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Tag Archives: Nicolas Maduro
SPECIAL REPORT: HOW CUBA TAUGHT VENEZUELA TO QUASH MILITARY DISSENT
Posted on August 26, 2019 by Arch Ritter
Angus Berwick, REUTERS, CARACAS, AUGUST 22, 2019
Original Article: HOW CUBA TAUGHT VENEZUELA,,,,
In December 2007, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez suffered his first defeat at the polls. Although still wildly popular among the working class that had propelled him to power nearly a decade earlier, voters rejected a referendum that would have enabled him to run for re-election repeatedly.
Stung, Chavez turned to a close confidant, according to three former advisors: Fidel Castro. The aging Cuban leader had mentored Chavez years before the Venezuelan became president, when he was still best known for leading a failed coup.
Now, deepening economic ties were making Cuba ever more reliant on oil-rich Venezuela, and Castro was eager to help Chavez stay in power, these advisors say. Castro's advice: Ensure absolute control of the military.
Easier said than done. Venezuela's military had a history of uprisings, sometimes leading to coups of the sort that Chavez, when a lieutenant colonel in the army, had staged in 1992. A decade later, rivals waged a short-lived putsch against Chavez himself.
But if Chavez took the right steps, the Cuban instructed, he could hang on as long as Castro himself had, the advisors recalled. Cuba's military, with Castro's brother at the helm, controlled everything from security to key sectors of the economy.
Within months, the countries drew up two agreements, recently reviewed by Reuters, that gave Cuba deep access to Venezuela's military – and wide latitude to spy on it and revamp it. The agreements, specifics of which are reported here for the first time, led to the imposing of strict surveillance of Venezuelan troops through a Venezuelan intelligence service now known as the Directorate General of Military Counterintelligence, or DGCIM.
Under Cuban military advisors, Venezuela refashioned the intelligence unit into a service that spies on its own armed forces, instilling fear and paranoia and quashing dissent. Now known for its repressive tactics, the DGCIM is accused by soldiers, opposition lawmakers, human rights groups and many foreign governments of abuses including torture and the recent death of a detained Navy captain.
According to the documents reviewed by Reuters, the agreements, signed in May 2008, allowed Cuba's armed forces to:
Train soldiers in Venezuela
Review and restructure parts of the Venezuelan military
Train Venezuelan intelligence agents in Havana
And change the intelligence service's mission from spying on foreign rivals to surveilling the country's own soldiers, officers, and even senior commanders.
The first agreement, according to the documents, would prepare Venezuelan intelligence agents to "discover and confront the subversive work of the enemy." The second agreement authorized Cuban officials to oversee the "assimilation" and "modernization" of Venezuela's military.
The presence of Cuban officials within Venezuela's military has been known for years. President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez's disciple and increasingly beleaguered successor, said in a 2017 speech: "We are grateful to Cuba's revolutionary armed forces. We salute them and will always welcome them." But neither country has ever acknowledged details of the agreements or the extent of Cuba's involvement.
In March, after U.S. Vice President Mike Pence denounced Havana's "malign influence" on Caracas, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez downplayed the relationship. "I strongly reject repeated and false accusations," he tweeted, "of Cuban military 'training,' 'controlling' or 'intimidating' in Venezuela." Neither Venezuela's Defense Ministry nor its Information Ministry, responsible for government communications including those of Maduro, responded to emails and phone calls for this article. Cuban officials didn't respond to requests from Reuters for comment.
Eleven years after they were forged, the military agreements have proven crucial for Maduro's survival as president, according to security experts, people familiar with the administration and opposition politicians. With Cuba's help and training, the military has stood by Maduro and helped him weather an economic meltdown, widespread hunger and crime, and the emigration of more than 4 million people – more than 10 percent of Venezuela's population in recent years.
In June, Reuters explained how a reshuffling of the armed forces, and proliferation of senior officers, has kept military leadership beholden to Maduro.
Now, the documents laying out Venezuela's agreements with Cuba – and interviews with dozens of current and former members of the armed services, government officials and people familiar with the relationship between Caracas and Havana – show how instrumental Castro's help has been as well.
The transformation of the DGCIM, these people say, has been particularly effective. "The most important mission for the intelligence service once was to neutralize any threat to democracy," said Raul Salazar, a former defense minister under Chavez who opposes Maduro. "Now, with Cuba in charge, the government uses it to stay in power."
Once Cuba began training DGCIM personnel, the intelligence service embedded agents, often dressed in black fatigues, within barracks. There, they would compile dossiers on perceived troublemakers and report any signs of disloyalty, according to more than 20 former Venezuelan military and intelligence officials. The DGCIM also began tapping the phones of officers, including senior military commanders, to listen for conspiracies.
The crackdown has led to hundreds of arrests. At least 200 military officials are currently detained, according to the opposition-led National Assembly. Citizen Control, a Venezuelan organization that studies the armed forces, says the number is over 300.
In a June 2017 report, reviewed by Reuters, the DGCIM accused a soldier, who enrolled in a university considered to be aligned with the opposition, of "ideological and political subversion." Speaking out for the first time, the former lieutenant recounted how he was handcuffed to a chair in a continuously lit room and beaten until two vertebrae broke. "Those days had no end," he recalled. He revealed his story to Reuters on the condition that the news agency use only his first name, Daniel, and not disclose his age.
Since its remaking, the DGCIM's ranks have swelled – from a few hundred agents early in the Chavez administration to at least 1,500 now, according to former military officials.
A recent United Nations report accused the DGCIM of torture – including electric shocks, suffocation, waterboarding, sexual violence, and water and food deprivation. Under Maduro, DGCIM officers have been promoted to senior positions, including the command of his personal security detail. The repression, opposition leaders say, has cowed the armed forces. Juan Guaido, head of the National Assembly, early this year denounced Maduro's 2018 re-election as a sham and declared, with the support of most Western democracies, that he was Venezuela's rightful leader.
But opposition pleas for a military rebellion have gone unheeded. "We have failed," said a senior opposition official involved in attempts to broker talks with military leaders. "We have nothing to offer to convince them."
"A BASTION OF LATIN AMERICAN DIGNITY"
For Chavez, the changes foreseen by the two agreements resonated on a personal level. Castro, whom he had long admired, was the first international leader to embrace Chavez as a rising politician in the 1990s.
Venezuela's military intelligence unit, meanwhile, was run by officers allied with the conservative elite and opposed to Chavez's vision of transforming a country which, despite boasting the world's biggest oil reserves, suffered rampant poverty.
When Chavez's 1992 coup failed, officers from the unit, then known as the Directorate of Military Intelligence, or DIM, were the ones tasked with arresting him. They initially jailed him in one of the same underground cells at the DIM's Caracas headquarters where Chavez would later detain some of his own political opponents, according to several former officials.
Months after his release from prison because of a presidential pardon, Chavez in 1994 flew to Havana, where Castro, in their first in-person meeting, greeted him at the airport.
In Chavez, Castro saw a like-minded leftist leader of the sort that had become rare since the end of the Cold War. In Venezuela's vast oil wealth, Castro saw potential nourishment for a Cuban economy starved by the collapse of its former sponsor, the Soviet Union. With Castro looking on, Chavez in a speech at the University of Havana called Cuba, then in its fourth decade of authoritarian rule, "a bastion of Latin American dignity." He vowed to cure the capitalist "gangrene" afflicting Venezuela.
After the visit, the two men began to speak regularly, former advisors said.
By the late 1990s, high inflation, low economic growth and increased poverty made Chavez's Socialist message attractive to a growing number of Venezuelans. In 1998, he was elected president. Almost immediately, he deepened formal links with Cuba.
In October 2000, Castro traveled to Caracas to sign a series of economic agreements. Venezuela would give Cuba enough oil to meet half its energy needs.
Since then, Venezuela has sent at least 55,000 barrels per day to the island, or more than $21 billion worth of oil, according to government figures and average prices over the period. In exchange, Cuba sent thousands of doctors, teachers and agricultural specialists to help diversify Venezuela's grass-roots economy.
By 2002, many of Venezuela's elite had tired of Chavez. That April, conservative opposition leaders teamed up with military chieftains, including senior DIM officials, and detained him. But the coup, after a massive popular uprising on his behalf, failed within two days.
Back in power, and with Castro's blessing, Chavez placed Cuban advisors within his inner circle to tighten security, according to his former advisors and several former military officials. He began a purge of the intelligence service and other top ranks of the military. He appointed Hugo Carvajal, a lieutenant colonel who had joined Chavez's 1992 coup effort and later headed the DIM's investigations division, to be its subdirector. Within two years, Carvajal became its director general. Carvajal began modernizing the DIM. In an email to Reuters, Carvajal said Venezuela's central bank provided millions of U.S. dollars in cash to the DIM for new technology, including surveillance equipment and a database to centralize intelligence.
The intelligence boss would lead the service for nearly a decade. Now out of office, he has been sanctioned by the United States Treasury Department for allegedly helping Colombian guerrillas. Last April he was arrested in Spain and remains detained in response to a U.S. warrant for alleged drug trafficking.
In the email, sent through his lawyer in Spain, Carvajal denied the accusations.
In July 2007, Chavez named Gustavo Rangel, a loyalist who headed the army reserves, as defense minister.
At his swearing-in, Rangel spoke of the need for "new Venezuelan military thinking" to counter the "real enemy." The "empire," he said, using common Caracas shorthand for the United States, was sponsoring "subversive groups" bent on destroying the revolution.
Reuters was unable to reach Rangel, now retired, for comment.
That December, Chavez lost the referendum on term limits. On television, he vowed a "new offensive" to pursue the goal.
Defense talks with Cuba began. At a meeting in Caracas on May 26, 2008, Rangel and General Alvaro Lopez, Cuba's vice minister of defense, signed the two agreements.
Under the first agreement, Cuba's defense ministry would oversee a restructuring of the DIM and advise on creating "new units" inside the service. The DIM would also send groups of as many as 40 officers to Havana for up to three months of espionage training.
According to the documents, Venezuela would send resumes of training candidates for Cuba to vet. Courses included how to handle "secret collaborators," how to conduct criminal investigations and how to select new intelligence agents.
Most of the training, according to the documents, took place at the Comandante Arides Estevez Sanchez Military Academy in western Havana. At the academy, a cluster of white four-story buildings and parade grounds, Cuban instructors told DIM agents their mission henceforth would be to infiltrate and control the military, according to five people familiar with the courses.
The second agreement created a committee known as the Coordination and Liaison Group of the Republic of Cuba, or GRUCE. The GRUCE, comprising eight Cuban "military experts," would send Cuban advisors to Venezuela to inspect military units and train soldiers.
One former Venezuelan intelligence official recalled training he received by Cuban instructors on a farm in the eastern Venezuelan state of Anzoategui. Instructors, he told Reuters, drilled students with questions about their political beliefs. The DIM, they said, must be the "tip of the spear" in the fight against "traitors."
Chavez, fortified by increases in government spending that boosted his popularity, won a new referendum to end term limits.
In 2011, he changed the DIM's name to include the term "counterintelligence," reflecting its mission to thwart sabotage from within. By then, the new DGCIM was several hundred agents stronger, former officials said.
Fresh from Cuban training, the new agents began infiltrating barracks. "We lived and trained with the troops to monitor them, keeping the bosses informed," another former DGCIM officer told Reuters. "We had an iron grip."
Some agents pretended to be regular soldiers. Others donned their DGCIM uniforms and regularly encouraged soldiers to report on each other. They came to be known as "the men in black," according to several former soldiers. "I'll hand you to the DGCIM," a battalion commander warned would-be rebels, one soldier recalled. Stories of detentions and torture by DGCIM agents, sometimes wearing skeleton masks and balaclavas, spread through the ranks.
"YOU CAN'T FIGHT THE STATE"
Chavez, following four surgeries in Cuba, died in 2013. Castro in a newspaper column called him "the best friend the Cuban people had in their history." Voters elected Maduro to succeeded him.
In 2014, oil prices plummeted. Maduro's effort to spur the economy failed. Hunger and shortages hit even the armed forces. A military doctor told Reuters recently that many enlisted soldiers are underweight, subsisting primarily on pasta and lentils.
As growing numbers of troops sought to desert, the DGCIM grew more aggressive. It expanded surveillance, wiretapping senior officers.
On the top floor of its headquarters, some 40 agents in its Operational Communications Division used a platform called Genesi, according to a former member of the team.
The system, designed by Italian telecommunications firm IPS SpA, allows users to "intercept, monitor and analyze every kind of information source," according to the company's web site.
IPS didn't respond to calls, emails or a letter seeking comment at its Rome headquarters. Reuters couldn't identify an IPS office or personnel working in Venezuela.
In July 2017, Daniel, the Army lieutenant in Caracas, was summoned to his battalion commander's office. Once a Chavez supporter, Daniel had joined the army in 2004 but under Maduro lost enthusiasm and told superiors he planned to leave. He had enrolled in law classes at a local university while still in the military and taken part in some opposition marches. Daniel's behavior, according to the intelligence report reviewed by Reuters, was "counter-revolutionary." The report described the university, whose name Daniel asked Reuters not to disclose, as a school for the opposition.
Upon reporting to the commander's office, Daniel said, three uniformed counterintelligence agents confiscated his phone and said he was needed for an "interview" at DGCIM headquarters.
Daniel said agents transferred him to an underground cell and handcuffed him to a chair. Each day, a man entered and punched him repeatedly. The beatings broke two vertebrae, according to a physician's report reviewed by Reuters. The cell was lit all hours, causing Daniel to lose track of time.
After 20 days, a military court charged him with treason, rebellion and violating military decorum. Pending a trial, he was transferred to another prison. Six months later, after entering a guilty plea, the court released Daniel on condition he remain in the country. He was expelled from the Army.
Daniel returned to law classes, but regrets pleading guilty. "I'm not sure it was the right thing to do," he said, but noted that many who don't enter a plea remain detained indefinitely. "You can't fight the state."
