It's essential for each of us to set priorities - we all know this to be true and god knows Youtube is full of videos on how to do this, how to write to do lists and how to organise your life. However you do it, setting priorities becomes especially important if you feel that you're blocked where your voice is concerned, or that you aren't progressing.
So many singers that I work with tell me 'I don't have the time to work on my voice each day' or 'I really want to be more vocally proactive, but I'm always rushing from one place to the next' - I'm sure many of us recognise ourselves in these phrases. My usual response is to suggest a slight vocabulary change - I ask the person to turn the sentence around so that instead of saying 'I don't have the time to (x)' we say '(x) is not a priority for me' - this little change seems so insignificant, but it really packs a sting because 'I don't have time to warm-up' or 'I don't have time to do my steam inhalations in the morning' gets turned into something like 'My vocal health is not a priority for me' - ouch! That's a kick in the cricoid!
In truth, we all do have enough time - we have the same amount of time every day. Everyone - you, me, Beyoncé, even that UKIP git - gets 24 hours in a day. Then the next day again, and again until there's no more time left. So it really doesn't make any sense to say 'I haven't enough time to do it' because that implies that we somehow have fewer hours in the day than everyone else - which manifestly isn't true. What changes from one person to another is the way we choose to invest those 24 hours.
Whenever I start to go down this path, I always get quite a bit of resistance (that's polite talk for 'I get told to piss-off'...) because each person is convinced that whilst this is a logical argument and certainly true for everyone else - it isn't true for them because 'I'm just so busy!' or 'I have so much to do - I really don't have a choice'. But - if you put aside your resistance for just a minute (see previous brackets) - you do. You do have a choice. Our priorities inform our choices - we choose to work because we have financial priorities (by that I mean that 'not dying from lack of food' and 'not getting dragged howling from the house by bailiffs' feature fairly prominently on our list of priorities), maybe we choose to be in a local play because we want to support our friend who is directing it - but no one is actually forcing us to do any of this and if one of our so-called 'obligations' ceases to be a priority for us, we can absolutely choose to say no (for example, if standing in your nightie in the street with your cheeks burning with shame whilst a hairy-armed brute tots up the value of your furniture isn't a big deal for you, you can totally stop paying your rent...*). Now of course, for our basic needs (housing, food, gin...) it's fairly unlikely that we'd ever stop prioritising them, but when it comes to freer, more leisurely things such as working on your voice, going to the cinema, learning to cook or binge-watching The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix (which I definitely did not do...) - we absolutely can - and should - choose.
I meet so many worn-out, heart-heavy singers who say to me 'please help me - I'm getting so tired vocally and I really need my voice' then follow up with 'I haven't much time to work on exercises and stuff, mind, because I'm in four groups, I teach singing at the weekend and three times a month I sing in a piano bar'. When you listen to these two phrases side by side, you really feel for the person (and maybe you recognise yourself a bit too) - it sounds exhausting, doesn't it? All that running around sounds truly wearing (running in general terrifies me - I believe adults should only run if they have left a cake in a taxi - but that's just me). Everyone will sympathise with this person, but everyone will also accept that it's normal, that this is just how life is. However, if we apply my vocabulary change rule, we end up with something along the lines of 'I use my voice loads - in fact it's how I avoid the cheek-burning bailiff incident, but I can't take time to work on it because its longevity is not a priority for me' - when we (brutally) phrase it like that, the absurdity of the notion becomes painfully apparent. Why then are there so many of us who say precisely that kind of thing?
I believe it is because we do not think in terms of priorities - at least, not frequently enough. We should define our priorities clearly and before choosing to do something (there's that word again - choose...) we should ask ourselves if it's truly a priority or not - to put it another way, before choosing to invest some of our precious time in a project, we should check to see if that project is on our priority list. Also - it's best not to try to trick yourself when you do this: honest talk time - no one has 53 actual priorities (winky smiley or other internet based way of implying 'haha, aren't we all just jokey friends together here?!').
So if you recognise yourself in this (and if you don't, you're probably either a unicorn or Beyoncé - in which case, as you were) or if you find yourself saying 'I'm disappointed in my voice and my progress' just ask yourself if you've actively made your voice a priority. If the answer is no, ask yourself 'is my voice really a priority for me at the moment' if again the answer is no, that's ok, it just means other things are more pressing at the moment (but you have to stop being disappointed in your progress - only people actively working hard at something are allowed to be disappointed when they're not getting anywhere). On the other hand, if you conclude that your voice is indeed a priority at the moment, take a long hard look at the list of 'obligations' you're currently dealing with and decide which of those things is an imposter, taking precious time from your life without being one of your priorities - then get rid of it.
Remember - if you don't define your own priorities - someone else will do it for you.
* Don't do that. Don't stop paying your rent.


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Watch Anything Goes
After falling in love with a young, blonde woman, a man sees her forcefully taken onto a ocean liner. He wants to save her from whatever peril she may be in and decides to join the passengers on the cruise ship. It turns out that the man's boss is on the ship as well, and he must find a way to disguise himself so his boss does not recognize him. A series of events put him in danger, but he must find out why this woman was abducted and get her to safety if necessary. His disguise might be his downfall though.
Anything Goes is an Comedy, Music movie that was released in 1936 and has a run time of 1 hr 32 min. It has received poor reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 6.6.
Where do I stream Anything Goes online? Anything Goes is available to watch and stream, rent on demand at Amazon online. Some platforms allow you to rent Anything Goes for a limited time or purchase the movie and download it to your device.
Comedy, Music
Bing Crosby, Ethel Merman, Charles Ruggles, Ida Lupino
Benjamin Glazer
More Like Anything Goes
Romance and Cigarettes
The Fighting Temptations
Also directed by Lewis Milestone
Guest in the House
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
Halls of Montezuma
The Garden of Eden
Also starring Bing Crosby
The Country Girl
Road to Singapore
Here Comes the Groom
Road to Utopia
The Bells of St. Mary's
Pennies From Heaven
The Road to Hong Kong
Also starring Ethel Merman

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Staying stylish all the time is a challenge—especially with our constantly changing bodies. But there are a few basics that every new mom should have in her arsenal for a stylish maternity leave.
High-waisted leggings completely obscure the mid-section muffin top. As any new mom can tell you, the belly situation is not cute for a while. Wearing fold-over or high-waisted yoga pants is a must.
If you're breastfeeding, you will inevitably find yourself in a public situation with a hungry baby and an awkward shirt on. If your belly still hasn't slimmed down yet you might be a little uncomfortable pulling your shirt up to nurse—even with a nursing cover or swaddle. Button-down shirts are a life saver.
You definitely need a deep V-neck t-shirt deep enough that you can easily move it to the side for nursing. Sometimes lifting the shirt isn't an option, especially if you are toting around your offspring in a baby-carrier.
Any long or boxy tank will work with leggings, but a striped tank brings a bit of style to your look. Plus the stripes will camouflage milk leakage and stains.
Nothing creates the illusion of slim hips like extra yards of fabric flowing around your body. The drapey cardigan is also a built-in nursing cover. You might have several of these in your closet already, but if not, we've got you covered.
Instead of draping yourself in a baby swaddle, why not use a beautiful oversized scarf as a nursing cover? You might already own several of these must-have pieces, but stocking up on a few extra is a good idea since you will be living in these for a few months.


