Rarely has the need for effective government been greater than now—and rarely has the ability to produce it been more constrained. After the recent wave of storms and disasters—both natural and financial—the need for leadership and a concerted response from national capitals is acute. Adding to the pressure, many governments are managing the implications of an unprecedented degree of fiscal and monetary intervention. They are preoccupied with the urgent tasks of getting banks to lend again and demonstrating fiscal credentials to the bond markets. The crisis mode of the past few years endures in several countries, while in others there is no more than cautious optimism.
Leaders must confront long-term, fundamental questions too: from the size and role of the state to how best to stimulate growth; from profound and surging demographic imbalances to tackling growing unemployment and welfare bills; from deciding on the extent and nature of regulation necessary to protect the public to forging a new relationship between citizens and government services. Thus, many governments confront a daunting paradox: an expanded set of major policy imperatives in a constrained and almost precarious fiscal position.
On these subjects, however, there is little agreement. The policy debate is becoming more polarized at arguably the worst possible time. There is a real risk that in the face of big choices and much disagreement, paralysis reigns. Leaders thus spend their energy on policy fights and battles for the hearts and minds of the public—at the expense of making progress.
It is in times like these that government matters most.
Our research shows it is possible to make huge strides in addressing critical challenges, even without resolution of the many ideological and policy dilemmas. From government spending to tax collection, education improvement to health outcomes, and welfare reform to job creation, we see the potential for meaningful improvement, to do more and better with less. What is needed is government management by design, built to fit these difficult times: government that identifies the most critical, solvable problems, reorganizes where necessary to deliver the right solutions, and abandons the tools and approaches that no longer work.
In this effort, governments can draw heavily on the mission-driven mind-set of employees—a real comparative advantage for the public sector over the private sector. Too often leaders insufficiently tap into this valuable asset. And leaders can do far more to mine information on what is working elsewhere. International peers, often trying to solve exactly the same problems, provide invaluable road maps and lessons. Unlike the private sector, where companies spend millions of dollars trying to understand secret competitor strategies and replicate them, the public sector is an open environment, and thereby easier to mine for successful practices and lessons learned.
Political leaders rarely campaign for office on a platform of government effectiveness. For some it fails to capture their imagination or, they suspect, the imagination of voters. For others, tackling the bureaucracy is perceived as high risk and low reward compared with passing new laws in the legislature. Yet few succeed without achieving some reform. Many departing presidents, prime ministers, and cabinet secretaries reflect on how the engine of government itself was at the very heart of their successes or failures.
To truly transform government requires fresh thinking and a substantial investment of both resources and political capital: business-as-usual or modest or occasional improvement is inadequate. Those that have achieved sustainable and significantly higher levels of government performance did so by explicitly designing and executing multiyear reforms that push beyond everyday initiatives designed to improve management capability. In our research, we identify 40 such programs that have been enacted around the world in the past two decades. There were a number of objectives these programs were designed to achieve: significant fiscal consolidation, better outcomes across multiple public services, and economic growth (exhibit).
Dozens of governments have undertaken ambitious programs to remake themselves.
Analyzing these programs and interviewing the leaders involved reveals a valuable set of lessons for other government leaders facing major challenges. The first is being clear and ambitious about what the government is trying to achieve. Many transformations achieved what appeared to be impossible targets. Sweden, for example, moved from an 11 percent deficit to a fiscal surplus in the 1990s, having been close to default and an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout. A second lesson is the need to make big—not incremental—shifts in the amount of time, energy, and resources required. On average, the programs in our sample lasted for six years, with a staff of 1,300 involved in each.
Beyond this clear focus and investment of time and resources, government by design also means investing in those capabilities needed for success. Some of these are common and enduring across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, such as employing best practices in technology and operations, organization and human resources, and budgeting and finance, as well as operating across geographic and stakeholder boundaries and making use of large data sets for better performance and policy. Other capabilities will be specific to the government sector, including risk management in regulation and client differentiation for welfare-to-work interventions.
Increasingly, the intense pressure for reform, combined with a new operating environment, makes innovation a critical capability. In many areas, government agencies around the world are reimagining how services are delivered (for example, through one-stop shops and e-portals) by providing greater data availability and through mobile services that allow citizens to get instant help and support. They are also migrating to a new paradigm where nonstate actors—private companies, nonprofits, and citizens themselves—play an increasingly important role in designing and executing policies and services.
Governments that are willing to reform and build these crucial capabilities are better able to achieve major breakthroughs in the most fundamental policy areas, even in the absence of new policy or legislation.
Take fiscal management, arguably the most daunting of all issues today. According to the IMF, most governments in countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) need to improve their deficits by 4 percent or more of GDP to achieve long-term debt targets.1 1.International Monetary Fund Fiscal Monitor, April 2011. Of course much of this involves policy debate. Entitlement reform, public-spending reductions, and increased taxation are highly charged political issues. However, operational reforms designed to improve efficiency can make a meaningful difference now and set the stage for more successful policy implementation over time. In particular, spending reviews undertaken agency by agency—even if initially focused only on noncore functions such as technology, procurement, or travel—can yield meaningful savings that will increase credibility and flexibility as fiscal constraints increase. Similarly, improved tax collection, drawing on international best practices, can produce real revenue growth within the existing tax structure.
A number of governments are taking a more strategic and evidence-based approach to achieving fiscal sustainability by launching multiyear spending reviews. These reviews help to establish priorities and clear paths to deficit reduction. Almost without exception, the spending reviews uncover huge opportunities for improving effectiveness, decreasing costs, and increasing revenue by improving the efficiency of administrative, noncore activities. To size the prize, consider that our global bench-marking research indicates that operational expenditures represent 35 to 40 percent of total government expenditure; on average, 19 percent of GDP for OECD countries. Within that operational expenditure, roughly a third is spent on overhead functions, representing 6 to 7 percent of GDP in OECD countries.
To date, we have reviewed ten countries that have conducted such spending reviews during the past five years and discovered that there is currently little standardization in approach. Several governments have imposed top-down spending cuts, from the center to agencies, while others have developed a bottom-up understanding of the potential savings opportunities. Of those using a bottom-up approach, New Zealand and Denmark have used clear baselines and intragovernment or external benchmarks to estimate the savings potential—even though this is clearly an opportunity to drive success.
Drawing on benchmarks from different governments, we estimate a potential to save 5 to 10 percent of operational costs through overhead categories without compromising core programs. This represents a savings in the range of 0.3 to 0.7 percent of GDP—some 10 percent of the adjustment that countries are required to make in order to achieve their long-term debt targets. This is a significant contribution, given that it requires no compromise on core programs, no reduction in social programs, and no additional costs to taxpayers. And it ultimately sets the stage for better policy implementation in the future.
Meanwhile, as governments grapple with increasing social obligations and projected declines in the relative size of labor workforces, tax administrations are under even more pressure to collect every dollar of tax payable. They need to ensure that every dollar they spend collecting taxes yields the maximum benefit for citizens. Tax administrations also have broader significance: the interface and effectiveness of a tax administration often becomes a watermark of public confidence in a government.
In this quest, tax administrations can learn a great deal from one another. But our in-depth research at federal tax administrations in 15 OECD countries uncovered wide variability not only in the performance of tax authorities across countries but also within countries across different functions—submissions processing, examinations, collections, and taxpayer service.
We estimate that, in aggregate, the tax administrations in our study can collect an additional $86 billion in direct tax revenues if they adopt the practices of the top third. Four major design elements stand out as avenues for achieving improvements: proactive demand management that smooths tax collection across the year and avoids the end-of-year bottleneck, sophisticated taxpayer segmentation to prioritize which taxpayers to target with which approaches, streamlined operations, and rigorous performance tracking. And these savings apply only to direct taxes.
Beyond undertaking spending reviews and improving tax collection to manage the operating budget, governments have a major opportunity to take an end-to-end capital-management approach to their balance sheets at both the agency and government-wide level to improve fiscal health. This includes identifying and measuring material risks, incorporating the knowledge of risk into operations, and ensuring the integrity of the internal assessments over time. Even simple approaches to changing the inflow of accounts receivable or outflow of accounts payable can yield meaningful improvements.
Along with fiscal management, unemployment dominates the landscape across most of the OECD. Here, too, exist fundamental differences in ideology and vision on how to solve rising unemployment risk stasis. Stimulus programs and other legislative actions to increase growth and create jobs may or may not get through legislatures, but other government interventions to improve demand, supply, and the matching of skills to jobs can significantly improve the jobs picture.
Many governments are now adapting vocational education to better fit employment prospects, for example, by involving employers more closely in both its design and delivery. Employment agencies are doing a better job of matching supply and demand by improving their market information and by producing more comprehensive, specific, and up-to-date data on vacancies, job seekers, and required qualifications. They are also segmenting the job-seeker population to better understand which segments can be processed in quick and automated ways and which merit deeper intervention and support.
After a series of catastrophic events, government bodies that protect the public—such as industry regulators, law enforcement, and disaster-preparedness agencies—are being more closely scrutinized with regard to their actions, their impact, and their overall effectiveness. But they are not necessarily receiving larger budgets. In stark terms, society is asking whether regulators are most effectively anticipating the next threat and protecting the public. As with unemployment, the policy debate on this issue can become quickly polarized around the trade-off between more protection for the public and consumers and the potentially negative impact of more aggressive regulation for economic growth.
Agencies can make great progress by focusing on optimal resource allocation and redesigning how they organize and plan. They can place more emphasis on outcome-based regulation and on predicting, preparing for, and mitigating "tail risk." The most significant assaults on the public's sense of safety and security have come from events that previously seemed unlikely. Tail events are difficult to predict because they often require multiple things to go wrong. Examples include the attacks of September 11, Hurricane Katrina's damage to the New Orleans levees, the financial crisis of 2008–09, and the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the nuclear-power-plant meltdown that followed. But better risk-based systems can improve governments' ability to prevent and respond to such events.
In fact, across core public services—in areas such as infrastructure, education, health care, and policing—government by design can also enhance outcomes and manage costs. In these areas, the political discourse is often dominated by significant and legitimate ideological differences. Despite that, governments that focus on what really works operationally in driving outcomes can reap gains. Governments that systematically embrace the latest proven project-management approaches and tools can dramatically improve the value of infrastructure investments, at the same time reducing errors and time to completion.
In education, for example, school systems can learn from peers at a similar stage of evolution or performance about the right levers to use for improvement—be it better use of pupil data, revision of standards and curricula, or a deeper professionalization of teaching careers. Likewise, the escalation of health care costs across all systems is provoking significant political debate. Yet the best systems are already beginning to make progress in health care productivity through a number of steps, such as the prediction of patients most at risk and the adoption of subsequent prevention strategies, delivery of care at home and in capital-light settings rather than in hospitals, and technology innovations to boost clinician effectiveness and efficiency. Government services can and should build on examples of success around the world.
There is a real prize for governments that can make progress even as the policy and fiscal environments threaten to thwart action. But to win, governments must adapt to fit the challenges of today, in part by applying best practices from around the world.
In challenging times, the government we need is rarely the government we inherit. Instead, government must be deliberately designed and managed to make progress on solvable problems.
Diana Farrell is a director in McKinsey's Washington, DC, office. She is the global leader and cofounder of the McKinsey Center for Government.