The surveillance has hurt even senior officers.
One case sparked national outrage, forcing the government to recognize DGCIM abuse. Rafael Acosta, a 50-year-old Navy captain, died in DGCIM custody on June 29, eight days after agents arrested him.
Tarek Saab, Venezuela's chief prosecutor, said Acosta was detained for participating in an unspecified "right wing" plot. Acosta's wife, Waleswka Perez, said the accusations were untrue and accused the DGCIM of torture. On July 1, Saab said the government had charged two DGCIM agents with homicide. He gave neither a cause of death nor the circumstances in which it occurred. The charges, Saab said in a statement, followed an "impartial" investigation into the "unfortunate event." Most DGCIM handiwork never comes to light.
In March 2018, five DGCIM agents summoned Lieutenant Colonel Igbert Marin, commander of the 302nd mechanized Army brigade, in Caracas. Marin, now 40 and the father of two young children, for most of his career was a rising star who had excelled at Venezuela's top military academy.
His wife, Yoselyn Carrizales, told Reuters the agents took Marin to the Defense Ministry, where he was met by officials including Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino and Ivan Hernandez, the current head of the DGCIM.
The officials accused Marin of scheming against the government, said Carrizales, who is acting as one of Marin's attorneys. They said they had video evidence of Marin and eight other officers conspiring, she added, but didn't show him the video. Marin denied the allegation, saying that the meeting in question had been merely a gathering of old academy classmates. Indignant, he told the defense minister that such accusations were counterproductive, especially at a time when most of the military was suffering from shortages of food, pay and equipment.
The minister should "leave his office, open his eyes and see how soldiers actually feel," Marin told Padrino, according to Carrizales. Another lawyer defending Marin, Alonso Medina Roa, confirmed her account. Neither Padrino nor Hernandez could be reached for comment.
The agents took Marin and the eight other officers to DGCIM headquarters. Marin later told his attorneys that agents handcuffed him to a chair, placed a bag over his head and filled it with tear gas. His lawyers detailed the alleged abuse to Reuters. A week later, at a hearing Carrizales attended, a military court charged Marin with treason, instigating rebellion and violating decorum. Agents then took Marin away. He remained incommunicado for 78 days.
"I didn't know if he was alive or dead," said Carrizales.
Marin remains detained, and his wife continues to work for his release. Venezuelan officials haven't publicly commented on the case or shown Marin's lawyers the alleged video. No trial date has been set.
"They fear him," Carrizales said. "He is an obvious leader within the armed forces. That's why they arrested him."
Posted in Blog	| Tagged Cuba-Venezuela Relations, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela	| Leave a comment
VENEZUELA'S SUICIDE: LESSONS FROM A FAILED STATE, With emphasis on Cuba-Venezuela Relations
Posted on October 29, 2018 by Arch Ritter
By Moisés Naím and Francisco Toro
Original Article: Venezuela's Suicide, Foreign Affairs, November –December 2018
Consider two Latin American countries. The first is one of the region's oldest and strongest democracies. It boasts a stronger social safety net than any of its neighbors and is making progress on its promise to deliver free health care and higher education to all its citizens. It is a model of social mobility and a magnet for immigrants from across Latin America and Europe. The press is free, and the political system is open; opposing parties compete fiercely in elections and regularly alternate power peacefully. It sidestepped the wave of military juntas that mired some Latin American countries in dictatorship. Thanks to a long political alliance and deep trade and investment ties with the United States, it serves as the Latin American headquarters for a slew of multinational corporations. It has the best infrastructure in South America. It is still unmistakably a developing country, with its share of corruption, injustice, and dysfunction, but it is well ahead of other poor countries by almost any measure.
The second country is one of Latin America's most impoverished nations and its newest dictatorship. Its schools lie half deserted. The health system has been devastated by decades of underinvestment, corruption, and neglect; long-vanquished diseases, such as malaria and measles, have returned. Only a tiny elite can afford enough to eat. An epidemic of violence has made it one of the most murderous countries in the world. It is the source of Latin America's largest refugee migration in a generation, with millions of citizens fleeing in the last few years alone. Hardly anyone (aside from other autocratic governments) recognizes its sham elections, and the small portion of the media not under direct state control still follows the official line for fear of reprisals. By the end of 2018, its economy will have shrunk by about half in the last five years. It is a major cocaine-trafficking hub, and key power brokers in its political elite have been indicted in the United States on drug charges. Prices double every 25 days. The main airport is largely deserted, used by just a handful of holdout airlines bringing few passengers to and from the outside world.
These two countries are in fact the same country, Venezuela, at two different times: the early 1970s and today. The transformation Venezuela has undergone is so radical, so complete, and so total that it is hard to believe it took place without a war. What happened to Venezuela? How did things go so wrong?
The short answer is Chavismo. Under the leadership of Hugo Chávez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro, the country has experienced a toxic mix of wantonly destructive policy, escalating authoritarianism, and kleptocracy, all under a level of Cuban influence that often resembles an occupation. Any one of these features would have created huge problems on its own. All of them together hatched a catastrophe. Today, Venezuela is a poor country and a failed and criminalized state run by an autocrat beholden to a foreign power. The remaining options for reversing this situation are slim; the risk now is that hopelessness will push Venezuelans to consider supporting dangerous measures, such as a U.S.-led military invasion, that could make a bad situation worse.
CHAVISMO RISING
To many observers, the explanation for Venezuela's predicament is simple: under Chávez, the country caught a strong case of socialism, and all its subsequent disasters stem from that original sin. But Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Uruguay have also elected socialist governments in the last 20 years. Although each has struggled politically and economically, none—aside from Nicaragua—has imploded. Instead, several have prospered.
If socialism cannot be blamed for Venezuela's demise, perhaps oil is the culprit. The most calamitous stage of Venezuela's crisis has coincided neatly with the sharp fall in international oil prices that started in 2014. But this explanation is also insufficient. Venezuela's decline began four decades ago, not four years ago. By 2003, Venezuela's GDP per worker had already declined by a disastrous 37 percent from its 1978 peak—precisely the decline that first propelled Chávez into office. Moreover, all of the world's petrostates suffered a serious income shock in 2014 as a result of plummeting oil prices. Only Venezuela could not withstand the pressure.
The drivers of Venezuela's failure run deeper. Decades of gradual economic decline opened the way for Chávez, a charismatic demagogue wedded to an outdated ideology, to take power and establish a corrupt autocracy modeled on and beholden to Cuba's dictatorship. Although the crisis preceded Chávez's rise to power, his legacy and Cuba's influence must be at the center of any attempt to explain it.
Chávez was born in 1954 into a lower-middle-class family in a rural town. He became a career military officer on a baseball scholarship and was soon secretly recruited into a small leftist movement that spent over a decade plotting to overthrow the democratic regime. He exploded into Venezuela's national consciousness on February 4, 1992, when he led an unsuccessful coup attempt. This misadventure landed him in jail but turned him into an improbable folk hero who embodied growing frustration with a decade of economic stagnation. After receiving a pardon, he launched an outsider bid for the presidency in 1998 and won in a landslide, upending the two-party system that had anchored Venezuelan democracy for 40 years.
What drove the explosion of populist anger that brought Chávez to power? In a word, disappointment. The stellar economic performance Venezuela had experienced for five decades leading up to the 1970s had run out of steam, and the path to the middle class had begun to narrow. As the economists Ricardo Hausmann and Francisco Rodríguez noted, "By 1970 Venezuela had become the richest country in Latin America and one of the twenty richest countries in the world, with a per capita GDP higher than Spain, Greece, and Israel and only 13 percent lower than that of the United Kingdom." But by the early 1980s, a weakened oil market had brought the era of fast growth to an end. Lower oil revenue meant cuts in public spending, scaled-down social programs, currency devaluation, runaway inflation, a banking crisis, and mounting unemployment and hardship for the poor. Even so, Venezuela's head start was such that when Chávez was elected, it had a per capita income in the region that was second only to Argentina's.
Another common explanation for Chávez's rise holds that it was driven by voters' reaction against economic inequality, which was driven in turn by pervasive corruption. But when Chávez came to power, income was more evenly distributed in Venezuela than in any neighboring country. If inequality determined electoral outcomes, then a Chávez-like candidate would have been more probable in Brazil, Chile, or Colombia, where the gap between the well-off and everyone else was larger.
Venezuela may not have been collapsing in 1998, but it had been stagnating and, in some respects, backsliding, as oil prices slumped to just $11 per barrel, leading to a new round of austerity. Chávez was brilliant at mining the resulting discontent. His eloquent denunciations of inequality, exclusion, poverty, corruption, and the entrenched political elite struck a chord with struggling voters, who felt nostalgic for an earlier, more prosperous period. The inept and complacent traditional political and business elite who opposed Chávez never came close to matching his popular touch.
Venezuelans gambled on Chávez. What they got was not just an outsider bent on upending the status quo but also a Latin American leftist icon who soon had followers all around the world. Chávez became both a spoiler and the star attraction at global summits, as well as a leader of the burgeoning global wave of anti-American sentiment sparked by U.S. President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. At home, shaped by his career in the military, Chávez had a penchant for centralizing power and a profound intolerance of dissent. He set out to neuter not just opposition politicians but also political allies who dared question his policies. His collaborators quickly saw which way the wind was blowing: policy debates disappeared, and the government pursued a radical agenda with little forethought and no real scrutiny.
A 2001 presidential decree on land reform, which Chávez handed down with no consultation or debate, was a taste of things to come. It broke up large commercial farms and turned them over to peasant cooperatives that lacked the technical know-how, management skills, or access to capital to produce at scale. Food production collapsed. And in sector after sector, the Chávez government enacted similarly self-defeating policies. It expropriated foreign-owned oil ventures without compensation and gave them to political appointees who lacked the technical expertise to run them. It nationalized utilities and the main telecommunications operator, leaving Venezuela with chronic water and electricity shortages and some of the slowest Internet connection speeds in the world. It seized steel companies, causing production to fall from 480,000 metric tons per month before nationalization, in 2008, to effectively nothing today. Similar results followed the seizure of aluminum companies, mining firms, hotels, and airlines.
Diaz-Canel and Maduro
In one expropriated company after another, state administrators stripped assets and loaded payrolls with Chávez cronies. When they inevitably ran into financial problems, they appealed to the government, which was able to bail them out. By 2004, oil prices had spiked again, filling government coffers with petrodollars, which Chávez spent without constraints, controls, or accountability. On top of that were the easy loans from China, which was happy to extend credit to Venezuela in exchange for a guaranteed supply of crude oil. By importing whatever the hollowed-out Venezuelan economy failed to produce and borrowing to finance a consumption boom, Chávez was able to temporarily shield the public from the impact of his disastrous policies and to retain substantial popularity.
But not everyone was convinced. Oil industry workers were among the first to sound the alarm about Chávez's authoritarian tendencies. They went on strike in 2002 and 2003, demanding a new presidential election. In response to the protests, Chávez fired almost half of the work force in the state-run oil company and imposed an arcane currency-exchange-control regime. The system morphed into a cesspool of corruption, as regime cronies realized that arbitraging between the state-authorized exchange rate and the black market could yield fortunes overnight. This arbitrage racket created an extraordinarily wealthy elite of government-connected kleptocrats. As this budding kleptocracy perfected the art of siphoning off oil proceeds into its own pockets, Venezuelan store shelves grew bare.
It was all painfully predictable—and widely predicted. But the louder local and international experts sounded the alarm, the more the government clung to its agenda. To Chávez, dire warnings from technocrats were a sign that the revolution was on the right track.
In 2011, Chávez was diagnosed with cancer. Top oncologists in Brazil and the United States offered to treat him. But he opted instead to search for a cure in Cuba, the country he trusted not only to treat him but also to be discreet about his condition. As his illness progressed, his dependence on Havana deepened, and the mystery about the real state of his health grew. On December 8, 2012, an ailing Chávez made one final television appearance to ask Venezuelans to make Maduro, then vice president, his successor. For the next three months, Venezuela was governed spectrally and by remote control: decrees emanated from Havana bearing Chávez's signature, but no one saw him, and speculation was rife that he had already died. When Chávez's death was finally announced, on March 5, 2013, the only thing that was clear amid the atmosphere of secrecy and concealment was that Venezuela's next leader would carry on the tradition of Cuban influence.
Chávez had long looked to Cuba as a blueprint for revolution, and he turned to Cuban President Fidel Castro for advice at critical junctures. In return, Venezuela sent oil: energy aid to Cuba (in the form of 115,000 barrels a day sold at a deep discount) was worth nearly $1 billion a year to Havana. The relationship between Cuba and Venezuela became more than an alliance. It has been, as Chávez himself once put it, "a merger of two revolutions." (Unusually, the senior partner in the alliance is poorer and smaller than the junior partner—but so much more competent that it dominates the relationship.) Cuba is careful to keep its footprint light: it conducts most of its consultations in Havana rather than Caracas.
It did not escape anyone's attention that the leader Chávez annointed to succeed him had devoted his life to the cause of Cuban communism. As a teenager, Maduro joined a fringe pro-Cuban Marxist party in Caracas. In his 20s, instead of going to university, he sought training in Havana's school for international cadres to become a professional revolutionary. As Chávez's foreign minister from 2006 to 2013, he had seldom called attention to himself: only his unfailing loyalty to Chávez, and to Cuba, propelled his ascent to the top. Under his leadership, Cuba's influence in Venezuela has become pervasive. He has stacked key government posts with activists trained in Cuban organizations, and Cubans have come to occupy sensitive roles within the Venezuelan regime. The daily intelligence briefs Maduro consumes, for instance, are produced not by Venezuelans but by Cuban intelligence officers.