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Home » Bijapur » Bijapur: The City of Historical Monuments
Bijapur: The City of Historical Monuments
September 19, 2015 by Raggi Mudde
Bijapur is a historical city in Karnataka. The city is famous for its ancient monuments, mosques, mausoleums, palaces, fortifications and other structures. Situated at a distance of about 530 km to the northwest of Bangalore, Bijapur attracts scores of tourists who flock to have a glimpse of the historical, cultural and architectural beauty of the city.
Bijapur was renamed as Vijayapur in 2014.
History of Bijapur
Bijapur is an ancient city that was founded in the 10th-11th century by Kalyani Chalukyas, the then rulers of South India. During that period it was known as Vijayapura which means the 'City of Victory.' Later it came under the rule of the Yadavas and then the Bahmani Sultanate of Gulbarga. It was the capital of the Adil Shahi kings from 1489 to 1686. The city came under the dominion of Aurangazeb in 1686 and from then the downfall of this city started.
Due to the influence of different rulers the city imbibed various cultural influences. As such, even today the city displays strong Islamic character as well as Shaivik character.
Architectural Splendour of Bijapur
Bijapur is well-known for the exceptional architecture of its monuments and structures that are mainly of Islamic style. The splendid mosques and tombs in the city speak volumes about the master craftsmanship of the workers of that time. The intricate work displayed in the palaces, monuments and the fort indicate the stress laid on delicate carvings and symmetry.
Many structures in the city has withstood the test of time and continue to mesmerize people even today with their impressive architectural beauty.
Tourism in Bijapur
Bijapur has several monuments and structures that are worth visiting. Some of them are:
Gol Gumbaz
Gol Gumbaz. Photographer Ashwatham
Gol Gumbaz or Gol Gumbadh is a mausoleum of Mohammad Adil Shah who was the sultan of Bijapur. This circular dome is the second largest one in the world. It took 20 years to build and was completed in the year 1656.
One of the unique features of Gol Gumbaz is that the interior of the huge dome is unsupported. The dome has superb acoustic features that ensure even the softest of whispers is clearly heard inside it.
Jumma Masjid
Jumma Masjid of Bijapur is one of the oldest mosques in India. It was built by Ali Adil Shah I in 1578 to celebrate his victory in the Battle of Talikota in 1565. Spread over an area of about 10810 sq. meter it is also the largest mosque in the region.
Jumma Masjid is known to hold an exquisite copy of the Quran that is written in gold. It can accommodate about 2500 persons offering prayer at one sitting.
Malik-e-Maidan
Malik-e-Maidan or Master of the Battlefield is a huge cannon located on the top of a tower lying in the precinct of the Bijapur Fort. It is also known as Burj-E-Sherz and is considered to be one of the largest forged medieval guns in the world. It was set up by Ibrahim Adil Shah II.
The muzzle of the cannon is shaped in the form of a lion head with open jaws. The cannon has a length of 4.45 metres, a diameter of 1.5 metres and weighs 55 tons.
Ibrahim Roza
Ibrahim Roza or Ali Rauza is the mausoleum of Ibrahim Adil Shah II (1580-1627). This finely decorated tomb was built in 1627. Ibrahim Roza also contains the tomb of Taj Sultana, the queen of Adil Shah II.
Ibrahim Roza is known for it's artistically laid out corridors, beautifully decorated walls and tall minarets. The large square compound of the monument also has a mosque apart from the tomb.
Upli Buruj
Upli Buruj, also known as Uplri Buruj or Hyder Burj, is a 16th-century watch tower situated near the western walls of the Bijapur city. It is an 80 ft. high tower that was built around 1584 by Hyder Khan, one of the commanders of Adil Shahi army.
An external flight of stone stairs lead to the top of this spherical structure. On top of the tower there are two huge cannons. The top of the tower also offers splendid view of the city.
Asar Mahal
Asar Mahal, also known as Asar-E-Sharif, was built by Mohammad Adil Shah in 1646 to serve as a Hall of Justice. Asar Mahal once housed two hairs from Prophet Mohammed's beard.
There is a large square tank in front of the Asar Mahal. The Urs festival is celebrated at this venue every year. Women are not allowed to enter Asar Mahal.
Gagan Mahal
Gagan Mahal is palace that was built by Ali Adil Shah I in 1561. The palace is known for its majestic central arch that is considered to be the tallest and widest among all the arches found in Bijapur. The palace acted as the royal residence and the darbar hall (audience hall) of Ali Adil Shah I. The darbar hall, located on the ground floor of the palace, is completely open on one side.
Places of interest near Bijapur
Aihole
Aihole is the 'Cradle of Indian Temple Architecture.' Located at a distance of 110 km from Bijapur, this village is known for its historical temples that date back to the 5th century CE. Aihole has 125 stone temples, all of which display intricate carvings and details.
Some of the attractions of Aihole are the Lad Khan Temple, the Durga temple complex, the Ambigera Gudi complex, the Ravana Phadi cave, the Meguti Jain temple, the Suryanarayana temple, the Konti temple complex, the Uma Maheshwari temple, the Huchimalli (gudi) temple, the Galaganatha group of temples, etc.
Pattadakal
Pattadakal or Paṭṭadakallu is a World Heritage site that has 10 major temples built in the early Chalukyan architectural style. Situated at a distance of 134 km from Bijapur, this village is home to the 8th century monuments that represent both the Dravidian and the Nagara styles of temple architecture.
The Virupaksha temple, the Sangameshwara temple, the Chandrashekhara temple, the Mallikarjuna temple, the Kasivisvesvara temple, the Galaganatha temple, the Kadasiddhesvara temple and the Jambulingeswara temple are some of the structures worth visiting in Pattadakal.
Badami is a town that is situated at a distance of about 120 km from Bijapur. It was the capital of the Badami Chalukyas from 540 AD to 757 AD. Badami is famous for its rock-cut cave temples that represent the Indian rock-cut architectural style. It is also known for its red sandstone cliffs that resemble the Wild West.
The main attractions of Badami include the four sandstone cave temples, the Badami fort, the Dattatreya temple, the Jambhulinga temple, the temple of Banashankari, the Mallikarjuna temple, etc.
Best time to visit Bijapur
The best time to visit Bijapur is between the months of September and February when the weather remains pleasant.
How to reach Bijapur
Bijapur is a tourist destination that is accessible by several means of transport.
The nearest airport to reach Bijapur is located at Belgaum. It is at a distance of about 205 km from Bijapur. Cabs can be hired to reach Bijapur from Belgaum.
Bijapur is well connected by the rail network. Dantewada Railway Station is Bijapur's own railhead and is located just 2 km from the main town. There are trains that connect it to various cities of the country, including Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, etc.
There are frequent buses that connect Bijapur to towns and cities like Bangalore, Belgaum, Badami, Gulbarga, Hubli, etc.
Aheri-Jumbagi dam
Almati dam
Sri Sangameshwara Temple, Kudalasangama
Temples in Karnataka
Hampi Heritage Vineyards
Bijapur is now Vijapura
Bijapur Classifieds
Filed Under: Bijapur Tagged With: around Bijapur, astrologer village, Basavana Bagewadi, Gol Gumbaz, historical destination, Jumma Masjid, Kodihal astrology, Kudalasangama


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Thomas Price, professionally known as Tom Price, is a Hong Kong-born actor known for his roles in S.M.A.R.T. Chase and Amphetamine.

Career
Price was the joint lead, with Byron Pang, in the film Amphetamine. He played the character of Daniel.

He appeared as Ciem in S.M.A.R.T. Chase.