text:
The Goldman Family
When Stefanie and Brian Goldman began looking for a new home four years ago, they set their criteria but soon discovered that nothing was going to match what they wanted, exactly. They wanted waterfront, they wanted privacy, they wanted spectacular.
"What we found was an old, old house on an incredible lot, on a great lake, with lots of privacy, " said Brian. They decided this was the house of their future, moved in and then called Gittleman Construction Company.
"As soon as we met Scott (Gittleman) I knew we would work with him," said Brian. "He not only had great ideas, he had a lot of vision."
Over the next six months, Scott and his team moved walls and replaced them with panoramic windows, gutted the kitchen and rebuilt it with
everything state-of-the-art, installed hardwood floors. Basically, said Brian, they transformed the Goldman's "dingy…worst of the 80's house" into something "fabulous."
"We are very pleased with everything they did. They made it more functional for our lifestyle" not to mention absolutely gorgeous, he said. "These people really know what they are doing."
Now Brian, Stefanie and their 11-month old daughter Ellory enjoy a Tommy Bahama lifestyle in a luxury home they never want to leave — and rarely do. Said Brian, "It's like coming home to a vacation paradise every single night."
So next time you find a lot that you love with a house you don't like, remember that one phone call to Gittleman Construction Company can turn it into the home of your dreams.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Thе Buісk muѕсlе cars knоwn as thе GS 400, and thе mіghtу GSX wеrе knоwn as "Gentleman's Cаrѕ". Buicks рrоvеd hіgh performing in thе ѕіxtіеѕ, аnd еаrlу part оf thе ѕеvеntіеѕ. Anу classic Buісk fаn wіll tеll уоu thаt Buісk'ѕ mаrkеtіng strategy wаѕ bеlоw the Cadillac. Buicks wеrе a noble brееd, and оftеn rеfеrrеd tо as саrѕ a dосtоr would bе drіvіng. Buісkѕ bіrth into thе muѕсlе саr іnduѕtrу hарреnеd in 1965.
Buісk оffеrеd Gran Sport орtіоnѕ fоr thе Wildcat, and thе Rіvіеrа. Thеѕе vеhісlеѕ were ѕрlеndіd manly-type cars, but nоt уоur сlаѕѕіс muѕсlе machine. This version сhаngеd drаѕtісаllу with thе bіrth оf thе Buick Skуlаrk that ѕhаrеd іtѕ design wіth thе Tеmреѕt that Pontiac uѕеd fоr thе fоundаtіоn оf the рорulаr GTO. The company came оut with a mіd-ѕіzеd ѕеdаn wіth mid-sized реrfоrmаnсе in the mіddlе еіghtіеѕ wіth thе GNX, аnd thе Grand Nаtіоnаl thаt соntаіnеd V-6 еngіnеѕ.
Bеfоrе the Electra 225, the Limited, аnd thе Roadmaster was thе "Bіg Boys" оf Buісk'ѕ lеgеndаrу lineup. In 1959, these cars were rеnаmеd thе Electra. The car еаrnеd іtѕ name "dеuсе аnd a ԛuаrtеr" duе tо thе оvеrаll lеngth of thе nаmерlаtе whісh ѕtеmmеd 225 іnсhеѕ. Thеѕе mоdеlѕ shared ѕіx wіndоw hаrdtорѕ wіth thе Cаdіllас Flееtwооd.
A ѕtаndаrd twо-dооr соnvеrtіblе and a ѕtаndаrd four-door hаrdtор shared a ѕtrірреd сhаѕѕіѕ. 144 of these саrѕ wеrе рrоduсеd between thе уеаrѕ 1959, аnd 1960. In 1962, the Wіldсаt еvоlvеd аftеr mating thе Invісtа long full-size twо-dооr hardtop bоdу with thе high performance 435 hр vеrѕіоn оf the 401 cu іn Nailhead V-8 whісh was knоwn аѕ thе Wіldсаt 445 for рrоduсіng 445 ft. * 1bf of tоrԛuе. It соntаіnеd thе Dуnаflоw trаnѕmіѕѕіоn, and dіѕtіnсtіvе ѕіdе trіmmіng, distinctive еmblеmѕ аnd a vіnуl rооf.
Buick hаѕ used thе nаmе "Wіldсаt" fоr five vеhісlеѕ thаt ѕtеm frоm thе fіftіеѕ, eighties, аnd nіnеtіеѕ. Thе 1953-54-55 vеrѕіоnѕ wеrе designed under thе wаtсhful еуе of Hаrlеу Earl. Thе 1985 vеrѕіоn соntаіnѕ a mіd-ѕіzеd engine, and іѕ аn аll-whееl-drіvе ѕроrtѕ саr with sporting a V-6 engine. Thе 1997 vеrѕіоn соntаіnѕ carbon fiber іnѕtеаd оf the vіѕсоuѕ wood grаіn trim, аnd thе еngіnе was mоdіfіеd.
In 1982, Thе Rеgаl Grаnd National wаѕ іntrоduсеd tо thе mаrkеt. Thе name dеrіvеd from the NASCAR Grаnd National rасіng ѕеrіеѕ. Buісk wоn thе Manufacturers Cup іn 1981-82, аnd thеу wanted to flаunt their ѕuссеѕѕ. Thе соmраnу hаd оnlу іntеndеd tо produce one hundrеd of thеѕе саrѕ, but thеу rаn wіth thе рlаn tо retrofit 215 Regals with thе GN аnd GNX расkаgе.
Thе Rеаttа wаѕ thе fіrѕt advertised twо-ѕеаtеr оf Buick. It was dееmеd a luxurу ѕроrtѕ соuре that wаѕ сrаftеd іn Lаnѕіng Mісhіgаn аnd sold bу GM from 1988 tо 1991. Thе dеѕіgn wаѕ bаѕеd on a shorter vеrѕіоn оf thе GM E platform used in Cadillac Eldоrаdо'ѕ аnd thе Oldѕmоbіlе Toronado's. It was a соmрасt sports саr, but ѕаdlу, it was оnlу оffеrеd wіth аutоmаtіс trаnѕmіѕѕіоn.
The Buісk Dіvіѕіоn аt GM built the Rоаdmаѕtеr and wаѕ рrоduсеd between the years оf 1936 аnd 1958. Thеѕе mоdеlѕ shared their dеѕіgn ѕtruсturе wіth thе Oldѕmоbіlе'ѕ. Bеtwееn the уеаrѕ оf 1946 аnd 1957, this car wаѕ considered a tор-оf-lіnе model. Buick decided tо place thе Rоаdmаѕtеr name оn a nеw full-ѕіzеd-whееl drіvе mоdеl bеtwееn 1991 аnd 1996. Hеrе, іѕ an amusing fасt аbоut this саr; thе Right Hоnоrаblе Jean Chrеtіеn, Cаnаdа'ѕ Prime Minister was driven аrоund in аrmоrеd Roadmasters during hіѕ entire tеrm оf оffісе (1993 – 2003).
Classic Buісk fans еxіѕt because thеу nоt оnlу ѕееk high-performance but luxurу. Thіѕ соmраnу іѕ wеll-knоwn fоr thеіr luxurу cars and thе fасt thеу were аblе to build muѕсlе cars оn tор оf luxury саrѕ, rеіnfоrсеѕ thе fасt thаt thіѕ саr company's products аrе mоrе collectible than еvеr.


