text:
Virginia Boys (Doc and Carl)
WCFL Chicago, IL
WHAM Rochester, NY
WHAS Louisville, KY
WKRC Cincinnati, OH
WLW Cincinnati, OH
WOPI Bristol, TN
WRNL Richmond, VA
Carl Patton McConnell was one half of a duo. The other half was a cousin, Doc Addington, who was a brother of Mother Maybelle Carter. Together, they became known as Doc and Carl. Doc was known for his guitar playing while Carl played mostly the banjo. Carl left behind an essay that told of his early career and the roads he and Doc travelled together.
Carl Patton McConnell
Carl was born January 24, 1913, on a farm in Big Moccasin Valley, at the foot of the north side of Clinch Mountain. he wrote was born in an old log cabin that had been the birthplace of his mother and her four sisters and one brother. He was a Baptist by faith and the third child of a family of seven; five girls and two boys.
Music seems to have run in the family. He wrote,
"My mother could do a pretty good job at playing the auto harp and organ. She also sang soprano and alto parts. Three of my sisters could play the organ and sing real well. ... My mother�s parents were Mr. And Mrs. B. M. Francisco. My Grandma Francisco was an excellent old-fashioned singer, with a beautiful, loud, clear voice. She had the reputation of being able to do more good with her singing in the old revival meetings than a lot of preachers could do with their preaching. They sent for her and came after her from miles around to get her to help sing and take part in the old-time country revival meetings. It was well known in those days that she spent a large portion of her time in this manner.
My Daddy, was fairly good at playing the harmonica, Jews harp, and could plunk quite a few of the old tunes on the five-string banjo. He did some bass singing.
My grandpa, Patton McConnell, born February 2, 1846, was a top old-time fiddler and banjo picker. He was considered the champion fiddler of this area (Scott County, Virginia) for years, back in the days of about 1875 until about 1900. He had participated in almost all of the entertainments and exhibitions around this area in those days. "
Carl wrote that Grandpa Francisco was a farmer and owned one of the larger apple orchards in the area 'high up under the north side of Clinch Mountain. His grandpa Patton McConnell owned and operated a roller mill in MOccasin Valley, operating flour, corn and buckwheat mills. Next door was a saw mill and a planing mill, which used a turbine powered by water flowing by gravity from a concrete dam located just a couple hundred feet above the old mill place. In addition, there was a blacksmith shop, general store and a dwelling house. Carl described it as a "stomping ground and gathering place for all the surrounding neighborhoods."
Carl writes of his first musical instruments and his learning and style.
The first banjo that I ever owned was a little $9.95 Supertone five-stringer that I ordered from Sears, Roebuck and Company in January 1931. After a few days of plunking around, I learned to start a couple of tunes. The first one was �Goin� Down in Town�. The second was �Down the Road�.
From there I soon learned a lot of the other old tunes; such as �The Spanish Fandango�, �President McKinley�s March�, �Arkansas Traveler�, �Cripple Creek�, �John Henry�, and many others. Those tunes I learned from my Daddy�s youngest brother, Uncle Pat. He was a banjo picker, first class, at the two-finger and thumb style, as well as the old �hoe-down� lick, which has lately been renamed the �claw hammer� style. To me it will always be the old �hoe-down� banjo picking.
As well as I have always loved the old �hoe-down� style of banjo picking; I never did put forth enough effort and time to master it. At that time, I liked the two fingers and thumb style much better and I put all my time in on trying to learn it instead. Now I regret that I didn�t learn both styles.
I also had a cheap Supertone guitar that came from Sears, Roebuck, and Company. It wasn�t a bad instrument for those days. For many years I did a lot of thumping on this guitar and others as well. The fact is, I did about as much guitar plunking, at times, as I did banjo thumping. No one ever called me a �Doc Addington�.
Doc Addington
Barnett McConnell, Jr. (stepson of Doc Addington) wrote an essay writing of Doc's early life.
Hugh Jack Addington, Jr. was born on November 2, 1913 in the Addington Frame community of Scott County, Virginia, the eighth child of Hugh Jack and Margaret Kilgore Addington. While still a very young lad, Hugh J. Jr. became known as "Doc", a nickname given to him by his Uncle Milburn Nickels who lived near his home on Copper Creek. Uncle Mil Nickels also had nicknames for Doc's brothers that followed them throughout their life - Dewey was known as "Duke", David J. was known as "D. J." William B. was known as "Sawcat", Milbern B. was known as "Toobe", and Warren was known as "Bug".
Doc, as did many of his family, possessed a fine musical talent most likely inherited from his Kilgore ancestors. As a young boy, he learned to play his sister's guitar. By the time this sister, Maybelle, married Ezra Carter and started singing and playing her guitar at community socials, Doc was also an accomplished musician. As Maybelle became part of the Carter Family singing group in the late 1920's and early 1930's, Doc was singing and playing with a young banjo picker,
Carl wrote of how he and Doc first came to get together with their musical talents.
Doc Addington and I are close kinfolk�s. His dad and mine were first cousins. My daddy�s mother was a distant cousin to Doc�s mother, both being descendants of the Kilgore generation. That makes us even a little more akin.
We grew up about four miles from each other (the way the crow flies), with two ridges and about a couple of valleys separating us. By car, around the road, it was a distance of around ten miles and back. In those days, there were only a few miles of blacktop road in the mountain area, especially here in Scott County. These were mostly narrow, rough, dirt roads.
This being true, Doc and I never had met until the summer of 1932. Doc came over to my home one Sunday afternoon, with his neighbor and close friend, Lester (Groundhog) Addington, who was dating my oldest sister, Irene.
On this occasion, Doc didn�t come in the house. He sat out in the car, parked close to the front porch. I walked out and interrupted the little tune he was whistling, by saying �hello� and asking him to come in the house while he was waiting. He said that he would just sit there and wait on �Groundhog�, who was in the parlor with Irene. He right then started whistling this same little old tune. He seemed to be more interested in being left alone and in whistling than he was in talking to me. Ha!
It sort of worried me a bit because he wouldn�t get out of the car and come on into the house, so I thought I�d go into the parlor and see if I could get �Groundhog� to go out and try persuading him to come on in. Groundhog sort of laughed and said, �Ah, he is bashful and stubborn, too. Let him sit out there.�
This didn�t satisfy my mind and, pondering over the situation another minute or so, I made up my mind to give it another try. I walked back out to the car and found Doc still whistling that same tune. So, ill mannered me, I broke in on his whistling again to say �Doc, I wish you would get out and come in the house.� He said, �No, thanks, I�ll just sit out here.� Then, quickly, I asked him some other question, with the hope of getting him started into a friendly conversation.
He just answered back with as few words as possible, and instantly started right back whistling. To me, that was a pretty firm hint that he just didn�t care too much about getting any better acquainted with me. I hastily turned and walked back into the house. In about an hour, I saw �Groundhog� step off the front porch and crawl under the steering wheel of his 1923 Model T Ford Touring car. I rushed out to invite them to come back again. I got out on the porch in time to see them take off like a ruffled grouse and to hear Doc, still whistling the same tune. By this time, he was setting it afire. This was my first acquaintance and experience with Doc Addington.
But Carl and Doc would get together eventually. Carl writes of the first time he got to hear Doc's guitar playing.
"I had heard quite a lot about Doc�s fancy guitar picking for about a couple of years. Up until this time, I had never had the chance to hear him. The following fall, he and �Groundhog� dropped in one night at the home of our neighbors, Boyd and Will Quillin. A big bunch of us had gathered there for one of our usual musical parties.
After a lot of insisting from me and the rest of the musicians, (he kept saying that he couldn�t pick), Doc was persuaded to take the guitar and he picked and sang about a half-dozen songs, with me backing him with the banjo.
I will never forget the expressions on the faces of the crowd, (and especially the musicians looking on), as he was about the middle of the first song, �Coney Isle.� You talk about a display of raised eyebrows and staring eyes, with mouths half open, all set on Doc and the guitar. No doubt I looked even worse stunned than they did because I think that I even dropped out and forgot to pick the banjo at times. He also picked and sung �The Brownie Blues�, �My Dear Old Southern Home�, and one of Jimmie Rodger�s �Blue Yodels�.
When he had finished the 4th and last song, he handed the guitar back to its owner and requested a continuation of the music. If my memory serves me right, there was no response.
This was the beginning of mine and Doc�s musical career. I believe the next time we met was at Doc�s home place, in the month of May 1933, on a Saturday night. He had sent me word a few days ahead of time to come over on that particular Saturday night and bring my banjo. He said they were going to have a musical party, or a music making, I believe he called it."
Doc and Carl, The Virginia Boys
Barnett writes of the beginning of the career of Doc and Carl, the Virginia Boys.
As Maybelle became part of the Carter Family singing group in the late 1920's and early 1930's, Doc was singing and playing with a young banjo picker, Carl McConnell, who became his life long friend. Doc and Carl were third [third?] cousins and they first played music together at Uncle Mil's house on Copper Creek. Very soon after this singing debut, Doc and Carl began calling themselves "The Virginia Boys" and played together regularly at social gatherings throughout the area. Their reputation as musicians increased and soon they were playing and singing on WOPI in Bristol.
As the demand for the country music of the Appalachian area increased around the country, due mostly to the popularity of the recordings of Doc's sister, Maybelle and his cousin, Sara Dougherty Carter, and her husband A. P. Carter, Doc and Carl were offered work on WCFL in Chicago, Illinois by their new sponsor, the Consolidated Drug Company. Over the next few years, Doc and Carl also played on radio stations in Rochester, New York; Louisville, Kentucky; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Richmond, Virginia. Doc sang tenor and played lead guitar while Carl played rhythm on his 5-string banjo and sang soprano. As their popularity grew, they returned to WCFL in Chicago and recorded 84 individual 15 minute transcriptions that were sent to some of the more powerful radio transmission stations in North America, including XERA operating in Mexico across the border from Del Rio, Texas. Although Doc and Carl were very popular musicians who had consistent work, with the low pay and frequent travel, they soon tired of the "road life" and decided to find jobs outside the music business. Carl returned to Scott County and established a barbering business and Doc went to work for the Firestone Corporation in Indiana. On November 1, 1937 Doc married Leota Mae Rich in Indiana and they soon started their family. During the next eight years, they were blessed with 5 children: Shirley, Jack, Sue, Kay, and Dale.
Carl shed some light on how their working together began.
In the midst of all the corny mountain music making, Doc and Fiddlin� Jimmy D. Cress spent the months of August and September 1934 at our home. They helped us work on the farm, and each night after supper, we would fiddle and frolic until late bedtime. Most of these nights, we had a bunch of neighbor visitors as an audience. This always stimulates a musician somewhat and makes him put a little more into his picking. As I have already stated, Jimmy D. Cress was a top old time fiddler on a few of the old tunes such as: �Cumberland Gap�, �Cackling Hen�, and others. He also had a couple of tunes on which he did some nice trick fiddling. These two tunes were: �The Drunken Hiccups� and �Pop Goes the Weasel�.
In the spring May 1934, Doc and I went on our first personal appearance. Sara Carter was booked for a Saturday night appearance at the old Odd Fellow�s Hall in Bristol, Virginia. She asked us to go along and share this program with her. Of course, we welcomed the opportunity. Sara opened the program by singing about six or eight of the old favorite ballads and hymns that she was so noted for singing. Then Doc and I came out and sang possibly a half dozen duet numbers. I don�t recall but a couple of these, the �Browns Ferry Blues�, and �I�m Goin�a Quit My Rowdy Ways�. We played a couple of f instrumentals, with Doc in the lead on the guitar. I sang a couple of sad songs. This was good experience for us.
Our first radio broadcast was on Station WOPI, Bristol, Virginia/Tennessee, the first part of the year of 1934, on "The Saturday Afternoon Matinee". We appeared on this program nearly every Saturday afternoon thereafter, until the early part of 1936.
Let's go back to a humorous episode Carl wrote of when Doc asked him to come to a 'music party' they were going to have and told Carl to bring his banjo. But getting to that part was quite the effort and perhaps typical of traveling musicians - they all have their road stories.
" My brother Kenneth and I saddled our dappled gray, half-percheron, work horses, old Frank and Bird, and started on the four-mile rough trail across the two ridges and valleys. At the halfway mark, across the first ridge and down into the valley, in the west end of Taylor town community, we stopped by Beacher Smith�s home place. He met us at the yard gate. He was headed for the party also. As we were approaching Beacher�s home, we noticed a black looking storm cloud rising from the west and coming in our direction.
I called Beacher�s attention to this bad looking thunder cloud and requested that we wait a few minutes to see if it was going to rain, before going any further. Beacher turned his head and looked back at the black cloud and said, �I declare, Carl, I don�t believe it�s going to rain here.� He repeated this statement at least three or four times, as I kept insisting that we wait there at his place until after the rain had passed.
I let him out talk me and against my better judgment, we started on toward Copper Creek Valley, about two miles away. Beacher was then and still is a good old time fiddler, but he taught me that night that he was a poor weather prophet. By the time we had gone half a mile to the top of the next ridge, (where Joe Addington�s new home place is now) the hard part of this rainstorm overtook us. We tried to keep under the biggest trees as much as possible so they might shield us, but to no avail. The rain was coming down like pouring out of a tub. All of us enjoyed a genuine drenching, including my old banjo, even though I tried to protect it.
When we arrived at the Addington residence, about 9:00 pm, we found a house full of neighbors and a host of musicians as well. The music was already going in full swing. I held my Supertone banjo over the globe of the old kerosene lamp. The calfskin head was soon dry enough to pick. I tuned up with the boys, and instantly the fiddler, Jimmy D. Cress, took off on the old tune "Cackling Hen". Then, without a pause, he tore right into another old tune, �Cumberland Gap�. Those old tunes were favorites of Jimmy�s and he could do a job on them, as well as many others that was second to no one else. Jimmy D. was a brother-in-law to Beacher.
Mill Nickels, who lived just a hop and a jump across the field, was another old time fiddler, included in the crowd. He was an excellent, smooth, and a clear noting fiddler as you rarely ever hear, to say the least. He had a whole line of pretty waltz tunes that he played very beautifully, so as to almost make the hair stand on end.
After the three fiddlers had played about a couple of dozen tunes each, backed up by mine and Doc�s picking�, Doc�s oldest brother, Dewey, dug out his old five string banjo and rendered about a dozen of the old tunes in the old fashioned �hoe-down� way, which he is so noted for. He played such tunes as �John Henry�, �Cripple Creek�, �Sally Goodin�, �Sugar Hill�, etc.
Then Doc and I rattled off a few instrumentals with Doc in the lead on the guitar. Doc sang a couple, like �Coney Isle�, and the �Brownie Blues�. I tried singing possibly four or five of my favorite sad songs and tried to pick a couple or so, such as �Shortenin' Bread� and �The Spanish Fandango�.
The greatest thrill of all that I experienced at this particular gathering was the honor of seeing for the first time, the greatest country singer that this country ever had, in my opinion. She had the truest and most beautiful voice of all. The person that I am referring to is the great �Sara Carter�, of the famous Carter Family, who did all of the lead singing in the recordings and elsewhere.
By that time, it was getting near midnight and voices all over the house could be heard requesting Sara to sing. Doc handed her the guitar. Since I never had the pleasure of hearing her in person, but only on records, this was indeed a treat to me. It only took about a verse and the chorus of the first song of her singing to convince me that the old saying was true, in this case; she was the best there by ten country miles and was saved for the last.
Sara sang several of the beautiful old songs and hymns. I don�t recall all of them. To name a few, I do remember that she did sing the following: �The Last Roundup�, �Why There�s A Tear In My Eye�, �On A Hill Lone And Gray�, �When I take My Vacation In Heaven�, �One Step More�, �No Telephone In Heaven�, and �The Old Rugged Cross�.
I had never before heard these songs sung so beautifully and with such real true meaning, as their writers had intended them. I�m quite sure that this was another occasion on which I was caught with staring eyes and mouth half open. I was so carried away with her beautiful singing that I just forgot everything else.
Sara chose for her concluding number an old favorite sacred song that I thought was very fitting. Her choice was "Will The Circle Be Unbroken�. When she had finished the last chorus of this touching old song, the crowd began to rise, one by one, reaching for their hats and milling through the crowd to shake the kind hand of Doc�s mother, Mrs. Margaret Addington, and bid her good night and thanks for her allowing us to come into her good home on this occasion. Mrs. Addington was one of the kindest persons that I ever knew. She was as good to me as a mother. I felt perfectly welcome in her home. She was another good banjo picker, the old fashioned �hoe-down� style.
Now getting back to the breaking up of this musical party: It was then about 12:30 am, Sunday morning. After all well wishes and good nights were said, everyone was all soon making their way toward home on foot, through the fields and in the pathways. You could see the lights from the kerosene lanterns and flashlights going in several different directions.
In the meantime, Kenneth and I had already mounted our horses and were starting on the long narrow, rough trail across the ridges and valleys that would lead us back home. We were accompanied by Beacher and Jimmy D. Cress, walking along by our side. They said they would rather walk than ride.