Filmography

Films

Television series

References

External links

1985 births
Hong Kong people
University of Sydney alumni
Living people

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Without consequences, there are no lessons learned: How the news media rationalizes botched reporting
December 30, 2019 OpinionNuQum
By Kent R. Kroeger (NuQum.com, December 30, 2019)
Once the news media publishes allegations that you are the 'Centennial Olympic Park bomber' or 'a Russian agent/stooge/tool,' regardless of your innocence, the scar is permanent.
But that is exactly what happened to security guard Richard Jewell after the 1996 bombing at the Atlanta Olympics and to a host of individuals in the aftermath of the 2016 election. These two independent events illustrate how the U.S. news media can fail at covering important events and how they rationalize their botched reporting by assigning blame to their sources, not reporting standards.
Worse yet, there is no consistent mechanism holding journalists accountable for their botched reporting. To the contrary, if their reporting feeds a compelling and profitable narrative (i.e., attracts audiences), it is handsomely rewarded.
Rachel Maddow today makes around $7 million-a-year for MSNBC and, in covering the Russia-Trump collusion (Russiagate) story, was directly responsible for promoting many of the most baseless rumors about Donald Trump and his campaign.
In a scathing indictment of Maddow's journalistic integrity, Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple recently laid out this example of her deceptive technique:
When small bits of news arose in favor of the dossier, the franchise MSNBC host pumped air into them. At least some of her many fans surely came away from her broadcasts thinking the dossier was a serious piece of investigative research, not the flimflam, quick-twitch game of telephone outlined in the Horowitz report. She seemed to be rooting for the document.
"Seemed to be rooting for the document"? More like cheerleading for its authenticity, I would say.
When Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News, one of the first journalists to report on the infamous Steele Dossier and, to my knowledge, the only major reporter to retrospectively apologize for his mistakes in covering Russiagate, tried to confront Maddow on her reporting errors during the three-year media frenzy, she promptly brushed him aside. In effect, telling him she always said the Steele Dossier was unverified and she won't be held accountable for failing to prove or disprove the Dossier's accuracy.
When the Robert Mueller investigation thoroughly destroyed the entire Russiagate narrative along with the Steele Dossier, Maddow could barely find the energy to devote even one full show to Mueller's final report.
The problem, personified by Maddow but far from exclusive to her, is systemic and rooted in what I call the spot news standard endemic to corporate-controlled news organizations.
Just as Maddow refuses to be held accountable for not substantiating the Steele Dossier, the national news media embraced the same cop out, essentially saying, "What? You expected us to determine the veracity of the Dossier? We just report what our sources tell us."
Hence, the spot news standard: the type of reporting, typically done in the first few hours/days of a news worthy event, which focuses on information provided by official sources (e.g., police, government officials), victims or eyewitnesses. In contrast to spot news reporting, in-depth investigative reporting usually aspires to not only report the 'facts' (often as told by sources), but endeavors to independently confirm the quality of such information.
When the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) first reported that Jewell was the FBI's prime suspect in the Olympic Park bombing, they were merely repeating what an anonymous FBI source had told one of their journalists. By the spot news standard, the AJC did its job. And a federal court would eventually exonerate AJC for that very reason from a civil lawsuit over its Olympic Park bombing coverage.
But the AJC got the Jewell story wrong, as did most of the national news media in their Russiagate coverage. In both events, the news organizations fed their audiences little truths (e.g., quotes from official sources), but botched the bigger, more important, truths.
And, yet, some people still wring their hands wondering why Americans are increasingly distrustful of the news media.
The answer is obvious. Much of what the news media reports today just isn't true — and this problem cuts across all news media outlets and ideological points of view.
How did the Fourth Estate regress to this lousy state?
Tennessean columnist Saritha Prabhu lays the blame at the feet of partisanship:
In the Trump era, American national media (CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, Fox News, The Washington Post, The New York Times) have self-divided into openly pro- or anti-Trump factions.
It isn't covert anymore, and many media outlets wear it as a badge of honor.
But when a media outlet is strongly for or against a leader or party, the first casualties are fairness, honesty and accuracy.
Prabhu further notes that partisan-biased news reporting is profitable, in essence, creating a reinforcing feedback loop.
But the problem with today's journalism may be more systemic than just the economic incentives behind partisan news coverage.
The privately-controlled media serve a different master than what we are taught in high school civics. They serve the sensational to the extent it is marketable and profitable; they serve social conflict for the same reason; and they serve the interests of political and economic elites because it is from this orbit most journalists and media pundits originate.
And the news media make no apologies for any of this — and why should they? They are rarely held accountable for even their biggest mistakes. If they had to answer for their mischievous disregard for the bigger truths, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell would have lost his prime time slot after his entirely false report that a Russian oligarch co-signed one of Donald Trump's business loans with Deutsche Bank.
To his credit, O'Donnell apologized on-air for his amateur-hour mistake. But was his job ever on the line over this incident? I seriously doubt it.
The deep flaws of our national news organizations were exposed during Russiagate, which is one reason the lessons from Clint Eastwood's newest movie, Richard Jewell, go beyond just reminding us that the AJC (and other news outlets) did a grave disservice to Jewell during their Olympic Park bombing coverage.
The immediate reaction to Eastwood's movie is particularly revealing. Before Eastwood's movie had even been released, lawyers were exchanging letters.
On December 9th, the Monday before the movie's release, the Los Angeles-based law firm Lavely & Singer sent a letter to director Clint Eastwood, screenwriter Billy Ray, Warner Bros. and other parties, on behalf of The (AJC) and Cox Enterprises, its parent corporation. The letter demands Warner Bros. to publicly acknowledge "that some events were imagined for dramatic purposes and artistic license and dramatization were used in the film's portrayal of events and characters."
The central issue is the movie's portrayal of AJC reporter Kathy Scruggs, who broke the new story, sourced from an anonymous FBI informant, that Richard Jewell was the FBI's prime suspect in the July 1996 deadly bombing at Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park.
We know today that Jewell was completely innocent.
It would take the FBI three months before they would publicly acknowledge Jewell was no longer a suspect. Eventually, confessed serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph would be convicted for the Atlanta bombing and sentenced to life in prison.
In response to the release of Eastwood's movie, the AJC editorial board published this defense of their original Jewell story:
"Far from acting recklessly, the AJC actually held that story for a day to develop additional independent corroboration of key facts prior to publication," wrote the AJC editorial board. "Law enforcement sources confirmed to the AJC their focus on Mr. Jewell, and FBI activity had been visible at the Jewells' apartment. The accuracy of the story had also been confirmed with an FBI spokesperson to whom the entire story was read before publication…
…Within days of the July 1996 bombing, investigators came to focus on Jewell. The AJC was first to report, accurately, that the FBI considered him a suspect. Authorities questioned Jewell, searched his and his mother's belongings and kept him under round-the-clock surveillance before publicly clearing him about three months later…
…The AJC was among numerous entities sued after Jewell was cleared, and the only one that didn't settle. The litigation naming the AJC was dismissed in 2011, with the Court of Appeals concluding that the coverage was substantially true at the time of publication."
The AJC defense that their coverage was "substantially true at the time of publication" disregards the damage their reporting did to an innocent man (i.e., based on the spot news accuracy standard, the AJC did their job).
Yet, Jewell saved hundreds of lives by his quick response to an imminent threat and the initial thanks for his effort was a three-month horsewhipping by the national media as a law enforcement wannabe that lived with his mother. AJC, as much as any other news outlet, built and cultivated that narrative through the use of anonymous FBI sources.
[In AJC's defense, they were the first news outlet to report timeline evidence that Jewell did not have time to both plant the bomb and reach a pay phone used by the bomber to make a warning call.]
AJC's apparent insensitivity to Jewell's interests must be understood in the context of journalism's fundamental reliance on the spot news standard: If the facts are mostly correct at the time of publication, journalists have nothing for which to apologize.
This low test for journalists is predicated on our shared First Amendment speech rights which protect American journalists from legal prosecution for their reporting, even if it is later proven to be substantively flawed. Absent malice or the ire of the American security state, U.S. journalists do not face legal jeopardy for inaccurate reporting. And that is as it should be. It never should be easy to jail journalists and news publishers.
The low-bar threshold for our Constitution-backed press freedoms is sufficient to protect MSNBC, CNN, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other news outlets from any legal consequences for their three-year crusade of careless reporting on the Russiagate myth — a story propelled almost entirely in the mainstream media by anonymous, often government, sources.
We can draw parallels from the Jewell case to the more recent Russiagate coverage. As in the Jewell story, Russiagate coverage was constructed around faulty, uncorroborated intelligence passed on by anonymous government sources to the press. Whether the anonymous sources knew they were passing along flawed or irrelevant information may never be known, as we are unlikely to ever know the identities of those sources (again, as it should be).
But we know from both the Robert Mueller report and the Department of Justice Inspector General report that there is no compelling evidence to suggest the Trump's presidential campaign conspired with the Russians to defeat Hillary Clinton. This narrative was a complete fiction from the very beginning, first promulgated by Clinton's bitter minions, spread by her equally bitter collaborators in the national news media and *verified* by a vast, nameless infantry of government bureaucrats and intelligence officers.
Russiagate mirrored a standard intelligence community disinformation campaign, its true origins still largely unknown as the national news media has purposefully avoided seeking such answers.
A baseless conspiracy theory is how Rachel Maddow describes the question of whether Trump campaign operative George Papadopoulos' chance meeting with Malta professor Joseph Mifsud and subsequent bean-spilling conversation with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer were, in fact, a U.S. intelligence community attempt to frame and perhaps turn the former low-level Trump flunky into a government informant.
Or, as still reported in the mainstream news media, was Mifsud a Russian agent tasked with compromising the Trump campaign through Papadopoulos?
Both theories are unproven (though most of the hard evidence resides with the former) and likely will be addressed in Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham's special investigation into the origins of Russiagate.
Either way, the answers are not coming from the anti-Trump press corps because these answers could undermine the media's ongoing narrative that the FBI and U.S. intelligence community were objective, upright actors in the Russiagate drama.
Which only further reinforces the bigger question: will the national news media ever be forced to answer for their botched Russiagate reporting.
Just as Kathy Scruggs did in the Jewell story, the national news media did the minimum in covering Russiagate (sans a few adversarial journalists like The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald and The Nation's Aaron Maté who base their careers on challenging official sources, regardless of partisan affiliation).
The problem is the minimum too often means getting the bigger story wrong (and never needing to say you are sorry).
But if news organizations aren't going to hold themselves accountable for botching the big stories, who will? It most certainly can't be the government or an "independent" ombudsman. Putting so much power in so few hands feels like an invitation to unintended consequences.
There is only one irrefutable way to hold news organizations and news entertainers like Rachel Maddow accountable: educated, discerning news consumers empowered to think critically and objectively (to the best extent possible) when consuming news. More importantly, consumers' judgments will result in palpable carrot-and-stick economic consequences for news organizations.
We, in fact, may be seeing evidence of this dynamic already with the most recent year-to-year decline in TV audiences for both CNN and MSNBC (the most prominent cable news curators of the Russiagate myth).
For the sake of our Fourth Estate, we can hope accountability is making a comeback.
K.R.K.
Postscript: Clint Eastwood's movie about Richard Jewell and the 1996 Olympic Park bombing is trying to serve the truth. Unfortunately, he should have first gotten his own truthiness house in order.
Why Eastwood and screenwriter Billy Ray decided to imply Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs slept with an FBI source in order to extract crucial information is incomprehensible. The specific scene in dispute — featuring Scruggs (played by Olivia Wilde) and Tom Shaw (an FBI agent played by Jon Hamm) — could have easily been replaced with something less sexually overt and the movie would have lost nothing.
It just confirms that Hollywood, like corporate news organizations, are not dependable guardians of the truth.
If all you see are hijabs, you are missing the fast rise of Jordan's women
This essay documents my challenges and observations during my family's recent travels through Oman and Jordan.
This is the fourth essay in a series. The previous essays can be found here, here and here.
"Zach, you know what a hijab is, right?" I asked my teenage son, Zach, a few days prior to a recent family trip to Oman and Jordan.
