusual, but are also special with respect to taste, namely sweet/sour with a somewhat spicy flavour. It wouldn?t surprise me if the antioxidant characteristics of this variety where at a higher level than those with a less dark skin. Ensure that the plant has a strong and healthy crop before planting. Don?t remove the side shoots too often in order to allow sufficient fruit to form. Greenhouse cultivation gives the best results.
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My doctor didn't lie to me. Erik's did. Erik is completely helpless. He sits in a wheelchair, and now he is tied to it by a tube that emanates from his abdomen. He has a catheter that comes from his bladder. Eleven years ago he still walked. He was helpless then, but he walked, and he ran. He has never talked, and he has never been able to take care of himself.
That's why it hurts even more to know that one of his doctors lied to him. Since I am Erik's conservator, I take this lie personally. So this doctor lied to me. He told me in 1997 that Erik did not have rickets when Erik in fact did. I know that now after Erik suffered thirty broken bones and kidney failure that should have been discovered then. We have the lab values to prove it.
When a doctor lies to you, the notion of a physician's care is lost; it becomes a questionable entity. It leaves you bare of the security that once was bestowed upon the sick, it leaves you questioning that there once was a trustworthy learned person behind that white coat. The Staff of Aesculapius was like the scepter of aid for the weak and helpless. There was a powerful iconic meaning behind the hospital facade. Should I take the snake winding around the scepter as icon of betrayal? I once was naive. I once trusted all that. I know more now, and I find myself helpless, even more so because there are so few healthy people who can understand why I might want to try to tell them about all this. I am alone in my knowledge. I wished I were naive again.
How does it feel when a doctor lies to you. It feels like Adam and Eve losing their innocence.
Where did the news go anyway?