With Cuban guidance, Maduro has deeply curtailed economic freedoms and erased all remaining traces of liberalism from the country's politics and institutions. He has continued and expanded Chávez's practice of jailing, exiling, or banning from political life opposition leaders who became too popular or hard to co-opt. Julio Borges, a key opposition leader, fled into exile to avoid being jailed, and Leopoldo López, the opposition's most charismatic leader, has been moved back and forth between a military prison and house arrest. Over 100 political prisoners linger in jails, and reports of torture are common. Periodic elections have become farcical, and the government has stripped the opposition-controlled National Assembly of all powers. Maduro has deepened Venezuela's alliances with a number of anti-American and anti-Western regimes, turning to Russia for weapons, cybersecurity, and expertise in oil production; to China for financing and infrastructure; to Belarus for homebuilding; and to Iran for car production.
As Maduro broke the last remaining links in Venezuela's traditional alliances with Washington and other Latin American democracies, he lost access to sound economic advice. He dismissed the consensus of economists from across the political spectrum: although they warned about inflation, Maduro chose to rely on the advice of Cuba and fringe Marxist policy advisers who assured him that there would be no consequences to making up budget shortfalls with freshly minted money. Inevitably, a devastating bout of hyperinflation ensued.
A toxic combination of Cuban influence, runaway corruption, the dismantling of democratic checks and balances, and sheer incompetence has kept Venezuela locked into catastrophic economic policies. As monthly inflation rates top three digits, the government improvises policy responses that are bound to make the situation even worse.
ANATOMY OF A COLLAPSE
Nearly all oil-producing liberal democracies, such as Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States, were democracies before they became oil producers. Autocracies that have found oil, such as Angola, Brunei, Iran, and Russia, have been unable to make the leap to liberal democracy. For four decades, Venezuela seemed to have miraculously beat these odds—it democratized and liberalized in 1958, decades after finding oil.
But the roots of Venezuelan liberal democracy turned out to be shallow. Two decades of bad economics decimated the popularity of the traditional political parties, and a charismatic demagogue, riding the wave of an oil boom, stepped into the breach. Under these unusual conditions, he was able to sweep away the whole structure of democratic checks and balances in just a few years.
When the decadelong oil price boom ended in 2014, Venezuela lost not just the oil revenue on which Chávez's popularity and international influence had depended but also access to foreign credit markets. This left the country with a massive debt overhang: the loans taken out during the oil boom still had to be serviced, although from a much-reduced income stream. Venezuela ended up with politics that are typical of autocracies that discover oil: a predatory, extractive oligarchy that ignores regular people as long they stay quiet and that violently suppresses them when they protest.
The resulting crisis is morphing into the worst humanitarian disaster in memory in the Western Hemisphere. Exact figures for Venezuela's GDP collapse are notoriously difficult to come by, but economists estimate that it is comparable to the 40 percent contraction of Syria's GDP since 2012, following the outbreak of its devastating civil war. Hyperinflation has reached one million percent per year, pushing 61 percent of Venezuelans to live in extreme poverty, with 89 percent of those surveyed saying they do not have the money to buy enough food for their families and 64 percent reporting they have lost an average of 11 kilograms (about 24 pounds) in body weight due to hunger. About ten percent of the population—2.6 million Venezuelans—have fled to neighboring countries.
The Venezuelan state has mostly given up on providing public services such as health care, education, and even policing; heavy-handed, repressive violence is the final thing left that Venezuelans can rely on the public sector to consistently deliver. In the face of mass protests in 2014 and 2017, the government responded with thousands of arrests, brutal beatings and torture, and the killing of over 130 protesters.
Meanwhile, criminal business is increasingly conducted not in defiance of the state, or even simply in cahoots with the state, but directly through it. Drug trafficking has emerged alongside oil production and currency arbitrage as a key source of profits to those close to the ruling elite, with high-ranking officials and members of the president's family facing narcotics charges in the United States. A small connected elite has also stolen national assets to a unprecedented degree. In August, a series of regime-connected businessmen were indicted in U.S. federal courts for attempting to launder over $1.2 billion in illegally obtained funds—just one of a dizzying array of illegal scams that are part of the looting of Venezuela. The entire southeastern quadrant of the country has become an exploitative illegal mining camp, where desperate people displaced from cities by hunger try their luck in unsafe mines run by criminal gangs under military protection. All over the country, prison gangs, working in partnership with government security forces, run lucrative extortion rackets that make them the de facto civil -authority. The offices of the Treasury, the central bank, and the national oil company have become laboratories where complicated financial crimes are hatched. As Venezuela's economy has collapsed, the lines separating the state from criminal enterprises have all but disappeared.
THE VENEZUELAN DILEMMA
Whenever U.S. President Donald Trump meets with a Latin American leader, he insists that the region do something about the Venezuelan crisis. Trump has prodded his own national security team for "strong" alternatives, at one point stating that there are "many options" for Venezuela and that he is "not going to rule out the military option." Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida has similarly flirted with a military response. Secretary of Defense James Mattis, however, has echoed a common sentiment of the U.S. security apparatus by publicly stating, "The Venezuelan crisis is not a military matter." All of Venezuela's neighboring countries have also voiced their opposition to an armed attack on Venezuela.
And rightly so. Trump's fantasies of military invasion are deeply misguided and extremely dangerous. Although a U.S.-led military assault would likely have no problem overthrowing Maduro in short order, what comes next could be far worse, as the Iraqis and the Libyans know only too well: when outside powers overthrow autocrats sitting atop failing states, open-ended chaos is much more likely to follow than stability—let alone democracy.
Nonetheless, the United States will continue to face pressure to find some way of arresting Venezuela's collapse. Each initiative undertaken so far has served only to highlight that there is, in reality, little the United States can do. During the Obama administration, U.S. diplomats attempted to engage the regime directly. But negotiations proved futile. Maduro used internationally mediated talks to neutralize massive street protests: protest leaders would call off demonstrations during the talks, but Chavista negotiators would only stonewall, parceling out minor concessions designed to divide their opponents while they themselves prepared for the next wave of repression. The United States and Venezuela's neighbors seem to have finally grasped that, as things stand, negotiations only play into Maduro's hands.
Some have suggested using harsh economic sanctions to pressure Maduro to step down. The United States has tried this. It passed several rounds of sanctions, under both the Obama and Trump administrations, to prevent the regime from issuing new debt and to hamper the financial operation of the state-owned oil company. Together with Canada and the EU, Washington has also put in place sanctions against specific regime officials, freezing their assets abroad and imposing travel restrictions. But such measures are redundant: if the task is to destroy the Venezuelan economy, no set of sanctions will be as effective as the regime itself. The same is true for an oil blockade: oil production is already in a free fall.
Washington can sharpen its policy on the margins. For one thing, it needs to put more emphasis on a Cuban track: little can be achieved without Havana's help, meaning that Venezuela needs to be front and center in every contact Washington and its allies have with Havana. The United States can cast a wider net in countering corruption, preventing not just crooked officials but also their frontmen and families from enjoying the fruits of corruption, drug trafficking, and embezzlement. It could also work to turn the existing U.S. arms embargo into a global one. The Maduro regime must be constrained in its authoritarian intent with policies that communicate clearly to its cronies that continuing to aid the regime will leave them isolated in Venezuela and that turning on the regime is, therefore, the only way out. Yet the prospects of such a strategy succeeding are dim.
After a long period of dithering, the other Latin American countries are finally grasping that Venezuela's instability will inevitably spill across their borders. As the center-left "pink wave" of the early years of this century recedes, a new cohort of more conservative leaders in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru has tipped the regional balance against Venezuela's dictatorship, but the lack of actionable options bedevils them, as well. Traditional diplomacy hasn't worked and has even backfired. But so has pressure. For example, in 2017, Latin American countries threatened to suspend Venezuela's membership in the Organization of American States. The regime responded by withdrawing from the organization unilaterally, displaying just how little it cares about traditional diplomatic pressure.
Venezuela's exasperated neighbors are increasingly seeing the crisis through the prism of the refugee problem it has created; they are anxious to stem the flow of malnourished people fleeing Venezuela and placing new strains on their social programs. As a populist backlash builds against the influx of Venezuelan refugees, some Latin American countries appear tempted to slam the door shut—a temptation they must resist, as it would be a historic mistake that would only worsen the crisis. The reality is that Latin American countries have no idea what to do about Venezuela. There may be nothing they can do, save accepting refugees, which will at least help alleviate the suffering of the Venezuelan people.
Today, the regime is so solidly entrenched that a change of faces is much more likely than a change of system. Perhaps Maduro will be pushed out by a slightly less incompetent leader who is able to render Cuban hegemony in Venezuela more sustainable. Such an outcome would merely mean a more stable foreign-dominated petro-kleptocracy, not a return to democracy. And even if opposition forces—or a U.S.-led armed attack—somehow managed to replace Maduro with an entirely new government, the agenda would be daunting. A successor regime would need to reduce the enormous role the military plays in all areas of the public sector. It would have to start from scratch in restoring basic services in health care, education, and law enforcement. It would have to rebuild the oil industry and stimulate growth in other economic sectors. It would need to get rid of the drug dealers, prison racketeers, predatory miners, wealthy criminal financiers, and extortionists who have latched on to every part of the state. And it would have to make all these changes in the context of a toxic, anarchic political environment and a grave economic crisis.
Given the scale of these obstacles, Venezuela is likely to remain unstable for a long time to come. The immediate challenge for its citizens and their leaders, as well as for the international community, is to contain the impact of the nation's decline. For all the misery they have experienced, the Venezuelan people have never stopped struggling against misrule. As of this summer, Venezuelans were still staging hundreds of protests each month. Most of them are local, grass-roots affairs with little political leadership, but they show a people with the will to fight for themselves.
Take Back Venezuela With Votes, Not Violence
Is that enough to nudge the country away from its current, grim path? Probably not. Hopelessness is driving more and more Venezuelans to fantasize about a Trump-led military intervention, which would offer a fervently desired deus ex machina for a long-suffering people. But this amounts to an ill-advised revenge fantasy, not a serious strategy.
Rather than a military invasion, Venezuelans' best hope is to ensure that the flickering embers of protest and social dissent are not extinguished and that resistance to dictatorship is sustained. Desperate though the prospect may seem, this tradition of protest could one day lay the foundations for the recovery of civic institutions and democratic practices. It won't be simple, and it won't be quick. Bringing a state back from the brink of failure never is.
Posted in Blog	| Tagged Cuba-Venezuela Relations, Miguel Diaz-Canel, Nicolas Maduro, President Raul Castro, Venezuela	| Leave a comment
CUBA'S NEW LEADER PRAISES MADURO IN 'SOLIDARITY' VISIT TO VENEZUELA
REUTERS, WORLD NEWS, MAY 30, 2018
Deisy Buitrago, Andreina Aponte
Original Article: President Miguel Diaz-Canel Praises Maduro
CARACAS (Reuters) – Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel flew to Caracas on Wednesday for his first foreign trip as head of state, a show of solidarity for Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro, whose controversial re-election this month has drawn condemnation in the West.
"I pledge to you that no matter how big the challenges, you can count on Cuba today and forever," Diaz-Canel said after meeting Maduro in the Miraflores presidential palace. "Venezuela now needs our solidarity," he earlier told Venezuela's Constituent Assembly, a pro-government legislative super-body.
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks next to Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel during their meeting at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela May 30, 2018. REUTERS/Marco Bello
The United States, the European Union and major Latin American countries have condemned Maduro's May 20 re-election, saying it did not meet democratic standards.
Two of his rivals were barred from standing and the election board is run by loyalists. The U.S. government imposed new sanctions on the crisis-stricken oil exporter.
But China and Russia have warned against meddling in the Socialist-run country, and fellow leftist governments in the region from Cuba to Bolivia have offered their support.
"Your words express the best of the Cuban people and we are forever grateful for the support you have given us," said Delcy Rodriguez, a senior Maduro ally who heads the Assembly, which critics say has undermined the opposition-controlled legislature, the National Assembly.
Maduro was the first foreign leader to meet with Diaz-Canel last month after he succeeded Raul Castro to become president of the Communist-run island.
Venezuela, which holds the world's largest oil reserves, exchanges crude for Cuban medical and other technical services, though deliveries have dropped in recent years during an economic implosion in the country of 30 million people.
"We felt (Maduro's) victory as our own," Diaz-Canel said. "Venezuela has supported Cuba in many ways throughout its history. We have a debt of gratitude."
Venezuelan opposition politicians say bilateral relations with Cuba are deeply unfavorable. "Maduro did not sell the country, he handed it over. NATIONAL SHAME!" tweeted opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido, posting a picture of Diaz-Canel wearing a sash with the yellow blue and red Venezuelan colors on Wednesday.
Diaz-Canel flew to Venezuela with his wife Liz Cuesta as first lady, in a break with custom during the nearly 60 years' rule by the Castro brothers Fidel and Raul who generally traveled without their spouses.
Diaz-Canel's visit came as Cuban authorities faced the chaos of flooding in the wake of Subtropical Storm Alberto that has killed already four people and prompted the evacuation of tens of thousands.
Posted in Blog	| Tagged Cuba-Venezuela Relations, Miguel Diaz-Canel, Nicolas Maduro	| Leave a comment


