As the salience of 'democratic backsliding' in member states of the European Union (EU) increases, preferences inside EU institutions about whether to sanction governments that breach liberal democratic principles diverge. Anecdotal evidence suggests that party politics play a key role in determining attitudes towards sanctions: parties strategically protect target governments that belong to their European party family. This paper conducts a first systematic analysis of this claim. The author examines a most-likely case for partisan politics – the position of political groups in the European Parliament. A fuzzy-set Qualitative Analysis of positions towards backsliding in Hungary (since 2010) and Romania (in 2012) finds that party politics do, indeed, matter, but that they cannot be reduced to ideological distance (in Left/Right terms). Preferences about sanctions are the result of conjectural causation, in which parties' commitment to liberal democracy as well as their attitudes towards European integration also play a role. An implication of this finding is that while partisan politics can be an obstacle to the use of sanctions, specific partisan configurations are more conducive, e.g. if sanctions target governments of the Left.


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Maren Hammerschmidt (* 24. Oktober 1989 in Frankenberg (Eder)) ist eine ehemalige deutsche Biathletin. Bei Weltmeisterschaften gewann sie mit der deutschen Staffel eine Gold- und eine Bronzemedaille.

Leben
Maren Hammerschmidt stammt aus Winterberg und betreibt Biathlon, seitdem sie in der ersten Klasse der Grundschule gemeinsam mit ihrer Schwester an einem Schnupperkurs teilgenommen hat. Nach dem Schulabschluss wechselten die Schwestern zuerst ins Werdenfelser Land, um in Mittenwald zu trainieren. 2012 wechselte Maren ohne ihre Schwester nach Ruhpolding, wo sie heute noch lebt und in der dortigen Chiemgau-Arena trainiert. Die Zollhauptwachtmeisterin startet für den SK Winterberg und wurde in der Vergangenheit von Thomas Pawliczek, Carsten Pieper, Bernhard Kröll, Remo Krug und Tobias Reiter trainiert. Seit August 2008 gehört sie dem Ski-Team der Bundeszollverwaltung an.

Ihre Zwillingsschwester Janin war ebenfalls Biathletin. In den Jahren 2010 und 2011 startete sie sporadisch im IBU-Cup, hat ihre Karriere jedoch verletzungsbedingt frühzeitig beendet.

Maren Hammerschmidt engagiert sich aktiv für den Tierschutz. So unterstützt sie aktiv vor Ort eine Organisation die sich für Kastrationsprojekte und Tierheime für Straßenhunde in Rumänien einsetzt. Im Juli 2016 ließ sie sich für die PETA-Kampagne "Lieber nackt als im Pelz" ablichten. Sie ist Botschafterin des Vereins Athletes for Ukraine.

Werdegang

Anfänge (2007 bis 2011)
Maren Hammerschmidt bestritt ihre ersten internationalen Rennen im Rahmen des European Youth Olympic Festival 2007 in Jaca, wo sie Fünfte des Sprintrennens wurde und im Verfolgungsrennen die Bronzemedaille gewann. Es folgten ein Jahr später die Biathlon-Juniorenweltmeisterschaften 2008 in Ruhpolding. Im Sprint gewann sie zunächst vor Elise Ringen und ihrer Schwester den Titel, in der anschließenden Verfolgung fiel sie beim Sieg ihrer Schwester aufgrund von zehn Schießfehlern auf den neunten Rang zurück. Im Einzel wurde sie 32., im Staffelrennen gewann sie als Startläuferin mit ihrer Schwester und Nicole Wötzel ihren zweiten Titel. Gute Ergebnisse erreichte Hammerschmidt auch 2009 in Canmore, ohne jedoch als Elfte im Einzel, Siebte im Sprint und Zehnte der Verfolgungsrennens wieder Medaillen zu gewinnen. Diese gewann sie wieder 2010 in Torsby. Im Einzel kam sie auf den 21. Platz, im Sprint gewann sie wie schon zwei Jahre zuvor vor Sophie Boilley und Synnøve Solemdal den Titel. Im Verfolger fiel sie hinter Boilley, Anastassija Kalina und Solemdal auf den vierten Rang zurück. Im Staffelrennen gewann sie mit Miriam Behringer und Wötzel die Bronzemedaille.
National gewann Hammerschmidt 2009 in Bayerisch Eisenstein und 2010 in Clausthal-Zellerfeld den Titel im Sprint bei den Deutschen Juniorenmeisterschaften. Im Deutschlandpokal der Junioren gewann sie zwei, bei den Frauen seit 2010 vier Rennen.

Gegen Ende der Saison 2009/10 gab Hammerschmidt ihr internationales Debüt bei den Frauen im IBU-Cup. Schon in ihrem ersten Sprintrennen gewann sie als Zehnte in Pokljuka erste Punkte. 2011 verbesserte sie ihr bestes Resultat in der Rennserie auf einen sechsten Rang in einem Sprint in Ridnaun.

Gesamtsieg im IBU-Cup (2011 bis 2015)
In der Saison 2011/12 erreichte Maren Hammerschmidt als Zweite im Einzel hinter Jacquemine Baud in Forni Avoltri erstmals eine Podiumsplatzierung im IBU-Cup. Hinzu kam in Canmore der zweite Platz im Sprint. Durch ihre beständigen Ergebnisse in den Top-20 erreichte sie den Sieg in der Gesamtwertung sowie in der Sprint- und Einzelwertung. Ihre erste internationale Meisterschaft bei den Frauen wurden die Europameisterschaften 2012 in Osrblie. Im Einzel wurde Hammerschmidt Sechste, im Sprint 13. und im Verfolgungsrennen Zehnte. Mit Nadine Horchler, Carolin Hennecke und Juliane Döll gewann sie als Startläuferin im Staffelrennen hinter den Staffeln aus der Ukraine und Russland die Bronzemedaille. Durch den Sieg im IBU-Cup gab sie ihr Debüt beim Weltcupfinale in Chanty-Mansijsk und konnte dort im Sprint mit Platz 34 erste Weltcuppunkte sammeln. In der anschließenden Verfolgung verbesserte sie sich auf Platz 26. Für den folgenden Massenstart konnte sie sich knapp nicht qualifizieren. Im Winter 2012/13 kam sie noch viermal im Weltcup zum Einsatz, wobei ein 34. Platz in der Verfolgung von Antholz ihr bestes Ergebnis blieb. Im Übrigen ging sie, wie auch in den Wintern 2013/14 und 2014/15, ausschließlich im IBU-Cup sowie im Deutschlandpokal an den Start.

Rückkehr in den Weltcup und WM-Gold (2015 bis 2017)

In der Vorbereitung zur Saison 2015/16 erkämpfte sich Maren Hammerschmidt durch gute Leistungen einen Startplatz im Weltcupteam und errang zum Saisonauftakt am 29. November 2015 in Östersund zusammen mit Daniel Böhm den dritten Platz in der Single-Mixed-Staffel und damit ihre erste Podiumsplatzierung im Weltcup. Knapp zwei Wochen später, am 11. Dezember 2015, gelang ihr in Hochfilzen ihr bisher bestes Weltcupergebnis, als sie im Sprint ohne Schießfehler hinter Teamkollegin Franziska Hildebrand den zweiten Platz belegte. Im anschließenden Verfolgungswettkampf konnte sie dieses Ergebnis bestätigen und erreichte mit zwei Schießfehlern hinter Laura Dahlmeier erneut den zweiten Platz. Aufgrund ihrer starken Ergebnisse wurde sie für ihre erste Damenstaffel nominiert. An der Seite von Franziska Hildebrand, Vanessa Hinz und Franziska Preuß wurde sie auch hier Zweite. In Pokljuka konnte sie sich erstmals für einen Massenstart im Weltcup qualifizieren und erreichte den 14. Rang. In Ruhpolding startete sie erneut in einem Massenstart und wurde auf Platz fünf gewertet, nachdem sie sich im Zielsprint noch mit Tiril Eckhoff verhakte und stürzte. In der Staffel wurde sie nach zwei Strafrunden von Miriam Gössner auf dem elften Platz mit fast zwei Minuten Rückstand auf die Spitze ins Rennen geschickt. Mit einer beherzten Leistung und Laufbestzeit brachte sie die deutsche Mannschaft zurück auf Rang zwei und übergab mit 28 Sekunden Rückstand auf Laura Dahlmeier, die sich am Ende nur Olena Pidhruschna im Zielsprint geschlagen geben musste. Die Rennen in Antholz, Canmore und Presque Isle ließ Hammerschmidt aus, um sich ausgiebig auf die Biathlon-Weltmeisterschaften 2016 vorzubereiten. Aufgrund ihrer guten Platzierungen während der Saison und der Leistungen in Oslo wurde sie für die Staffel nominiert und gewann gemeinsam mit Franziska Preuß, Franziska Hildebrand und Laura Dahlmeier Bronze und damit ihre erste Medaille bei Weltmeisterschaften.