text:
Stefano Volpi (Siena, 1585 – aldaar, 1642) ook Stefano Volpe genoemd, was een Italiaanse kunstschilder die actief was in Siena en omgeving in de beginperiode van de barok. Hij schilderde vooral religieuze onderwerpen. Volgens Luigi Lanzi (1732-1810) een Italiaanse kunsthistoricus uit de achttiende eeuw was hij een leerling en medewerker van van Rutilio Manetti. Volgens anderen was hij een leerling van Francesco Vanni en medewerker van Manetti. In Siena schilderde hij voor de Santi Quirico e Giulitta, de San Raimondo, de San Sebastiano en de San Domenico.

Werken
Hierbij een lijst met enkele toegeschreven werken.
 Christus aan het kruis met vier engeltjes en een geknielde Maria Magdalena. Het schilderij zou gebaseerd zijn op een werk van Ventura Salimnei en bevindt zich nu in de Santa Maria Maddalena Penitente van Torrenieri.
 De dood van St. Antonius abt, een kopie door Volti van een werk van Rutilio Manetti. Nu in de Santa Maria Maddalena Penitente van Torrenieri.
 De terugkeer van de Heilige Familie uit Egypte in de Santa Maria Maddalena Penitente van Torrenieri, toegeschreven aan Volpi.
 Elizabeth van Hongarije en Lodewijk van Toulouse in aanbidding voor een Madonna met Kind tussen Franciscus en Clara. Montalcino.
 De marteldood van Catharina van Alexandrië in de lokalen van de Contrada Capitana dell'Onda, Siena.
 Kruisiging in de Chiesa di S. Niccolò del Carmine van de contrada della Pantera
 Heilige Falilie, Santuario della Madonna del Soccorso, Montalcino

Bibliografie
Toti, Enrico, Il pittore Stefano Volpi (c. 1585-1642), 1982.

Italiaans kunstschilder

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: Download excel file on anchor tag with confirmation dialogue box in codeigniter I want to download excel file on confirmation of yes button from dialogue box
On click of button open a dialogue box and that ask are sure you want to download?
two buttons are provide yes and no.
On click of yes button from dialogue box method call from controller and excel file is download.

A: Try this:
<a href="<?php echo site_url('controller/method'); ?>" onclick="return confirm('are sure you want to download?')">Download
By click on download link, a confirmation box will appears with two options ok and cancel. By proceeds with ok button, controller's method will be execute.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


All degree programs offered by RVCC contain a core of courses that fulfills General Education requirements established by the New Jersey Council of County Colleges (NJCCC). The purpose of these courses is to develop students' intellectual capacities, abilities, and skills; and to expose students to the ideas and values of a broad range of academic fields including arts, communications, humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, mathematics, and technology. The specific General Education Learning Goals established by NJCCC are presented in the following table.
The distribution of General Education course credits for RVCC degrees and certificates is presented in the following table.
RVCC courses that satisfy these General Education requirements are listed below.


text:
Jacques Barozzi (né en 1952) est un scénariste français, auteur en 2006 d'un court livre sur le Festival de Cannes, Le Goût de Cannes.

Biographie

Filmographie
 1989 : V comme vengeance.

Publications
 .
 .
 Paris de fontaine en fontaine, éditions Parigramme, Compagnie parisienne du livre, Paris, 2010.
 Le Goût de Montpellier / textes choisis et présentés par Jacques Barozzi. Paris : Mercure de France, coll. « Le Petit Mercure », 2012, 112 p. .
 Le Goût de l'Afrique, Mercure de France, 2014, .
 Le Goût de Cannes, Mercure de France, 2006, .

Notes et références

Liens externes

  Jacques Barozzi sur l'Internet Movie Database
 Le Goût de Cannes sur le site du Mercure de France

Scénariste français de cinéma
Naissance en 1952


To capture and hold someone's interest in something. A noun or pronoun can be used between "engross" and "in." Dad is engrossed in fixing the car, so he can't talk right now. Although Dad tries to engross me in auto repairs, they're just not interesting to me. I'm sorry I didn't call you back—I got engrossed in a movie.
to occupy someone's time or thinking with something. You can't expect me to engross Tom in my work. We were all engrossed in what the speaker had to say.