text:
This repo contains the source code for the UC Berkeley [Taiwanese American Student Association](http://tasa.berkeley.edu) website. It is currently hosted by the [Open Computing Facility](https://ocf.io).

## Conventions

1. Don't do `git add .` or `git add -A`, just do `git add -u` to only add changes for tracked files
2. Don't track files that contain sensitive information such as OAuth keys, API keys, or passwords
3. Keep things as simple as possible, no need to have too many fancy features
4. Try not to edit on the live servers, because that is bad
5. Don't drop a bunch of tables in the sqlite db

## Developer Setup
Here is how to set up a local version of the website on your own machine.

1. Clone the repository using git
2. Install [virtualenv](https://virtualenv.pypa.io/en/stable/installation/)
3. `make venv` should create your `venv` for you, if you need to do anything with that.
4. Make a file called `config.yaml` at the same level and similar to the `config.yaml.template` file in `tasa_website/`. Put in an admin account username, password, secret key, and Facebook API token. These will only be active for your local running instance.
5. `make run` to start everything locally. You should be able to view your site locally at `localhost:5000`

## Using the site
It's pretty easy to do regular updates etc. with the site.

Login at `<site_url>/login` and you will get to the admin panel:

![admin screenshot](https://i.fluffy.cc/DCQJbkv0z37nPJ8WLZtFqxqhD7Vk5HLw.png)

Each one of these panes does exactly what you think it does!

For some items e.g. 'View Officers' you can update or delete the officers in the database. Clicking on update opens a handy modal like this

![update officer screenshot](https://i.fluffy.cc/vg6jw4sSnp94bFmBxhjQHWzkLmClNBNB.png)