"Yes, Dad. I do." he responded in a reflexive, annoyed-teenager tone. "We have girls in school that wear them. I see them all the time."
"Yes, but, especially in Oman, some will cover their entire face," I said. "I don't want it to…"
"Dad, I know. I've seen that before too," Zach interrupted me mid-sentence.
"It will be more common."
"Dad. Stop it. I don't care."
For some reason, I always find Zach's thorough indifference about everything refreshing. I'm even a little jealous. He doesn't waste a lot of energy worrying about the future or other people's lives. Greta Thunberg he is not.
And after thinking about my non-conversation with Zach, I realized the problem was more mine than his.
Prior to this most recent trip, I had been to Middle Eastern countries where the burka (a common hijab in Afghanistan) or the niqaab (a usually black hijab that covers the entire face except for the eyes) were common. I found those particular versions of the hijab unsettling and I just wanted to prepare my son. Is that so wrong?
My wife, Christa, and I try to take advantage of any opportunity we can to engage our son in conversations about politics and current issues — in this case, the status of women in the Islamic world (and the world, in general). It is obviously not a subject self-absorbed, 13-year-old boys want to talk about, but it is precisely at that age where, as parents, my wife and I feel we can have the most lasting impact. [We admit we may be deceiving ourselves on that one; but, as progressive Democrats and regular-attending Unitarians, self-delusion is one of our most highly-developed skills.]
We just didn't want our son to judge the women we'd be meeting on our trip based on their clothing attire. We believe what a person wears (and other daily practices) can only be understood through a deep knowledge of that person's culture. In theory, we try not to use American cultural norms and values as criteria for judging other people and cultures. In other words, we are the people Rush Limbaugh started warning everyone about thirty years ago: We are practicing cultural relativists.
Poorly executed, cultural relativism in practice often comes across as condescending. Employed with the proper balance between humility and objective judgment, however, and cultural relativism opens up doors and understanding to other places on a level you can never attain when you restrict your analytic lens to the one provided by your own culture.
I tried to explain 'cultural relativism' to Zach and wasn't sure if it really sank in.
"Dad, don't worry. I won't say or do anything to embarrass you and Mom on the trip," was his curt reaction.
He can be charmless sometimes, but he knows how to cut to the chase.
I'm a political scientist and statistician by training and to me, Islam, as with any cultural attribute, is but one variable in a larger explanatory model. In the aggregate, all else equal, does it explain anything substantive in the corporeal world?
Western academics and thought leaders periodically trot out research and essays broadly condemning Islam and the Qur'an for the mistreatment of Muslim women.
One of the most provocative denunciations of Islam's view on women has come from Mona Eltahawy, the renowned Egyptian writer and journalist who now lives in Cairo and New York. In her 2015 book, Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution, she repeatedly whomps Muslim men by referring them merely as 'they' as she summarizes what life was like for her living in Egypt and Saudi Arabia:
"They hate us because they need us, they fear us, they understand how much control it takes to keep us in line, to keep us good girls with our hymens intact until it's time for them to fuck us into mothers who raise future generations of misogynists to forever fuel their patriarchy. They hate us because we are at once their temptation and their salvation from that patriarchy, which they must sooner or later realize hurts them, too. They hate us because they know that once we rid ourselves of the alliance of State and Street that works in tandem to control us, we will demand a reckoning."
Eltahawy's has an uncompromising view of the inveterate misogyny that is prevalent in most Muslim-majority countries today. And backing her perspective are objective data that overwhelming and unforgiving categorize Muslim-majority countries as brutal towards women (see Appendix B for the Freedom House scoring of selected countries on gender-related freedoms).
Few disagree on the problem. In most Muslim-majority countries the oppression of women is pervasive, persistent, codified and institutionalized. Gender bias runs deep in a country like Saudi Arabia where women only recently have been granted the right to drive and to travel outside the country without a male guardian's permission.
Yet, there is significant variation in gender equality within Muslim-majority countries that should give us pause before accepting any reductive explanation ascribing the oppression of women almost solely to Islam and the Qur'an. If Muslim-majority countries like Tunisia and Senegal can be ranked similarly to the United Kingdom, Israel, Denmark and France in terms of gender-related freedoms, perhaps Islam and gender equality are compatible under the right conditions. If how Islam is practiced can adapt in some countries to the liberation of women, why not in all countries?
Eltahawy puts 'headscarves' front and center among the symbols of women's suffering in the Islamic countries. But there is so much variation in hijab styles, it seems unnecessary to lump the overt symbolism of the burka or the niqaab — which cover a woman's face — with the more common shayla or al-amira styles which do not cover the face.
Two Iranian women wearing an al-amira hijab (Photo by by Gabriel White, distributed under a CC-BY 2.0 license.)
Is the hijab really a visible sign of oppression or is it merely an article of clothing motivated by social norms, personal preferences, and/or a desire to demonstrate one's faith?
"Sometimes a hijab is just a hijab," a Muslim (Malaysian) friend once explained to us — a group of her graduate school colleagues — when someone suggested her hijab symbolized oppression.
At the same time, stories today of Muslim women and girls being forced to wear the hijab or enter into arranged marriages are real and include examples from Western countries. In her book, Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam, Yasmine Mohamed, an author and civil rights activist, recounts her own experience growing up in Canada in a household where the rules closely resembled Sharia law and where the hijab was mandatory starting at age nine.
While I prepared for our family trip, I reacquainted myself with the often contentious debate between religious scholar, Reza Aslan, and neuroscientist, Sam Harris, over the roles of reason (science) and religion in explaining various issues in modern society. Inevitably, their discussion miscarries into a dispute over Islam and terrorism.
Where Aslan argues Islam and its guiding text, the Qur'an, is not the cause of terrorist violence, but rather a product of long-standing social conditions and cultural norms (which can change), Harris views the Qur'an itself as a contributing factor to violence against apostates to Islam and to the oppression of women in Islamic societies. "On almost every page, the Qur'an instructs observant Muslims to despise non-believers," HBO's Real Time host Bill Maher once said in defending Harris.
While Harris dismisses as false equivalencies any comparisons of the Qur'an to Judeo-Christianity's Old Testament — which is comparably soaked in violence and misogyny — more disappointing is his resistance to consider the organized violence perpetrated by Western societies against Islamic populations in distant and recent history.
Still, Harris is right when he says 'the words matter' and I do consider elements of his thesis as useful, particularly when considering the status of women in Islamic societies. The words we write are important. Major religions codify their rules for a reason — to maintain religious discipline and rules of engagement among their followers.
Nonetheless, my overall impulse is to side with Aslan's multiculturalist perspective which emphasizes the central role of evolving cultural norms and social conditions in explaining current society.
The hijab is a visible manifestation of the Aslan-Harris debate. Is it the reflection of culture and, therefore, subject to change as cultural norms and rules change? Or, has the garment's centuries-old existence through the present further evidence that the Koran's text reinforces and preserves the oppression of women.
In a 2014 Huffington Post article by psychologist Valerie Tarico, Faisal Saeed Al Mutar, a Washington D.C.-based writer and the founder of Global Secular Humanist Movement, tells her why he rejects multiculturalism's instinct to not judge the hijab:
"I understand the liberal impulse to respect multiculturalism, but aren't human rights more important than cultures? Humans have rights, cultures don't, cultures evolve and reform. Liberal friends and allies ask churches and pastors to accept gay rights and women's rights. It is disrespectful and even racist to ask any less of mosques and Muslim leaders."
Yet, other Muslim women say the hijab is a symbol of faith, not oppression, and resent the assumption that their personal decision to wear it is forced on them by the men in their lives.
There are no right or wrong answers here. Just a lot of opinions.
Like many of the world's older cities Amman, Jordan is very walkable. Every daily need is within a short distance from where you might be standing, as self-contained neighborhoods are one of Amman's defining features.
Leveraging this aspect of Amman, Zach and I decided to make our last day in Amman as simple as possible: walk to a nearby restaurant; wander through a few shops for last minute mementos and gifts; before using the Lyft taxi service to take us to the University of Jordan where my wife and her colleagues were wrapping up their business trip.
After picking us up at our hotel, the Lyft driver snaked at varied, erratic speeds through Amman's near constant heavy traffic. On the approach to the University of Jordan's (UJ) campus, my son spotted a McDonald's near our drop off point — the UJ's main gate along Queen Rania Street. Annoying our driver with a u-turn request that put us in front of McDonald's, we stumbled out the Hyundai sedan (which appeared to be every other car in Amman) and texted my wife to announce our arrival.
As we waited for my wife and her colleagues, we felt like pinballs as the high volume of foot traffic passing near the UJ main gate bounced us around. At 31,000 students, UJ is Jordan's largest university. It is also the oldest and most prestigious.
The University of Jordan's Main Library ( Photo courtesy of the Univ. of Jordan Library)
While being absorbed into this crowd, I was immediately struck by the high percentage of woman compared to men heading in and out of the UJ campus. It wasn't even close. Doing a quick headcount (as best I could), I estimated three females for every male student. Just a guesstimate. And, as it turns out, not too far off the actual gender ratio reported by the UJ's statistical office: Female students at UJ outnumber male students two-to-one. In comparison, females represent 49 percent of Harvard University's undergraduate population.
Based on their student populations, Jordan's most elite university is more female-dominated than Harvard. Such is the world we live in today.
More importantly, we are seeing this trend throughout the Middle East and North Africa, not just with respect to tertiary institutions (i.e., higher education), but also with primary and secondary education (grades K-through-12).
UNESCO has created indexes monitoring the status of women in the world's education system. Since 1995, the evidence is overwhelming: Women in Islamic countries are increasingly being educated at rates comparable to women in economically advanced countries (e.g., the U.S. and Europe).
This fact will fundamentally change the Middle East.
One UNESCO measure is particularly informative: The Gender Parity Index for School Life Expectancy (GPI-SLE). The SLE component is defined as the number of years of schooling from primary to tertiary levels of education. Subsequently, the GPI-SLE is calculated as the ratio of female of school life expectancy to male school life expectancy.
A GPI-SLE equal to 1 indicates parity between females and males. In general, a value less than 1 indicates disparity in favor of males and a value greater than 1 indicates disparity in favor of females.
On this UNESCO measure, women in the Middle East may have already equaled their sisters in the advanced economic world (see table below). For 82 countries with consistent data from 1995 to 2018, each was categorized into one of three categories: Middle East/North Africa, Advanced Economies, Rest of World (see Appendix A for the list of countries and categorization).
The Middle East/North Africa (MENA) countries with reliable data include: Tunisia, Morocco, Palestine, Turkey, Kuwait, Oman, Iran, Jordan and Bahrain.
According to the most recent GPI-SLE, MENA countries have an average GPI-SLE of 1.05, indicating a slight bias in favor of females. This MENA index score is the same as for the advanced economies and slightly higher than all remaining countries (GPI-SLE = 1.02).
It may surprise some that the education systems of Kuwait, Palestine, Tunisia and Oman are more gender biased in favor of females than the United States, Norway, Israel, Denmark, and Finland (see Appendix A). The educational advancement of women in MENA countries defies an arrogant and common assumption about the West's advantage over Islamic countries in terms of gender equity.
And while the GPI-SLE is just one measure of gender equality in education, other UN-monitored gender equity measures show a similar worldwide pattern to the GPI-SLE (e.g., gross enrollment ratios, adjusted net enrollment rates, adjusted net intake rate to Grade 1, Percentage of female graduates by level of tertiary education).
In terms of education, women living in MENA are rapidly catching up to their counterparts in the advanced economies. And its happened relatively fast. In the above table (2nd column) we see that, since 1995, the increase in the GPI-SLE (i.e., the education system has become less biased towards females) has been greater among MENA countries (Δ GPI-SLE = +0.11), than the advanced economics (Δ GPI-SLE = +0.03), or the remaining countries (Δ GPI-SLE = +0.08). The higher magnitude improvements in MENA countries are due, in part, to those countries having started their gender equity efforts with females significantly more disadvantaged at the beginning of the process.
It should be noted that the educational rise of women in MENA countries mirrors similar increases in other parts of the world. It is not an Islamic-thing, it is a world-thing. And this trend is particularly evident in higher education.
"Despite what history across the globe has told us, women now outnumber men at universities — and it is a trend which is accelerating year upon year in the majority of countries," Isabelle Bilton wrote last year for Study International News, an independent news service monitoring education trends for international students.
Many theories have emerged explaining this worldwide, systemic shift in education attendance and outcomes favoring females. In summarizing the research on this question, Bilton offered this: "There is no answer to why the gender shift occurred but many researchers have speculated problems occur when students are in school. Boys tend to be less interested and less focused on schoolwork, leading to lower grades at all levels of study. As a result, fewer of them choose — or are able — to enroll in universities."