text:
The Perils Of Pathological Altruism
Frank Pledge
"The quality of mercy is not strained. It dropeth as a gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice bless-ed. It blesseth he who gives and he who takes. …" William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
Forget the "takers", Portia was right to focus on the fact that the prime motivating principle behind the showing of mercy, is the "blessing" that is owed to those who "give" it. She/he reminds Shylock that the showing of mercy is the route to the biggest prize of all, the salvation of the giver.
"In the course of justice we all must see salvation."
But, all those blessings can be seriously addictive. Showing mercy and compassion can quickly become vices. They become vices at the point when they are the easy options taken to avoid making tough decisions or odious calls, and when done for the immediate rewards to be gained. Like the judge who uses mercy as a way of avoiding the personal guilt of sending a convicted felon to prison, and who then basks in the "blessing" of the demonstration of his mercy.
Theodore Dalrymple, commenting of the Pope's message on illegal immigrants into Italy, describes the point where compassion becomes "moral exhibitionism":
"By elevating feeling over thought, by making compassion the measure of all things, the Pope was able to evade the complexities of the situation, in effect indulging in one of the characteristic vices of our time, moral exhibitionism, which is the espousal of generous sentiment without the pain of having to think of the costs to other people of the implied (but unstated) morally-appropriate policy." — Theodore Dalrymple
Moral exhibitionism, of course, sits well along side Dalrymple's False Apology Syndrome, with which it is closely linked.
But we are cursed by other "isms" too. Altruism – on its own a wonderful thing, but altruism so easily evolves into "competitive altruism", where in search of those "blessings" the "good" compete to outdo each other's "goodness". And competitive altruism soon evolves into "pathological altruism". The term "Pathological Altruism" was first coined by psychologist, Professor Barbara Oakley of Oakland University:
"A working definition of a pathological altruist then might be a person who sincerely engages in what he or she intends to be altruistic acts but who (in a fashion that can be reasonably anticipated) harms the very person or group he or she is trying to help; or a person who, in the course of helping one person or group, inflicts reasonably foreseeable harm to others beyond the person or group being helped; or a person who in reasonably anticipatory way becomes a victim of his or her own altruistic actions."
Now the "good" are so addicted to Shakespeare's "blessings" that come from the showing of mercy and compassion, that the actual end of the altruism is completely forgotten in the lust for do-goodism.
A good example of this is the Carbon Tax. Its pointlessness was obvious from the start. Looking at the supposed impacts of the Carbon Tax, no rational person could imagine that it was ever going to have an effect on climate or atmospheric CO2 levels. No political realist could ever have imagined it would influence other countries to introduce similar taxes, nor that the policy would garner votes for the Labor Party, which had already determined that before the 2010 election, when the "No Carbon Tax under my government" lie from Julia Gillard sought to allay voter fears that such a policy would actually be implemented.
When Gillard's promise was broken, everyone was supposed to sign up to the expiation of the guilt for our supposedly profligate use of fossil fuels and bask in the "feel-good" altruism that came from the introduction of the tax. Walk tall, Australia, and feel good once more because, in response to "the greatest moral challenge of our times" we have passed into law a totally pointless act of symbolism. Forget climate change, that pathological altruism became the end in itself, to the detriment of the country, our manufacturing industries, their workers, taxpayers and even, ultimately, to the environment, the Labor Party and the Greens.
The same problem is obvious in the proposed constitutional amendments. No rational person, outside the immediate financial beneficiaries, would ever presume that a change to the Constitution can materially affect the lives of Aborigines in remote areas. This is pathological altruism and moral exhibitionism to the core, on a level that competes only with "self-determination" as a folly of wishful thinking. The whole history of law-making with respect to Aborigines in Australia has been a history of wishful thinking, made for the very best of motives, ending in foreseeable but unintended consequences.
So take "self-determination". The mission stations had already attempted to introduce "self-determination" through local advisory committees early in their foundation, but had found them to be a more or less a complete failure. There was no mechanism in traditional society that allowed one person to speak on behalf of another person, so the idea of elected representation was untenable. The failure of the self-determination model was predictable, predicted, and totally ignored. ATSIC was a case study of Indigenous politics at work.
Take the land rights legislation. There were loud warning from those who understood Aboriginal individual- and clan-ownership structures and who warned against the Eurocentric, communist-inspired, communal land ownership model of the centralised Land Councils so favoured by the progressives: Here is one such warning
"Aboriginal landowners already possess 'title' to their land, in traditional terms, through the joint principles of descent and tjurrunga (sacred objects etc.). This 'title' can only be held by the Pmarakutwia (actual landowners), together with their Kutungula (custodians or managers), and cannot possibly be held, even on their behalf, by anyone else. It is for this reason the concept of a Land Trust holding title to land on behalf of a land-owning group is regarded as being impossible in traditional terms. It is also highly dangerous, since it is seen as a major infringement of the traditional land-owner's rights, possibly resulting in the application of the death penalty." Albrecht et al.
But as an exercise in pathological altruism, "self-determination" and communal land ownership just could not be avoided.
Ironically, all those who accuse the early pioneers of a taking a purely Eurocentric view when describing traditional Aboriginal culture fell for the obvious trap of trying to impose Eurocentric models of local government on traditional Aboriginal "communities". And note here, my use of quotation marks around "community" — a reminder, I hope, that even the term community itself is not part of the Aboriginal experience, but a model of settled living introduced by the missionaries, and perpetuated during "self-determination" era. To many observers who understand Aboriginal culture the term "Aboriginal community" is an oxymoron demonstrated by community dysfunction every day.
What is interesting is not so much how readily the wishful-thinking, white urban elites adopt Eurocentric political forms and project them on to Aborigines, I guess that is to be expected of those ill-informed about traditional Aboriginal culture, but that the Aborigines of the urban elites themselves are so equally ill-informed about their own culture that they do exactly the same thing, fully expecting them to work.
Take Warren Mundine's idea of Aboriginal "nations". The whole concept of "nationhood" is foreign to the Aboriginal experience and has no parallel in Indigenous culture before it was introduced by white anthropologists in a rush of misguided projection. The fact that there were no "national" structures that British settlers could treat with is demonstrated by the fact that in places where political units capable of signing treaties existed, as in New Zealand, settler governments did actually sign treaties.
But this is not about the definition of a "nation" — those arguments, and the consequences, will no doubt be covered elsewhere as the constitutional debate gathers more airtime, headlines and opinion columns.
Since "self-determination", every remote community has (by an large) systematically and enthusiastically rejected all major aspects of mainstream culture. Mainstream education has declined to the point where grandparents are more likely to be literate than either their children or grand children. Health outcomes have declined in the face of increased health presence, with health worker Sandra Stacy declaring on the ABC's Science Show more than 30 years ago:
"As a health worker I am overwhelmed by the amount of sickness that still exists in the Aboriginal children, and I am distressed because so many of them die from what I know to be preventable diseases. I want to work with Aboriginals to do something to alleviate this situation. The (Aboriginal) health workers say they want to help us. They come and ask us what we think. We tell them, but sometimes they don't seem to listen." — The Science Show, Aboriginal Nutrition, 1983
Indigenous communities tolerate levels of poor education, poor health outcomes, violence, substance abuse, and child abuse that would not be endured elsewhere. As Professor Peter Sutton says in The Politics of Suffering (2009):
"There is, in fact, much complaint that life was substantially better under the old pre-1970 mission regimes. Even if we discount the distorting factor of Golden Age nostalgia here, for many settlements this is the uncomfortable truth.
"Public recognition of mission time as far happier and safer than the post-liberation era in segregated communities, came not just from Indigenous people but was increasingly being recognised among others, even academics."
Goodness me! Even Academics! Astonishing! Well, welcome on board! Better late than never! Sutton also posed this very important question: Since the remote communities were systematically rejecting mainstream values, why were the Aboriginal urban elites continuing to use those same mainstream values as the main metric for evaluating Aboriginal disadvantage?
The use of a Eurocentric value system for measuring disadvantage of a society which is actively rejecting that value system symbolizes the yawning gulf between the de-tribalised urban elites and the tribalised remote area Aborigines. In effect, this urban group is just one more group, acting under the guise of Aboriginality, attempting to impose their version of assimilation onto the remote area Aborigines. How are the Constitutional amendments expected to proceed without assimilation, if the yardstick by which Aborigines are constantly measured is always in the Imperial measuring system? If dysfunction in remote communities is caused by a clash of cultures, what are the Aboriginal values that are being clashed with? Has anyone measured them? Does anyone know? Does anyone care? If nobody knows, who is going to say whether the Constitutional amendments will improve the situation in the remote areas, or simply exacerbate it?
While the urban elites claim that they want to "bridge the gap" between the urban and remote Aborigines, which, as I have suggested above, is double-speak for assimilation, there is no evidence in my mind that remote tribal Aborigines have any such intention. Given that the last 25 years of political theory has been all about legitimizing those traditional Aboriginal cultural values, how can tinkering with the Constitution bring about any substantive change? In the remote areas I would suggest that there is a desire not to bridge, but to cement, the "the gap" into the Constitution.
On the other hand, it is clear that the urban Aboriginal elites, while wishing to bridge one "gap", do wish to entrench their own "gap" into the Constitution. However, that gap is the gap between Eurocentric, urban Aborigines and Eurocentric, urban non-Aborigines. Incidentally, I have been using the term "Eurocentric" because, while I am comfortable with my heritage as a "WASP", I imagine urban Aboriginal elites are less willing to admit that they are probably as culturally "ASP" as I am. "Eurocentric" may be a bit more palatable.
Unless the constitutional amendments explicitly address which "gap" is being addressed, and what the stated end point of all this is to be, it will be left to the courts who seem singularly ill-equipped to make sensible practical decisions, and will fail just as the previous attempts to improve the lot of Aborigines have failed.
To those suffering pathological altruism or moral exhibitionism, locking taxpayers into open ended litigation is not a problem. It will provide endless opportunities for the serial do-goodists to do what they do best – photo-opportunities and grand-standing, To someone attempting to actually solve Aboriginal problems, this is a real problem.
The very people whom Abbott accuses of "lacking heart" in their dealings with Aboriginal people in the past, in reality, simply lacked the desire for moral grand-standing. They understood pathological altruism, even if they didn't know the term, and understood that it was possible for the well-meaning to do more harm than good with ill-considered, feel-good programs. Consider the appendix of the 1899-1900 Annual Report of the South Australian Protector of Aborigines:
At the annual meeting of the Aborigines' Friends' Association, in the Town Hall, Adelaide, on the 8th of October instant , His Excellency Lord Tennyson , who presided, ….
The Minister of Agriculture and Education, (Hon. E.L. Batchelor) said :- …
… In South Australia the public funds, so far as the natives were concerned, chiefly went in providing rations and clothing in depôts scattered about the colony, and also the assisting the missions like those under this association (the A.F.A.) He had heard criticisms – he was not referring to His Excellency's that evening, that they did not do enough in the way of providing food and clothing for the natives. He was personally quite convinced that it was possible to do more harm than good by indiscriminately providing food and clothing all over the place, and so leading the natives to think there was no necessity for them to work. They might spend four or five times as much money as at present, and do a great deal less good than was being done. Idleness among whites or blacks bred all kinds of trouble, disease, and finally death, and if they took care that the assistance rendered by the public always went in the direction of helping those institutions which aided in providing work for the natives, they would do far more good than by public or private indiscriminate charity to the aborigines. He had seen natives in a good many places." 1899 – 1900
Those guys recognised in 1900 that welfarism was no solution to Aboriginal problems, and were prepared to take flack from the charitable NGOs while rejecting it. And they are still, 100 years later, taking flack for their non grand-standing approach.
Ultimately, the carbon tax had nothing to do with carbon, or taxes, or anything of the like, but was a simple act of moral vanity driven by pathological altruism — the desire to look and feel good. Similarly, the constitutional amendments ultimately have nothing to do with Aborigines or their aspirations. No one could really believe a mention in the Constitution will make the slightest difference on the ground in the remote areas when there appears to be no consensus on what is actually supposed to be achieved. It is another exercise in pathological altruism where the end is an opportunity to exercise moral exhibitionism on a grand scale. The extent of the damage to be suffered will only become apparent when the actual text of the amendments are released and, ultimately, interpreted by white urban judges who have their own moral exhibitionist-driven agendas. Walk tall Australia oncre again! Feel good because you have made another pointless symbolic act!
Unfortunately, to stand in the way of the "yes" case is to stand in the way of those addicted to moral exhibitionism, and to deny them their "high". I fear that that is going to be more dangerous than standing in front of the Carbon Tax.
Frank Pledge is the pseudonym of a veteran geologist who has spent much time in the developing world and, more recently, in and around Amata, Oenplli, Yalata and other remote communities
[email protected] – 6th February 2014
Dear Frank,
I must take issue, albeit only slightly, with your statement/proposition that – 'Altruism – on its own is a wonderful thing'. To my mind, altruism, or more accurately compulsory or obligatory altruism is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest curse[s], of mankind.
If you had proposed that generosity, charity, philanthropy was wonderful, I would unhesitatingly agree with you. These are necessary traits for civilisation to be formed and to be maintained.
However, the underlying and always unspoken essence of altruism is that the 'giver', 'donor' [or what ever] must not receive a benefit for his/her actions. The concept of altruism is perhaps as old as mankind. It is the tacit philosophical base of all religions, and more recently behind all secular socialist political philosophies and parties.
The concept of obligatory altruism is the philosophical base behind most atrocities committed throughout history. Last century approximately 100 million people were killed because of the dictates of compulsory altruism, i.e. Communism and Nazism. It allows otherwise good men to rationalise, even to excuse foul deeds.
If you as a 'giver' benefit in any way from an act of charity it is not altruism, it is a form of trade. Trade upsets altruists. In most cases it is not the benefit to the recipient of charity that pleases the collectivists so much as it is that the 'giver' has not benefited, or has even lost or suffered. This especially applies to the matters that you wrote so well about here.
Dennis Boothby
The Shame of Gillian Triggs
Anthony Dillon
The 'Stolen' Degeneration
Secret Rhetoric Business