Have fun and don't forget to add your own cool features!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Home The Golden Years by Richard Press
Golden Years: Richard Press On Neckties
Next up in our archives is this column from Richard Press that originally ran in 2011. Oddly enough, the opening line is about transmitting diseases from neckties. Now more than ever we must preserve a future for the tie!
A new proposal in New York would ban doctors from wearing neckties after a study revealed that the dangling strips of silk can transmit bacteria leading to infection. This would have been sad news back during the heyday, when J. Press sold many caduceus ties in colors appropriate to the Harvard and Yale medical schools. One of our customers was New Haven resident and Yale alumnus Dr. Benjamin Spock.
In fact, in 1968 we stored 10,000 ties in corrugated boxes piled randomly on the mezzanine of the New York store on 44th Street. The neckties were simply thrown on top of the counters and sorted according to their breed. They were never imprisoned under glass. Jacquard emblematics were on one side of the stairway, regimental stripes the other, the back space divided by challis, ancient madders, silk knits, Macclesfields and Indian Madras, depending on the season. Irving Press used to walk around the store messing up the ties. He challenged browsers to stroke and finger the fabrics. The algorithm was touch, feel and buy.
The signature emblematic tie at our campus store in New Haven was the "grasshopper," a three inch navy blue field emblazoned with thick yellow insects. Anecdotally, a story circulated on York Street that a Smith girl asked her date if the tie he had on was his club tie and he responded that yes, he belonged to Grasshopper.
The emblematic collection was encyclopedic and included zoo animals, a barnyard population including pigs, geese, wild turkeys, ducks and horses. There was athletic gear featured, a closet full of squash rackets golf clubs, lacrosse sticks and Wall Street wasn't denied its bull and bear.
How does this play today? Much of the old Ivy persona favors Hermes, and Vineyard Vines is hot in Greenwich, but ask any college student if he ever wears a tie. The answer, at least to a tie salesman, is scary.
"Morning Joe" Scarborough covered the royal wedding in London with a suit and no tie. Meanwhile Michael Kay does the Yankee games from his booth at the Stadium garbed in what looks like a Joseph Banks off-price price remainder garnished with a wide knotted neon-lit tie. I leave you to decide which is worse.
Discordant form goes coast to coast, and as usual LA is the paradigm. Agents perform "the Hollywood pirouette" at Craig's in suit and tie and their clients wear untucked James Perse shirts over Seven for All Mankind jeans.
New York has always been less permissive and some might argue more sophisticated than the rest of the country. The University Club and the Regency Whist Club still insist on coat and tie. The Harvard Club requires a tie for dinner in the main dining room. Suits and ties are "not required" in the corporate dining room at Goldman Sachs, but executives would never appear at headquarters any other way. The Yale Club bends the rules reducing the dress code to jacket with "collared shirt."
Not at the Racquet & Tennis Club on Park Avenue where they still sing the old songs. Members jump in the pool naked, wear neckties everywhere except in the steam room, and polo coats and fedoras are still being checked into the coat room off the lobby.
The old WASP ethic remains an island unto itself. — RICHARD PRESS
52 Comments on "Golden Years: Richard Press On Neckties"
Alex | May 9, 2011 at 9:29 am |
We went out for Mother's day to a nice restaurant yesterday and I was the only guy in the whole place wearing a tie. People are so lazy these days.
taliesin | May 9, 2011 at 9:33 am |
Mr. Press makes a good point that in some fields in LA/Hollywood, wearing a tie means you are lower status (the hired gun) compared to "the talent".
It is interesting that most places in New York, Washington and a few other cities that still require a coat and tie are private clubs that most people will never see the inside of – R&T in NYC, for example, or the Cosmos Club in DC. I speculate that the difference is that money isn't the only standard for admission. This is a substantial difference from, say, a restaurant, which, if a dress code were attempted, would have to contend with the "isn't my money good enough?" argument from potential customers in casual clothes.
Niles | May 9, 2011 at 10:27 am |
I feel lucky to work where a necktie is not required, but that doesn't mean I never put one on. Often, a meeting, event/conference, or just wanting to feel completely put together has me reaching for a tie.
However, I do feel it's a bit more compulsory when out on a date or going anywhere where I hope to convey some sense of respect (of myself and the other people). A couple months ago I was out to eat at a restaurant and one of the people sitting at another table leaned over and "apologized" for their loud table conversation while my date was using the restroom, saying, "I hope we aren't being too loud, are you all on a first date?" To which I replied, "no, this is my partner of 3.5 years why?"
To which she replied, "oh, I just guessed since you were wearing a coat and tie". I thought the comment was telling and actually made me wonder more questions (Why would you stop wearing one after a first date? Is it really that strange to wear a tie in a nice restaurant in the year 2011?).
As for the doctors being banned from wearing ties, isn't that one reason so many wear bow ties already?
Old Time Physician | May 9, 2011 at 8:06 pm |
I wonder if it's really about bacteria and infections or about lowering standards out of misguided egalitarianism, believing that underclass patients feel intimidated by neckties. (If this is so, proles would feel even more intimidated by even more elitist bowties).
I find it hard to take an unshaven doctor in jeans and running shoes seriously, but that sems to be what the public wants.
willissA | May 9, 2011 at 8:44 pm |
Not what I want at all!…I alway feel like I'm gonna get the leeches when I see a Doctor without a Tie
zambonesman | May 9, 2011 at 10:22 pm |
Honored just to read these words… found an old Press tie in a church basement sale in Berkeley "The Burlington Knot", "hand woven in England" nice blue plaid…. that and your entries here, very lucky finds.
Old School | May 9, 2011 at 11:20 pm |
@Old Time Physician:
According to this report, not only neckties, but long-sleeve shirts and long white coats may also be banned.
The next step will be prohibiting doctors from wearing stethoscopes areound their necks, so that they can't be distinguished from janitors.
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2011/05/08/NY-may-ban-germy-doctor-ties-lab-coats/UPI-40801304834692/
The Skinny Guinea | May 10, 2011 at 3:32 am |
At 19, I unknowingly referred to a Smith woman as a 'girl' in 1988 and received a punch in the face.
Needless to say; she wasn't no lady…
Educator | May 10, 2011 at 3:48 am |
was wondering if there's a picture floating around of the "Grasshopper" tie
Jim Kelleth | May 10, 2011 at 4:00 am |
One more reason to love J. Press. Great, traditional ties….challis, ancient madders, silk knits, Macclesfields and Indian Madras. Along with the three button sack, Brooks seems to have gotten out of that business, too.
And if I remember correctly, Press had an emblematic tie featuring maritime signal flags…I'm guessing somewhere back in the late 70s. It read, 'Request permission to lay alongside.'
Long live J. Press!
Christian | May 10, 2011 at 7:21 am |
… she was no lady…
… request permission to lay alongside.
Funny stuff this morning!
taliesin | May 10, 2011 at 10:05 am |
The "request permission to lay alongside" nautical flags tie is from Chipp, not Press. When I was in NYC last fall, Paul Winston still had some of those available for sale.
Here's Press's current "Crickets" tie, which I assume is the same as the "Grasshopper" tie Mr. Press mentions:
http://www.jpressonline.com/neckwear_emblematic_detail.php?id=TIECRICKETQ_NAV
Henry | May 10, 2011 at 11:03 am |
Old Time Physician,
I think you've hit the nail on the head, except that it isn't "misguided egalitarianism." It is active hostility to standards and our traditions, a conscious attempt to bring everyone down to the level of the lowest.
Modern liberalism abhors inequality. Since it has proven impossible to raise the less-capable up, the only alternative is to pull the more-capable down. This applies to everything, including dress.
Part of the decline of the suit and tie is due also to feminism. There is no equivalent attire for women, so instead of letting the men look professional and the women look less than professional, it's "better" to have everyone dress like slobs.
Jim Kelleth | May 10, 2011 at 12:22 pm |
Thanks, 'taliesin'. The 70s are a little foggy.
Jack | May 10, 2011 at 3:33 pm |
This is a great article and the comments are almost as entertaining!
Kenneth | May 10, 2011 at 6:36 pm |
It is good to know that the legislators know more about bacteria than doctors. (Obvious sarcasm) Next time I will go to the legislators instead of the doctors to cure my health problems. Unfortunantely, that may not be too far off.
Scrappy Dubious | May 10, 2011 at 6:56 pm |
The comments section wouldn't be complete without a fragmented, screeching diatribe of non-sequitirs from Henry lashing out at the supposed twin horrors of "equality" and liberals.
Methinks a liberal must have stolen his boyfriend at some point in the past.
Squeeze | May 10, 2011 at 7:47 pm |
Regarding the comment comparing the current J. Press cricket tie to the signature grasshopper mentioned in the column, the difference is entomology. The cricket as depicted on the tie has spindly limbs and an eyeball. The grasshopper has gams like Kirstie Alley and unfortunately no eyeball.
Henry Higgins | May 10, 2011 at 8:41 pm |
Unable to understand "Scrappy Dubious"'s attack on "Henry".
Or does Scrappy mistakenly imagine that "Ivy" is a simple matter of fashion, rather than a matter of preserving standards of propriety?
Martin | May 11, 2011 at 2:27 am |
Old Time Physician it is alas true. Doctors were spreading bacteria throughout the hospital. In Australia they have to wash their hands between touching patients and the amount of hospital infections had dropped dramatically, Nurses can tell a doctor to sop and wash their hands and vice versa. There are good reasons behind it. I certainly don't want infections in my joints from someone not doing things properly. My pain specialist wears a two day growth and has comical over wear gowns and bandanas. His work cannot afford infections as he works a poofteenth from the cord. That said I wear a tie in hospital when going for a procedure, as do many doctors. They must not touch the patients wearing one.
Richard Meyer | May 11, 2011 at 3:13 am |
Henry: I am a physician, and wear a suit and tie to work every day. It ain't "liberals"-just lack of standards in general. The crowds at NASCAR races-so beloved by southern conservatives-don't look very spiffy to me.
Or maybe it's the fault of those inferior racial groups?
Get over it.
woofboxer | May 11, 2011 at 4:05 am |
Jackets and ties are still required in many military officer's messes in the UK. Some are more formal than others that only require neck wear during the evening. I remember being caught out by this when I attended a gliding course at an army base and stayed in the mess accomodation, I forgot to pack any smart clothes for the evening and ended up having to eat my meals in the kitchen. Needless to say I have always remembered since!
Purist | May 11, 2011 at 6:19 am |
I was not familiar with James Perse shirts or Seven for All Mankind jeans.
I Googled both, and realized how fortunate I was to have never heard of either.
Scrappy Dubious | May 11, 2011 at 11:02 am |
@ Henry Higgins opined:
"Unable to understand "Scrappy Dubious"'s attack on "Henry"."
I'm quite sure you're "unable to understand"….that's sort of my point in a nutshell. Although I would say that the "attacking" came from Henry, as usual. My post was sort of a wry commentary on Henry.
These non-sequitir gems from Henry sum it up:
"Modern liberalism abhors inequality."
(…then we must assume, that Modern conservatism adores inequality?)
"Part of the decline of the suit and tie is due also to feminism."
(it's all the fault of those women. If they had just stayed in the damn kitchen where they belong!)
Christian | May 11, 2011 at 11:23 am |
Actually there may be something to Henry's suggestion. One of my favorite books on menswear history is "The Peacock's Tail" by Pearl Binder (a woman) from about 1959. She argues that men dress drably because they've emancipated their women and created machines to do their work, and that their drab dress stems from low morale regarding masculinity itself.
I believe you can find one person to support ANY viewpoint.
One wonders about the credentials of this woman however.
One could also argue that 1959 would probably be considered nirvana in the eyes of Henry, and it certainly pre-dates the feminism of the 60s/70s that Henry blames for the downfall of humanity.
Being a contrarian is kind of a compulsion in you as well as your brother, Scrappy. Interesting how you can cast an aspersive eye on Binder's book based on one passing reference to it. It's one of the most original studies of men and clothing in all eras and all cultures I've ever found, a huge favorite of mine for over 15 years, and Boyer as well. You should check it out.
Scrappy Dubious | May 11, 2011 at 12:03 pm |
@ Christian
One could argue that you are the one being the contrarian here. Without googling the author myself, was this woman a psychologist, or a fashion historian expressing her personal hypothesis?
I doubt that many American males in 1959 were feeling emasculated by their women and expressing this dismay through their gray flannel trousers.
The fact that this book was written in 1959 sort of debunks the point, as Henry would no doubt consider the late 50s to be a golden-age of pre-feminist male sartorial splendor.
Christian | May 11, 2011 at 12:57 pm |
Her ideas are far more expansive, perspicacious and interesting than your terse doubt that the American male of '59 could possibly feel emasculated, as well as your assessment that Henry would consider '59 a golden age of sartorial splendor.
She is looking out over the mountains across continents and centuries. You're looking through a peephole at a mirror and seeing only your own knee-jerk narrow-mindedness.
Read the book.
Joe Tradly | May 11, 2011 at 1:52 pm |
I was lucky to get one of those grasshopper ties about two or three years ago. Remember when press cleared out the NY warehouse and sent a bunch of stock around to the various stores? Washington got a couple of the new-old-stock grasshoppers, we guessed were about 10 – 15 years old at the time. Hunter green with gold grasshoppers in my case. Beautiful tie.
I don't NEED to read her book to know what men dressed like in (pre-feminist movement) 1959 America. PLENTY of other resources about that.