Along the way, we were discussing back and forth the enjoyable time that we had just experienced with this group of wonderful mountain people. The sound of the good old mountain music, and the singing as well, was still ringing in our ears. We had thoroughly enjoyed all the music that had been produced in those short four hours.
At this time, we were passing by Beacher�s home and he and Jimmy D. left us for the night.
The thought also ran through my mind wondering if this would ever happen again, at the same place, and with the same people meeting back there together. I was just dreaming and hoping, of course. All of these pleasant memories seemed to help the time fly by. In no time at all, it seemed that Kenneth and I were riding up in the hallway of the old barn, at our old home place, in Big Moccasin Valley, at the foot of Clinch Mountain. It was then about a quarter until 3 o�clock, Sunday morning.
Doc and Carl began playing for the folks in their area at other musical gatherings. The newspapers of that era often contained little tidbits of the comings and goings of people and enjoyable times. In June of 1936, Doc and Carl visited the home of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Quillin in Lone Star. Other guests were present as well. Doc and Carl entertained the folks with their music and, "the music was enjoyed by all."
A couple of months later, they were playing for folks at the home of Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Moore. By this time, they were now known as 'radio musicians'. Again, the unnamed author noted, "the music was very much enjoyed by all."
In Snowflake, VA, we read that 'quite a crowd gathered at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Quillin on an August night in 1936. They were there to hear "Dock Addington and Carl McConnell make music."
Even when they were just visiting relatives, it made the local news. On one occasion in August 1936, the 'musicians of Maces Spring, VA' were visiting relatives in the section of Nickelsville, VA.
Doc and Carl were sent to WHAS in Louisville, KY for a time by the Consolidated Drug Company in February of 1939. According to Carl's essay, they were on the Early Morning Jamboree show from 6:30 am to 7:30 am. He wrote that the jamboree consisted of Uncle Henry's Kentucky Mountaineers, Sally and the Coonhunter, Sunshine Sue and Her Rock Creek Rangers, Gordon Sizemore and Little Betty, Joe and Al - The Chuckwagon Boys and Pat McAdary.
Carl mentions they were supposed to work at the station from September through May with June through August being a summer vacation break for them. The Kingsport Times in Tennessee documents occasions where Carl drove back to visit his family in Snowflake, VA. A search on Google maps shows that today it is nearly a 300 mile drive, taking almost 5 hours.
Doc and Carl were transferred Consolidated Drug Company to Station WKRC, Cincinnati, Ohio, They had two fifteen minute programs each day, until the last of May when the usual summer vacation season started.
A group of nine entertainers left Chicago in January 1939 to start a new program called the "Home Folks Hour" over radio station WHAM in Rochester, NY. The show was to air from 3:45 pm to 4:45 pm Monday through Friday. It was suggested by Art Kelly in Rural Radio magazine that 'down-to-earth' type of show were far and between. The show was to feature old time songs, hoe-downs, hillbilly ditties and ballads of the plains and hills. The appears to have resonated with the Rochester listening audience.
Mr. Kelly readers the ensemble included Doc and Carl, the Kasper Sisters, Chuckwagon Boys and Chuckwagon Joe, Barbara and Larry, Little Bett, Gen Kasper, Fiddlin' Larry Jeffers and Accordion Al.
He wrote that Doc and Carl hailed from the hills of old Virginia. Together they sang hymns and songs of the hill folks. Little Betty Jeffers, all of six years old, was considered the sweetheart of the gang and known for her yodel specialties. Barbara and Larry Jeffers were born in Jackson, Florida and had a 'colorful record' in both radio and vaudeville. Barbara and Larry were twins and Little Betty was their sister. The Kasper Sisters had previously been with the National Barn Dance, Pappy Cheshire'Barnyard Jamboree, vaudeville and had already been on nine radio stations. The girls, Betty and Gen did harmony, with Betty playing the guitar. Then Joe Franks who was from Chicago had the role of "Chuckwagon Joe" and had been on the radio for four years up to that point. He was said to play guitar and thumped a mean doghouse bass. Finally, Elmer Witte who was known as Accordion Al, was born in San Francisco, CA, had traveled with the WLS road shows and appeared on the Barn Dance with Hal O'Hallaran.
Doc recalls that the first part of June 1940, Doc and Carl hooked up with Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters - Helen, June, and Anita, along with A. P. Carter�s youngest sister, Sylvia, who was a good singer as well as a good guitar and auto harp picker. All summer long, they made personal appearances in the eastern half of Tennessee, southwest Virginia, and all down through North Carolina, clear to the coast, playing school houses, court houses, lodge halls, and an occasional theater. They continued making those shows, right on up into the month of September, when they had to quit in order that the Carter Sisters could attend school at Hiltons, Virginia.
Carl's son, Ron, related humorous incident from his memories by email.
Sometime during 1944-1945 when Curley Bradshaw was a Blue Grass Boy, Doc Addington was in the military (Note: According to online records Doc registered in the U. S. Army on November 27, 1942 and was discharged on September 27, 1945), and Daddy was at his barbering, and Bill Monroe had a gig in Gate City, VA.
I (Ron) was between 3 and 4 years old. I heard the story many times from Mother. We lived in the east end of town. The show was in one of the three theaters in the west end. Daddy knew "Curley" Bradshaw, Bill and others.
After the show Daddy went backstage to meet his friends. Without asking Mother, Daddy invited them to breakfast and a jam session at our house the next morning. Daddy may have been carrying me home, so he lived.
Mother spent the rest of the night cleaning and preparing a big country breakfast for the band.
The next morning, 8:00 am came,
9:00 am came,
10:00 am came,
noon came.
Finally, maybe between 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm, the BBGs showed up. They had slept late and had eaten a big breakfast at a restaurant downtown. Only Curley ate any of Mother's food. Curley could eat anytime.
For the rest of the afternoon the musicians jammed while Mother steamed.
Note: After reading that story, you wonder why the musicians would pass up a home cooked meal and instead pay for restaurant cooking.
Doc and Carl met up with Mother Maybelle Carter and her daughters again in the summer of 1946. The Carters had returned to Richmond and were being heard over WRNL. A promotional picture taken helps date the picture as it is advertising a movie called "Renegades" that was to begin showing at the Byrd and State Theater on Wednesday, June 19, 1946. The movie starred Evelyn Keyes, Willard Parker, Larry Parks and Edgar Buchanan. While the newspaper ads for the film do not indicate folks would see entertainment, the signboard in the picture indicates they were going to perform at 5:45 pm. Later, on November 30, 1946, Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters (Helen, June and Anita) would debut as regular cast members of the WRVA Old Dominion Barn Dance.
In September 1946, Doc and Carl returned to Scott County and after making a few local personal appearances with the Carters.
Doc and Leota and four of their children - Shirley, Jack, Sue, Kay, (Dale was born in October) - returned to Indiana where Doc resumed his job at the Firestone Rubber Company.
By then Carl and Mabel had also started a family with the birth of their son, Ronald, in 1941 and were hoping for another addition to their family. Theresa, their daughter, was born the next year in late 1947. Once more their music career was on hold and Carl returned to the barber business at the Scott Barber Shop in Gate City.
During the next twenty-five years, they only played together occasionally when Doc and his family returned to Virginia for brief visits with his kin folks. Carl would play three or four times a year with Mabel's brothers, Howard, Edd and Glen Moore.
Ron McConnell wrote of Doc and Carl,
"In the present era, the Doc and Carl songs might be called old-time country as contrasted to the Nashville country sound. June Carter referred to Doc and Carl as the "jazzy side of the family." It was pre-bluegrass since Bill Monroe was still working out his bluegrass sound during that time and had it essentially done by late 1946. Charlie Monroe was playing at another Louisville radio station and contacted WHAS to have Doc and Carl stop performing Monroe Brothers songs. They never performed them again. Some years later Carl invited Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys over for lunch and a jam session the day after their show in Gate City - much to Mabel's surprise."
In the 1950's Carl had filled a notebook of full of song lyrics that he had written and hoped one day to play and maybe record with Doc. Like many mountain musicians, neither Doc nor Carl read or wrote music. The melodies for their songs were all stored in their heads. But the notebook of song lyrics disappeared from his banjo case at a gig in Nickelsville. He never wrote the songs down again. One wonders what lyrics and tunes were lost that night.
The Barber / Dog Breeder
Ron wrote of his father's later years,
"Although his music career was on a long-term hold, Carl was a man with many other interests and those who knew him well were aware of his passion for breeding mountain cur dogs. But few likely know that Carl was one of the organizers of the Mountain Cur Club in 1957 or that he was a co-founder of the Stephens' Breeders Association. The Mountain Cur Club was later renamed the Original Mountain Cur Breeders Association. Carl is credited with being instrumental in helping to save these old mountain hunting dogs from extinction. These faithful working dogs were/are used to hunt raccoons and bears. His love for these mountain dogs continued throughout his life. Scott County is home to folks descended from immigrants from Ireland, Scotland, England and Germany. There are also now many four legged residents descended from Florida immigrants. By the mid-1950's, after 150 years of hunting, raccoons in Scott County were rare. Carl and the coon hunting club purchased many crates of raccoons in Florida and shipped them by train to Gate City for release around the county. The great-great-grandparents of that raccoon in your backyard probably were some of Carl's Florida raccoons.
Carl is probably best known in Scott County for working at the Scott Barber Shop In Compton's hotel on Moccasin Avenue across from the courthouse in Gate City. About 1980 he moved the shop across the corner on West Jackson Street ("main") to Dr. Grigg's old office with more space. Carl was not satisfied until every hair on a customer's head was the correct length. Rev. Paul D. Argoe, a friend for more than forty years said at Carl's eulogy that Carl was the slowest barber in Scott County. For Carl the barber shop was much more than a way of making a living after his musical career, it gave him a chance to visit with his friends and customers every day."
Doc's Return To Indiana — One More Round Music Making
After Doc left Virginia and returned to Indiana, music continued to be a dominant force in his life. When he wasn't working at the Firestone Rubber Company, his days off were frequently spent "jamming" with local musicians who were constantly dropping by his house to do a little picking and singing.
Doc and Leota divorced in the early 1970's. After Doc retired from Firestone in 1971, he returned to Scott County and he and Carl once again began to play together on a regular basis.
In 1973, Doc married the widow of Barnett McConnell, Sr., Georgia Hartsock McConnell, and they lived in the Addington Frame community near his birthplace.
In the early 1970's, Doc and Carl recorded an album at Johnny Cash's studio in Hendersonville, TN. However, the mix was wrong with Carl's banjo being prominent and Doc's guitar in the background. It was not the signature "Doc and Carl" sound and they were not happy with the result. Doc, Carl and Mabel recorded a gospel album, but the master tape was lost when the producer's studio was flooded and the record was never issued.
During the next few years in the 1970's, Doc and Carl played and sang with Janette Carter at the Carter Fold; The Smokey Mountain Folk Festival in Cosby, Tennessee; The National Folk Festival at Wolf Trap Farm, Vienna, Virginia; The Cumberland Gap Jubilee, Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, Tennessee; Clinch Valley College, Wise, Virginia; Blue Grass Festival, Nora, Virginia; and numerous family reunions, homecomings, churches, and parties throughout Scott County.
They also performed on Jimmy Smith's television program on Channel 19, WKPT, in Kingsport a nd Cas Walker's television program on Channel 10, Knoxville, Tennessee. Carl's wife, Mabel, an excellent vocalist, appeared with Doc and Carl on most of these programs.
Doc and Carl's last paid performance together was likely the A. P. Carter Memorial Festival in Maces Springs, Virginia in August 4 - 6, 1977. Coincidentally, that marked the 50 th anniversary of the Carter Family recordings with the Victor company.
The reader might wonder, 'whatever happened to those border radio transcriptions'? Ron shares the history behind it, pieced together over the years.
"The most that Carl could learn from his research was that the Doc and Carl Border Radio show recordings had been worn out in the 20 years they were played. The discs were thrown out and used for roofing shingles by the local folks. But some recordings did survive. Amazingly, some WRNL Richmond recordings from 1946 with Mother Maybelle, the Carter Sisters, and Doc and Carl were recovered from a garbage dumpster during a rain storm about year 2000, long after the families believed that all of the old Doc and Carl music had been lost forever. "
Ron sent along some other photos during our email exchanges. One included Doc and Carl performing at the Wolf Creek Trap Farm in 1973. He also sent along a photo of Carl at his 'Scott Barber Shop' from a 1988 Kingsport Times-News promotional ad for the paper. The paper describes the four gentlemen as:
Carl McConnell and Tom Culbertson — Barbers and Times-News readers
Walter Peak and Clayton Williams — Well-groomed Times-News readers
The newspaper ad went on to further quote Carl's support of the paper.
"Of all the reading materials I've put out for customers here at "Scott Barber Shop," I'd say the Times-News gets more attention than anything else.
Lots of customers read it while they're in the chair — sometimes that gets a little distracting — and about all of them read it at home.
Of course, I'm just as interested as any of our customers, why I've been reading the Times-News myself for several years. I start my day with breakfast and the Times-News. I'd say no matter what time of day you read, the Times-News cuts it."
Ron also wrote of some of the options or choices that Doc and Carl made along the way that might lead to 'what if' or was it the 'right choice'. Doc and Carl felt they let two opportunities slip away that could have significantly altered their careers. In 1939 and again in 1940 they were invited to make some recordings for The Blue Bird Recording Company, later known as RCA. They declined the invitation.
Also, in the spring of 1940 they were invited to accompany Dick Hartman, originator and leader of the famous "Tennessee Ramblers", to Hollywood to appear in two movies; one with Gene Autry and one with Tex Ritter. Again they declined the invitation.
Carl had another brush with Hollywood in 1983 when a scene for the movie The River starring Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek was filmed with Carl chasing away a drunk from in front of the barber shop. That scene ended up on the cutting room floor.
Had Doc and Carl pursued these opportunities their lives and those of their families may have been completely different, for good or worse, who can say?
Last Chords
Doc's health began to fail in the late 1970's. When his wife, Georgia, died in 1981 he moved back to Indiana. Doc was living with his son Dale and his family in Bloomington, Indiana when he passed away on July 4, 1988. He was buried in the family cemetery near his boyhood home in the Addington Frame community, Nickelsville, Virginia.
Carl finally retired from the barber business in 1993 after he became too ill to work. He passed away on May 27, 1994 and is buried in the Holston View Cemetery in Weber City, Virginia.
Ron writes, Doc and Carl were humble men with kind and gentle personalities. They both loved life and they loved people and never spoke unkindly of anyone. In all their years of working and traveling together, they never had a serious disagreement. Many people throughout Virginia and numerous other States enjoyed the music of Doc and Carl over the years. Some of the "Doc and Carl" songs include
"Brown's Ferry Blues"
"Blue Railroad Train"
"Tell Me Which Way Red River Runs"
"Salty Dog Blues"
"The Weary Lonesome Blues"
"Home Coming Time In Happy Valley"
"Waiting the Boatman"
"Precious Memories"
"Just A Closer Walk with Thee"
"Now I'm Coming Home"
"I Have Found the Way"
Whenever these old songs are sung their fans will remember Doc and Carl, The Virginia Boys, and the entertainment and pleasure they brought to so many people.
Since this is about a tale of two storied families, it is appropriate to document the other siblings in Doc and Carl's family to show the family circle / ties.
The Ten Children of Hugh Jackson and Margaret Elizabeth Kilgore Addington
Names Date of Birth Date of Death
Addington, Dewey Lee (Duke) 12/21/1898 6/8/1993
McConnell, Ava Madge Addington 5/28/1902 12/20/1928
Addington, David Jesse (D. J.) 5/29/1903 5/24/1974
Addington, William Brooks (Willie/Sawcat) 5/2/1905 3/19/1971
Addington, Norma V Addington 2/18/1907 7/29/1979
Carter, Maybelle Addington 5/10/1909 10/23/1978
Fuller, Lyna Muriel Addington 8/19/1911 3/21/1982
Addington Jr., Hugh Jack (Doc) 11/2/1913 7/4/1988
Addington, Milbern Brooks (Toobe) 12/28/1915 10/18/1988
Addington, Warren McConnell (Bug) 2/6/1918 5/11/1989
The Seven Children of James Morris and Myrtle Lillie Francisco McConnell
Sweet, Edna Irene McConnell 9/19/1908 4/3/2000
Addington, Audrey Lee McConnell 9/21/1910 7/10/2003
McConnell, Carl Patton 1/24/1913 5/27/1994
McConnell, Veleta Jane 4/15/1915 5/22/2012
McConnell, James Kenneth 11/5/1917 4/15/1996
Moore, Geneva Mae McConnell 12/26/1919 1/25/2003
Thomas, Faye Marie McConnell 12/14/1925 2/12/1998
Hillbilly-Music.com would like to thank Ron McConnell, son of Carl McConnell for contacting us and providing us with information and photos of Doc and Carl's career and of the Addington family, which included Mother Maybelle Addington Carter.
A Brief History Of My Family And An Autobiographical Sketch of My Musical Life; Carl P. McConnell; January 24, 1976; Gate City, VA
Doc and Carl, The Virginia Boys; By Ronald McConnell (Carl's Son) and Barnett W. McConnell, Jr.
Remembering Doc Addington; Barnette McConnell, Jr. (Doc's stepson)
Mabelle Addingston Carter Siblings; By Ronald McConnell
Wednesday Radio Program; May 8, 1949; Cincinnati Enquirer; Cincinnati, OH
Lone Star; June 18, 1936; Kingsport Times; Kingsport, TN
Snowflake, VA; August 5, 1936; Kingsport Times; Kingsport, TN
Snowflake, VA; August 12, 1936; Kingsport Times; Kingsport, TN
Nickelsville, VA; August 20, 1936; Kingsport Times; Kingsport, TN
Two New Acts To Be Added By Old Dominion Barn Dance; November 29, 1946; The Times-Dispatch; Richmond, VA
Home Folks On The Air; February 1939; Rural Radio Magazine; Rural Radio, Inc.; Nashville, TN