But something deeper is going on in Jordan and the Middle East more generally. As girls are rising, boys are falling precipitously. As noted by education researcher and author Amanda Ripley in a September 2017 article for The Atlantic, "In school, Jordanian girls are crushing their male peers. The nation's girls outperform its boys in just about every subject and at every age level. At the University of Jordan, the country's largest university, women outnumber men by a ratio of two to one — and earn higher grades in math, engineering, computer-information systems, and a range of other subjects."
This relative trend between males and females in Jordan is not entirely dissimilar from trends in the U.S. where girls do better than boys on standard tests, are more likely to take Advanced Placement tests, more likely to go to college, and will spend more than a year longer in school over their lifetimes compared to their male counterparts.
But, as Ripley's research shows, something more pernicious may be happening in the Middle East that is (literally) hitting boys hard. In her article, Ripley shared an interview she conducted with a group of teenage girls at an elite Jordanian secondary school. When the girls were asked why they thought girls do better than boys in school, one 16-year-old student, Nawar Mousa, was quick with an answer: "I do my homework, and I read books. My brother, what does he do? He goes with his friends. He plays PlayStation."
During her research, Ripley also interviewed a Jordanian family with a 15-year-old son attending an all-boys high school. In the course of the interview, the son acknowledged that is common in his boys-only school for teachers to hit students (boys). The boy's mother added: "Girls' schools are better," she said, "less dangerous."
Whether we can generalize from Ripley's research to the Jordanian education system writ large is debatable, but her work does conform to other research in Jordan showing academic achievement is affected by violence in the learning environment. Students don't learn in threatening environments and gender-segregated schools may amplify those threats for boys.
Half of Jordanian primary and secondary public schools are gender-segregated. While there has long been evidence in the U.S. that girls learn better in all-female environments, boys clearly don't flourish in all-male environments. Quite the opposite. Boys achieve more academically when more girls are in the environment, according to recent research.
In practice, educational strategies that work for girls also work for boys, and vice versa. The research is unequivocal on this point: What drives academic performance is expectations placed on the individual student, regardless if it is a boy or girl.
"Our research shows that boys will compete for good grades and often achieve them in schools where academic effort is expected and valued," says Claudia Buchmann, a sociology professor at Ohio State University and co-author (with Thomas A. DiPrete) of the book, The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What It Means for American Schools.
The progress Jordan has made in the past two decades in building its higher education infrastructure can be seen in the chart below. Where in 2000 few Jordanians aged 25 years or more had a higher education degree, in just 10 years 19 percent of men and 13 percent of women had higher education degrees. While these rates are significantly lower than those observed in the U.S., they are comparable to other Middle Eastern countries. Compared to other Middle Eastern countries, over the past two decades Jordan has among the highest increases in educational attainment for women.
Some observers express caution about the educational advancements of Jordanian women given this fact: women may be getting higher education degrees, but it is not translating into comparable employment opportunities.
In Jordan, nearly 27 percent of unemployed university graduates are male, while almost 68 percent are female. In 2013, the World Bank reported a 35 percent unemployment rate among college-educated women, considerably higher than the rate for college-educated men. In fact, the unemployment rate for men goes down with higher levels of education, but for women the exact opposite is true: As women become more educated, the unemployment rate goes up.
In Jordan's highly patriarchal society where job opportunities for women have been historically limited, the employment rate disparity between men and women is not surprising. However, as more Jordanian women earn college degrees, many will choose to leave Jordan for other countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, where more jobs (and higher paying ones) exist for women.
This brain drain is a critical issue in Jordan today.
Our last activity in Jordan before flying home was to visit with the Chair of UJ's Political Science department, Dr. Amir Salameh Al-Qaralleh, an imposing figure when standing, but reclined in his office chair with a cigarette in his hand, he was disarming.
Over the course of an hour long conversation, much of it about Syria and the U.S. withdrawal from the Turkish-Syrian border, a number of Dr. Al-Qaralleh's students popped their heads into his office. One student forgot her notebook for a class and asked if Dr. Al-Qaralleh had paper he could spare. Another asked about a class assignment. And still another asked about an exam.
"Students today," he said, slightly shaking his head. "They are not self-sufficient."
But I had a different reaction, first noticing the obvious comfort these students had walking into Dr. Al-Qaralleh's office, even as he was in a conversation. Where I went to school (University of Iowa, Columbia University), it is unimaginable that I would have walked in on a Department Chair in such a circumstance.
I also noticed that all of the students that asked to speak to Dr. Al-Qaralleh during our meeting were women. That was not random chance, as I've seen this pattern before as a college instructor. Of the students that would visit me during office hours, easily three-quarters were women.
When I shared this observation with Dr. Qaralleh, he paused, choosing his words wisely. "Women aren't afraid to ask for help," he replied.
Apparently, the reluctance of men to ask for help is a universal phenomenon.
But this anecdotal evidence may also reflect a higher level of engagement found among female students pursuing a higher education in Jordan.
Dr. Al-Qaralleh seemed to agree with this broad generalization.
Apparent is that Jordanian women are getting educated at increasingly higher rates and it is not a transitory phenomenon. Instead, it is proving to be broad-based and sustained, despite the strains put on the Jordanian education system by the influx of over 600,000 registered Syrian refugees into Jordan since the start of the Syrian Civil War.
The rise of women in Jordanian education mirrors similar changes around the globe, but as I've documented here, this trend has been more pronounced in MENA countries than in other regions.
In a patriarchal society like Jordan's, don't be surprised if in the next decade the question asked among policymakers is less focused on helping Jordanian women achieve educational and economic parity with Jordanian men, but on how to help men keep up with their female counterparts.
Computer engineering graduates Arwa Tarawneh (left) and Suha Habashneh are learning how to work with Intel Galileo (Photo provided by Intel Free Press)
Appendix A:
Appendix B:
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John Conyers on Welfare & Poverty
Democratic Representative (MI-14)
Voted NO on maintaining work requirement for welfare recipients.
Congressional Summary:
Prohibits any experimental pilot or demonstration project that: waives compliance with mandatory work requirements
Rescinds and nullifies any such waiver granted before the enactment of this Act.
Proponent's Argument for voting Yes:
Rep. REICHERT: Congress must ensure that work continues to be the centerpiece of the TANF welfare program. We are here today debating the Obama administration's efforts to undermine work requirements. Bipartisan discussions were actually happening before the Obama administration announced they would waive work requirements for welfare recipients last summer. That announcement completely undermined bipartisan negotiations in our committee about ways to strengthen this program. Usually, if an administration wants to change the law, they must submit a legislative proposal for Congress to consider, but that's not what the Obama administration did with its proposal to waive the TANF work requirements.
Opponent's Argument for voting No:
Rep. LEVIN: Last summer the administration proposed that states would be allowed to apply for waivers and have some flexibility in terms of the application of the work requirements--not the end of them or changing them, but the implementation of them. The idea that the administration is going to try to overturn welfare reform is ridiculous. States have to apply individually for waivers, and they have to explain in detail why the approach would lead to either more employment or better jobs for people who are trying to stay off welfare.
Rep. NEAL: I chaired the Democratic position [on 1990s welfare reform]. One of the goals of welfare reform was to move unemployed Americans from welfare to work, and it did work. The legislation has been very successful in meeting that goal. Welfare reform put people back on the work rolls. Welfare rolls have dropped by half, & poverty amongst children has dropped as well. Reference: Preserving the Welfare Work Requirement & TANF Extension Act; Bill H.R.890 ; vote number 13-HV068 on Mar 13, 2013
Voted YES on instituting National Service as a new social invention.
Congressional Summary:Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education (GIVE) Act:
Adds to National and Community Service Act of 1990 (NCSA) purposes:
providing year-round opportunities in service-learning;
involving program participants in emergency and disaster preparedness, relief, and recovery;
increasing service opportunities for retiring professionals;
encouraging service by individuals age 55 or older and continued service by national service alumni;
focusing national service on the areas of national need.
Proponent's argument to vote Yes:Sen. BARBARA MIKULSKI (D, MD): [In developing national service over many years] we were not in the business of creating another new social program. What we were in the business of was creating a new social invention. What do I mean by that? In our country, we are known for our technological inventions. But also often overlooked, and sometimes undervalued, is our social inventions.
We created national service to let young people find opportunity to be of service and also to make an important contribution. But not all was rosy. In 2003, when I was the ranking member on the appropriations subcommittee funding national service, they created a debacle. One of their most colossal errors was that they enrolled over 20,000 volunteers and could not afford to pay for it. That is how sloppy they were in their accounting. I called them the "Enron of nonprofits."
And they worked on it. But all that is history. We are going to expand AmeriCorps activity into specialized corps. One, an education corps; another, a health futures corps; another, a veterans corps; and another called opportunity corps. These are not outside of AmeriCorps. They will be subsets because we find this is where compelling human need is and at the same time offers great opportunity for volunteers to do it.
Opponent's argument to vote No:No senators spoke against the amendment. Reference: Serve America Act/GIVE Act; Bill H.R. 1388 ; vote number 2009-H169 on Mar 31, 2009
Voted YES on providing $70 million for Section 8 Housing vouchers.
Voting YES on this amendment would add $70 million to the Section 8 housing voucher program, funding an additional 10,000 affordable housing vouchers.
Proponents of the amendment say:
This amendment would enable an additional 10,000 low-income families to afford safe, decent housing.
To offset this increase, the amendment cuts a poorly managed computer upgrade program. The committee has been very ingenious in squirreling away money in different accounts and the bill would still provide $94 million in funds for IT projects.
We have a choice: Do we want to help thousands of families obtain affordable housing, or do we think it is more important to have a somewhat faster computer upgrade in HUD?
Our amendment does not seek to restore the amount to the amount that the President recommended, which is $144 million more than the committee recommends, it seeks merely to restore $70 million, or about half of what the difference is to what the President recommended.
This is less than the bare minimum of what is needed. We have hundreds of thousands of families on waiting lists, waiting up to 10 years for decent housing for Section 8 vouchers.
Opponents say:
The existing bill fully funds the renewal of Section 8 vouchers. Additional funds are simply not necessary.
The cost of Section 8 vouchers are remaining constant and in some markets are actually decreasing. As such, this funding level will provide funds to restore vouchers that may have been lost in recent years.
The proposed reduction will cause delays in critically needed efforts to modernize antiquated legacy computer systems.
Reference: Department of Housing and Urban Development appropriations; Bill HR 5576 Amendment 1015 ; vote number 2006-267 on Jun 13, 2006
Voted NO on promoting work and marriage among TANF recipients.
Welfare Reauthorization Bill: Vote to pass a bill that would approve $16.5 billion to renew the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant program through fiscal 2008 and call for new welfare aid conditions. The bill raises the work requirements for individuals getting assistance from 30 to 40 hours per week. States would be required to increase the number of recipient families working from the current level of 50 percent to 70 percent or more in 2008. The bill also provides an additional $1 billion in mandatory state child care grants and provides $200 million annually for marriage promotion programs. Reference: Bill sponsored by Pryce, R-OH; Bill HR 4 ; vote number 2003-30 on Feb 13, 2003
Voted NO on treating religious organizations equally for tax breaks.
Vote to pass a bill that would allow religious organizations to compete equally with other non-governmental groups for federal funds to provide social service, and provide $13.3 billion in tax breaks for charitable giving over 10 years. Bill HR 7 ; vote number 2001-254 on Jul 19, 2001
Voted NO on responsible fatherhood via faith-based organizations.
Vote to establish a program that would promote more responsible fatherhood by creating educational, economic and employment opportunities and give grants to state agencies and nonprofit groups, including faith-based institutions. Reference: Bill sponsored by Johnson, R-CT.; Bill HR 3073 ; vote number 1999-586 on Nov 10, 1999
Sponsored funding re-development of abandoned & foreclosed properties.
Conyers co-sponsored Project Rebuild Act
Congressional Summary:Appropriates funds for assistance to eligible entities including state and local governments, and qualified nonprofit organizations or businesses, for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed-upon properties and for stabilization of affected neighborhoods. Allows the use of funds to:
establish financing mechanisms for the purchase and redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed-upon properties
purchase and rehabilitate such properties
establish and operate land banks for them
demolish blighted structures (except public housing)
redevelop abandoned, foreclosed, demolished, or vacant properties.
Requires each state to receive at least $20 million of formula funds, all of which shall be used with respect to low and moderate-income individuals and families.
Requires each state and local government grantee to establish procedures to create preferences for development of affordable rental housing.
Allows a grantee to use up to 10% to create jobs by establishing and operating a program to maintain eligible neighborhood properties.
Sets forth Buy American requirements
Requires all laborers and mechanics employed by contractors and subcontracto Source: H.R.1397 13-H1397 on Mar 21, 2013
Sponsored maintaining SNAP nutrition assistance program.
Conyers co-sponsored House Resolution on SNAP
WHEREAS hunger is a serious threat to individual dignity, productivity, learning, economic prosperity, health, and development;
WHEREAS food insecurity means that people face an ongoing struggle against hunger;
WHEREAS 50.1 million people lived in food insecure households in 2011;
WHEREAS the supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP), established in the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, is the nation's first line of defense against hunger and food insecurity;
WHEREAS SNAP served more than 47.5 million individuals in October 2012;
WHEREAS the SNAP benefits average less than $1.50 per individual per meal;
WHEREAS SNAP participation rises when the economy is weak;
WHEREAS millions of Americans need to turn to SNAP as a way to feed themselves and their families;
Whereas SNAP is an efficient public-private partnership that runs on the regular channels of commerce--regular retail food stores and electronic benefit transfer (EBT) systems;
WHEREAS every dollar in new SNAP benefits generates up to $1.79 in economi Source: H.RES.90 13-HRes90 on Feb 28, 2013
Increase the earned income tax credit.
Conyers co-sponsored increasing the earned income tax credit
Provisions Relating to Earned Income Credit: Amends the Internal Revenue Code to repeal the supplemental young child credit and revise and increase the earned income credit. Source: Tax Simplification Act (H.R.13) 1993-H13 on Jan 5, 1993
Fully fund Head Start; Job Corps; and WIC food program.
Conyers co-sponsored fully fund Head Start; Job Corps; and WIC food program
Making appropriations to begin a phase-in toward full funding of the special supplemental food program for women, infants and children (WIC) and of Head Start programs, and to expand the Job Corps program for the year ending September 30, 1994. Source: H.R.1722 1993-H1722 on Apr 20, 1993
Reduce the concentration of wealth & wage inequality.
Conyers adopted the Progressive Caucus Position Paper:
Economic inequality is the result of two and a half decades of government policies and rules governing the economy being tilted in favor of large asset owners at the expense of wage earners. Tax policy, trade policy, monetary policy, government regulations and other rules have reflected this pro-investor bias. We propose the introduction or reintroduction of a package of legislative initiatives that will close America�s economic divide and address both income and wealth disparities.
The Progressive Caucus could take the lead in the formation of a national leadership steering committee to put this dramatic issue before the public through coordinated media campaigns and local education and action forums. The political program should be concerned with:
Reducing wage inequality: We are proposing initiatives to both raise the minimum wage floor and prevent the tax code from subsidizing excessive compensation.
Asset-building initiatives: The government has historically given land to citizens. Unfortunately, the programs were discriminatory toward people of color and kept a whole generation of people off the asset-building train. We are proposing a universal asset building approach that will dramatically reduce the number of �asset less� households and reduce the disparity of wealth for all Americans.
Addressing the over concentration of wealth and power: The concentration of wealth is a problem because it distorts our democracy, destabilizes the economy and erodes our at our social and cultural fabric. Too much concentrated wealth leads to too much concentrated power and begins to undermine our participatory democracy.
After a decade of economic prosperity, the moral question remains: if we can�t address the persistent economic divide in our nation today, when can we? Source: CPC Position Paper: Income Inequality 99-CPC3 on Nov 11, 1999
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2012 Governor, House and Senate candidates on Welfare & Poverty: John Conyers on other issues:
MI Gubernatorial:
Jennifer Granholm
Rick Snyder
MI Senatorial:
Debbie Stabenow
Gary Peters
Matt Wiedenhoeft
Terri Lynn Land
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At RateWaste, we strive to bring you the best service at the best price available. We have a wide selection of dumpster sizes in stock in Ionia, MO, with flexible & timley pickup and delivery. Give us a call today for all your dumpster rental and roll off needs.
These small dumpster are used for doing away with general things around the house, like textbooks, boxes, home furniture, papers and also small amounts of pipes. They are beneficial to thoroughly clearing out one tiny room Bear in mind, there are some constraints you should know about. By way of example, paint, building materials, acrylic and chemical substances may require exclusive attention. Auto tires and other types of unique automotive parts also can need appropriate disposal. The business can tell you just what items you may and may not put into these types of disposals.
The next selections you'll need to help to make when it comes to Waste Bin in Ionia, MO must do with measurement and amount. For most people, you will be enough. Small you go, this cheaper and even more convenient it can usually end up being. Talk to the business and find out his or her rates, letting them know everything you be aware of how long you'll need it and when you'll want that picked up. While a small it's possible to do the trick, it might be wise to go slightly big bigger than you think you'll need. It may be somewhat more expensive, but it really will save you many hassle in the event you wind up getting more squander than a person suspected.
Marketing your new products on C-list, eBay or perhaps at the local pawn look. You will want to and also sanitize what you find and earn it seem brand new. If you discover things valuable then it will never be hard to sell them to somebody and make extra money. I personally have sold points on C-list and made short term.
The task associated with keeping this streets clean cannot be remaining to the municipalities alone. Citizens must take any stand and also do their part. Construction dumpsters or the lack of dumpsters easily became obvious. Everything from cardstock bottles and also plates in order to old ripped shirts, any hat, and in some cases an extremely previous boot is found on neighborhood corners plus common areas. The people who remaining these all as well easily discarded items across the town without the need of so much as a second believed are still slinging out his or her trash, yet we can clean up and keep that clean simply using a construction dumpster oral.
A dumpster services can help you lastly to get onward on that garage area. No matter if it really is filled with things you should have set long ago as well as unknown products, clearing out the area is a good idea. This particular usable space is part of your home. Make it and you may also get to take the car with it. Hiring a dumpster service is the first step. That way, you can easily drop away what exactly you need as you go as a result of it.
We have found where doing one time move off Waste Bin in Ionia, MO can readily and fiscally solve your trouble. You can phone and rent a unit from a firm that addresses roll off containers and earn it easy to eliminate those previous lawn mower pieces or that pile associated with sheet rock and two through four scraps left over from the last building project. Which you find in your clean up project really easy since you get a dumpster that you can throw just about all type of supplies and bits and pieces in to.
If you remodel occasionally there is only stuff that any trash tote can not incorporate. Big stuff that you can not put a trash tote still have to end up being thrown away. Trying to throw the stuff away generally is a big discomfort but if you possessed your own dumpster it would not be. You can walk to the site it and throw that in as a dumpster is big sufficient to handle even big rubbish pieces.
Aside from the portable restrooms which do are available in certain different styles depending on what they are to be used pertaining to, some Waste Bin in Ionia corporations have recycling where possible centers which will make it super easy to break down the different components of your current waste material. You could have seen these kind of centers in store parking loads, and often at weekends. While those are for lightweight aluminum cans and bottles and so on., the concept is the identical.
You can toss your previous master bedroom entrance into the dumpster. It's also possible to put any old baseboards providing want resulting from breaking or when they just aren't the style you were looking for.
According to the size of family members room and every one of the items being done will depend on how big dumpster you need to rent. Its the items earlier mentioned it is most likely encouraged to rent a big dumpster. The large dumpster will probably haul five pickup truck plenty or approximately four loads.
A final suggestion - be ready for your dumpster before that shows up. Apparent space on your property if that is wherever you're going to want it to be set up or perhaps make sure the curtail is free in the event that's where it will likely be parked. In case you are ready to the Waste Bin in Ionia company to drop off your current trash receptacle, your life as well as the project you are working on is going to be so much easier.
Dumpsters are utilized when there is additional garbage when compared to a can easily choose to use the get rid of. Several visits would typically be required. Not many people live near to a get rid of, and they generally is a long distance absent. Driving trash to them isn't free. Persons must pay to the gas just about every trip to your dump requires. With the soaring cost of fuel and the lessened fuel economy of the fully-loaded vehicle, these kind of costs could be significant. When they're multiplied by several trips, the expense of driving into a dump can often be surprisingly large.
Check dumpsters at apartment processes and the starting point and end of thirty days. When brand new tenants shift in/out they camping tents to throw away many things of value.
So don't wait until how you can comes around to get over your unkempt property. Get back the valuable storage areas close to your home which has a residential Waste Bin in Ionia from your local rubbish removal services. In a matter of some day, you could lose years of unsightly junk and stay the envy of the area with newly discovered space in order to spare.
If you're thinking of cleansing your substantial garage, in comparison with you will need to know what is acceptable inside of the rental dumpster.
Renting a dumpster generally is a lifesaver when you have a major project underway in your own home. These accommodations are great for rubbish removal, furnishings disposal, and junk carting, among other things. On the other hand, it's important to keep in mind that renting a dumpster doesn't automatically mean that your dumpster expert will be on a lawn to move the trash into the receptacle for you. Make sure you know exactly what exactly is included upfront when you rent any dumpster so that you don't run into almost any surprises on the way.
Every so often once we look around the house and home we get the impulse to do a detailed cleanup. The impulse usually comes about when spring is within the air, but it really can happen at any time when we recognize that the accumulation connected with unused and also worn out things have simply just built up to get too much.
Your family room is really a place the place you and your family have fun. Movies and also popcorn usually are shared, interactions, board games or Wii video games, etc. At nighttime everyone congregates on the family room so it's easily comprehended why you should want a really comfortable and beautiful family room.
It is simple to rent a following day dumpster in Maryland. It should be so simple as making a fast phone call to plan your rental.
Remodeling your bathrooms quickly and efficiently into your most beautiful look-alike of the photograph which you notice in your mind can be easiest whenever you remove the particles left from your bathroom renovation without delay. You can enhance the space easily and wonderfully without a lot of clutter and also mess whenever you utilize the utilization of a Waste Bin in Ionia, MO. The construction Waste Bin in Ionia, MO is a great option for your bathrooms renovation. It must be placed over and above your home inside a convenient location rather than the excess squander to be discarded.
Its rental service will be the efficient means to eliminate hazardous compound and spend in and around the building sites- It is very useful in eradicating unwanted weeds, harmful chemicals and other not for biodegradable cat litter from the existing surrounding and also neighbor cover. This will maintain the environment cleanse, tidy and also refreshing.
Get a dumpster in Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland or any other portion of the United States which includes wheels. The particular wheels is likely to make moving the dumpster easy. You do not have to go back and forth whenever you move far away from the area the dumpster was first seated.
These Waste Bin in Ionia, MO corporations have different sizes of dumpster to suit the personalized requirements with the customer. These types of Waste Bin in Ionia, MO companies take care of all squander management requirements on your behalf. The huge tons of piled up trash are going to be cleared in no time at very economical cost. You'll be able to benefit from the dumpster hire when choose to partner with all the company which is transparent rolling around in its pricing and provide quality services at very economical cost. A number of Waste Bin in Ionia, MO companies even offer trash removal services ti load the huge tons of squander into the dumpster.
Your significant other or spouse was planning to get more family room in your very own design.
Once you have worked through the clutter and have produced progress upon getting rid of issues you no longer want or need, the company is going to take the dumpsters by you. The company will handle the hauling apart of the substance and other objects for you and also dispose of these individuals without any added charge. If you put this stuff on the curtail for your trash pickup, alternatively, you may find yourself paying a cost for having to be able to dispose of a significant amount of trash. When you have to take it on the dump yourself, the charges may even be higher.