You can insult me all you want, but I still won't care about this woman's hypothesis. You still haven't told me what her credentials are, other than "she is looking out over the mountains across continents and centuries", which is a lot pretentious nonsense that says nothing while simultaneously avoiding the question.
People in the 80s wore neon for a time. What was the relation of that to the feminist movement? Perhaps it was just a fashion of the time and nothing else?
Pop psychology generally doesn't hold much water.
Christian | May 11, 2011 at 3:03 pm |
The book was written in 1959, but it's not about 1959. I've said it's expansive and she's looking out over the centuries, as well as different cultures.
It's a great book. But it's quite obvious you've already decided it wouldn't interest you.
You keep sidestepping the question of her credentials, so that leads me to believe that she has none. Hence, she's about as qualified to make broad generalizations as myself.
BTW, "Dr. Phil" isn't a doctor either, yet for some reason many people listen to him as if he is….
Taliesin | May 11, 2011 at 8:09 pm |
@Scrappy
Not that your demand for "credentials" was even remotely reasonable, but if you really do want to learn more, Pearl Binder sounds very interesting. A few bits of evidence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Binder
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2010/05/01/pearl-binder-artist-writer/
Thanks to Christian for the reference. I'm going to read the book.
Jinx | May 11, 2011 at 8:43 pm |
Your easier than a duck in a shooting gallery,Scoob,Scub,
Scrappy Doobie Oobie.NOW , to tear you apart.
"You can insult me all you want" he says to Christian.
Interesting how Henry simply stated his piece ending with ,"just my
thoughts" when whose mouth came along with the first barrage of
insults? Would that be you SD?
Interesting how Scoob,you are the one who starts with the insults,
sarcastic remarks,an arrogant instead of a humble tone, every time.
Interesting how no one during the 80's sought to ban neon wear
for fear of germs.Notice one and all how Scoob twisted the entire
discussion to get away from and distract from the point that discredits
his entire way of thinking.
He doesn't want or need proof of anything. Life is the "oppressed
vs the oppressors" and equality is the pursuit and fight for a just
cause until all are free…..with NO AUTHORITY to tell them what
to do anymore, especially God's.
Too far to the right am I still? I told you the doctrine of "equality"
is the evil that is destroying America. It's a disguise to rob you
of all rights in the name of "good".
EVERY FREAKING ARTICLE OF CLOTHING CARRIES GERMS!
You'd be amazed of how much God's grace insurance policy over
this planet keeps you from a never ending 24/7 onslaught of
all kinds of things that can happen to you.
Get over it says Meyer……uh, it's the libs who never get over it.
Always another protest. Always another chance to chip away
at God's principles or commands and twist them to be the real
evil that oppresses mankind. No heaven or hell Inequality
at the end of all this. NO. All are equal. It's too humiliating
to accept even the slightest hint of inequalIty it burns your
pride and ego through and through…..
and isn't that just too bad.
There exists in the human heart a depraved taste for equality,
which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their
own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to
inequality with freedom- Tocqueville.
Not an opinion. Brutal FACT. Or else the arguing and debating
of equality vs inequality wouldn't exist in mankind.
Nothing new. Its the story of human history itself.
Scrappy Dubious | May 12, 2011 at 1:38 am |
@Jinx
Wow. Henry is just irascible…
but YOU are batshit crazy.
In the fantasy world of Jinx, "Lord of the Flies" is paradise. (As long as he isn't Piggy.)
Even delusional Ayn Rand accepted social security and medicare on the sly in her old age. She used her husband's name O'Connor to disguise her hypocrisy, of course. That way she could continue to condemn others.
With any luck, in 2014 healthcare will kick in and Jinx can get those medications that he so desperately needs. Maybe he'll use a fake name too.
@Taliesin
"demand"? A simple question that went unanswered is suddenly a "demand"?
Yes, I too have access to Wikipedia. And nowhere in that brief bio did it list her psychology credentials. It did say that "Pearl Binder could well have been the first heavily pregnant woman to appear on television." So that in itself I'm sure is enough to put her wacko theories of emasculated men muting their wardrobes in response to feminism in the league of other such non-credentialed notable media authorities as Dr. Phil.
C. Sharp | May 12, 2011 at 3:59 am |
Pearl Binder is a fashion historian.
If I may let me quote one of Christians early pieces "In her exhaustive study of male splendor through the ages, "The Peacock's Tail," historian Pearl Binder argues that the decline of masculine panache in the mid-19th century derives from the Industrial Revolution and the change from an agrarian and aristocratic economy to an industrial and democratic one. This change had a detrimental effect on the masculine ego, both for the factory worker who spent his day in a large bureaucratic organization monitoring machines, to his social better shuffling paperwork in the manager's office. Both eschewed their Regency forefathers' colorful elegance for a drab Victorian garb of black and gray, the colors of the modern city, which prompted George Bernard Shaw to dub the 1800s as "a century in mourning."
The second blow to the masculine ego came two generations later, with the first wave of the women's movement. Later, by the 1970s, women had achieved a radical change in their social status, one that would alter the entire relationship between the sexes. These two forces, Binder argues, are why men dress the pathetic way they do today: man has liberated his women and invented machines to do his work for him."
is it just my observation, or do the posts about neckties bring out some of the most insightful, interesting and ignorant comments?
taliesin | May 12, 2011 at 8:14 am |
@Scrap
The validity of an argument is not determined by looking to the 'credentials' of the argument's advocate. The argument must be evaluated on its own merits, or lack thereof. It's a shame this obvious point has to be explained to you.
I dropped it because there was such open hostility on Scrappy's part it wasn't fun. How someone so quick to criticize what he perceives (sometimes rightly so) as the close-mindedness of others could be so close-minded himself was certainly ironic.
The rush to judgment about the contents of a 500-page book reminded me of the kind of people who want to ban books — books they haven't read, of course, because they "don't need to."
As credentials, I was simply going to offer "she wrote a book that Boyer and I both like."
C. Sharp | May 12, 2011 at 12:20 pm |
I would add that it is a work that has been referenced frequently by mens fashion writers over the past fifty years. One can debate the merits of any idea but I am a little taken a back, but should not be that no homage is paid to past efforts. Binder, Boyer, Flusser, Merkin, Frazier, Bebee, O'Hara
etc. are routinely disparaged or forgotten..
On the subjct of tie entomology, I have seen a mid 90's catalog that list the grasshopper tie but the design is the same as the current cricket.
I have been enjoying Mr. Press's stories and I hope he continues contributing.
Richard Meyer | May 14, 2011 at 12:18 pm |
Christian: While I agree re: Scooby, how about Jinx's comments? Anyhow, the political vitriol in these posts should just be eliminated. A little sociology goes a long way. Incidentally, those who hide behind psuedonyms should not throw stones.
Henry | May 18, 2011 at 3:17 pm |
Me: Analysis of deeper socio-political trends that find their expression in perhaps unexpected sartorial ways.
SD: Gratuitous insults.
Thanks for bringing the conversation down to your level! Then again,what should we expect from someone with a moniker like yours?
Yes, liberalism abhors inequality, and since those who are less gifted in whatever cannot be brought up to higher levels, the only "solution" is to bring everyone down to the basest level. The traditional understanding is not, as you accuse, to "adore" inequality, but to accept it as part of the natural order.
Such an understanding is not, in any way, inconsistent with the maintenance of high standards or the desire to better oneself or the desire for high achievement. It does acknowledge, however, that people differ.
To Richard,
What NASCAR fans have to do with the topic at hand, you'll have to tell me. Is it that they're conservatives yet dress like slobs? Perhaps you haven't noticed, but ever since the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, our society has veered to the left and remains on that destructive course. The counter-culturalists have been fighting against our standards and traditions, and sadly, they have won. Ours is a thoroughly liberal culture, and the political center keeps moving leftward. This has gone so far that even most current "conservatives" would be considered liberal if judged by older standards.
And why do you bring up race? Is this a covert accusation of racism? Why don't you man up and call me a racist if that's what you want to say?
But here's the kicker. Richard wrote, "Get over it."
This is akin to saying, don't care about what you care about. Sorry, but the world doesn't work that way.
I'm fighting an uphill battle against the destruction of our culture, and you say "Get over it."
What wisdom! I'm certain that your sage counsel is sought far and wide.
Finally, I hate to disappoint you, but clothing is political.
P.S.: I agree with you on the vitriol. Perhaps you can convince SD to stop throwing it–I know I can't.
Jovan | July 23, 2011 at 11:47 pm |
… so why don't they just secure their ties with a bar/tack and button their lab coats? Problem solved.
Pale Male | July 13, 2013 at 9:28 pm |
I've heard of Pearl Binder, but now I simply must find a copy of her book. Thanks for mentioning.
Old Bostonian | March 22, 2020 at 2:08 pm |
The situation is even worse today, but J. Press still presents us with a fantastic array of ties.
Heinz-Ulrich von Boffke | March 22, 2020 at 3:59 pm |
Yet, the question must be posed, how many of us sneeze into, blow our noses, or wipe our mouths post-meal onto our neckties? Whenever I encounter a male doctor wearing a necktie, a rarity in 2020 to be sure but it occasionlly still happens, I make sure to compliment him. Same thing with my male students. Unless, of course, it is some kind of novelty tie. Then, the best course is to say nothing, and pray I don't wake up screaming in the middle of the night haunted by an unruly sub-conscience.
Richard Meyer | March 22, 2020 at 7:58 pm |
Actually, The Cosmos Club does not always require a necktie. The Metropolitan Club Of Washington does.
Hardbopper | March 23, 2020 at 7:49 am |
Dressing down costs more and is pietistic. I am no pietist. I'll give you my four-in-hand when you pry it off my cold, dead neck.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
CONSULTANT GYNAECOLOGIST
At a glance: Mr Onsy Morris is a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists and has been a Gynaecologist for over 40 years. Dr Morris' has vast experience in menstrual disorders, endometriosis, PCOS, menopause and HRT, miscarriages and vaginal laxity and non-surgical vaginal rejuvenation.
Qualifications: MBChB, LRCP, LRCS, LRCPS, FRCOG
HRT (hormone replacement therapy) Implants
NovaSure
Hysteroscopy/ Hysteroscopic Surgery
Laparoscopy/Minimal Access Surgeries
Abdominal Hysterectomy/ Myomectomy
Vaginal Hysterectomy & Pelvic Floor Repair
TOT (trans-obturator tension-free vaginal tape)
Colposcopy (including LLETZ)
Email: mrmorrisoffice@aol.com
184 Coombe Lane West
KT2 7EG
Mr Onsy Morris is a Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists and has been a Gynaecologist for over 40 years. He has spent the last 24 years working as a Consultant at Kingston Hospital. He joined Medical School in 1970 and graduated in 1976.
He trained and worked in several major hospitals in the United Kingdom including Teaching Hospitals in Cardiff, Westminster Hospital and Guys and Lewisham Hospitals in London. He also served Queen and Country as a doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps for five years before joining Kingston Hospital as a Consultant in 1993.
Because of Dr Morris' comprehensive training he gained a thorough knowledge of, and vast experience in, all aspects of gynaecology (including menstrual disorders, endometriosis, PCOS, menopause and HRT, miscarriages) and developed special expertise in urogynaecology (prolapse and incontinence), laparoscopic surgery (minimally invasive surgery), diagnostic and operative hysteroscopy and colposcopy (including treatment).
Mr Morris' extensive work in urogynaecology led him to appreciate that vaginal laxity is one of the most common, yet overlooked, health concerns among women. It is well known that childbirth, hormonal changes due to menopause and aging may affect women's intimate health.
These physiological changes may alter the laxity of the vaginal canal, damage the pelvic floor and devitalise the mucosal tone of the vaginal wall. This in turn can lead to problems of pelvic floor dysfunction such as genital prolapse, urinary incontinence and sexual dysfunction. Mr Morris therefore was keen to take on a new non-surgical treatment to help improve all three aspects of these three problems. ThermiVa, a treatment that uses temperature controlled radiofrequency to stimulate collagen thus improving vaginal laxity, is expected to revolutionise the conservative management of prolapse, incontinence and vaginal laxity. For more information, please visit onsymorris.com.
Mr Morris runs a very successful private practice in Surrey, at the New Victoria Hospital, BMI Coombe Wing and Parkside Hospital, as well as in Central London at the Harley Street Health Centre.
Mr Morris is empathic and cares deeply about his patients. He listens intently and is very thorough in dealing with medical problems.
Mr Morris speaks English and Arabic
All aspects of gynaecology including:
Menstrual disorders,
Endometriosis,
Polycycstic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS),
Menopause and HRT,
Miscarriages,
Fibroids,
Urogynaecology (prolapse and incontinence),
Laparoscopic surgery (minimally invasive surgery),
Diagnostic and operative hysteroscopy and colposcopy (including treatment) and,
ThermiVa treatment.
Mr Morris is a member of the following organisations:
Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
Member of International Urogynaecological Association
Member of International Continence Society
The British Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology registered Colposcopist
Procedures tags: Abdominal Hysterectomy, Colposcopy, HRT, HRT implants, Hysteroscopic surgery, Hysteroscopy, Incontinence, Laparoscopy, Myomectomy, Pelvic floor repair, Prolapse, Stress incontinence, ThermiVa, TOT, Vaginal Hysterectomy