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Posted on September 5, 2017 September 5, 2017 by ClarAdmin
Clarinets have been around for quite a long time, although not in their present form. The history of the clarinet goes as far back as the late 1600's, when an instrument known as a chalumeau was in occasional use in orchestras. The chalumeau is commonly considered to be a forerunner of our modern clarinet, although it bore little resemblance to the ones we play today.
By Maui2903 (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons
The chalumeau was a cane pipe measuring about 20cm (about 9 inches) long. It had seven holes, including a thumb hole, and a range of not much more than an octave.
The name chalumeau suggests a French origin for this little instrument. But it was Johann Denner, a leading German woodwind maker, who was credited with improving it, and in doing so inventing the early clarinet.
Sometime around 1700, Denner added two keys to the chalumeau, expanding its range by giving it an upper register. He also may have given it a separate mouthpiece and reed.
Addition of Keys
The history of the clarinet continued to develop as two-keyed clarinets underwent a variety of improvements and were introduced to France and England.
By about 1750, the clarinet body had taken the basic shape we see today, but the keywork continued to evolve. In about 1780, five keys were being used. And by 1820 or 1830, clarinets were commonly in use that had 12 or 13 keys. By 1850 or so Boehm system keywork had been introduced.
The Boehm system, based on the keywork then being used on the flute, managed to eliminated some very difficult fingerings. It is the system most commonly used today although Albert fingering systems are also still in use, primarily in Europe. In North America, it is rare to see a clarinet that does not use Boehm keywork.
(Image By Richard Holmes (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons)
In the mid to late 1700's, composers had begun writing musical pieces that included, or were specifically written for, clarinets.
The instrument became much more prominent in the 1800's, and large volumes of music were written for it in the early 1900's.
Modern Clarinets
We will likely see continued minor changes, although it will probably happen very slowly, over decades. Today, there are minor variations in different models. Manufacturers use slightly different bore diameters and shapes, and occasionally additional keys. Most modern clarinets have 17 or 18 keys.
CategoriesGeneral Tagsboehm, chalumeau, clarinet history, old clarinets
Next PostNext Evette & Schaeffer Clarinets