Having finished Dying Light recently I revisited Dead Island to do the story DLC. Dead Island is an open world survival game in which you play one of four survivors of a zombie outbreak. In Ryder White's campaign you play as a soldier who is not immune to the undead virus. There will be spoilers for anyone who has not done the main game.
Soldier Ryder White is put in charge of blowing up the bridges out of Banoi after a zombie outbreak occurs. Despite some difficulties he does this and gets air lifted to safety, however upon learning that his wife Emma is now infected he makes a detour to the prison where she is situated to try and cure her.
This is around two hours long and plays quite a bit differently to the main game. White is a much weaker character due to not being immune and so you can only replenish health by using health packs. Also he cannot level up and a focus on ranged weapons is placed as up close he soon gets killed. This brought about a change in tactics as distance is needed but with the constantly spawning enemies you can often find yourself painted into a corner. He has a special move when his meter is filled up which slows down time but other than that it is all about crowd control and making sure doors are shut behind him, It got quite frustrating later on in his campaign as ammo for your guns becomes scarce so every time you die you start again with less and less ammo.
Locations include the city, sewers and prison, with most of the DLC taking place at the prison during the events of the main game. Coming off of Dying Light the graphics look pretty terrible while the game is glitchy as hell. The frame rate constantly drops to unplayable amounts, on a few occasions I got stuck in scenery, one time a zombie glitched into my body and I couldn't move, on another occasion the weapon I was in the process of using suddenly got unequipped, most annoying.
It was nice to see the story from the antagonists view point, it showed how he really wasn't as evil as he had been made out to be, from a game play perspective though this was quite irritating to play on occasions when the bugs conspired to make a huge mess. If you really like Dead Island then this is just about worth playing as occasionally it becomes fun though is very linear. Also I had forgotten how abysmal the voice acting for this game was, truly stinks and takes a lot away from the story trying to be told.