Long ago there were six large fields surrounding Chipping Campden. Two belonged to Berrington, two to Westington and two to Broad Campden. The Town itself did not have any; after all it was a market town and had been set up to provide homes, workshops and shops for craftsmen, merchants and suchlike, not for farmers and agricultural labourers.
The burgage plots (the long backyards that ran right back from the frontages on the High Street to Back Ends or Calf Lane) provided enough space to grow some food crops, keep some chickens and pig or two. There might be a small stable or a cowshed as well. Alas, as yet our information for very early times is a bit thin so we have to extrapolate from other similar towns where more records have survived.
One area where we can see the evidence for past cultivation with our own eyes is in the fields where the old ridge and furrow still survives. The strips can be outlined by melting snow or can be shown up by evening shadows. In the old manor the strips were allocated to farmers each year. According to some books a man might be allocated several strips in different parts of a field so that he got a fair mix of types of ground. The old large fields were eventually enclosed and divided up, some parts in Tudor times perhaps, but the biggest change occurred with the Inclosure Act of 1799.
Developments in ploughing – the use of tractors in the C20th for example – and fresh methods and ideas have meant that much of the land once used for strip farming no longer shows the ridge and furrow evidence. However CCHS volunteers are endeavouring to find and record what is left. Footpaths are being trudged, photographs taken, old documents studied, field-names researched. Amongst the ridge and furrow still to be seen close to the town is on the Coneygree, in a field near the eastern end of Back Ends and in Badger's Field. A good resource is aerial photography, for instance those held in the national archives at Swindon. It is hoped that a comparison of these, especially the early ones, with what can still be found will assist in working out where the old field strips and boundaries were and what has happened since.


A nice CSS3 article from Brothercake showing how to (subtlety) apply text-shadow for a slightly embossed effect. Now, note, I am not talking about the old-school drop shadow we all hate, that looks like your browser is having a seizure. Check out his examples, they look pretty slick.
If you're interested in @font-face, Jeffrey Zeldman has a new website, The Big Web Show, which offers web-based video interviews. The first installment is Web Fonts with Ethan Dunham of Fontspring and Font Squirrel and Jeffrey Veen of Typekit!
Google Search goes even-more international with their virtual keyboard! Slick idea, as always.