> > I wonder if it ios easy to use lout for music-typesetting.
> > features implemented and is very flexible.
> better leave music up to specialized programs.
Isn't lout an abstract "preprocessor" for Postscript?
Well, I heard about a "functional Postscript".
Maybe that will help me?
So there is no program acchieving, what I need.
May I program it by myself from scratch?
> > is able to jump back to a position of already typesttet notes?
> In a lazy functional language there's no "backwards" ;-).
So, why not setting notes in arbitrarily order too?
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At The Christian School (Takeley) we recognise the importance of the process of risk assessment to enable us to safeguard our students and promote their welfare.
This policy is to be used in conjunction the school's Health and Safety Policy, Fire Policy and all other policies related to health and safety, and individual risk assessments.
The purpose of risk assessment is to identify hazards and evaluate any associated risks. This includes such areas as:
Other areas include:
Some Science and home economics activities
PE and Sport Activities
Child Protection and Pastoral Care
Our Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy outlines the procedures in place to identify children at risk beyond the environs of school.
Medical and First Aid
Our First Aid and Medicines Policy outlines the procedures for managing first aid and illness in school
The Headteacher is responsible for reporting any notifiable accident that occurs on school premises to a student, member of staff, parent, visitor or contractor to the HSE in accordance with the Reporting of Injuries Diseases and Dangerous Occurrence Regulations (RIDDOR).
Unsafe areas
We ensure that students understand why they do not have access to potentially dangerous areas, such as the roof, storage areas, the car park, the chapel gardens (without permission) and the chapel balcony. Where there are no fire escapes, doors to these areas are kept locked at all times when not in use.
All flammables are kept securely locked.
Students do not have access to potentially dangerous science and DT equipment, catering equipment (e.g. sharp knives), medical supplies and cleaning supplies of the school. Some of these they will have access to under supervision.
Policy: Risk Assessment Policy


text:
Posts tagged: Petrova
PETROVA RULED OUT
Anna Kournikova's countrywoman, Nadia Petrova, will not be able to take part in the upcoming Australian Open because of the demise of her mom.
Petrova's mother passed away in a road accident a few days back. She was a sportsperson herself. During the 1976 Olympics which had taken place in Montreal, she had won a bronze medal for Russia in the 400 m relay race.
Petrova is not the only Russian player who has withdrawn her name from the Australian Open of late. Maria Kirilenko is the other one who will miss the tournament. However, the reason behind her withdrawal is different. She is actually injured and that's why, she would not participate in the tournament.
In a press conference yesterday, the members of the organizing committee of the Australian Open confirmed the withdrawal of Petrova and Kirilenko from the tournament.
The organizers said, "Because of the sudden demise of her mother, Nadia Petrova has decided that she would keep herself out of the Australian Open. We want to convey our condolences to her and her family at this tough time."
Currently, Petrova is not even in top 50 in the official WTA rankings. Her game has certainly gone down a lot in the recent past. She has struggled to win matches against good, quality players.
As far as Petrova's performance in the Australian Open is concerned, she is yet to win that tournament.
A couple of years back in 2011, she had had her best outing in the Australian Open as she had managed to make it to the semi final round then. But, in the last two seasons, she got knocked out pretty early from the tournament (from the second round in 2012 and from the opening round in 2013).
Tags: Petrova
Uncategorized | admin | January 2, 2014 2:22 pm | Comments (0)
PETROVA LOSES OUT
Anna Kournikova's countrywoman, Nadia Petrova, has been defeated by Li Na of China in the second round of the China Open at Beijing. Li won the match in the straight sets by 6-1, 6-2. It was a completely one sided match and Li won it in just 79 minutes.
Petrova had won the Toray Pan Pacific Open before coming into this tournament and she was high on confidence. She was expected to reach the semi finals easily. But, Petrova didn't show the form that she had shown in the Toray Pan Pacific Open. She looked horribly out of nick and managed to win only 3 games in the entire match.
In the post match interview, Li Na said, "I had come into the match expecting a tough fight from Petrova, but, luckily, she wasn't at her best today and made many unforced errors."
"It's nice to get a convincing win against a quality player like Petrova. But, I need to carry on the momentum. I want to win the title on my home soil and hopefully, I would succeed."
On the other hand, Petrova looked disgusted after being defeated. The Russian player said, "It was a terrible match for me. I am pretty disappointed with the way I served in the whole match. Li was fantastic in today's match and she hardly gave me any opportunity."
In the opening set, both the players held their service in the first two games and the scorecard was saying 1-1 at the end of the 2nd game. But, after that, Li was all over Petrova. She won the next five games on the trot and sealed the first set by 6-1.
Li started the second set in a brilliant fashion. She broke Petrova's service in the first and the third game and took a lead of 4-0. However, Petrova got a breakthrough in the 6th game and reduced the lead to 4-2, but, that was it for her in the match. Li broke Petrova's service in the 7th game and then, wrapped up the match by holding her service in the next game.
In the third round, Li Na will play against her countrywoman Shuai Peng.
Uncategorized | admin | November 14, 2012 12:23 pm | Comments (0)
PETROVA MAKES SECOND ROUND
Anna Kournikova's compatriot, Nadia Petrova, has reached the second round of the US Open by defeating Jarmila Gajdosova of Australia in the first round. Petrova won the match in the straight sets by 6-3, 7-6(3). Gajdosova played some good shots in the second set, but, Petrova's experience and versatility proved to be too much for her. Petrova served very well in the match. She also played some majestic forehand shots.
Petrova came into the match with all guns blazing. She made a fantastic start to the first set. She broke Gajdosova's service in the second game of the first set and then, served out the third game to get ahead in the set by 3-0.The Aussie needed a breakthrough badly, but, Petrova didn't let her do that. Petrova maintained her lead till the end of the set and sealed the opening set by 6-3. In the second set, Gajdosova tightened her game and held her entire serves. However, Petrova could have broken her opponent's service in the 11th game, but, she wasn't able to take advantage of the two breakpoints that she got. The set went into the tie breaker. Petrova flattened the Aussie with some cracking shots in the tie breaker and won the match.
In the post match interview, Petrova said that she shouldn't have let the second set go into the tie breaker. She should have capitalized on the breakpoint that she had got towards the end of the second set. As per Petrova, she would have to play against some top quality players in the further matches and if she continues making such mistakes in those matches, it might prove costly for her. The Russian player said that she would have to raise the standard of her game for the further matches. In the second round, Petrova will play against Simona Halep of Romania.
Uncategorized | admin | October 11, 2012 8:34 am | Comments (0)
PETROVA SUFFER DEFEAT
Anna Kournikova's countrywoman, Nadia Petrova, has been defeated in the opening round of the Rogers Cup by Kiki Bertens of Netherlands. The match was very interesting and both the players tried hard, but, the Dutch youngster maintained her composure throughout the game and defeated Petrova after a long struggle of 2 hours and 20 minutes. Bertens, who has been ranked 80th in the official rankings of WTA, won the match by 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-4.
In the first two games of the first set, both the players broke each other's service and the scores were leveled at 1-1. Thereafter, Petrova got two consecutive breakthroughs in the third game and the fifth game and won the next three games in a row to make the score 4-1. Read more »
Tags: Kournikova, Petrova
Uncategorized | admin | August 21, 2012 2:00 pm | Comments (0)