text:
Wydad reach CAF Champions League final despite home draw with Petro
By AFP Published on: May 14, 2022 03:01 (EAT)
Two-time African champions Wydad triumphed 4-2 on aggregate having won the first leg of the semi-final 3-1 in Luanda last Saturday.
Moroccan club Wydad Casablanca qualified for a third CAF Champions League final in six seasons despite being held 1-1 by Angolan visitors Petro Luanda on Friday.
Wydad will confront title-holders Al Ahly from Egypt or Entente Setif from Algeria in the May 30 final with the Cairo club defending a 4-0 first-leg lead in Algiers on Saturday.
The final is scheduled for Morocco, but Ahly have asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to overturn the Confederation of African Football (CAF) decision, citing the need for a neutral venue.
Playing with confidence and energy lacking in the first leg, Petro went ahead on 21 minutes through Gleison Moreira, one of three Brazilians in the starting line-up.
Amine Farhane levelled seven minutes later at the Stade Mohammed V in the Moroccan commercial capital, and while Petro had more possession thereafter, they could not score again.
The closest the Luanda outfit came to securing what would have been a deserved second-leg victory was in added time at the end of the second half when substitute Erico Castro struck the woodwork.
With so much at stake, tempers became frayed as the second half progressed with four players from Wydad and three from Petro yellow carded. A member of the Angolan technical team was also cautioned.
- Red card -
Petro substitute Adriano Yano was shown a red card by the South African referee after the final whistle for dissent.
After displaying clinical efficiency to build a two-goal first-leg advantage, Wydad were favoured to win again in front of a huge, vocal, largely red-clad home crowd.
Petro had to score at least three goals to survive and, understandably, opted for a risky but necessary attacking approach.
It was hard to believe Wydad were the hosts in the early exchanges as Petro constantly pushed forward, forcing the Moroccans to back pedal continuously.
The boldness of the visiting team paid off when Gleison moved in the right flank and unleashed a shot from just outside the box that took a slight deflection off Farhane as it flew into the corner.
Farhane atoned soon after as he raced across the six-yard box and nodded a Reda Jaadi corner between goalkeeper Wellington Lima and To Carneiro for the equaliser.
Yano proved an inspired second-half substitution by Portuguese coach Alexandre Santos, going close twice to putting his team ahead again.
Petro have been the surprise side of the 2022 Champions League -- reaching the semi-finals for the first time since 2001 after scraping past a Cameroonian club on away goals in the first qualifying round.
Wydad Casablanca CAF Champions League Angola Petro Luanda