Maren Hammerschmidt wurde für die Saison 2016/17 in den A-Kader des Deutschen Skiverbandes aufgenommen und der Lehrgangsgruppe 1a zugeteilt. Bei den Deutschen Meisterschaften 2016 stand sie in Altenberg zwei Mal auf dem Podium und belegte in der Pokalwertung den dritten Platz. Die ersten Einzelrennen im Weltcup verliefen ähnlich durchwachsen wie in der Vorsaison, bei fünf Starts erreichte sie in zwei Rennen die Punkteränge nicht. Trotzdem wurde sie beim Weltcup in Pokljuka in der Damenstaffel aufgestellt und gewann gemeinsam mit Vanessa Hinz, Franziska Hildebrand und Laura Dahlmeier ihr erstes Weltcuprennen. Zum Weltcup ins tschechische Nové Město na Moravě reiste Hammerschmidt zwar, ihre Startplätze wurden jedoch an Denise Herrmann vergeben. Die ersten Heimrennen nach der Weihnachtspause in Oberhof beendete sie auf Rang fünf und vier und qualifizierte sich damit für die Teilnahme an den Weltmeisterschaften in Hochfilzen. In Ruhpolding und Antholz gehörte sie erneut zur deutschen Damenstaffel, die beide Rennen gewann. In die Weltmeisterschaften startete sie mit einem 55. Platz im Sprint und einem 40. Platz in der Verfolgung wenig erfolgreich. Im Einzelwettkampf über 15 km belegte sie mit zwei Schießfehlern und den daraus resultierenden zwei Strafminuten den 7. Rang, weniger als eine Minute hinter den Medaillenrängen. Mit der gleichen Aufstellung wie in Pokljuka und Antholz bestritt die deutsche Mannschaft das Staffelrennen. Obwohl Hammerschmidt an der zweiten Position im stehenden Anschlag alle Nachladepatronen brauchte, konnte sie eine Position gutmachen, am Ende gewann die deutsche Staffel die Goldmedaille. Beim Weltcup in Pyeongchang wurde sie nach durchwachsenen Ergebnissen im Sprint- und Verfolgungsrennen erneut für die deutsche Damenstaffel nominiert. Nachdem die Führende des Gesamtweltcups, Laura Dahlmeier, nicht für die Staffel aufgestellt wurde und sowohl Franziska Preuß als auch Vanessa Hinz krankheitsbedingt fehlten, siegte die Staffel mit der Besetzung Nadine Horchler, Maren Hammerschmidt, Denise Herrmann und Franziska Hildebrand. Maren Hammerschmidt startete bei allen Staffelrennen des Winters, die auch alle durch die deutsche Mannschaft gewonnen wurden. Das Mixed-Staffelrennen in Kontiolahti beendete sie gemeinsam mit Nadine Horchler, Benedikt Doll und Arnd Peiffer auf dem zweiten Platz. Sie war ein Teil der deutschen Damenmannschaft, die in diesem Winter den Nationen- und den Staffelweltcup, sowie gemeinsam mit den Männern den Mixed-Staffel-Weltcup, gewann.

Erste Olympiateilnahme und Sprunggelenks-OP (2017 bis 2019)
In der Vorbereitung auf den Winter 2017/18 wurde Maren Hammerschmidt erneut dem A-Kader des DSV und der ersten Lehrgangsgruppe zugeteilt. Im Sommer gewann sie bei den Deutschen Meisterschaften Silber im Sprint. In ihrem ersten Rennen der Saison, der Mixedstaffel im schwedischen Östersund, erreichte sie gemeinsam mit der aus einer Krankheitspause zurückgekehrten Franziska Preuß sowie Benedikt Doll und Arnd Peiffer den dritten Rang. Mit einem neunten Platz im Sprintrennen in Annecy erfüllte Hammerschmidt die vom DSV geforderte Qualifikationsnorm für die Olympischen Winterspiele. Neben einem sechsten Platz beim Sprint in Antholz war dies die einzige Top-10-Platzierung vor den Winterspielen, sie beendete mit einer Ausnahme alle Einzelrennen in den Punkterängen. In Pyeongchang griff sie erst im Einzel über 15 km ins Wettkampfgeschehen ein, nach drei Schießfehlern beendete sie das Rennen als schlechteste Deutsche auf dem 17. Platz. Für den Massenstart qualifizierte sie sich nicht. Obwohl Hammerschmidt bis zu diesem Zeitpunkt in jedem Staffelrennen, das sie im Rahmen des Weltcups, des IBU-Cups, Biathlon-Europameisterschaften sowie durch die IBU ausgerichtete Jugend- und Juniorenmeisterschaften bestritt, auf dem Podium stand, wurde sie weder für das Mixed-Staffelrennen noch für das Staffelrennen der Damen berücksichtigt. Vor dem nächsten Weltcup im finnischen Kontiolahti zog sich Hammerschmidt eine Verletzung an den Bändern des linken Sprunggelenks zu. In den Staffelrennen wurde sie nicht eingesetzt, trotz ihrer Beeinträchtigung erreichte sie im Sprint die zwölfte und im Massenstartrennen sogar die fünftbeste Laufzeit des gesamten Starterfelds.

Im Sommer 2018 wurde sie, als einzige der für die Olympischen Spiele 2018 qualifizierten deutschen Biathletinnen, nicht dem neuen Olympiakader, sondern dem Perspektivkader zugeteilt. Bei den Deutschen Meisterschaften im Biathlon 2018 in Altenberg nahm sie am Sprintrennen teil, musste jedoch auf eine Teilnahme am Verfolgungsrennen und auch auf eine Teilnahme am zweiten Wettkampfwochenende in Oberhof verzichten, da sie bereits vor dem Sprint an einer Sehnenscheidenentzündung im Fuß litt. In Ermangelung an entsprechenden Ergebnissen wurde sie vom Deutschen Skiverband nicht mehr für die Weltcupmannschaft, welche für die ersten drei Veranstaltungen bis Ende des Jahres 2018 feststeht, berücksichtigt. Maren Hammerschmidt wurde für die Saison 2018/19 der Mannschaft des zweitklassigen IBU-Cups zugeteilt. Anfang Oktober wurde Hammerschmidt an den Innen- und Außenbändern am linken Sprunggelenk operiert. Ende November begannen die ersten Rehabilitationsmaßnahmen, unter anderem in einer Spezialklinik am Chiemsee, unweit ihrer Wahlheimat Ruhpolding. Mitte Dezember fing sie langsam wieder mit dem Langlaufen an, Ende Januar 2019 nahm sie am Volkslanglauf Chiemgau Team Trophy teil.

Rückkehr in den Weltcup (ab 2019)
Obwohl sie im Winter 2018/19 keine nationalen oder internationalen Wettkämpfe bestritten hatte, wurde Hammerschmidt im Frühjahr 2019 der ersten Lehrgangsgruppe und dem Perspektivkader zugeteilt. Nach einem Jahr Wettkampfpause nahm sie im September 2019 an den Deutschen Meisterschaften teil. Mit einem vierten Platz im Speziallanglauf verfehlte sie knapp die Medaillenränge und konnte sich nicht für die Weltcupmannschaft qualifizieren. Sie wurde daraufhin der Mannschaft des zweitklassigen IBU-Cups zugeteilt. Beim ersten Rennen der Saison 2019/20 im norwegischen Sjusjøen setzte sie die Laufbestzeit und wurde Dritte hinter Karoline Erdal und Kelsey Dickinson. Nach einigen durchwachsenen Ergebnissen wurde sie nach einem fünften und einem vierten Platz bei den Rennen in Ridnaun für die Weltcuprennen in Annecy/Le Grand-Bornand nominiert. Nach insgesamt sechs Schießfehlern im Sprint verfehlte sie sowohl die Punkteränge als auch die Qualifikation für das Verfolgungsrennen deutlich.

Am 18. März 2022 gab Maren Hammerschmidt nach 25 Jahren im Biathlon-Sport ihr Karriereende bekannt.

Auszeichnungen
Im März 2018 wurde sie auf der HSK-Sportgala des Kreissportbundes Hochsauerlandkreis als Profisportlerin des Jahres 2017 mit dem Gerhard-Winkler-Ehrenpreis ausgezeichnet.

Leistungsentwicklung

Skilauf

Vor der Weltcupsaison 2015/16 hatte Maren Hammerschmidt im Biathlon-Weltcup insgesamt lediglich drei Einsätze, weshalb sich ihre Leistungen erst ab November 2015 sinnvoll vergleichen lassen. Die Laufzeiten aus dem IBU-Cup sind wegen des deutlich geringeren Leistungsniveaus nicht geeignet. Ab dem Winter 2015/16, der mit einer Podiumsplatzierung im ersten Rennen der Saison, der Single-Mixed-Staffel im schwedischen Östersund, begann und den sie mit zwei zweiten Plätzen in Sprint und Verfolgung in Hochfilzen, zwei zweiten Plätzen in den Staffelrennen in Hochfilzen und Ruhpolding sowie der Bronzemedaille mit der Damenstaffel bei der WM 2016 in Oslo beendete, gehörte sie fest zur Weltcupmannschaft des DSV. Von da an lassen sich ihre Laufleistungen auch international vergleichen.

2015/16 erreichte sie in der reinen Laufzeit in der Regel Platzierungen in den Top20 oder Top30, ihre besten Ergebnisse hatte sie beim Massenstart in Ruhpolding, wo für sie die siebte Laufzeit zu Buche steht sowie beim Verfolgungsrennen in Chanty-Mansijsk, in dem sie achtschnellste Langläuferin war.

Zur Saison 2016/17 ließ sich bereits eine deutliche Steigerung ihrer körperlichen Leistungsfähigkeit feststellen. Ihre Laufzeiten bewegten sich in der Regel innerhalb der besten 20 eines Rennens, dazu zählen insgesamt sieben Top10-Laufzeiten. Die schnellste Laufzeit hatte sie im Verfolgungsrennen in Pyeongchang, lediglich 1,9 Sekunden langsamer als Denise Herrmann, die in diesem Rennen die Laufbestzeit setzte. Herrmann hatte erst zum Beginn der Saison vom Skilanglauf zum Biathlon gewechselt.

Im folgenden Winter verbesserten sich Hammerschmidts Laufzeiten erneut. Sie konnte zwar keine Bestzeit in einem Rennen setzen, jedoch war sie mit einer Ausnahme immer unter den 20 schnellsten Langläufern und in mehr als der Hälfte von ihr bestrittenen Rennen sogar unter den schnellsten zehn Athletinnen.

Die Saison 2018/19 verpasste Maren Hammerschmidt komplett. Nachdem sie sich bei den Olympischen Winterspielen 2018 eine Sprunggelenksverletzung zugezogen hatte, musste sie sich im Herbst 2019 einer Operation unterziehen und verbrachte große Teile des Winters mit Rehabilitationsmaßnahmen.