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- Any -NoYes
by Dean Kissick
Art takes us to unlikely places in search of some meaning for our lives, if we want it to. This week I've come to Skjolden, a picturesque village at the end of Norway's longest, deepest fjord, Sognefjord, 200 kilometres from the sea, where I've been invited by local artist Marianne Heske to come walk in the footsteps of Ludwig Wittgenstein. It was into this wilderness that the Austrian philosopher retreated, looking for a respite from modern life with all its noise and phantasms of progress, in 1913. The following year, he began building his house on a secluded, wooded slope above the lake behind the village, a short row across its milky opal waters, among the wildflowers and trees, in search of a simpler life, and a quiet place from which to dismantle our understanding of reality. Having given away most of his wealth and Viennese bourgeois possessions, he picked strawberries and apples for money, or sometimes worked in a lemonade factory nearby. Possessions are disturbing for the mind, he thought, and regardless, nothing belongs to anybody anyway. Conversations could also be a distraction; but round here, Marianne explains, people don't talk so much, don't say so much, just yes or no. This was the calm, laconic valley, where the wind hardly touches the water, where the sun hardly sets or rises, he'd been looking for. "There," he once wrote, "my mind was on fire."
Marianne wears baggy black trousers, shirts and jackets, round glasses, and plum-strawberry Nike Air Maxes. She was born in Alesund in 1946 and has been looking for inspiration along Norway's winding roads, below the waterfalls and snowy crags, for a long time now. Every decade or so, she'll find an old historical object, pull it out of its valley, and send it off on a journey somewhere. In 1980, she asked to borrow a small 17th-century wooden hut from a farmer in neighbouring Tafjord for a year, and drove it to the Pompidou Centre in a Citroen van. The roof was covered over with grass, which had to be watered by the Parisian gallery attendants every day, and flourished under the gallery lighting suspended from the deconstructed ceiling. Some Norwegians were angry that this traditional pastoral building had been spirited away to decadent France. Pictures of the installation bring to mind Beuys' lard-smeared rooms of stories. Was she interested in Beuys? She says she used to bring dried fish to him in Düsseldorf. The night before we'd had baby goat terrine in our hotel by the water's edge. A year to the day she'd taken it, Marianne returned her borrowed hut to the farmer, who needed it for sheltering his goats. "This is art," he lamented upon its return. "It's nothing to do about it." Which is to say, the curse cannot be undone. Objects stay the same, or turn only very slowly, but we come to see them in radically different ways.
In 1999, Marianne was invited to exhibit at the Venice Film Festival and decided she'd like to contribute a large stone. She walked around Tafjord for days. Gossip floated over the valley that the artist was looking for a stone. Local farmers would come and offer her theirs, telling her about candidates they'd just noticed, wanting to sail a fragment of their small part of the world to Venice; but also, they often didn't notice these stones until an artist came around looking for one. This reminds me of a Wittgenstein quote I found printed out and nailed to a woodshed by the meadow yesterday, "The aspects of things that are most important to us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity"; also of how the dying step out of their houses and are blown away by the beauty of the light in the edge of the clouds, the trembling of the leaves on the trees. I have been reading lots of accounts of what it's like to know you're going to die, on Quora. But none of these rocks were right for Marianne.
Three weeks into the search, one bright day, with her lover sat off to one side, bored, leafing through Vogue, Marianne found what she'd been looking for: a round, 17-tonne boulder delivered from the mountain on an avalanche. She held and kissed the stone, just once, transmuting it into art. Queen Sonja of Norway came to visit and Marianne and her clambered on top of it and had their photo taken together. Then it was brought to Venice, to the Lido, and on the red carpet for Eyes Wide Shut, which opened the festival that year, as he dallied arm-in-arm with Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise kept, Marianne says, looking off to one side, confused or unsettled by the presence of the giant boulder. This was just one of many disconcerting moments that couple would have to go through. The stone's still outside the storied Hotel des Bains today, and sometimes locals gather around it for a glass or two of wine before dinner.
After breakfast in Skjolden, Marianne brings us to an old, broken boat on a rocky patch of shore. This is her latest project, Wittgenstein's Boat. The idea came one evening when a friend called to say they were about to light a bonfire, to drink and dance around it, "You have to come now because we're burning the wooden boat," and right away she thought of Wittgenstein rowing across Eidsvatnet, and told her friend to stop; which he did, and dragged the wreck from the pyre on a tractor. It's good to see art returning to its pagan origins. Although this isn't really the great philosopher's boat, which is lost somewhere, probably under the lake, it's close enough, and gets along well. "All boats are the same," Marianne says. In the afternoon we hike up to Wittgenstein's house, where it used to be, and the valley becomes like a mirror, with the cosmos and its mysteries reflected in the still turquoise water below. Who doesn't want to run away to a place with some peace and quiet, some fresh air and summer strawberries? To make good art, and see things clearly, says Marianne, one has to be in balance with nature; which is to suggest that post-industrial society might not just destroy the climate, but also culture, and our minds, and this may well already be happening. People, she says, are like fireflies, flying with open eyes into the fire.
Wittgenstein's Boat will be presented at Frankfurter Buchmesse, for which Norway is this year's Guest of Honour, from October 16th to 20th.
Dean Kissick
Marianne Heske
The Downward Spiral
"Not even an early evening series on Austrian TV could have got away with that"
Exhibition Histories: "Please Love Austria!"
Spike Editions
This issue of Spike is a response to the widely held idea that art needs to be more moral. The world's fucked up, and the art world is guilty too, so in some ways that makes sense. It's brought art closer to politics and activism, given it a social and political function. We want a better world too. But art is also a place for (self-)...
#60 Summer 2019
Order 14 €
Old poscard
Marianne Heske, from the Mountains of the Mind series (circa 1983)
Marianne Heske (right) and Hedvig Skjorten (left) by Sognefjord
View from Wittgenstein's house in Skjolden
Wittgenstein's boat


Fans of the drama "Memories of the Alhambra" noticed that Park ShinHye and HyunBin were close on the set of the drama. Both actors were talking and joking all along behind the scenes.
This following dialogue especially caught the attention of fans, because it highlights the generation difference. Park ShinHye was born in 1990 and HyunBin in 1982. Both have a different way of reading their script.
HyunBin will go for the old and traditional way of reading, he uses the book version. Park ShinHye uses the new technological method, she reads her script on digital devices.
It is very relatable for the younger generation that is used to using technologies to talk with people that still prefer communicating through the old school method.
Park ShinHye was teasing HyunBin saying that he was old. It also seems that HyunBin is not a fan of using his phone to read stuff.
Their dialogue is relatable and also shows how close they were on the set of the drama.
Can you relate with Park ShinHye?


AEG Live is excited to announce THE LUMINEERS live at Red Rocks Amphitheatre Tuesday, June 7, and Wednesday, June 8, 2016 – 7:00 p.m.
PURCHASE TICKETS ONLINE AT WWW.AXS.COM OR CHARGE TICKETS BY PHONE, CALL 888.929.7849.
General Admission and Reserved tickets are $40 – $44.95 plus applicable service charges. All ages are welcome.