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Cheese in the Trap, Episodes 13-14: A Lack of Yoo Jung
While a lot has happened in previous episodes, this week's airing of Cheese in the Trap feels slightly aimless. For a show beginning to wrap up its run — the final episodes air next week — there was not much set into motion to reassure viewers of the drama's end goal. The last scene of episode 14 may have been indicative of the direction of the drama, but even then, it falls flat because of Yoo Jung's previous absence.
Yoo Jung's absence on the show makes sense realistically. After all, a boyfriend who is busy with his internship cannot make time for his girlfriend every day. However, in context of a drama, it leads to discontent with viewers. Cheese in the Trap was billed as a thriller-com — a rom-com with hints of mystery and danger — and without its enigmatic lead, Cheese in the Trap has turned into something without direction.
Even In-ho fans are feeling the brunt of Jung's absence. Although I love watching In-ho and had no problem with his increased screen presence, it also feels like a shoe-horned attempt to place In-ho as the second lead. In-ho has never had a chance with Seol. She has never once wavered in her platonic feelings towards In-ho; he has never once stirred her heart romantically.
Which is why Seol's reluctance to put her foot down with In-ho is so grating. Up till now, Seol has never crossed the line with In-ho and their friendship has been enjoyable to watch. But now that In-ho has confessed his feelings towards her, it is Seol's responsibility to adamantly inform him that he has no chance. By not protesting against In-ho's "one month plea," Seol is being unfair to both In-ho and Jung. After all her character growth so far in standing up for herself, it is frustrating that she cannot do so for something as important as this.
Of course, blame must also be placed on In-ho for confessing to Seol in the first place. He knows she has never been interested in him, and he knows how much she loves Jung. But out of desperation — or maybe something more — he confesses and puts Seol in an awkward spot. It is unfair of him to expect her to be okay with it, even with 'just being friends'.
In addition to the lack of direction amongst the three main characters, this week's plot felt lackluster as well. After episodes with the wicked machinations of Young-gon and Min-soo, Sang-chul's note stealing seems rather … harmless. This is not to excuse his actions, of course, but rather to note that Jung's punishment is too cruel for the crime — Jung goes out of his way to sabotage Sang-chul's future. It is especially hard to take in the fact that Seol accepts Jung's actions after Sang-chul's drunken apology to her.
Jung is not a judge; it is not his righteous duty to dole punishment as he sees fit. His revenge is exhausting to watch and I find it even worse that Seol has come to accept that. However, my opinion is not the sole judgement of Jung, either. By carefully crafting real-life scenarios and giving Jung depth, Cheese in the Trap merely acts as a vehicle of information.
By this, I mean that Cheese in the Trap makes no judgements about Jung's actions; the drama shows both the good and the bad — all the shades of gray. Cheese in the Trap leaves it up to the viewer to determine what shade of gray they are comfortable with, and it is this ambiguity that makes the show worthwhile, even during slow episodes like these.
What did you think about the lack of Jung? Did it make Cheese in the Trap better or worse?
Note: As this review was based on not reading the webtoon, please refrain from discussing webtoon-related spoilers in the comments.
(tvN)
Tags: Cheese in the Trap, Drama Review, Kim Go-eun, Park Hae Jin, Seo Kang-joon
Cats, K-pop, and TV
Madame Antoine 1-4: A Romantic Procedural
One More Happy Ending, 1-8: Pure Crazy Romance