Schießen

Bevor Maren Hammerschmidt im Winter 2015/16 durchgehend im Weltcup eingesetzt wurde, nahm sie über mehrere Jahre hinweg fast ausschließlich an Rennen im zweitklassigen IBU-Cup teil. Im Winter 2011/12 bestritt sie dort ihre erste vollständige Saison, ihre Trefferquote lag damals bei 82 %. In der folgenden Saison nahm sie im IBU-Cup an weniger Rennen teil, ihre Schießleistung blieb mit 81 % aber nahezu unverändert. In den folgenden zwei Jahren verschlechterte sich ihre Quote deutlich und lag jeweils nur noch bei 75 %.

Durch gute Leistungen in der Vorbereitung, den Deutschen Meisterschaften und den Ausscheidungswettkämpfen im norwegischen Sjusjøen erkämpfte sich Maren Hammerschmidt bereits zum Beginn der Saison 2015/16 einen Startplatz in der Weltcupmannschaft. In diesem Winter hatte sich ihre Trefferquote auf 82 % verbessert, was für sie den bisher besten Durchschnittswert darstellt.

Im Biathlon-Weltcup 2016/17 wurde Hammerschmidt früh für die Weltcupmannschaft nominiert und bestritt, mit Ausnahme der Wettkämpfe im tschechischen Nové Město na Moravě, alle Rennen und nahm auch an allen Damenstaffeln teil. Während sie ihre Laufleistungen verbessern konnte, büßte sie bei ihrer Trefferleistung zwei Prozentpunkte ein. Auffällig ist jedoch, dass ihre Quote bei Staffelrennen in dieser Saison bei knapp 87 % lag und damit deutlich über der Leistung in ihren Einzelrennen. Üblicherweise geht man davon aus, dass in Staffelrennen mit der Sicherheit von drei Nachladepatronen pro Schießeinlage deutlich risikofreudiger geschossen wird und deshalb bei den meisten Athleten in diesen Wettkämpfen eine leicht schlechtere Trefferleistung zu beobachten ist. Hammerschmidt bestritt in diesem Winter neben der Mixedstaffel in Kontiolahti alle Damenstaffeln, die auch alle von der deutschen Mannschaft gewonnen wurden.

Maren Hammerschmidts Gesamttrefferleistung änderte sich zur Saison 2017/18 nicht. Während sie ihre Quote im liegenden Anschlag um über drei Prozentpunkte verbessern konnte, verschlechterte sich jedoch ihre Quote im stehenden Anschlag um einen ähnlichen Wert.

Die Saison 2018/19 verpasste Maren Hammerschmidt komplett. Nachdem sie sich bei den Olympischen Winterspielen 2018 eine Sprunggelenksverletzung zugezogen hatte, musste sie sich im Herbst 2019 einer Operation unterziehen und verbrachte große Teile des Winters mit Rehabilitationsmaßnahmen.

Aktuell bewegt sich die Trefferquote von Maren Hammerschmidt in den Weltcuprennen um die 80 %, das heißt, sie trifft durchschnittlich pro Schießeinlage eine Scheibe nicht, was in Sprintrennen zwei bzw. in Verfolgungs- und Massenstartrennen vier Strafrunden bedeutet oder vier Strafminuten in Einzelrennen. Mit dieser Trefferquote liegt sie im internationalen Vergleich im Weltcup im Mittelfeld, innerhalb der deutschen Mannschaft gehört sie jedoch zu den schlechteren Schützinnen. Im Winter 2016/17 lag die Schießleistung von Laura Dahlmeier und Nadine Horchler bei 89 %, von Franziska Preuß bei 88 %, von Franziska Hildebrand bei 87 % und von Vanessa Hinz bei 85 %. Schlechter als Hammerschmidt waren die Quereinsteigerin Denise Herrmann mit 72 % sowie Miriam Gössner mit 66 %. Da man im Biathlon jedoch immer beide Teildisziplinen berücksichtigen muss, kann man alleine über die Trefferquote von Maren Hammerschmidt keine Rückschlüsse auf ihre Leistungsfähigkeit ziehen. Magdalena Neuner hatte mit einer durchschnittlichen Trefferquote von 77 % sogar einen statistisch schlechteren Wert als Hammerschmidt, gehört jedoch aufgrund ihrer damals dominanten Laufleistungen zu den erfolgreichsten Biathletinnen überhaupt.

Statistiken

Weltcupplatzierungen

Weltcupsiege

Weltcupwertungen
Ergebnisse bei Biathlon-Weltcups (Disziplinen- und Gesamtweltcup) gemäß Punktesystem

Weltmeisterschaften
Ergebnisse bei Biathlon-Weltmeisterschaften

Olympische Winterspiele
Ergebnisse bei Olympischen Winterspielen:

Weblinks

 Offizielle Website von Maren Hammerschmidt

 Porträt beim Zoll Ski Team

Einzelnachweise

Biathlet (Deutschland)
Weltmeister (Biathlon)
Gesamtsieger des Biathloneuropacups
Olympiateilnehmer (Deutschland)
Teilnehmer der Olympischen Winterspiele 2018
Mitglied des Zoll-Ski-Teams
Deutscher
Geboren 1989
Frau

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1/ Safari shows a dialog box asking the user if they want to "Open this page in [app name]".  If they say "Open" they are taken back to the app.  It would best though if after they process their card, the link takes them back to the app automatically and does not show this dialog box. They will always come to this web page via the app so I am not looking for it to launch the app, download the app, etc.  Just return cleanly.
2/ Once back in the app there is a "Return to Safari" button placed in the upper left of the screen that remains there the entire length of their continued app usage.  There is no reason for them to ever return to Safari in this context and so we don't want this navigation there.
I did try to use an SFSafariViewController but Stripe Check Out does not allow this.  It produces an error in the web view about not being able to process and to try a different browser.  Some Google searching seems to indicate that custom web views (such as I guess this would be) won't work.  Therefore, launch Safari as above is the only way.
I know there is a concept of Universal Links that Apple has.  It is not clear whether that approach will solve the problem.  I am not looking to go to the app store, launch the app, etc.  If there is some confirmation that Universal Links would solve this problem then fine but I am not sure it will.  The link I have works just with artifacts that detract from the user experience.
Thoughts on how #1 & #2 above can be solved?