CO Geosciences has teamed up with GCHEM Ltd to offer an active soil gas survey, aimed at finding buried uranium deposits. Like radon, helium, hydrogen and other soil gas anomalies can be associated with buried uranium deposits.
Since 1997, GCHEM's geoscientists have collaborated with academia, industry and government agencies throughout Western Canada to develop and apply new technology in solving oil-field related surface geochemistry problems. GCHEM specialize in the measurement and detection of light alkanes/alkenes (C1 to C5 and C6+) N2, O2, He, H2, CO2. Results are measured in parts per million (ppm) or 100% type levels. GCHEM have the second largest commercial stable isotope lab in the western hemisphere.
Samples are collected by CO Geoscience and analyzed at GCHEM's laboratory, located in Lloydminster, AB. In-house analytical facilities include five high resolution gas chromatographs.
Drill a hole using a battery powered drill with a specialized drill bit to approximately 1 m.
Insert a soil gas probe. Isolate bottom of hole from surface and allow to stabilize for 48 hours.
Collect a soil gas sample and contain it in evacuated glass sample vial.
Ship samples to GCHEM's laboratory.
*Mobile GC units and accredited technical staff are available for on-site, real-time analysis.


A SECOND referendum could be held on the revised Henley and Harpsden neighbourhood plan.
The original document, which names sites where about 500 new homes should be built by 2027, needs updating as Henley is expected to be asked to take another 350 by 2033.
Members of the town council's neighbourhood plan committee hope to complete the process in just months.
Ken Arlett, who chairs the committee, said he believed the plan would be "completely" rewritten so a second referendum would be necessary.
However, Henley MP John Howell told a meeting of the committee on Monday that he believed it was "unlikely" that another vote would be needed.
The final decision will be made by the plan examiner.
The original document, which cost £90,000 to produce, passed a referendum in March 2016 with 81.7 per cent of those who voted in favour of the 11 sites earmarked for development.
The committee wants the new version to have more weight in planning decisions. The first plan was effectively disregarded by South Oxfordshire District Council, the planning authority, on a number of occasions, including with the approval of 54 flats for elderly and disabled people at the former Jet garage site in Reading Road when the land was earmarked for ordinary flats in the plan.
Mr Howell, the Government's neighbourhood planning champion, said updating the plan was not a statutory requirement but a practical one.
"What you will find is that the policies in your plan will gradually become more and more out of date because they will conflict with the district council's local plan," he said.
"It's for you to decide whether what you want to update the full plan or part of it.
"The key question is whether the modifications you're making change the nature of the plan.
"The responsibility for deciding whether the nature of the plan has been changed comes down to the examiner of the plan, not the district council.
Councillor Arlett said: "If it was me, I would go for a referendum.
"John talks about 'some changes' but I think we would probably rewrite this completely. I think it would be a completely new document which would then cause us to go for a referendum.
Chris Baker, of Lauds Close, Henley, said: "It's like Brexit — oh God, not another one.
"We went to referendum, we paid a huge amount of money and it went through and then almost immediately it started to fall apart.
Tony Wright, deputy chairman of Harpsden Parish Council, said the public had been told that the existing plan would serve the communities until 2027.
He said: "We told the people what the district council told us: 'You do a plan, you'll be okay until 2027'. Here we are two years later doing it all over again.
"How can we persuade people who are going to be involved again that this will be the last?" The plan is currently protected by a ministerial statement issued in December 2016, which means it cannot be deemed out of date as long as it allocates sites for housing and the planning authority can demonstrate a three-year supply of sites.
Meanwhile, the future of the district council's new local plan is uncertain after its members voted against it. This plan includes the Chalgrove airfield site, where Homes England wants to build 3,000 homes but a tenant business says it does not want to make way but continue with its lease, which runs until 2063.
He also stressed that the neighbourhood plan was a "partnership" with the district council.
"It's important to bear in mind that the neighbourhood plan doesn't give you exclusive planning rights to the town or village," said Mr Howell. "It's not just about homes, it's about everything else that comes into planning. What are the local implications of proposed site allocation options with the infrastructure available?
"What you should be doing is talking to the infrastructure companies like utility providers, transport companies and local health commissioners, and the district council as well.
The committee will oversee the revision of the plan with seven working groups covering key issues such as education provision, transport, parking and permitted development rights. One group will review all the existing sites in the plan to ensure they are going to deliver and meetings will be arranged with traders and with neighbouring villages.
The committee will also seek financial support from the district council.
Cllr Arlett said the original document took three-and-a-half years to complete and he wanted to avoid a repeat of this.
"We will basically run the plan and then every six weeks or so we will have consultations and presentations with the public to keep them on board," he said.
The committee will ask for suggestions on sites and when it has made its final choices will carry out public consultation.
The committee, which will meet during the day, wants to recruit four more members of the public so that there is a majority of 10 over the eight councillors. The working groups will meet in the evening.