There is much to love here. Peake writes in a visual way, very different to any other writer who I have described as being visual. Usually this means a kind of filmic-manner, like Elmore Leonard, so you can read it like you're watching it. But this is almost the opposite. You read this as if you're absorbing it. Like on a gallery wall, or perhaps on the side of a broken building, some genuine street-artist been at work.
You can call it fantasy, but there's nothing overtly 'fantastic', other than what can be fantastic. The characters are vividly drawn to the point of hurting your eyes, making them feel like bleeding instead of tearing. The inclusion of occasional sparse illustrations add further edge. You do not love any of them, but you pity them all. They are all dark and mean and 'bad', but the degree of harm they are willing to do differs, so I enjoy the moral ontology Peake plays with.
As some reviewers here have complained, it can be slow-going. I admit to considering throwing in the towel. On several occasions, picking up the tome did feel close to a chore, but after sitting down, being sat on by a cat (not a white one...) and having a glass of Shiraz at hand in my favourite reading chair, and after the first few paragraphs, you need to go further.


text:
Wilson Oruma (Warri, 30 de dezembro de 1976) é um ex-futebolista nigeriano, que montou boa parte de sua carreira no futebol francês. Foi campeão olímpico.

Carreira
Atuou por seis equipe gaulesas Lens, Nancy - empréstimo - , Nîmes, Sochaux, Olympique e Guingamp. Jogou também por Bendel Insurance, Samsunspor, Servette.

Oruma, que atuou pela Seleção Nigeriana de Futebol de 1995 a 2006, defendeu o time grego do Kavala, ao lado do pentacampeão mundial Denílson.

Seleção
Mesmo com quinze anos de Seleção, Oruma disputou apenas 19 partidas e marcou três gols pelas Spuer Águias. Atuou na Copa do Mundo FIFA de 1998, tendo atuado em um jogo. Foi surpreendentemente cortado da Seleção para a Copa do Mundo FIFA de 2002, e a nao-convocação  abalou a carreira de Oruma.

Ligações externas

Naturais de Warri
Futebolistas da Nigéria
Futebolistas da Association Sportive Nancy-Lorraine
Futebolistas do Nîmes Olympique
Futebolistas do Servette FC
Futebolistas do Football Club Sochaux-Montbéliard
Futebolistas do Olympique de Marseille
Futebolistas do En Avant de Guingamp
Futebolistas do Kavala FC
Jogadores da Seleção Nigeriana de Futebol
Jogadores da Copa do Mundo FIFA de 1998
Futebolistas olímpicos da Nigéria
Futebolistas nos Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 1996
Campeões olímpicos da Nigéria

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Leave your car in the church square in Visgnola, 2 kilometres from the village of Bellagio (you can also reach by Visgnola by bus, on the route to Lecco or Asso).
Leave the square heading west and return along the provincial road (via Valsassina) towards Ghisallo –Asso - Erba. After 80 m, take the steps on your left (trail sign 2). The route leads steeply uphill through the meadows and wood, following the red and white trail sign. When you come out of the wood and reach the Elisa Farmstead, pay attention to the trail, which deviates, on the flat, towards the left. After around 100 m turn right and go back through the meadow, following the sign for Chevrio.


text:
'A major miracle': Order of Malta helps woman with cancer, others find healing in Lourdes
[dropcap type="1″]J[/dropcap]oe and Charlotte Riley, a couple from Surprise, never had any children until last May. That's when Gina Charrlin, 52, began referring to the retired couple as "Mom and Dad."
The Rileys met Gina and her husband Chris when they made a pilgrimage to Lourdes, France with the Order of Malta.
Each year, the 900-year-old religious order sponsors a weeklong pilgrimage to Lourdes, the site of 18 apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Bernadette Soubrious in 1858. Millions of people — many of them desperately ill — journey to Lourdes each year in search of hope and healing.
The sick, known as malades, are chosen from among those recommended by their pastors to make the trip. A physician must verify that the person is able to travel and each malade has a companion — usually a spouse or parent — who also makes the journey.
"As far as I'm concerned, there is no question that a major miracle occurred," Joe Riley told The Catholic Sun. "When we went to Lourdes we had no children and when we came back we had a daughter and a son."
Before Gina left her home in Rio Rancho, N.M., where she'd been battling advanced thyroid cancer, tests showed there were three tumors in her neck that would need to be removed upon her return to the United States.
"It was a dark cloud over my mind, that I had to go back," Gina said. "I've had 21 surgeries in my life and that would have been my 22nd."
Having cancer, she said, turns your life upside down.
"The things that mattered suddenly don't matter," Gina said. "Everybody handles it differently, but when you have faith, it gives you a light to hang onto, a sense of hope."
Faith in God is something she grew up with. Her devout mother instilled a love of God in her as a young child. Earlier in life, she was carrying twins in what turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured, a life-threatening condition.
"I literally died two times that day and it changed my life, how I looked at things, how I looked at suffering," Gina said. "It made me close to God and to my husband and to Mary."
Doctors resuscitated her twice that day after she lost a huge amount of blood. Gina said she was in excruciating pain and had an out-of-body experience in which she saw herself with blue lips and a deathly white face, as doctors frantically called for help.
At that moment, she said she felt "this great, extreme, overwhelming love from God… His love for each of us is so immense that it would crush you in your human form."
Little did she know that at Lourdes in 2013, she would once again experience the vast ocean of God's love in a profoundly personal way.
Tender moment
On the day the malades were taken to bathe in the waters of Lourdes, Gina said she prayed that if it were God's will, she would be healed.
"It was about 50 degrees and the water was even colder. My teeth were chattering — I was very nervous about it. I wasn't expecting anything for myself," Gina said. Afterward, they were taken to a church where the Knights and Dames of the Order of Malta washed the malades' feet.
"It was the most humbling experience to have someone kiss your feet," Gina said. "They take off your socks and shoes, the priest would say a prayer and they pour the water over your feet."
And just like when she had bled to death years ago, she felt the immensity of God's love wash over her.
"I felt this great sense of God's love, of Mary's love — I felt as though Mary was hugging me. It was amazing," Gina said. "I went back to my room and cried for an hour."
To this day, she weeps when she tells others what happened.
Days after arriving back in Rio Rancho, Gina's doctor ordered a sonogram in order to assess the tumors in her neck.
"She read the test results and said, 'Gina, there are no tumors here.' I looked at the computer and for the first time in two years there were no tumors," Gina said. "My husband and I fell to our knees. The doctor put her arms around me-she was crying too. She said, 'Gina, you are cancer-free.'"
Transformed by grace
Not everyone who travels to Lourdes receives a physical healing. For some, it's the outpouring of grace they receive that helps them bear their cross or accept their illness.
Jack and Jeanne O'Brien have been to Lourdes numerous times over the years with the Order of Malta and have seen the transformation that takes place when souls are flooded with compassion and grace.
"I remember one lady with cancer who was angry. She hadn't come to accept it," Jeanne said. "As the week went on, she softened. Her whole demeanor changed. By the end of the week, she had come to grips with it and saw that God had given her this to bear. That in itself is a small miracle."
Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, who has visited Lourdes three times, said it is a place of great prayer and transformation. Some people are healed physically, but certainly many others return with a closer relationship to Christ and the Blessed Mother, he said.
"I'm always impressed by the Order of Malta, the way they care for the malades, the respect they have for them, their constant care for them and in a way that lifts up their dignity," Bishop Olmsted said. "Everybody is there for the sick."
John Sack, who has been a Knight of the Order of Malta for 10 years, has traveled to Lourdes seven times. He said caregivers who make the pilgrimage often experience healing too.
"The healing that happens there is a different kind of thing," Sack said. "It's an acceptance of the role. Becoming a caregiver is not something you ask for in life."
One woman, he said, was having a difficult time caring for her disabled daughter but found the grace at Lourdes to persevere.
Then there are the malades who, though battling their own illnesses, are moved to relieve the suffering of others. Jeanne recalled one malade who struggled with multiple sclerosis.
About two weeks after they returned from the pilgrimage, he told her that all his symptoms were gone even though he had not asked the Blessed Mother to heal him. Instead, he offered to bear the pain that other malades were experiencing.
Over the next couple of years, the man was diagnosed with severe back problems, colon cancer and finally Parkinson's.
"He was a man of deep faith," Jeanne said. "He asked the Blessed Mother to give him their pain and let him carry it. I really think he carried the burden for someone else for awhile."
That desire to serve, even at such a steep price, is what's motivating Gina these days. She wants to return to Lourdes, not as a malade, but as a servant.
"My greatest aspiration is to become a Dame of Malta," Gina said. "I pray every day that I have what it takes to go and be of service. That was my promise to Mary for the rest of my life. That's what gives me joy."
She's already brought much joy to Joe and Charlotte Riley, the elderly, childless couple she now considers to be her parents.
"We bonded real well that first day," Charlotte said. "That night at dinner, she asked how many kids we had. I told her none."
"You do now," Gina told her. The two families have been close ever since and plan to spend time together this spring.
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text:
Q: has been blocked by CORS policy: Request header field contend-type is not allowed by Access-Control-Allow-Headers I learn NodeJS and REACT and I built the frontend and the backend.
for now, I want to connect the front to the back.
so, I add those lines of code in my app.js of the backend:
app.use((req, res, next) => {
  res.setHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*");
  res.setHeader(
    "Access-Control-Allow-Headers",
    "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept, Authorization"
  );
  res.setHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "GET, POST, PATCH, DELETE");

  next();
});

and my full app.js (pay attention that I delete the URL of the MongoDB because i don't want to publish it:
const express = require("express");
const bodyParser = require("body-parser");
const mongoose = require("mongoose");

const placesRoutes = require("./routes/places-routes");
const usersRoutes = require("./routes/users-routes");
const HttpError = require("./models/http-error");

const app = express();