(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Rep. Brad Wilson talks to the media after being selected to serve as speaker of the house, during a news conference with the new Majority caucus newly elected leadership team, at the Utah State Capitol, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018.
Utah Rep. Brad Wilson and Sen. Stuart Adams strolled into top posts in their respective legislative chambers Thursday without a single challenger to stand in their path.
Wilson, a self-described "accidental politician," will lead the Utah House of Representatives, succeeding outgoing House Speaker Greg Hughes. Adams will take the place of exiting Senate President Wayne Niederhauser.
The two men were picked by fellow Republican lawmakers, who dominate both chambers of the Legislature. During the closed-door balloting, the legislators also elected new leadership teams for the GOP House and Senate caucuses.
As Wilson assumes the House speaker position, he's focused on dealing with the state's growth and what it means for Utah's air quality, roadways and water, he said. He also wants to work on the state's economic development strategy and finding money for education, he said.
But he has no interest in doing so through tax hikes, he said.
"My appetite for tax increases is about as low as it could be," he told a group of reporters after Thursday evening's election.
That being said, he does see the need to review the state's tax system, which he argues is built on an outmoded economic model. Utahns are increasingly spending their money in ways not captured by the state's sales tax, he said.
"So we've got some budget constraints that are challenging for us long-term," the Kaysville resident said.
Wilson has risen quickly through the House ranks since he was first elected to the Legislature in 2010. He became the chamber's majority leader in 2016 and has helped guide an effort to relocate a state prison in Draper to a location near Salt Lake City International Airport.
During debate over the prison relocation, Wilson did not reveal that his company was building town houses near the aging prison. He told The Salt Lake Tribune the disclosure was unnecessary because his company, Destination Homes, had already sold the townhomes long before officials shared details about the prison move.
Both Wilson and Adams were expected to run for the leadership positions, and neither of the Republicans faced opposition on their way to the dais.
"So, well ... I have a shot," Adams joked Thursday afternoon, before his Senate colleagues officially named him their next president.
As a senator, Adams sponsored a measure that will give Utah the strictest drunken-driving standard in the nation. The new rule, which takes effect in December, drops the blood alcohol threshold for driving under the influence from 0.08 to 0.05.
In a Thursday interview, Adams predicted that the Legislature will tackle issues of education funding, workforce development and growth management in coming sessions. They'll also have to look at impacts from the Medicaid expansion that voters approved Tuesday.
While Niederhauser will still be Senate president during an upcoming special session on medicinal cannabis, Adams said he's supportive of ongoing negotiations on a statewide medical marijuana program. And, under his watch, he doesn't foresee the Senate dismantling the proposal.
"We're not going to come in and get people to bait into this and then switch it on them," he said.
Wilson said he approves of the drafted Utah Medical Cannabis Act and is committed to preserving it in the next general session except possibly to make technical tweaks.
A supporter of Question 1, the failed gas-tax measure meant to generate education funding, Adams said he doubts the Legislature will act on its own to raise the tax. Instead, a growing economy and expanding tax base will be the keys for finding additional money for schools, he said.
Adams said he's actively involved in managing his real estate development firm, the Adams Co. As Senate president, he anticipates dealing with a number of growth-related issues and acknowledged some people might label this a "conflict of interest."
He doesn't see it that way, pointing out that Utah's Legislature is composed of citizen lawmakers who represent a wide range of industries and interests.
"I believe very strongly that those things that you might refer to as 'conflicts' ... are things that in my opinion are vested interests, to make sure that we do get it right. Because if we don't get it right, we penalize ourselves," he said.
During Thursday night's elections, Sen. Evan Vickers of Cedar City was chosen as the chamber's majority leader, while Sen. Dan Hemmert of Orem was picked for majority whip and Sen. Ann Millner of Ogden for assistant majority whip. Sen. Jerry Stevenson of Layton will keep his post as executive appropriations chair.
On the House side, Rep. Francis Gibson of Mapleton was elected as majority leader, Rep. Mike Schultz of Hooper as majority whip and Rep. Val Peterson of Orem as majority assistant whip.
The new leaders will begin their two-year terms on Jan. 1.


Asian Journal of Animal Sciences is an international well-indexed peer-reviewed scientific journal dedicated to publish cutting edge research on all aspects of animal sciences and related disciplines. Scope of the journal includes: Animal breeding and genetics, growth and development, meat science, modeling animal systems, behavior, cellular and molecular biology, physiology, endocrinology, reproduction, breeding and genetics, nutrition, husbandry, pathology and various aspects of animal diseases (both infectious and non-infectious), response to physical, chemical and biological stress including epidemiology, diagnosis, prevention and control of important diseases affecting livestock, poultry and wild life as well as their zoonotic concerns. Novel approaches for boosting animal production, nutrition and management, genetic improvement, clinical and paraclinical care, and safeguarding health will be entertained on priority.
Asian Journal of Animal Sciences is now accepting new submissions. Submit your next paper via online submission system.


Overview: A growing body of research has shown that microplastics are present in marine environments, within marine organisms, and in drinking water. The sources of these contaminants must be addressed, and SB 1263 will help the state develop a long term strategy for dealing with this pressing concern by requiring the Ocean Protection Council to create a Statewide Microplastics Strategy.
Position and Status: CAW is supporting the bill.
Description: SB 1263 directs the Ocean Protection Council (OPC) to develop, adopt, and implement a Statewide Microplastics Strategy. In a survey that compared 150 tap water samples from both large cities and small towns on five continents, microscopic plastic fibers were found in nearly every sample. 94% of the water samples from the United States contained plastic microfibers. Micoplastic pollution isn't unique to just tap water, two recent studies have shown that microplastics are present in bottled water as well. One study found that 19 out of 20 bottled water brands analyzed were contaminated with microplastics. Research on the presence of anthropogenic debris in seafood being sold for human consumption in California found that 25% of individual fish and 33% of shellfish contained plastic in their guts.


The dislike of sailors to clergymen on board ship arises from an association with the history of Jonah. Sailors call them a kittle cargo, or kittlish cargo, meaning dangerous. Probably the disastrous voyage of St. Paul confirmed the prejudice.


The November meeting of the Rosedale Neighborhood Assn. will be held Monday, November 27, 2017 from 7-8:30 PM at the Yarborough Branch of the Austin Public Library. All are welcome!
This entry was posted in Rosedale on November 26, 2017 by Karen McLinden.


Introduced in 1992, the Subaru Imperza WRX STi model was really popularized by the Fast and Furious film series. Check out this WRX STi fodder on the Fast and Furious WIKI page here - Fast and Furious WIKI. The Subaru WRX STi is an outstanding sport compact candidate for high performance upgrades. This means that the Impreza will definitely maintain its value, expecially if you commit to a regular service and maintenance schedule. Hey, why not have a little fun doing your own work and save at the same time.
The Motor Bookstore has been serving the DIY community with their literature needs since 1997. Give us a call or drop this manual in the cart so you can have what you need to tackle your own service and repairs on your Subaru Impreza WRX STi. From simple maintenance tasks like a brake job to more complex engine overhauls, you will surely feel empowered with this manual in your toolbox.
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This manual was ok but not a good as the Haynes Manual. I needed crankshaft journal diameter specs that I could not find in this manual. Merchant's comment: All Chilton Total Car Care manuals published after 2000 (when Haynes purchased the line) are word for word and diagram for diagram the same as their Haynes counterpart. There are two major differences between the Haynes and Chilton manuals published for the same make/model: 1. A Chilton has two text columns per page instead of three like the Haynes. This results in more pages and larger font. 2. The Chilton includes a Master Index at the back of the manual and the Haynes does not.
Just what I was looking for. Arrived promptly and was just as described.
I had a great experience with themotorbookstore.com. I was unable to find this book in Stock at any stores or websites like amazon.com. they delivered my item at a reasonable speed and are providing customers with great service. I would definitely recommend to others.


This article in the Western Producer recently came across my desk. It discusses a recent study showing potential risks of glyphosate (Roundup) to human wellness.
"This new pilot study confirms what many responsible scientists have been saying all along: there is no such thing as 'safe' levels when it comes to glyphosate, especially when it comes to children." said Ronnie Cummins of the OCA.
This isn't the only study of it's kind. There is certainly enough science and enough evidence that our precautionary principle red-flags have been raised.
What's particularly noteworthy, according to the article, is that the industry rebuttals to this study have not come. They have remained strangely silent, staying clear of the court of public opinion.
The court of public opinion is making it's mark, though, and it's climbing the ladder. Responding to consumer demand, brewers and Italian pasta makers are going elsewhere for their products. This surely takes a bite out of profits.
To turn the tides, industry players are recommending that the farmers themselves take on the challenge of boosting public sentiment.
"That's why I'm suggesting that farmers take a crack at it, as well. Because I think that's who people want to hear from," said Owen Roberts, director of research communications at Ontario's University of Guelph.
…farmers might counter some of the negative perceptions by developing relationships with consumers through Twitter and Facebook.
Apparently it's up to the farmers to go on facebook and twitter and be friendly to people and convince them that the chemicals are fine. Just be nice! It doesn't matter what the truth is, says the article. Just go out there and make them like and trust you, and then they will eat your crappy foods sprayed with chemicals that may harm them and their children. Then they will do whatever you want!
FORGET ABOUT IT! WE DON'T WANT EVIDENCE OR LOGIC TO GUIDE US! WE WANT NICE PEOPLE TO TALK TO US ON THE INTERNET!
The chemicals kill things on the farm and then go out into the water and soil and are blown around in the breeze and mess up more things.
We don't know what they do to us.
Most of the things grown using the chemicals aren't really food, anyway. High-Fructose Corn Syrup, Sugar Beets, Soybean oil are for the most part not going into anything with redeeming nutritional value.
When considered together, common sense would dictate that we try other things. Or at least that there is reasonable cause for concern, and that maybe we should press pause while we get to the bottom of things.
In case you're thinking we're only being negative and not providing solutions, here's an idea: flowers. This article gives a natural alternative. It means sacrificing some crop square footage, but hey, maybe it works!