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What Socrates Knew:
Thirty Socratic Theses, Part 1 of 2
Posted By Greg Johnson On December 15, 2017 @ 12:00 am In North American New Right | Comments Disabled
Socrates and Xanthippe
Author's Note:
On August 24th, 1999 I began a lecture course called "What Socrates Knew" with a lecture called "Thirty Socratic Theses." What follows is a transcription of the first half of the lecture by V.S. The thirty theses are listed below, as are links to the audio of the lecture.
The "Thirty Socratic Theses" are:
The primary philosophical question is: How should I live? What is the good life?
All human action aims at happiness or well-being (eudaimonia).
Well-being is not necessarily well-feeling, for well-being may require ill-feeling from time to time.
Wisdom and luck are the two causes of well-being.
Wisdom = the ability to make right use of all things.
Wisdom is unconditionally and intrinsically good — all other things that contribute to the good life are merely conditionally and extrinsically good.
Folly is the opposite of wisdom. It may not be unconditionally bad.
Wisdom is not an art or technique. No technique is sufficient for the pursuit of happiness.
Wisdom enlarges the realm of human power and efficacy, pushing back the frontiers of luck.
All human beings intend the good; nobody intentionally does evil.
Good action follows directly upon knowledge of the good.
Evil action happens only out of ignorance of the good.
Virtue is knowledge of the good; vice is ignorance of the good.
The soul is susceptible of structural and dynamic analysis.
The soul has parts (reason, spirit, desire) and these parts can function together in
harmony (spiritual health) and in disharmony (spiritual disease).
The soul also has a dynamic power: eros. Eros is the soul's longing for growth toward the good: for completion, self-actualization, and immortality. Eros is the desire for the good of the soul aroused by the beauty of the body.
Each part of the soul has its appropriate erotic object–knowledge, ideals, the necessities of life.
Wisdom produces the inner harmony of the parts of the soul and guides them to their completion.
Philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom = the care of the soul.
Happiness = the harmonious unfolding and actualization of the soul's powers over time, just as physical health is the harmonious unfolding and actualization of the body's powers over time.
Wisdom is itself a kind of inner harmony and completion of the soul.
Wisdom both leads to happiness and is part of happiness itself.
Happiness is unconditionally good as well.
Once achieved, happiness as health of the soul, can never be corrupted by external actors; external forces can kill us, but only we can corrupt our souls.
It is better to suffer injustice than to do it.
True politics and true friendship aid the soul in its striving for happiness.
False politics and false friendship (flattery) retard the soul's striving for happiness.
Freedom is doing what one really wants to do (pursuing happiness).
Doing what one really wants to do is not necessarily the same as doing what one thinks one wants. (We can be ignorant of the good, mistaken about our interests.)
One can be forced to be free.
Audio Version: To listen in a player, click here [2]. To download the mp3, right-click here [2] and choose "save target as."
Let's first talk about the life of Socrates. Socrates died in 399 BC, and he was born approximately 70 years before that, although there is some controversy about the exact year of his birth. His father was a stonecutter or sculptor or mason — the descriptions vary — named Sophroniscus, and his mother was a midwife, according to Socrates, and her name was Phaenarete.
Now, there might be something a little bit fishy about the story of his mother, because Phaenarete means "one who brings excellence to light," and as a midwife she brought children to light and Socrates claims that as the son of a midwife his purpose is to bring ideas to birth. And so, the son of the person who brings excellence to light, brings ideas to light, and some people have perhaps thought that Socrates just made up his mother's name or profession for the purposes of the discussion, but that's purely suppositional.
Anyway, he was not a poor man, by birth at least. His father was a citizen of Athens, and Socrates himself was a soldier. He was a member of the heavy infantry, a hoplite. The Greeks did not have professional soldier classes, although they would sometimes hire mercenaries who were professionals. But the city-states, like Athens, had citizen armies, and the citizens played different roles in the army depending on the amount that they could contribute, and the person who was part of the heavy infantry had to contribute a shield and a spear and helmet and armor, and these things were not cheap. So, Socrates obviously had some money.
But he lived a life of poverty, because he didn't like to work. He spent most of his time lounging around in public places, the market place or gymnasia, talking about philosophy. His wife, who he married rather late in life, was notoriously shrewish. Her name was Xanthippe. Somebody asked him, "Socrates, why do you put up with this woman who is cursing you in public and demanding that you work and things like that?" And he said, "Well, you know, just as some riders will like only the most spirited horses, because it forces them to exercise and maximize their skills, I prefer to live with Xanthippe because she is a real trial. And she doesn't kill me, she just makes me stronger." That's basically the argument.
He had three children, all of them rather late in life. The day of his death his children are described, and a couple of them are just tiny. So, obviously his wife was many years younger than he was, and he was reproducing right up until a couple years before his death. So, it's clear that he had to have married fairly late in life. Probably around age 50.
We know very little about Socrates' life before adulthood, but there are rumors that he did travel a bit, he studied philosophy and science with various natural philosophers, and he does confess in one of Plato's dialogues, the Phaedo set on the day of his death, to have taken a great interest in science or natural philosophy as a youth. By the time he entered middle age, though, he came to a kind of crisis and thought that natural philosophy was really meaningless. That knowing the nature of the stars and why it rained and so forth was all very well and good as a kind of academic or intellectual exercise. There was no sense of applied science at the time. Science was only a purely idle and speculative activity. He actually claimed that studying science made him blind, and it made him forget the things that he already knew, specifically things about how men grew, how human beings grow over time, and that he became less intelligent in some ways than before he studied science.
And so, one of the things that happened in mid-life was that Socrates put aside the natural sciences, and he came to think that it was difficult, if not impossible, for human beings to get the ultimate truth about the cosmos. We can only, at best, tell likely stories, and these likely stories are not that important unless they can contribute to our moral life. And he reoriented philosophy from a theoretical, speculative activity centered around nature to a more practical activity centered around human morality, human life. And the central question is a kind of existential question, which is "How should I live?" "What is the good life?" Not just the "good life" in general, but for me or for each individual.
We know a few other things about Socrates. He was notoriously unattractive. He was an ugly man. He looked like a satyr. I have a statue here that was a representation of Socrates from about the time of his life. He was notorious for having pop eyes, sort of bulging eyes, a flat pug nose, wide, fleshy lips, and a pot belly. So, he did look like the classical Greek descriptions of satyrs, which were horny little mythical beings. But in spite of his ugliness he was extremely charismatic, and people much younger and much handsomer than he was fell in love with him and were quite fascinated by Socrates.
He was renowned for his feats of endurance. He served in three battles, and they were all defeats, as it turned out, for Athens, but he distinguished himself in these defeats anyway. He was especially good at retreating, as it turned out, but there is an art of retreating properly. If you flee headlong, the enemy will try to strike you down, whereas if you retreat in a composed way, casting your glance from side to side, making it clear that you've got your wits about you, people will leave you alone, and this is how Socrates retreated. He always had his wits about him.
There's the description by Alcibiades of Socrates on one of these campaigns that appears in Plato's Symposium. Socrates started thinking about a philosophical problem early one morning before most people got up, and he stood there in the camp, and the ground was frozen. He walked around in bare feet all the time, except on special occasions. Snow was not a good enough occasion to put shoes on, apparently. The ground was frozen, it was cold, and he stood there before dawn and started thinking. After a while people started stirring, and they started sitting around watching, wondering when he was going to stop this.
It turns out he stood there all day and all the next night, and the next morning he said a prayer as the sun rose and then went off to do his daily business. This is an extraordinary feat, if it's true, and it shows a sign of enormous self-control. This is the kind of thing that you've expect from a yogi, who's long practiced in controlling the body's voluntary and involuntary muscles to a degree that most normal human beings simply can't contemplate. And this would explain, if he had long practice, why he had such endurance under difficult conditions, why he seemed to be so indifferent to heat and cold, why he spent all this time outdoors.
He was also notorious for being able to drink and drink and drink and never get drunk. He could drink anybody under the table and never get drunk. So, there are extraordinary features of the man that need to be explained somehow.
Socrates, when he was in his 40s, became the butt of a play by Aristophanes called Clouds. This was premiered in 424 BC at one of the Great Dionysia, which were religious festivals which included a theater festival, because the theater arose out of religious rites, so as part of these festivals, theater festivals were put on at public expense. At the Greater Dionysia, there were three trilogies of tragedies that were presented, plus three satyr plays and three comedies, and there were contests to determine which were the best. The people who wrote the three tragedies also wrote a satyr play, so the tragedians had the heaviest labor. They had to write four plays for each festival. The comic playwrights only had to write one each.
During this particular year, two of the three plays had Socrates as a central figure, and both were making fun of him. Clouds came in dead last. It was voted third place out of three. Aristophanes got the last laugh though, because of all the ancient comedies, only plays by Aristophanes survive to this day, so history has rendered a different judgment about the value of the plays that beat him out.
This is the earliest representation we have of Socrates around 424 BC. All of Plato's dialogues were written after Socrates' death in 399 BC.
Xenophon, who was another student and friend of Socrates, wrote a number of Socratic works, but all of these were written after Socrates' death as well. But the Clouds is the only work written during Socrates' life, and it's a very unflattering work. It portrays Socrates as a sophist and as a student of nature.
I need to say a little bit about the sophists and the natural philosophers to provide some background here.
Natural philosophy for the ancient Greeks was basically what we would call science today, and the ancient Greek natural philosophers tried to give rational and materialistic explanations for virtually everything, including all the phenomena that had been traditionally accounted for by appeals to deities, gods, spirits, and so forth. And so, the project of the natural philosophers was a project of disenchanting the world, getting rid of ghosts and mystical, spiritual powers and replacing them with mechanistic, scientific explanations. So, there was a tendency for the natural philosophers to be branded as atheists, and there was some good reason for that. Most of them had no belief in any conventionally known divinities. If you sort of prodded them, they would say, "Well, you know, the ultimate material stuff of the cosmos, be it water or air or fire, that's what we call the divine," But it's a notion of the divine that's entirely foreign to any traditional notion, and it's distinct from traditional divinities in the fact that it doesn't have any intelligence. And even if it did have any intelligence it doesn't care about human beings. So, they make no difference to human beings, these gods of the natural philosophers.
Now, one of the things that characterized the natural philosophers was the very strong and careful distinction that they would make between what was natural and what was conventional, what happens by nature and what happens by custom or convention.
The natural philosophers really were the people who introduced this distinction between nature and convention into human thinking. Before ancient Greek natural philosophy, there were notions of order that did not distinguish between natural order and humanly created order. So, for instance, in China there's this notion of tao, the way of things, the way things have always been. There's a kind of descriptive quality—it's the way things have always been—but there's a kind of normative quality that goes along with it, too. Namely, the way they've always been, and the way they ought to be. It would make perfect sense to talk about the tao of ducks and geese or bears and the tao of human cities and human institutions and so forth. There is no distinction between nature and culture.
The Egyptians had the notion of maat, which is sometimes translated as justice, but it really is again equivalent to this notion of tao. It's just the immemorial way of things. The way they always have been, the way they ought to be, and it applies both to human actions and to natural actions or patterns or natural orders.
There are a number of words in Hebrew that basically have this meaning and they can be translated as "the way of things." For instance, sometimes they talk about "the way of women," which means menstruation, but it can also be used to describe what we would call "the American way." You know, how we do things around here. Or how the Canaanites did things over there.