//Parse any incoming request body and extract any json data that is in there converted to regular javascript data structure (object,array...) and than call next autometically to reach the next middleware inline
app.use(bodyParser.json());

app.use((req, res, next) => {
  res.setHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*");
  res.setHeader(
    "Access-Control-Allow-Headers",
    "Origin, X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Accept, Authorization"
  );
  res.setHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "GET, POST, PATCH, DELETE");

  next();
});

app.use("/api/places/", placesRoutes); //place route

app.use("/api/users/", usersRoutes); //user route

//run only if the other routes did not send a respond
app.use((req, res, next) => {
  const error = new HttpError("Could not find this route.", 404);
  throw error;
});

app.use((error, req, res, next) => {
  //this function will execute if any middleware Infront of it yields an error
  if (res.headerSent) {
    //check if respond already has been sent
    return next(error);
  }
  //if code properties is set or default 500 => error code that something went wrong
  res.status(error.code || 500);
  res.json({ message: error.message || "An unknown error occurred!" });
});

mongoose
  .connect(
    "something"
  )
  .then(() => {
    app.listen(5000);
    console.log("connected");
  })
  .catch((err) => {
    console.log(err);
  });

*

*and my error:

*Full description of the error if you can't see the image:
Access to fetch at 'http://localhost:5000/api/users/signup' from origin 'http://localhost:3000' has been blocked by CORS policy: Request header field contend-type is not allowed by Access-Control-Allow-Headers in preflight response.
POST http://localhost:5000/api/users/signup net::ERR_FAILED
TypeError: Failed to fetchat authSubmitHandler (Auth.js:74:1)at HTMLUnknownElement.callCallback (react-dom.development.js:189:1)at Object.invokeGuardedCallbackDev (react-dom.development.js:238:1)at invokeGuardedCallback (react-dom.development.js:291:1)at invokeGuardedCallbackAndCatchFirstError (react-dom.development.js:306:1)at executeDispatch (react-dom.development.js:391:1)at executeDispatchesInOrder (react-dom.development.js:416:1)at executeDispatchesAndRelease (react-dom.development.js:3300:1)at executeDispatchesAndReleaseTopLevel (react-dom.development.js:3309:1)at forEachAccumulated (react-dom.development.js:3281:1)at runEventsInBatch (react-dom.development.js:3326:1)at runExtractedPluginEventsInBatch (react-dom.development.js:3536:1)at handleTopLevel (react-dom.development.js:3580:1)at batchedEventUpdates$1 (react-dom.development.js:21726:1)at batchedEventUpdates (react-dom.development.js:798:1)at dispatchEventForLegacyPluginEventSystem (react-dom.development.js:3590:1)at attemptToDispatchEvent (react-dom.development.js:4310:1)at dispatchEvent (react-dom.development.js:4231:1)at unstable_runWithPriority (scheduler.development.js:656:1)at runWithPriority$1 (react-dom.development.js:11076:1)at discreteUpdates$1 (react-dom.development.js:21743:1)at discreteUpdates (react-dom.development.js:811:1)at dispatchDiscreteEvent (react-dom.development.js:4210:1)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Mylrea, Martina F., Sen Gupta, Tarun, and Glass, Beverley D. (2015) Professionalization in pharmacy education as a matter of identity. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 79 (9). 142. pp. 1-9.
Little research exists on the formation of professional identity in higher education health programs. Such programs may approach the teaching, learning, and assessment of professionalism based upon a suite of attitudes, values, and behaviors considered indicative of a practicing professional. During this transition, professional identity formation can be achieved through student engagement with authentic experiences and interaction with qualified professionals. This paper examines the shift toward identity formation as an essential element of professional education and considers its implications for pharmacy curriculum design.


Official site of Nicole Lazzaro's company where you can find a lot of presentations and videos about 4 Keys to Fun.
You can find here a lot of researches (or links on researches) about player engagement and motivation.
The first part of GDC lecture (GDC 2012) from Jason VandenBerghe about using of O.C.E.A.N. personality model in game design.
The second part of GDC lecture (GDC 2013) from Jason VandenBerghe about using of O.C.E.A.N. personality model in game design.
GDC game design lecture from Richard Lemarchand about Attention, Engagement, and Immersion in games.
Lecture from Nicole Lazzaro about 4 key emotions that drive the player engagement.
Casual Connect lecture from Nicole Lazzaro about 4 Keys to Fun with a focus on the neurophysiology of key emotions.
Casual Connect lecture from Nicole Lazzaro about 4 Keys to Fun with a focus on monetization of F2P games.
GDC lecture from Nicole Lazzaro about 4 Keys to Fun with a focus on social game mechanics and social games.
GDC lecture from Erin Hoffman with an interesting model of "Fun".
GDC lecture from Scott Rigby (Immersyve) about Autonomy/Relatedness/Competence – the main components of the player long-term motivation.
GDC lecture from Scott Rigby and Troy Skinner about player motivation with a focus on Competence, one of the most important components of the player long-term engagement.


text:
Co-founder of the Internet and Google Vice-President, Vint Cerf, to speak at TTCIC Annual Business Meeting
April 13th, 2022 | Related To: Trinidad Division of the Trinidad & Tobago Chamber of Industry & Commerce
Vinton G. Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google
The topic "Imagine that…!" will look at life and business in a future technology driven environment.
Vinton G. Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google will be the guest speaker at the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce's Annual Business Meeting on 26th April. Themed "Imagine that..!", Mr. Cerf will give strategic insight to the audience by discussing the possibilities of full connectivity on our planet and what is required of Trinidad and Tobago to engage in the opportunities ahead.
Vint Cerf is considered the co-founder of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the internet, along with Robert Kahn. He has served in executive positions at ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the Internet Society, MCI Inc., the Corporation for National Research Initiatives and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Among the many awards he has received is the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest award to civilians, which was bestowed in 1997. Vint is an internationally renowned speaker on trends in digitization and in driving imagination into what lies ahead in a world in which lives and business are driven by technology.
Charles Pashley, President of the Chamber notes, "We are honoured to have this prestigious guest speaker join us at our first Signature Event for the year. The world of imagination was once viewed as being incompatible with business, but people like Vint have been exploding that myth in his global engagements. In fact, technology is driving a new wave of imaginative innovators in every sector. We too can free our minds to the possibilities that technology offers to businesses. It is time to re-imagine our tomorrow and re-shape our future. We at the Chamber believe that this conference, 'Imagine that…!' is about giving you that tool."
The Annual Business Meeting is the first of the Chamber's annual Signature Events for 2022. It takes place on Tuesday 26th April from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon, following the Annual General Meeting. The Business Meeting is designed as an interactive session, allowing the audience to pose questions directly.
To register, go to: https://chamber.org.tt/am2022
Or call 637-6966, extension 1308
The Chamber thanks its 2022 Signature Event sponsors: bmobile BUSINESS, Eximbank Trinidad and Tobago Limited, The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited and the Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation.
Vinton G. Cerf Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist Google
Vinton G. Cerf is vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. He is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. He has served in executive positions at ICANN, the Internet Society, MCI, the Corporation for National Research Initiatives and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. A former Stanford Professor and former member of the US National Science Board, he is also the past President of the Association for Computing Machinery and serves in advisory capacities at NIST, DOE, NSF and NASA. He earned his B.S. in mathematics at Stanford and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science at Stanford. He is a member of both the US National Academies of Science and Engineering. Cerf is a recipient of numerous awards for his work, including the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, US National Medal of Technology, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, the Prince of Asturias Award, the Tunisian National Medal of Science, the Japan Prize, the Charles Stark Draper award, the ACM Turing Award, the Marconi Prize, the Legion d'Honneur and the Franklin Medal. He is a Foreign Member of the British Royal Society and Swedish Academy of Engineering and holds 29 honorary degrees. He is a member of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists and the Worshipful Company of Stationers.


Auto Accidents. Get Started Finding a Local Attorney Now. … But if you were the victim in an automobile accident, you should also be thinking about whether an auto accident lawyer can help you recover money to pay your accident-related bills and compensate you for pain and suffering.


Inside of every high performing business there's a high-performing owner.
For you to get the most out of this article I need to tell you something: Ryan and I have been posting about the Fitness Business Alignment System™ and the role it can play in your building a high-performing business.
This post is about the other key ingredient in the formula for a high performing business – a high performing YOU.
The distinction is critical, and you'll see why by the end of the post.
#1: They meet their commitments.
On anything from making good on payments to giving their word, they recognize the importance of a commitment. If life gets in the way, like it does for all of us, a high performer owns failures and works to make them right. One of our Core Values is "We do what we say we're going to do". We want to instill in our team that maintaining commitments is non-negotiable. It's no accident that high performers are known for their dependability.
#2: They are open to criticism.
They usually aren't the person who has a reason 'why' for everything; they're usually the person who has an example of how they made a mistake and how they've learned from it. Learning from mistakes and accepting feedback is one of the biggest factors that separates high performers from the rest.
#3: They are life-long learners.
#4: They are up to the challenge.
#5: They recognize all aspects of their health.
#6: They respect the needs of the business.
#7: They make all of their decisions with the long and short term in mind.
It doesn't mean they are always right – it means they are always working to align the short term with the long term. Another way of saying this is that high performers can see the detail without losing sight (or alignment) with the big picture.
You'll notice that all of these signs of high performer are behavioral. There's nothing on this list that one person may be born with that another is not. There's no mention of IQ, appearance, SAT score, or any type of benchmark or score. They are all things that we can do. If we don't "do" these things naturally, they are behaviors that we can cultivate through the forming of good habits.
You have control over all of the things that define a high performer.
High performance can mean different things to different people, but the constant for everyone is that it's driven by how you think and act. (You might also note the contrast in the high-performer and the 'at-risk' owner from a recent post.) The most important lesson that I've learned from surrounding myself with high performers isn't a metric, number, checklist or strategy but learning how high performers think and act.
The high-performing YOU is built on the foundation of how you think and act.
A high-performing business has to be built on a foundation of certain functional pieces, and those pieces have to be measured. That's not the case when we're talking about the high-performing YOU. The high-performing YOU is built on the foundation of how you think and act.
The tools are there. What we can't do is make your mind up for you. You have to do that in order to build your high-performing self and your own high-performing business.