To speed up data entry, you can hide fields in a batch that should have the same value for every record.
If you enter the same information in a particular field for each gift in a batch, you may want to add a default and hide the field to reduce the number of fields that appear in the Data Entry grid. For example, you enter gifts in a batch that has Include batch for bank depositing marked on the Batch Header tab. Because this checkbox is marked, when you tab through to a new gift row in the batch, Cash defaults into the Type field. You can select to hide this field because this entry is the same for all gifts entered in this batch.
On the data entry grid of a batch, select View, Hide/Show Columns.
Mark or unmark the appropriate columns.
On the data entry grid of a batch, select Tools, Edit Batch Setup.
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In the framework of the systematic studies of the mixed-ligand complexes formation on the base of ethanolamines and aromatic carboxylic acids new strontium compound with triethanolamine and anthranilic acid has been synthesized. The structure of the obtained complex is determined by X-ray crystallography. In complex two triethanolamine molecules are tetradentantly coordinated by the central atom, while two molecules of anthranilic acid in the benzoate form are located in the outer sphere.
It is well known that biological activity of pharmaceutical preparations may be significantly enhanced by metal complex formation1,2 which is especially crucial in case of substances with low activity. In this regard, we are carrying out a systematic study of the metal complex formation of aromatic carboxylic acids and ethanolamines demonstrating weak antimicrobial3 and growth stimulating effects.4 These substances were selected due to their low cost, availability and simplicity of the structure. Indeed, we have succeeded essentially increase a growth stimulating action through coordination complex formation of Cu with p-nitrobenzoic acid and monoethanolamine.5 Earlier we have synthesized coordination compounds of Cu and Ni with salicylic acid and triethanolamine.6 In these compounds, not all four donor groups of triethanolamine are involved to coordination because a transition metal atom tridentately coordinates two molecules of triethanolamine leaving one hydroxyl group unrelated. In order to place two tetradentantly coordinated molecules of triethanolamine around the metal atoms ions with a relatively large size such as alkali and alkaline earth metal ones are required. To obtain complexes of this type, we tested the synthesis in reaction media containing salts of target metals with a large ionic radius and potential ligands. In the case of synthesis with the participation of the Sr(NO3)2 salt, triethanolamine and salicylic acid a crystalline product containing single crystals suitable for X-ray diffraction analysis has been obtained. The structure determination of this compound attests that in it an inner coordination sphere of strontium ion contains two tetradentately coordinated triethanolamine molecules as anticipated.7 It is of a great interest to know what kind of the metal complex will be formed if to change salicylic acid to anthranilic one. This article is devoted to the synthesis and structure of such compound.
To a solution of 0.105g (0.5mmol) of Sr (NO3)2 in 5 ml of a water-ethanol mixture (1:1 by volume) a hot ethanol solution of 0.138g (1mmol) of anthranilic acid was added. 132μl of triethanolamine was added drop-wise to the resulting mixture with constant stirring. The reaction mixture was kept in an ultrasonic bath (30kHz) for 10minutes. The resulting solution was placed (20°C) in a loosely-closed vial. After 14 days prismatic crystals are formed.
All reagents were readily available from commercial sources and were used as received without further purification. Analyses of C, H and N were performed on a German Elementar Vario EL instrument. Data for the crystal structure determinations were collected at 293K on an Oxford Diffraction Xcalibur-R CCD diffractometer (CuKα-radiation, λ=1.54184 Å, ω-scan mode, graphite monochromator). Experimental data were collected using the CrysAlisPro program.8An absorption correction was applied by the multi-scan method using the same program. The structures were solved by a direct method of the SHELXS-97 program package9 and refined by full-matrix least squares using the SHELXL-97 program.10 All none hydrogen atoms were refined anisotropically. Hydrogen atoms were inserted at calculated positions and constrained with isotropic thermal parameters, except for the hydrogen atoms of some hydroxyl groups, which were located in a Fourier-difference map and refined isotropically. The molecular drawings were plotted by MERCURY program package.11,12 The crystallographic data and details of structure refinement of the compound are given in (Table 1).
The asymmetric part of the unit cell consists of 1 molecule of a complex cation and 2 molecules of anthranilic acid (Figure 1). The Sr+2 ion coordinates 2 molecules of triethanolamine through a nitrogen atom and three oxygen atoms, i.e. the maximum possible tetradentate method of coordination is realized due to the large ionic radius of the central atom. The coordinating polyhedron is a two-capped trigonal prism on the basis of which oxygen atoms are located while in the "cap" position nitrogen atoms of ligand molecules are positioned. The Sr-O bond lengths are in the range 2.542-2.606Å, the interatomic distances of Sr-N1 and Sr-N2 are 2.775 and 2.747Å, respectively. An analysis of the 16 analogous bond lengths of Cambridge Structural Database (CSD)13 indicates that the Sr-O24 bond of 2.606Å by 0.054Å longer than the mean value. The remaining interatomic distances and valence angles have the usual values for analogous compounds.
In result of the occupation of the inner coordination sphere of the central atom only by triethanolamine molecules the true mixed-ligand complex is not formed. Two molecules of anthranilic acid in a benzoate form are placed in the outer sphere in order to compensate the positive charge of the Sr ion. In other words, the supramolecular compound consisting of the cation in the form of complex ion with triethanolamine and anion of anthranilic acid in the benzoate form is crystallized from the solutions.
There is a strong intramolecular H-bond between the amino (donor) and carboxyl groups (acceptor) in molecules of anthranilic acid which is formed due to the adjacent arrangement of these groups. This bond is described by the graph-set S12 (6).14 There are 6 intermolecular H-bonds in the structure (Table 2) which combine structural units in cycles of different dimensions, for example, in rings with R44 (16)-graph-sets. These cycles are associated in chains parallel to the direction  (Figure 2).
There are 4 strontium complexes with ref-codes RUQSUR, AKEXET, GEGTOB and SUTZIQ in CSD in which the analogous tetradentant coordination of 2 molecules of triethanolamine takes place. However, in the outer sphere of these coordination compounds different counter-ion molecules are situated. The identical structure is also characteristic for complexes of other 7 metals, such as Ca, Pb, Ba, Cd, Y, Eu and Yb.
Figure 1 An asymmetric part of the unit cell of the crystal and atom numbering.
Figure 2 An asymmetric part of the unit cell of the crystal and atom numbering.
In result of the synthesis carried out in solutions containing Sr (NO3)2, triethanolamine and anthranilic acid a new compound in the salt form is obtained. Inner coordination sphere of Sr is occupied only by triethanolamine molecules, displacing the second ligand, anthranilic acid, to the outer sphere. This type of structure of metal complexes with triethanolamine is typical for alkali and alkaline earth metals, i.e. for metals with a large ionic radius.
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Devi J, Batra N. Synthesis, characterization and antimicrobial activities of mixed ligand transition metal complexes with isatin monohydrazone Schiff base ligands and heterocyclic nitrogen base. Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2015;135:710‒719.
Zardini HZ, Davarpanah M, Shanbedi M, et al. Microbial toxicity of ethanolamines Multiwalled carbon nanotubes. Biomed. Mater. Res. A. 2014;102(6):1774‒1781.
Gaysin IA, Sagitova RN, Agliev KhM. The closest to the present invention is a composition for stimulating crop growth, comprising monoethanolamine, boric acid, copper vitriol and water. Patent of the Russian Federation; 1997, №2086126.
Ibragimov AB, Ashurov ZM, Ibragimov AB, et al. Synthesis, structure, and fungicidal activity of mono- and binuclear mixed-ligand copper complex with p-nitrobenzoic acid and monoethanolamine. Russian Journal of Coordination Chemistry. 2017;43(6):380–388.
Ibragimov AB, Zakirov BS, Ashurov ZM. Study of rheological properties of solaric acid solutions and precipitate pulp. Uzbekskiy himicheskiy jurnal. 2016;4:30‒33.
Ibragimov AB, Ashurov ZM, AIbragimov AB, et al. Two supramolecular complexes based on 4-hydroxybenzoic acid and triethanolamine: Synthesis and structure. Russian Journal of Inorganic Chemistry. 2017;4(62):439‒445.
Crys Alis Pro. X-ray structures of organic salts between diethanolamine and ortho- and para-isomers of aminobenzoic acid: A specific synthon responsible for an association of the components. UK: Oxford Diffraction; 2007. 5 p.
Sheldrick GM. Phase annealing in SHELX-90: direct methods for larger structures. Acta Crystallogr. 1990;A46:467‒473.
Sheldrick GM. SHELXS97, SHELXL97, Programs for Crystal Structures Solution and Refinement. Germany: University of Göttingen; 1997. 250 p.
Macrae CF, Bruno IJ, Chisholm JA, et al. Mercury CSD 2.0–new features for the visualization and investigation of crystal structures. J Appl Cryst. 2008;41(2):466‒470.
Bernstein J, Davis RE, Shimoni L, et al. [2.2.2.2] Metacyclophane‐1,9,17,25‐tetrayne. Angew Chem Int. Ed. 1995;34:1555‒1573.
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©2018 Alkhidi. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.


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