But one process is natural, the other conventional, but the same concept denotes both.
The Greeks were that way too. They had a concept nomos, which is sometimes translated as law or custom. For the early Greeks, it would refer to natural processes as well, so you could talk about the nomos of the stingray or the nomos of geese migrating back and forth or the nomos of the Athenians or the Spartans or the Egyptians. Nomoi is the plural.
There was no distinction made between nature and convention, and yet nature and convention are clearly distinct. Nature is always the same, and the early natural philosophers believed that natural order was eternal and cyclical. It always repeated, always happened the same way, and this was true over time and from place to place.
For instance, geese north of the Rio Grande and south of the Rio Grande have the same patterns. They live the same way. But when you look at human beings north and south of the Rio Grande, they live in very different ways. Why is that? Why is there this enormous variability in human patterns of behavior from place to place? And you could also raise the question in terms of time. Why is there such an enormous variation in human behavior from one time to the next. One hundred years ago in the United States, attitudes about dating and mating and things like that were very different from how they are today, and these kinds of transformations were simply not the kinds of things you'd expect in nature.
So, the early Greek natural philosophers really made thematic a distinction that had always been there just waiting to be made between how things are by nature and how things are by convention or culture. Since the natural philosophers tended to identify nature with what's good, they tended to look upon the world of convention with a certain amount of disdain. These things are ephemeral; they're variable; you can't bank on them; you can't count on them. You have to trust nature, which is eternal, immutable, and just rolls on in its cyclical patterns forever.
What that tended to do was alienate the students of nature from the cities they lived in, and it tended to lead them to regard ordinary people with a certain amount of patronizing cynicism. "These poor blokes who believe all these silly conventions."
What came about as a consequence of natural philosophy was another school of thought known as the sophists. The sophists were very worldly philosophers. They were rather uninterested in the nitty, gritty study of nature. The sophists were not interested in debating theories about how the rain was made or how the thunder was made, but they did accept the basic worldview of the natural philosophers. There was a difference between nature and convention, that nature's what is good and convention is pretty much worthless.
But they were practical men, and so they asked themselves what is the practical meaning of the discovery of the difference between the natural and the cultural. And the answer is this: human beings, to be guided by nature, should be guided by their desires, because those are the most natural things about us, they thought. When it comes to satisfying our desires in a society, well, that means we need to understand the conventions of society, but since these conventions are worthless, we can be quite cavalier and manipulative in their use in order to gratify ourselves. So, the sophists taught a philosophy of getting ahead by means that were unscrupulous. They thought that morality was merely conventional. It was for suckers; so was religion. The only thing natural were their desires, and certain psychological characteristics of human beings that could be manipulated in order to persuade them, in order to gain power over them and so forth.
Socrates is shown in the Clouds as being both a natural philosopher and a sophist, yet it's clear that by the end of his life he was neither. He was an enemy of both the natural philosophers and the sophists. He turned away from the study of nature, because it made him blind, he said. Blind to how men grow and how they live. He also turned away from mere rhetoric, mere manipulation, mere sophistry towards a different conception of persuasion. What underlies this turn is the discovery of a new concept: the notion of what is right by nature.
As soon as the distinction was made between nature and convention, morality was immediately put in the convention column, because morals differ from time to time and place to place. So, they can't be natural. Nature doesn't really have a moral law. It just has the law of the struggle for survival, the struggle for dominance. It's an amoral realm according to the early Greeks. This licensed the behavior of the sophists, their amorality.
What Socrates came to believe in was the existence of something that is right by nature, objective standards, if you will, of right. This gave a foundation for a serious-minded pursuit of knowledge about what's right by nature, which reorients philosophy away from mere frivolous and theoretical concern with why the rain falls or the ultimate stuff of matter and orients it towards the question "what's the good life for man?" This is the first question.
The second page here is a list of Socratic theses that I would like to discuss throughout this course.
This long story gets us to the first Socratic thesis, which is that the primary philosophical question is "how should I live?" It's a moral question. It's a question of "ought." It's a question of the good, and it's also a very existential question in the sense that it's concerned with the individual. How should I live? There's a concrete concern here, which is something that Socrates as he's portrayed in Aristophanes' Clouds and something that the earlier Greek philosophers had simply had no sense of. An interest in concrete, individual life. The sophists, of course, were interested in that, but the early philosophers weren't.
Now, the second thesis is enormously important and we'll have ample opportunity to discuss and debate this. Socrates believed that all human action aimed at happiness or well-being. "Happiness" is the general translation. But the Greek word is eudaimonia, and what is eudaimonia?
Eudaimonia is, I think, best translated as well-being. The reason for that is thesis three: well-being is not necessarily well-feeling, if you will. There's a difference between feeling good and being good. The difference is made clearest in this way: well-being may require ill-feeling from time to time. What does that mean? Let's give an example. You come home, and you discover that your beloved father is dead. Now, if you were to feel good about that, that's not a sign of well-being. That's a sign of disorder, sickness in the soul, because there are certain things in the world that you shouldn't feel good about. If your soul is in a state of well-being or health then in those circumstances where bad or negative feelings are required those are the feelings you're going to have. So, feeling bad is sometimes a sign of being good in a more fundamental way, and so there's a difference between happiness understood as well-being and simply feeling good.
We're going to go into this in much more detail later when we get to the discussion with Callicles and Gorgias, because Callicles is a hedonist. He defines the good as the pleasurable and Socrates has a whole battery of arguments that just crushes this thesis of hedonism, so we're going to be able to deal with this at greater length.
The fourth thesis here is that wisdom and luck are the two causes of well-being. Now, he never states this as I've stated it in the dialogues, but there's reason to believe that this is his viewpoint. I can show you how I can tease this out of the Euthydemus.
What is wisdom? Well, wisdom for Plato is this: it's the ability to make right use of all things. This definition has two very important components. The notion of "right use" and the notion of "all things."
Wisdom is not simply the ability to use things. That is what Plato called art or techne, the ability to use things, to manipulate things, to get things done, to use tools, for instance, to build things, to change things. This is what art is. Every art, every craft is an ability to transform the world in some way. Yet no art and no craft is wisdom. Why is that? Because there's a difference between use and right use. One of Plato's views is that the ability to use something does not automatically confer the ability to use it rightly. You can be terribly efficient in some technical ability or other, you could be an excellent surgeon, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you have the skills to use your abilities rightly. The skills do not apply themselves. They need to be applied. And the knowledge that gives you the ability to apply those things rightly is what he means by wisdom.
Now, what about extremely comprehensive kinds of ability. Plato talks about different kinds of arts and how they can be hierarchically arranged. So, for instance, there are certain kinds of arts that are very basic and there are others that he calls architectonic. What is an architectonic art? Well, it's an art that supervises many other sub-arts. So, for instance, the art of politics is a kind of architectonic art, because what it does is it supervises all the arts and all the crafts in the city. Politicians can outlaw certain things, regulate certain things; they can affect orderings and prioritizings of all the different professions, arts, crafts that exist. So, there's a kind of controlling art there.
Is this the same as wisdom? No. Even the ability to use a lot of things is not the ability to use a lot of things or all things rightly. As you well know, politicians, even extremely powerful politicians, in fact primarily powerful politicians, are often plagued by moral problems. Stalin is a good example. Stalin certainly possessed the architectonic art. He controlled all aspects of life for a vast number of people. Yet that comprehensive, technical skill that he could exercise did not necessarily lead him to act rightly. In fact, it gave him the ability to act wrongly on a colossal scale.
So, wisdom is necessarily involved with the notion of right use. The rightness is intrinsic to it. If you take away the right, you don't have wisdom, and this is why for Plato moral philosophy is central, because his very notion of wisdom has an intrinsically moral component. Wisdom can't be wisdom without knowledge of the right or the good.
Now, the notion of "all things" indicates that there's a kind of comprehensiveness here. What would a contrast be to the right use of all things? Well, I want the right use of some things. For instance, the difference between a mere technical skill and what we would call a profession today is that the professions come with a kind of moral mission built into them. If you become a doctor or a lawyer or a minister or a teacher, the assumption is that there are certain ethical canons that guide your activity and make sure that the skills that you have are used to produce a good end. Let's put it this way: a surgeon isn't just a person who cuts open bodies and sews them up. A torturer can do the same thing. What differentiates the surgeon from the torturer is not the skill, the simple physical manipulation of flesh, but it's the end to which those skills are directed. All the professions have built into them an orientation towards the good.
By becoming a duly constituted doctor or lawyer, you are taking on a certain component of moral wisdom as part of your job description. That's the idea at least. Lawyers, of course, are greatly relieved to hear this speech, and doctors too, because oftentimes they wonder about themselves. There is a reason why, for instance, there is a traditional kind of prestige associated with the professions that is not associated, say, with simply being a business person. Why is that? Because the skills of business managers and salesmen and people like that are purely technical skills. There's nothing about the job description of being a businessman or a salesman or a manager that implies that by being a good businessman or salesman or manager you're being a good person or doing good in the larger sense. You could be a very good businessman selling crap, shoddy products. The people who run Time-Warner. They're very good businessmen, but they put out a lot of crappy stuff that if you totaled it up, the effects that they have on the world, it's probably negative. The people who make violent video games and movies that desensitize people to violence and things like that. These people can be very good businessmen and make lots of money, but they're not necessarily doing anything good, whereas a profession has an intrinsic directedness to do good.
But to be a professional is not to be a wise person, because there's a narrowness to professional ethics. This is one thing that I found very interesting watching a debate that was done when they were going to separate the Lakeberg Siamese twins. This happened about a decade ago now. These little Siamese twin girls were born, I think in Philadelphia, and on Nightline there was a discussion of the operation, the procedure that would separate them. They had a surgeon, who was a very skilled surgeon and clearly an ethical individual. He was on there. And they had some medical ethicists and people like that. My mother was calling me up and gave me her opinion, too. It was very interesting, because my mother knows nothing about surgery, but she had just as articulate an opinion about the larger moral issues raised by this as the doctor himself. There are certain circumstances where a person just simply armed with their professional set of ethics will encounter larger questions that he can't really deal with just as a professional, and he finds themselves calling upon moral philosophers or my mom or pundits and newspaper columnists for guidance.
The surgeon wanted to do no harm, and under normal circumstances he didn't have to. But in this circumstance his professional ethics were sort of flummoxed, and he was just as at sea as everybody else talking about this, and there was a lot of debate. It was very interesting.
Wisdom has a kind of comprehensive capacity to make right use of things whereas the ethics of a profession is very delimited, and oftentimes you'll find extraordinary circumstances where ethical, well-meaning professionals simply can't decide the matter, and they go and ask other people. They go ask philosophers.
The assumption is that there is a kind of knowledge of right use that is more comprehensive, and this is what Plato means by wisdom in the most proper sense. It's a comprehensive knowledge of how to make use of everything rightly.