One of Nudie Jeans' slimmest fitting models, the Skinny Lin Dry Deep Orange are made from a soft, dry power stretch denim. Featuring Nudie's signature orange thread on all seams, the Skinny Lin Dry Deep Orange is finished with copper trims and zip fly. As with all dry jeans, these will take a bit of time to wear in but once you do there will be no looking back.


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Come Sleep In A Giant Potato In Idaho United States of America
Samuel Reason | May 5th, 2019
There is one Airbnb rental that is becoming strikingly internet famous, and that is a giant potato in Idaho, United States of America. This potato is so huge it could be turned into hundreds of french fries, though it appears the owner decided to turn it into a home.
media.my9nj.com
Potatoes undoubtedly do make great comfort food, in fact, they probably are one of the world's favorite: from french fries to country fries to tatter totters. But one Airbnb owner is turning that saying on its head by creating a comfortable home out of our favorite comfort food.
Potentially one of the strangest Airbnb listings in the world, the 6-ton spud has been turned into a tiny home that anyone can rent overnight. The 28 foot long and 12 foot wide, 11.5-foot tall potato structure is standing strong as a promotional tool build for Idaho Potato Commission. It is helping them promote their Big Idaho Potato Tour and has even been bolted to a trailer to travel across 48 states. Though now it rests in its birthplace of South Boise, Idaho – ready to host adventurers or simply carb lovers.
Though actually, it isn't even a real potato! What a letdown. In fact, the structure has been built out of steel, plaster, and concrete – no real veggies in it at all. Kristie Wolf is the mastermind behind the potato theme tiny home. She is an experienced tiny home builder who created a little hobbit hole in Washington state, another quirky Airbnb listing. Wolf has been featured many times in tiny home magazines such as TODAY Home, though her potato tiny home is one of her favorites.
As World was part of the Big Idaho Potato Truck Tour and an official team member, she was traveling around the country with this giant potato on a truck to promote their business. Then it hit her to turn the potato into a tiny home.
Wolf being a native Idahoan has loved potatoes for generations, and wanted to do everything she could to promote the state's number one agricultural commodity.
Captain Blackbeard Was Actually A Real Life Terminator
The infamous Captain Blackbeard that has sparked so many stories, TV series and films over the years is an extremely iconic figure in the world of pirates. Most likely the best-known pirate during the Golden Age of Piracy, which happened from the late 1600s to the mid-1720s. Although his true pirating career only did last...
The Maori Use Fungus For Tattoos
As we are sure you have seen the pacific islanders have an intensive cultural and ancestry of face and body tattoos. And this is something that has been an integral part of their culture for generations, of course, you may ask how in the world did they create ink for the use of tattoos. Well,...
The High Tech Toilet That Sank A Military Submarine
During World War II, countries across the world were making strides and improvements when it came to military equipment. And nothing was more advanced than submarines. The German Type VIIC submarine, for example, was considered to be one of the most advanced hunters of the seas during its era. And...
The 2,000 Year Old Fast Food Joints Of Pompeii
Similar to the modern man and woman, it appears the Romans of Pompei did indeed love fast food. Not every night do you have the time to cook up an exquisite taste of ancient Italian food with wine. Archeologists have found proof in the ruins of Pompeii that many a snack bar or fast food...
The Trial Of The Autun Rats
In 1508 in France, a very strange trial took place. In a quiet farming town of Autun, around 300 kilometers south of Paris, there was a constant sound of scurrying little feet. Indeed Autun had a major rats problem, they were everywhere and destroying many of the local crops. It was a major problem, but...
The Man Who Has Filled Thousands Of Potholes
Dadarao Bilhore is a man on a mission, a mission to wage war against the enemies of the street: the simple pothole. When his only son died in a road accident that was caused by a pothole, he took matters into his own hands. Bilhore has filled in thousands of potholes and has even launched...
The Day Fabio Killed A Goose With His Face
It was a horrific scene that happened due to a terrible accident, everything changed in 1999 when male superstar model Fabio ended up killing a goose with his face. The margarine spokesman Fabio, a household name to so many families from the 1990s killed goose mid-air with nothing but his face. ...
The 16 Psyche Asteroid Could Make Everyone A Billionaire
There is a giant golden asteroid that flies around space carrying enough heavy metals to make everyone on Earth a billionaire. There is so much precious metal on this asteroid that NASA is even planning an attempt to reach it on 2022. Known as Psyche 16 the asteroid is found...
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The Peanuts are a part of the American experience. It has helped shaped almost everyone born in the last century, and maybe it will continue to, but who knows? When my friend who is really into Snoopy told me she wished she could go with me to Japan so she could go to the Snoopy Museum, I felt I had to go out of obligation. I doubted whether I would enjoy it since I didn't consider myself a huge fan who needed to make the trek to another museum about another comic, but I remember how much I loved seeing the Tin Tin museum in Europe years ago, and figured I'd give it a go. I'm glad I did.
The Snoopy Museum is one of the most heart-string-pullingest exhibits I've ever seen. It's called Love is Wonderful, and it dives deep into the relationships between the characters of Charles Shulz's famous comic strip. It becomes aparent that it could also have been called Love is a Toturous Beast Forcing You to Die Alone. But it saves you from that with cute imagery and real hand-drawn comics and an incredible layout. There's a part when you turn a corner and realize there are cuts in the walls that frame a picture of Shulz and his sweetheart, an image you walk past in the beginning, so you're looking back on a love story in someone else's life much like you do in your own, and contemplate how his experiences colored his iconic work.


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José Santiago (1960s Pitcher)
José Rafael Santiago Alfonso (born August 15, 1940, in Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico) is a former right-handed pitcher in American Major League Baseball.
Possessor of an outstanding curveball, Santiago reached the American League in 1963 with the Kansas City Athletics. His contract was sold to the Boston Red Sox after the 1965 season, and he became a key member of pitching staff of the 1967 Red Sox, posting a 12–4 record with a 3.59 ERA in 50 games. He was largely a middle relief pitcher that season, starting only 11 games, and compiled an 8–3 mark in relief with five saves. However, he also made several important starts, including Game 1 of the 1967 World Series, which he lost to Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, 2–1, accounting for the only Boston run with a home run in his first World Series plate appearance.
Although Santiago lost both of his World Series decisions to the St. Louis Cardinals and compiled an ERA of 5.59, he began the 1968 campaign in the Boston rotation, compiling a 9–4 record with a 2.25 ERA in 18 starts before an elbow injury ended his season. The injury effectively ruined his major league career. After that, he appeared in only 18 more games during 1969 and 1970, and never won another major league game.
Santiago ended his majors career with 163 appearances, 34 victories and 29 losses and an ERA of 3.74. He also was selected to the 1968 MLB All-Star Game.
In 1979, Santiago managed in a short-lived Class AAA circuit, the Inter-American League, as skipper of the Puerto Rico Boricuas. His club won 16 of 55 games (.291), ending sixth and last in the six-team league, and folded June 17. Thirteen days later, the entire league shut down.
Terms related to José Santiago (1960s Pitcher):