Now, thesis number six is that wisdom is unconditionally and intrinsically good. All other things are merely conditionally and extrinsically good. What does that mean? Well, it's this. To be unconditionally and intrinsically good is to always be good in virtue of one's nature, whereas to be extrinsically and conditionally good is to be good only on the condition of being used rightly.
Plato's view is that nothing is intrinsically good or bad in this world except for wisdom. Everything else is either good or bad depending on the use to which it is put, and this is a sobering and strange thought when you start figuring out all the implications. It means, for instance, that many of the things we would consider intrinsically good really aren't. When you ask people, "What are the components of a good life?" People will say, "Ideally, I'd like to be beautiful, rich, and famous." And the response is, "Well, there are lots of beautiful, rich, and famous people who are miserably unhappy. Why is that?" Princess Diana was my favorite example. She still is. She was more than average in her attractiveness; she was certainly very rich; she was very famous; and she was obviously very unhappy. And why was she so unhappy given all the advantages that fate or luck had dealt her? Because she didn't have the ability to use those advantages well to conduce to her own happiness. And she was spending huge amounts of money on psychics and colonic irrigation trying to get it out of her by hook or by crook. The poor woman spent thousands and thousands of pounds on massage therapies and psychics and crystals and every pop New Age nonsense that you could possibly imagine to make herself happy.
And what was she depending on? She was looking for some kind of art or technique for happiness. I was going to bring you a copy of Aquarius, the local New Age shopper type newspaper, which is very interesting, and it's filled with ads. I was flipping through this once and not only were there people offering you shiatsu and yoga classes, but they were saying that these were the keys to well-being. There are certain technical skills that these people have that if you learn them you will become a happy, self-actualized person. This is the obsession of Americans, and it's not just the people who pick up the New Age newspapers. People who are going to therapy, people who are going on hikes, people are searching for happiness, and they go to professionals who claim to have certain technical skills that will lead them to happiness.
But Plato's answer to that is simple. No technique, no art will lead you to happiness unless you've got the wisdom to use it rightly, and none of these things come with that built in. None of them are self-applying. They all need an external supplement, and that external supplement is knowledge of how to make right use of them, which is what philosophy pursues. Wisdom.
Now, folly is the opposite of wisdom. This is point number seven. And folly may not be unconditionally bad. It might be the case that even folly can be conducive to happiness. There's a fellow who came to a couple philosophy cafes. He had a terrible car accident. He had reconstructive surgery. And now he looks back on it, and he says, "This was the best thing that ever happened to him." And I asked him when he said that, "Would you recommend it to other people?" He said, "No, I wouldn't recommend it!" But it's the best thing that's ever happened to him because it forced him to make changes in his life that made him end up a much happier person.
So, Plato gives us an account of happiness that would make perfect sense out of these strange alchemical transmutations of dross into gold, if you will. Because many people do find that the things that are supposedly intrinsically good, like money or fame, are the worst things that ever happened to them. How many people have been ruined by winning lotteries? A book should be written about it. You hear all these stories, and a book should be written about it. By contrast, many people have enormously benefited by losing a lot of money. People who have been cocooned all their life in wealth suddenly have had to face reality for the first time when they were broke and enjoyed the thrill of actually living for the first time.
So, the things that convention says are intrinsically good are not intrinsically good. They're only good if they're used rightly. And with things by convention regarded as intrinsically bad are not intrinsically bad. They're only bad if they're not used rightly. Even being a fool can be manipulated properly and be used to your benefit. What's the clearest example of that? Well, learning from your folly. You blunder foolishly into a mistake and if you can take that folly and, if you will, wisely use it you can come out a much wiser person. William Blake talked about this. How we are saved by our sins and follies, but only if we use them rightly.
Number eight we've already talked about. Wisdom is not an art or technique. No technique is sufficient for the pursuit of happiness. That doesn't mean that techniques are entirely useless, but they are not sufficient. They require the supplement of wisdom to use them properly.
The ninth point is that wisdom enlarges the realm of human power and efficacy, pushing back the frontiers of luck. Again, there are two causes of well-being: luck and wisdom. Plato recognizes that luck is an irreducible component in happiness. You can never entirely master it. You can be the best person in the world, you can be the most together person, the most decent, the most moral, the most wise person, and if that meteor lands on top of your house that's the end of you. It doesn't make you bullet-proof. Bad luck will wipe you out. So, we do have to have a certain component of luck to attain well-being.
Plato is very clear, though, that it requires surprisingly little if you understand well-being properly. It requires surprisingly little luck. Surprisingly little external equipment is necessary for attaining well-being. Such that someone like Socrates who lived a life of voluntary poverty was a superbly happy person whereas people who had much more equipment, external things, were very unhappy. So, it requires very little, but you still have to have external things, and these external things are in part furnished by simple circumstance. Fate, luck, whatever.
But the hallmark of being a fool is depending upon luck and not making provision to try to take as much control as you possibly can over your life. There's a crack: The lottery: it's just a tax on fools. Because people who play the lottery are depending on luck.
Well, it's not harmful, I suppose, if you occasionally put a dollar down for the $100 million dollar Powerball jackpot, but the fact of the matter is that when you look at it, it is rather irrational, in that people would be better off, if you're making a rational or objective calculation of risks, taking that dollar and buying lightning insurance than they would buying that lottery ticket. But the fact is they want that money and they don't want to be hit by lightning, so they're going to spend it on the lottery ticket instead. That's just the way human beings are, and they are certainly people who are prize fools and spend all their earnings on lottery tickets.
Depending upon luck, just hoping that you're going to have what they call "dumb luck" and end up in a fool's paradise, really is a sign of folly, and the extent to which one is wise is the extent to which one tries to take as much control as possible over one's existence and push back the Empire of Fortune and its control over one's life.
Socrates also makes a number of claims that sound very, very pollyannaish and optimistic and silly. Like number ten: all human beings intend the good. No one intentionally does evil. Now this is hard to swallow. Is it really the case that Jeffrey Dahmer was intending to do good? Isn't it the case that there are examples of human beings who seem to be sort of demonically evil? Sort of Iago types, who know what's good and want to trample upon it precisely it is good. Isn't that the case?
Well, Socrates says no. All human beings intend the good. What explains all the evil in the world? Well, because although we're searching for the good and intend to do the good we're often, in fact we're almost always, mistaken about what the good really is.
So, the very structure of human action is always directed towards the good. Given any set of options that you have, human beings will try to choose the best option as they see it. So, Jeffrey Dahmer could have stayed home and watched TV; he could have visited a sick friend; he could have gone to the library; he could have gone to the movies; but of all the options available he chose to lure people back to his apartment and kill them and eat them. Why is that? Because he thought that was in some way the best use of his time. Now, he was terribly mistaken about that. This is why this proviso that we always choose the good as we see it is so important, because the fact is that we see things often wrongly. We're often quite deluded about what we see as good, but we still choose that thing that we see to be the best.
Those people who said, "I know what's good, but I just don't want to do it. I know it's good to give money to charity, but I just want to spend it on beer." I've heard people say that. My response is, "Well, what you're really saying is this. I know that people say it's 'good' to give money to charity, but I don't really believe that. Because if you really believed it, you wouldn't just be spending it on self-indulgence." A lot of people will say that they know certain things, but they really don't know in the sense that they wholeheartedly believe it to be true.
But Socrates says, "If you know something to be good, you will do it. If you are mistaken about that thing, you'll do something that's not good. You'll do an evil thing only under the guise of good." You only do evil, he says, out of ignorance of the good.
This is an enormously important claim. It's controversial. And we'll have plenty of opportunity to kick it around and debate it. We'll look at Aristotle's critique of this, and I'll try to show that Aristotle ultimately gives in to Socrates, even though he tries to criticize him.
Numbers twelve and thirteen are just different versions of number eleven. Evil action only happens out of ignorance of the good and virtue is knowledge of the good, vice is ignorance of the good.
When you talk about a virtuous person or an excellent person, we're simply saying that they have a certain amount of knowledge of the good. When we're talking about vicious people, we're talking about people who are somehow systematically deluded about where their own good lies.
Let's go to number fourteen. "The soul is susceptible of structural and dynamic analysis." What does that mean? Structural analysis means you can break something down into its parts, and dynamic analysis means that it has certain forces that expend themselves or express themselves in time, and you can look at those forces over time as well as sort of timeless structures, a cross-section, if you will, of the soul.
Now, fifteen is the structural analysis, if you will. "The soul has parts." And he calls them reason, spirit, and desire, and "these parts can function together in harmony, which is what we call spiritual health, and in disharmony, which is spiritual disease." So, there are parts of the soul, and we'll go into that in much more detail later, and the parts can function together harmoniously or disharmoniously in a way that's strictly analogous to the parts of the body. The parts of the body, the limbs and organs and tissues of the body, are differentiated yet the can function together in a harmonious or a disharmonious way. We call the harmonious functioning of the body health and disharmony in the parts illness.
Sixteen: "The soul also has a dynamic power," and Plato calls this eros or love. He has many descriptions of this. We'll look at a couple passages from the Symposium where he describes this in the next lecture. Eros is the soul's longing for growth towards the good. It's a longing for completion, for self-actualization, and ultimately, he's going to argue, for immortality. The soul not only wants to have the good, its own good, but it wants to have it forever. This is the inner meaning of love for Plato. Eros is the desire for the good of the soul, which is aroused by the beauty of the body. So, beauty, and physical beauty in particular, arouses eros, but ultimately what it is directed towards is something beyond the beautiful and beyond the physical, which is the good of the soul and not of the body.
Seventeen: "Each part of the soul has its appropriate erotic object: knowledge, ideals, the necessities of life, different objects of the parts of the soul." So, the rational part of the soul has an erotic longing, if you will, for knowledge, and when it knows, it feels complete and satisfied. The desires of the soul have an erotic need for what are called the necessities of life. These are the things that make desire feel completed. The spirited part of the soul longs for the ideal. It feels complete when it possesses ideals or pursues them.
Number eighteen is important: "Wisdom produces the inner harmony of the parts of the soul and guides them to their completion." So, wisdom introduces a proper ordering of the parts of the soul, statically, if you will, and also guides this sort of on-going process of self-actualization to its conclusion. This is the proper role of wisdom in relationship to happiness. When you get to this state of both self-actualization and inner harmony, what you have achieved is happiness, well-being, which is what we're all searching for.
Now, philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom. It literally means "love of wisdom," and "love" has to be understood as pursuing it, not necessarily having it. Philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom is the equivalent, therefore, for Plato, to the care of the soul, the guiding of the soul to its proper end, the introduction of the proper harmony of its parts. So, philosophy, as the pursuit of wisdom, is the care of the soul or the pursuit of happiness, if you will.
This is why philosophy is important. Plato argues we're all pursuing happiness, and philosophy is that thing without which we cannot reliably gain the happiness we seek. We can hope to luck out, but it's foolish to depend entirely upon luck. Therefore, we have to deliberately pursue wisdom as a way of taking greater control over this process, and we're already in the process, and we always-already want that goal. So, what Plato makes clear is what is necessary to achieve the goal: Wisdom. And that is what philosophy is pursuing.
So, we should all be pursuing philosophy. It's a very simple argument.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


In the middle of Luberon in Buoux.
"La Sparagoule" is an authentic country house dating back to the 17th century (1642) which has been turned into a bed and breakfast accomodations.
This residence is ideally situated in one oft the luberon most famous historic spots and belongs to the "luberon regional park", 8km from the city of Apt.
Odile, the owner of the residence, offers you two types of friednly and pleasant accomations. A bed and breakfast lodging which is composed of 2 rooms for two persons and one room for two or three persons.
This residence is an ideal accommodation for people who enjoy hiking, climbimg, cycling or just discovering the rich natural and historical heritage of the preserved area.


Just like Fox Sports West, Fox Sports Prime Ticket --formerly known as FSN Prime Ticket--is a Los Angeles-based regional sports network. It is also owned by Fox Cable Networks, and it also serves Southern California, Central California, as well as Hawaii and Nevada.
1774HD on AT&T U-Verse Channel 692 on DirecTV and on Channel 417 on Dish Network.


this throw will steal the little folks hearts & litter your home with twinkling sea stars.
made entirely by hand by our team of mama's who crochet at night when their babes have gone to bed.
this throw is intended for little folk with imagination & star gazing eyes.


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Filter by type: News
Filter by programs: Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women, Knowledge for Democracy Myanmar
Filter by topics: Governance, Health
News x
Health x
Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women x
Knowledge for Democracy Myanmar x
Global Health 11matches
Inclusive Economies 4matches
Technology and Innovation 4matches
Centre of Excellence for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems 3matches
Agriculture and Environment 2matches
Gender Health
IDRC-supported gender expert in Myanmar wins N-Peace award
May Sabe Phyu has won an N-Peace Award from the United Nations Development Program. Founded in 2010, N-Peace awards recognize women from Afghanistan, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka who shine a spotlight on gender-related issues.
Gender Health Governance
The World Health Organization reports that 35% of the world's women and girls experience sexual or physical violence in their lifetime.
Nobel winners' approach to policy-relevant research valued at IDRC
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences to three development economists — Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer — who pioneered the use of an experiment-based approach.
Connecting Myanmar researchers to Canadian universities
The University of British Columbia, Canada and Yangon University of Economics, Myanmar signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that solidifies their collaboration in support of evidence-based policy development in Myanmar. This agreement is the first of its kind between a Canadian and Myanmar university.


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Style Tips for Men: How to Upgrade Your Style
Chad Leat Reveals the Right Way to Refresh Your Wardrobe
J.Crew Mulls Madewell IPO
J.Crew Group says it is actively exploring strategic alternatives to maximise the value of the company, including a potential initial public offering (IPO) of its Madewell business, which, if pursued, could be completed as early as the second half of 2019.
J. Crew is considering an IPO for its Madewell clothing brand
J. Crew is exploring a potential initial public offering for its fastest growing brand Madewell, the company said in a release Thursday.
J.Crew Appoints Chad Leat as Chairman
J.Crew Appoints Chad Leat as Chairman. Drexler to Continue to Serve as a Strategic Advisor to the Company.
Chad Leat replaces Millard Drexler as Chairman of J.Crew Group
The company said that its board of directors has now elected Chad Leat to succeed Drexler as Chairman, effective immediately. Leat has served as a director of J.Crew since January 2017. The company added that Drexler will continue to serve as a strategic advisor to the office of the CEO and the board.
Distinguished Kansan Chad Leat: Former Citigroup exec gives $1 million to KU scholarship
Chad Leat, retired vice chairman of global banking at Citigroup, in March made a $1 million scholarship gift commitment in support of LGBTQ students at the University of Kansas.
Designer Alvise Orsini Crafts a Stunning Art-Filled Penthouse in Paris
Art collector Chad Leat's apartment dazzles with sweeping views and blue-chip art
All Aglow at the Parrish Museum Midsummer Benefit
Light artist Keith Sonnier and trustee Chad Leat were honored at the annual benefit.
Hamptons Happenings–The Parrish Gala Goes Lavish
The event honored Trustee Chad Leat and Artist Keith Sonnier with honorary Co-Chairs Milly and Arne Glimcher and Fern and Lenard Tessler paying homage to their friends.
Chad Leat: At Home with the Vibrant Energy of Art
Chad Leat shares his passion for art with The Express Magazine.
Wall Streeters in the Hamptons Turn Out for Chad Leat at Parrish Gala
Chad Leat's Wall Street friends followed him to the Parrish Art Museum Saturday night to see him honored by CNN's Don Lemon.
Friday Fête: Parrish Art Museum Parties, Spring Place Celebrates Missoni's New Cookbook, and More
Hosted by the museum's director, Terrie Sultan, the event honored Chad Leat (long-time supporter and trustee) and Keith Sonnier (who currently has exhibitions on view at the museum entitled "Keith Sonnier: Until Today" and "The Permanent Collection: Five and Forward").
Chad Leat To Be Honored By The Parrish
At its Midsummer Party this Saturday, July 14, the Parrish Art Museum will honor both artist Keith Sonnier, whose work is currently on display at the museum in Water Mill, and Chad Leat, a Parrish trustee who is a former Citibank vice chairman of global banking in addition to being a patron of the arts.
Tony Ingrao and Randy Kemper Design a Modern and Minimal New York Apartment
Working with architect Preston T. Phillips, Randy Kemper and Tony Ingrao of the design firm Ingrao Inc. created a sun-splashed, art-filled loft in Manhattan's West Village for financier Chad Leat.
Citigroup VIce Chairman Leat to Depart
Chad Leat, a veteran Citigroup Inc. deal maker known for his golden Rolodex, is retiring from the company after 16 years.
"Throughout my career, I have learned that just like life there is no linear path to success or happiness - only to be the best that you can be."
– CHAD LEAT


Address : Post Master, Japorigog, Gmc Taluk, Kamrup District, ASSAM, India.
What is Pin code of Japorigog?
Japorigog Pin code or Postal zip code of Japorigog is an unique Post index number provided to the post office of Japorigog, Guwahati Division, Kamrup District of Assam state, India. These Pin codes are provided by India Post.


Yesterday, we saw something that doesn't happen very often. It's more than HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle just telling reporters that he thinks Vick "would do a good job as a pet owner." Pacelle, who tries so desperately (and often successfully) to hide the fact that his moral compass is far outside the mainstream, slipped up and told the truth. And Americans—including countless animal lovers who are accustomed to siding with HSUS—reacted with visceral anger and disgust.
Will Wayne's blog be enough to quell the firestorm? Time will tell. But it yesterday's reactions on Facebook (HSUS's Facebook page, not ours) are any indication, HSUS members will be barking mad at Pacelle for a long, long time.
Karen: Give Vick a dog? This group stinks!


Jason Alexander Byers is a soft-spoken and polite man - always choosing his words carefully and holding the doors for others entering a building. For Jason, his prime method of expression is through his artwork, culminating this fall with a solo exhibition of his newest series at Garis & Hahn in Manhattan. Anthony Patrick Cerretani – a writer, philosopher, painter and musician – is a friend of the artist and sat down with Jason Alexander Byers for a chat, leading up to his opening on November 19th.
Anthony Patrick Cerretani: How did you get into birds in the first place?
JAB: Well, it was similar to how I got into painting skyscrapers, just being around them and finding that inspiration. When I was living in Pittsburgh and it was going through a renaissance, I just watched the skyline get built up around me. It was similar with birds – every summer I'd go up to my grandparents' place an hour north of Pittsburgh, and they had a bird feeder that attracted all these song birds. I would just sit at the window and watch them all, birds of all different colors, and that fascination with birds has stuck with me.
APC: You take these birds that often have brilliant colors, and make them monochromatic with tar – what made you decide to go that route?
JAB: It's something that evolved from my tar paintings of skyscrapers. Using materials that are untraditional has always appealed to me, because I'm not a painter. For me, using a material like tar gets me closer to sculpture, where I started out. A lot of my work is monochromatic because I don't see color as much as I see texture.
APC: Interesting, so texture is more important to you on the visual side of things. I see why you would be drawn to use tar.
JAB: It also came out of the images I saw of birds covered in oil after BP spilled in the gulf, and researching which birds were harmed the most from that. The first birds I painted in tar were arranged like targets, similar to my screen prints. For a long time I stuck to doing symmetrical pieces, but I had enjoyed painting the skylines and churches asymmetrically so I wanted to try the same thing with the birds. With both series, I like how they come out looking like maps, with all the jagged edges. But I keep the eyes simple, just perfect circles, and that connects back to the targets.
APC: Seems like it's a natural sort of evolution from one series to the other, it's your own aesthetics along with a research process on these subjects pulled from your life experience.
JAB: Yeah, and the research process might be the most fun part. That's when I just close the door and zone out, focusing in on whatever I'm doing next. Sometimes I'll have clippings all over my wall and if anyone happens to stop by, they tend to step back and scratch their head in disbelief.
APC: It's clear there's a lot of thought behind it, that you're very invested in the work. Are there other artists you look to for inspiration?
APC: So you have the influence of untraditional materials, and the geometrical side that comes through in your targets. Once you're ready to get to work, how hard is it to actually make one of the tar paintings?
JAB: It's a process, you know, I take my time on the research and doing drawings, studies with pens, and then once I figure out the pieces I want to paint, I basically just go into manufacturing mode, and bam, bam, bam! A one-man assembly line.
APC: Or like you're a chef prepping the kitchen. Except the ingredients are a little more toxic... do you work on these outside because of the fumes?
JAB: I was working outdoors for a little bit, but the rain kept messing it up. One of them actually – it hadn't rained for days, and out of nowhere a single raindrop comes down and lands directly in the center of one of the bird's eyes. So that piece was ruined. It just wasn't safe, I had to take it back inside.
APC: Do you think you're going to stick with using untraditional materials in your work going forward?
APC: There was no moment where you wanted to give up and walk away from the tar. Do you think it relates to your environment as well – living here in the city?
paved tar, somewhere on First Avenue I think, and it just kind of hit me in that moment.
APC: You never know when that spark will hit you.
Anthony Cerretani is a self-taught visual artist, musician, and avid conversationalist. He grew up in the finger lake region of New York in the village of Waverly. Currently, he lives in Brooklyn, painting and making music that he hopes will inspire others of all ages to keep creating and living the life you love.