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LatAm Mining in 2020: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
By Dr. Remi Piet
In Mining
LatAm Mining in 2020: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly2020-02-132021-03-09https://americasmi.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/ami_logo_web_default_01.pngAmericas Market Intelligencehttps://americasmi.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/latam-mining-2020-good-bad-ugly.jpg200px200px
These are exciting — and distressing — times for miners. Stable pricing in industrial metals and elevated prices in precious metals ought to create a welcome investment environment. But 2019 was an eight-year low for new investments captured by mining juniors. Part of the challenge may be robust community opposition to mining projects, a phenomenon felt around the world but most acutely in Latin America. Mining majors are learning to adapt to community opposition but Juniors remain largely ill-equipped to manage this surging above-ground risk. Such an assortment of opportunities prompted us to look at the year ahead through the prism of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Western classic.
The rise is mineral prices is definitely encouraging for mining companies. In 2019, prices increased in several metals categories:
Iron ore 21.65%
Nickel 20.01%
Gold 14.51%
Silver 9.73%
Copper, grade A cathode 2.32%
The economic benefit to host countries is obvious, but higher prices can also trigger resource nationalism and political pressure to raise royalties, hence rising prices can be both good and ugly.
Waking to the alarm of community opposition and buoyed by higher stock prices and more profits, miners, especially majors, have started to invest in more sustainable approaches to mining, albeit under a broad definition of what is sustainable. Almost every major now features sustainability in their marketing and PR outreach. Some (not all) are also integrating sustainability into their operations.
Improving community relations tops the list of above-ground risks facing miners. There has been an acknowledgement from the industry that ESG — environmental, social and governance — concerns have to be made a priority, improving both communication, engagement with communities and risk mitigation strategies. The major mining conferences where AMI senior consultants attended over the last year (IMARC, PDAC, Indaba, MILA and others) have devoted significant portions of their programs to sustainability, social license to operate and value creation for the host country, province and local community. These topics have now become mainstream thinking for miners — this was not the case 3-5 years ago.
Over the last five years in Latin America, community opposition has suspended more mining projects than any other factor. But the diligent engagement with local communities by a handful of investors is now bearing fruit. Lundin Gold (Ecuador), Antioquia Gold (Colombia), First Quantum (Panama) have shown the way for others. Winning United Nations awards for the quality of their local content strategy (catering, training, etc.), the Fruta del Norte project (developed by first by Kinross, later by Lundin Gold) has shown that engaging in safe, sustainable practices together with local stakeholders reduces the impact of misinformation about mining practices that foments distrust among locals. When the Shuar indigenous community from the Ecuadorian province of Morona Santiago increased their actions against the Chinese-operated Mirador mine, their counterparts in Zamora Chinchipe (near Fruta del Norte) did not join the action and instead continued engaging with Lundin, understanding that mining is one of their few economic opportunities. These three companies have engaged in succesful bottom-up approaches built upon 1-2 years of community engagement as a mine development is just getting started. This sharply contrasts with the top-down approach where sustainability is used first as a PR stunt and talked about keenly by senior management but on-the-ground methods remain unchanged.
In Antioquia, Colombia, in particular, several companies (Continental Gold, AngloGold Ashanti, Mineros SA) are in the process of implementing UN-defined sustainable development goals to tailor their license to operate strategy with a clear focus on lasting development around mining sites.
Despite the current uptick in mineral prices, project financing volumes have slowed. Data from private capital tracker Preqin — cited recently in an article on Mining.com — indicates that funding for mining projects in 2019 hit an eight-year low.
In 2019 only four unlisted funds closed. They raised a combined $300 million for investing in the mining sector. This is in sharp contrast to 2018, when $2.5 billion was raised, not to mention 2012, when eight funds were able to raise a combined $4.2 billion. When compared to agriculture, the low investment in mining comes into even sharper relief: in 2019 there was 12 times more capital investment in farmland than there was in mining.
Lack of investment translates into a lack of support for the junior miners who typically handle the exploration of new projects. A weaker project pipeline will prove problematic 6-9 years from now when production growth slows.
In an effort to engage with local communities, it is important also to lobby middle (province, state, department) level political and business leaders who collectively may hold sway over local community actors. If the interests of these middle players is threatened by a new mine, then no amount of local community support will be enough to neutralize the efforts of these middle players to work against the mine. This phenomenon is often present in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, where local provinces are home to important business interests and political leaders who are often misaligned with the interests of national government and business leaders. Regional business leaders are often the key partners that miners need to develop local procurement vendors. The want to play a role in any large project under way in the home state or province.
The rise in precious mineral prices makes it more attractive for cartels or guerrillas to fund their own informal mining efforts or to work with informal gold miners to launder their product. The entire industry suffers reputationally when such nefarious players get involved. New industrial mining projects may pose a direct threat to illegal miners, many of whom are well-armed and likely to fight for their turf. Few miners are properly equipped with either hard or soft security and negotiation skills to confront this threat. We've seen this issue damage industry and company reputations in Suriname, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Brazil and Ecuador.
The tradition of mining financiers relying on mining companies to provide their own due diligence reports is proving very risky in the new reality of local project risks that may not be detected in a standard due diligence report or worse, still are overlooked by a miner who rejects the idea of shining an unflattering light on his project. Financial investors may have to begin conducting their own in-depth local community risk assessments of projects or risk filling their portfolios with delayed or unviable projects.
Rising mineral prices incentivize more informal (and very inefficient) miners to enter the fray. They ignore environmental and safety protocols, pollute water resources and often resort to violence to defend their dubious land claims. Damages caused by informal miners are sometimes blamed on legitimate miners, causing reputational damage. Short-sighted strategies to police informal miners can also backfire, antagonizing local stakeholders. In August 2019, Canadian miner Iamgold Corp. fired 325 contractors from its Rosebel gold mine in Suriname. The company did so in an attempt to restore security after an illegal miner broke into the Rosebel site and was killed by police, sparking a larger clash between illegal miners and the police.
Resource nationalism is another "ugly" challenge for miners to contend with in 2020. With mineral prices rising, governments sometimes seek re-negotiation of titles with companies, demanding major increases that make projects unprofitable. Currently we foresee a risk of resource nationalism in jurisdictions like Mexico, Central America and potentially Chile and Argentina.
Resource nationalism does not only lead to changing royalty structures but often, more worryingly, fuels political campaigns ahead of local and national elections eager to score political points at the expense of productive projects. For instance, Elmer Cáceres Llica, regional governor of Arequipa in Peru, continues to show strong opposition to the Tía María project from Southern Peru. A group called Arequipeños por Arequipa has accused Cáceres of being responsible for the violent clashes due to protests against the project. It's a thorny matter, but the upshot is that local politicians can exert considerable influence to delay or shut down projects, and not only in Peru where Tia Maria but also Conga or Las Bambas are stealing headlines of articles dedicated to jeopardized projects. Several dozens of projects across Latin America are facing vocal populist opponents, in particular in Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and French Guiana.
Strong opposition to new projects is also expected in Brazil, where President Bolsonaro's administration has unveiled a bill that would allow mining in protected land belonging to indigenous communities. While the proposed bill does include provisions to consult local communities, these would have no ability to veto mining projects once Congress authorizes them. This bill could provoke a firestorm of local protests, violence, sabotage and unrest, along with a heavy reputational cost for the miners who decide to develop projects in these previously protected lands.
Going forward, it's imperative that miners develop proactive strategies to mitigate these risks, using improved communication, outreach and engagement to counteract resource nationalism from politicians, looking for alternative strategies to discourage illegal mining with tools beyond heavy-handed policing and finding ways to work with local communities as partners.
Keep up to date with our Mining insights
Dr. Remi Piet
Dr. Remi Piet is a Director at Americas Market Intelligence (AMI) and co-leader of the firm's Natural Resources and Infrastructure Practice. Remi leads political and other risk analysis activities for the mining, energy and infrastructure sectors in Latin America. He has worked on projects in more than 60 countries across Latin America, Asia and Europe and taught at several universities including the University of Miami, HEC (Paris) and Qatar University. Be it a snapshot country and counterparty risk analysis ahead of an asset purchase or the on-going monitoring of on-the-ground risks for miners and energy players, Remi leads the design and execution of bespoke engagements for our clients.
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"Más de un cuarto de usuarios de LatAm compra criptomonedas regularmente"
La revista digital iProUp enfocada en economía y finanzas acaba de publicar un artículo que divulga algunos de los hallazgos más interesantes del reporte de Americas Market Intelligence Crypto Usage in Latin America. A continuación un extracto del artículo: Si se pone el foco en la Argentina, el 72% de los usuarios [compra criptomonedas] de […]
La República comparte datos AMI sobre aceptación de pagos digitales en pymes
El diario La República de Colombia acaba de publicar un artículo que muestra la adopción que han tenido los pagos digitales entre pequeñas y medianas empresas de América Latina. Los datos provienen del estudio de Americas Market Intelligence comisionado por la plataforma de pagos Kushki. A continuación un extracto del artículo: En los últimos años […]
AMI Publishes Report on 5 Energy Megatrends in Latin America for 2023
Miami, January 19, 2023—Americas Market Intelligence (AMI) has just published a new report, entitled 5 Megatrends in Latin America's Energy Sector for 2023 and Beyond, which is available for free download on the AMI website. AMI has completed more than 100 studies on Latin America's energy market over the years. It has produced proprietary research […]
Fintech Nexus News shares AMI's data from EBANX's "Beyond Borders" report
Fintech Nexus News has published an article about the growth of digital payments for e-commerce in Latin America, with fresh data from the EBANX's report Beyond Border 2022/2023. The share of Latin Americans who have an account jumped from 39% to 73% between 2011 and 2021, while only 28% of people in LatAm have a […]
BNamericas shares AMI data about LatAm e-commerce market in 2023
The digital magazine BNamericas has published an article about the potential growth of Latin America's e-commerce in the next year, despite the unfavorable international context. LatAm market is also likely to welcome the presence of international e-commerce players: A key trend involves greater presence of international e-commerce players, particularly Asian ones like Shopee and AliExpress. According […]
Financial IT shares AMI data about the rise of APMs in the region
The digital magazine Financial IT has shared data about the potential growth of APM in the region, which "already make up almost 40% of digital commerce volume in Latin America." That data comes from Beyond Borders 2022/2023, a recent study by EBANX with data from Americas Market Intelligence. Here is a brief excerpt of the article: […]
LABS cited AMI's data about alternative payments in LatAm's digital commerce
The study "Beyond Borders" by EBANX, with data from Americas Market Intelligence (AMI), shows the diversification in the payments landscape during 2022. LABS Magazine has shared some insights from the study, including the current stage of BNPL in Latin America and the rise of instant transactions with payment methods such as Pix and CoDi. This […]


You can run the program at http://programmingpraxis.codepad.org/iyHozRKJ. This function will be added to the Standard Prelude the next time it is updated.
Ahem. The blog had edited my code?
Another try. The software doesn't like less-than or greater-than signs?
There's a link to instructions on how to post source code in the red bar above.
The source code is embedded in HTML where < and > have to be written < and > (assuming I get this right :) or otherwise escaped.
Go Newton's method! This is a Common Lisp one, not using any floating arithmetic.
(defun ipow (n k) "Takes n to the kth power"
It may have a bug – I don't know if it always converges.
Did in SmallTalk; the initial guess for Newton's method is taken by calculating 2 ^ (floor(log2(n)) / k).
x0 := 1 bitShift: a highBit // n.
x := a // (x0 raisedTo: n-1) - x0 // n + x0.
[ x := y ].
^ self > 0 ifTrue: [x] ifFalse: [n odd ifTrue: [x negated] ifFalse: [x i]].


It's one of those weeks. You know, the kind where it seems like we're all living Nintendo cheat sequences (up up, down down, left right, left right…). Even for a tragically optimistic, glass-half-full kind of girl like myself, the weight of the world feels just a little bit heavier at the moment. For those of you who are hitting a rough spot, are feeling the teeth of life sinking in, or as Jeff Tweedy of Wilco says, are in need a "sonic shoulder to cry on," I've complied a few cheer-up songs that have been floating through my speakers, as a reminder that what goes down must come up. (This is a scientific fact according to Roberts' Law of Emotional Physics). Until that happens, here's a little audio bear hug courtesy of Green Light Go.