I have been honoured by the request of the Idle No More Founders to be one of their organizers and spokespersons. Working within this movement was a natural extension of the work we already do in First Nations with leaders and citizens.
I'd like to try to answer those questions as an individual. Thus what follows represents my own opinions, analysis, views and aspirations about the Idle No More movement.
The Idle No More movement is part of a larger Indigenous movement that has been in the making for several years now. Indigenous activists all over the country have been monitoring the political and legal scene in Canada at both the federal and provincial levels and making a concerted effort to help inform First Nation community members and leaders about any potential threats. We noted a clear assimilation agenda that emerged within the Conservative government and we started planning on how we could address that if Prime Minister Harper insisted on putting his plan into action.
We of course worked very hard to try all the usual channels to address our growing concerns, which included lobbying, letter-writing, testifying before Senate and Parliament, endless meetings with MPs, Senators, Ministers and others -- all to no avail. The Harper government was not interested in talking to us, let alone consulting or getting our consent. Harper decided instead to use the Assembly of First Nations as his primary vehicle to call all the shots. Harper's government set the agenda, they drafted the joint action plans and they alone decided what was and was not on the table. In other words, Harper managed to bully his assimilation plan onto the First Nation agenda with hardly a squeak of opposition at the political level.
At the co-called Crown-First Nation Gathering (CFNG) last January 2012, Harper promised First Nations his government would not unilaterally amend or repeal the Indian Act. After the CFNG, he broke that promise and proceeded with an aggressive legislative agenda that will include upwards of 14 bills that will devastate our First Nations in various ways. It is the White Paper 2012 with a twist -- instead of it being a policy, like the 1969 White Paper, which wanted to assimilate Indians, Harper's plan will be law. This is the spark that ignited the Idle No More movement into action.
Early protests started out as opposing the massive omnibus Bill C-45, but later came to include the whole suite.
The Idle No More movement, initially started by women, is a peoples' movement that empowers Indigenous peoples to stand up for their Nations, lands, treaties and sovereignty. This movement is unique because it is purposefully distanced from political and corporate influence. There is no elected leader, no paid Executive Director, and no bureaucracy or hierarchy which determines what any person or First Nation can and can't do. There are no colonial-based lines imposed on who joins the movement and thus issues around on & off-reserve, status and non-status, treaty and non-treaty, man or woman, elder or youth, chief or citizen does not come into play. This movement is inclusive of all our peoples.
To my mind, the true governing power of our Indigenous Nations has always been exercised through the voice of our peoples. The leaders were traditionally more like spokespeople which represented to views and decisions of the people. In this way, the Idle No More movement, led by grassroots peoples connects very closely to our Indigenous traditional values. But it is not a movement where the people stand alone, their elders, elected leaders and traditional leaders stand with them. This movement is not in competition with any First Nation political organization or elected leaders. This movement is focused on the critical issues before us, not power-struggles, political games or competing for government funding. Everyone so far has donated their time, money, energy and skills to making this work despite the inevitable critiques, push-back and misinformation.
Yet, what makes this peoples' movement so unique, is also what makes it so difficult for many Canadians and the media to understand. Generally speaking, people understand that each government, group or organization has a leader, a clearly defined hierarchy and rules about who can say and do what. This movement on the other hand, is very organic in nature and first and foremost respects the sovereignty of individual Indigenous peoples and their Nations to participate how and when they choose, if at all. This will mean that some First Nations leaders will choose not to participate, but some of their members will. It could mean one First Nation community organizes teach-ins whereas First Nations peoples living in urban areas will get together and organize flash mob round dances.
Think of the many ways in which this movement has already developed. We had teach-ins at Louis Bull, Saddle Lake and other First Nations. We have posted information, publications and videos online for all to access. We have engaged the media to help educate the public about why this impacts them as well. The Chiefs organized a protest during the AFN assembly to oppose the legislation (including Bill C-45). Chief Spence is on a hunger strike standing up for all First Nations and the treaty relationship which Canada has forgotten. Kids in schools have held Idle No More Rallies and there have been marches, protests and temporary traffic and railways slow downs. The core unifying theme to all of it has been that they are peaceful activities meant to help educate Canadians about how this is in all our interests.
We do have structure, we are organized, we work very closely with one another across the country to strategize and we are growing. We have worked with active First Nation leaders on the ground since the very beginning and many of us continue to do so. Our allies increase every day as more and more organizations are joining the movement. Now we have widespread international support which also grows everyday. Pretty soon you will see more and more prominent figures stand up to put pressure on Canada to come to the table in a real, meaningful way.
To me, Idle No More is a responsibility -- a responsibility to live up to the sacrifices of our ancestors, to the duty we have as guardians of the earth, and to the expectations that our children and grandchildren have of us to protect them. Every single one of us has that responsibility, though, at any given time, we all have different capacities, skills and opportunities in which to fulfill it. Regardless of our situation, I believe that we all carry that responsibility from the very moment the Creator blesses us with our first breath until our last.
This responsibility means that it is not good enough to work hard, get an education, find a job, and provide for one's family. These are important things, and our ancestors did their best to ensure that we would have a prosperous future. Many even negotiated these provisions in some of our treaties. But, it is not good enough for us to simply be comfortable, at least not as long as we have brothers, sisters and community members who live without food, water or housing. Right now, many of our Indigenous peoples are facing multiple, overlapping crises that require emergency attention. The very grassroots people standing on the front lines of this movement are there because they are the ones without clean water, housing or sanitation and the politicians have done little to address this.
This movement is set apart from any other before it. Unlike the Occupy movement, this movement involves peoples with a shared histories, experiences, goals and aspirations. We as Indigenous peoples are all related, we all care about each other's futures and we share the same responsibility to protect our rights, cultures and identities for our seventh generation. This movement also has a special spiritual significance in that this was prophesied - that the seventh generation would rise and restore the strength of our Nations, bring balance and see that justice was restored to our peoples.
This movement is also unique in that it includes Canadians as our allies. Just as the early days of contact when the settlers needed our help to survive the harsh winter months, and seek out a new life here, Canadians once again need our help. They need our help to stop Harper's destructive environmental agenda. First Nations represent Canadians last best hope at stopping Harper from unfettered mass destruction of our shared lands, waters, plants and animals in the name of resource development for export to foreign countries like China. Why? Because only First Nations have constitutionally protected Aboriginal and treaty rights which mandate Canada to obtain the consent of First Nations prior to acting. These rights are also protected at the international level with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
When First Nations organize in Idle No More to oppose this legislation, they do so to protect all of our interests - First Nation and Canadian alike. The most precious resources in the near future will be farmable lands and drinkable water. If there is no clean water, this impacts everyone. We are standing up not only to protect our lands and waters, but we are also standing up to restore justice for First Nations and democracy for Canadians. We can work together to defeat this threat to Canada and find a way to share the lands and resources as the treaties envisioned.
Ultimately, we want to be free - free to govern ourselves as we choose; free to enjoy our identities, cultures, languages and traditions - i.e., to live the good life as we see fit. This means Canada must respect our sovereignty and get out of the business of managing our lives. Given that Canada has worked hard to put us in the situation we are in, Harper will have to come to table with some good faith and offer some solutions to address the current crisis facing many of our communities in relation to the basic essentials of life - water, sanitation, housing, and education. If Harper can do no more than appear at a meeting on January 24th as requested by the AFN, our most vulnerable citizens will not see justice.
What Idle No More means to me is the coming together of Indigenous peoples from all over Turtle Island to work together to restore pride in our peoples, to stand up for our rights and live up to those responsibilities we have to one another and Mother Earth.
It is inspiring hope, when many had lost hope that anyone would ever stand on their behalf.
It has inspired pride in who we are as Indigenous peoples because our peoples and the ways of our peoples are beautiful and something to be cherished and defended.
It has inspired leadership in those who thought they had nothing left to offer their Nations.
It has inspired a reconnection of youth to elders, citizens to leaders and men to stand beside their women.
It has inspired the most oppressed peoples to stand up and exercise their voices.
We are alive again and the spirits of our ancestors are walking with us on this journey.
I believe in the power of our peoples -- we can do this!


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Q: In Excel automation, how to gracefully handle invalid file format error upon file opening? I'm trying to open a Microsoft Excel file in a C# program using the 'excelApp.Workbooks.Open()' method. As it happens, if the format of the file is invalid, this method causes an error message box to be displayed. I, however, don't want that; I wish to handle this error gracefully in my own code.
My question is, how do I do that?
The above method doesn't throw any exception which I can catch. Even if it did, there's still that pesky message box anyway. So perhaps the only way would be to validate the file format before opening it. Is there, then, another method in Excel API to allow such validation?

A: I am sorry, I am not able to simulate the corrupt xls file example with Excel 2007.
Try Application.DisplayAlerts = False before calling Workbooks.Open...
If the workbook can't be opened, the returned value will be null.
(i.e. Workbook wkb = Workbooks.Open(....);
wkb will be null when DisplayAlerts = False and the file could not be opended)
This is purely based on what I understand of excel object model.


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Q: Apple In App Purchase Auto Renewal Subscriptions Payment not deducted but expires_date within latest_receipt_info has been increased I have added IAP "Auto Renewal Subscriptions" in my iOS app. and after trail period my subscription has been extends but subscription amount did not deducted from my account.
What happened why expires_date has been extend and subscription amount did not deducted from user.

User using app from last 3 days without paying amount of Auto renewal subscription.

It's live application and in receipt verification i am parsing "expires_date" using "buy.itunes.apple.com/verifyReceipt".

Is any buddy can help me?

A: Please wait at list 4-5 days. Apple will deduct your subscription amount. some times apple process takes time.