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*America as a Judeo-Christian Nation: A Brief Note on Unmarked Religious Holidays
Posted on September 26, 2014 by Vinay Lal
In the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), one of the two or three largest school districts in the United States, this Thursday, September 25th, was a school holiday. Some weeks ago, in studying the 2014-15 school calendar so that, as a parent of two teenage children who attend two different schools in the LAUSD school district, I could be better prepared in planning my children's schedules and my own, I noticed that September 25th was listed as a holiday and described as "an unassigned day". The calendar doesn't explain what an "unassigned day" means; and I wondered what the occasion might be for a school holiday. Apart from the long winter recess, which of course revolves around Christmas, and the spring recess, LAUSD's holidays generally follow the pattern found in the rest of the country, and the holidays are meant to mark significant milestones in the country's history or celebrate the lives of notable individuals, such as Martin Luther King Jr—though, of course, the King holiday is of comparatively recent vintage, and aroused enormous resentment among those who were hostile to him or thought that far more eminent (white) Americans had not been similarly honored. In California, though apparently not in most of the nation, Cesar Chavez is dignified (as indeed he should be) with a holiday: the LAUSD school calendar lists April 6th as an "unassigned day", but a note explains that the holiday is meant to mark the observance of Cesar Chavez's birthday. The United States also observes, rather strangely, President's Day: if the intent here was to celebrate the founding fathers who rose to the office of the President, or "great" American presidents, such as those figures—Jefferson, Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln—who have been conferred immortality at Mt. Rushmore, one can imagine many Americans nodding their head in assent. President's Day in actuality marks the birthday of George Washington, but not every state celebrates it as Washington's birthday; indeed, there is the tacit recognition, signified by the designation of "President's Holiday", that every American president is to be felicitated. But why should that be so? Are Lincoln, Grover Cleveland, Martin van Buren—assuming that anyone remembers him at all—Jimmy Carter, and George Bush to be equally honored? Should war-mongers among the presidents be honored or rather pitied, critiqued, and ostracized?
This is all by way of saying that a good deal can be inferred about a country from its holidays. That much should be obvious, once we set our minds to thinking about little things like these; though it is these little and often unremarked upon things that reveal far more about a nation than the more common representations that a country encourages and engenders about itself. The world observes Labor Day, also known as International Workers' Day, on May 1st—but, as is commonly known, in the United States Labor Day is observed on the first Monday of September. One might explain this away as yet another instance of American exceptionalism, as yet one more illustration of some insatiable need on the part of the United States to signify its difference from others and proclaim itself as the last great hope of humankind. Just about the only other country where Labor Day is similarly celebrated in September is Canada, but this is barely surprising: notwithstanding its pretensions at being a 'softer' state than its neighbor to the south, more humane and sensitive to the considerations of common people, Canada is clearly incapable of having any independent policy and has slavishly accepted the American lead in most affairs of life. (Yes, I am aware that Canada has nationalized health care.) We need not be detained here by the history of how it transpired that the United States came to observe Labor Day in September: suffice to say that a certain American president, Grover Cleveland, was alarmed at the proximity of Labor Day (May 1) to the commemoration of the Haymarket riot (May 4), and wanted to ensure that celebrations of Labor Day would not furnish a pretext to remember the communists and anarchists who, it was argued, precipitated the Haymarket riot.
For the present, however, I am rather more animated by how Thursday, September 25th, became a school holiday in Los Angeles—an "unassigned day", though most other holidays are known by their proper names, such as Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving Day, and so on. (Schools in the Los Angeles school district are shut down for the entire week of Thanksgiving; the first three days of that week are also marked as "unassigned days", though it is understood that they are appended to Thanksgiving Day and form part of a week-long recess.) I am also struck by what appears to be a wholly unrelated fact, but on reflection helped me unravel this puzzle. The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where I have been teaching for two decades, is commencing the fall quarter rather late. The fall quarter always begins on a Thursday, since later in the quarter Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday; this ensures that there are ten complete weeks of instruction. Ordinarily, classes commence in the last week of September; this year, fall quarter instruction begins on Thursday, October 2nd. As in almost any other major American university, the Jewish element is disproportionately reflected in faculty ranks; indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that in some departments, whether at UCLA, UC Berkeley, Harvard, Chicago, Columbia, and other like institutions, Jewish faculty predominate. (Thankfully, the American university is one institution where Jews could go about doing their work relatively unhindered, though this is scarcely to say that the university has always been free of anti-Semitism or that Jews did not have to struggle against all odds to find a hospitable home.) And it is surely no coincidence that the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah, this year falls on Thursday, September 25th.
In poring through the LAUSD calendar for 2014-15, it becomes palpably clear that only the adherents of Christianity are openly permitted their holidays. Nothing in the school calendar confers similar recognition upon Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Taoists, and so on; much the same can be said for the UCLA academic calendar. The Buddha's birthday, Eid al-Adha, Eid al-Fitr, Diwali: none of these auspicious days is given the recognition that is conferred upon many of the principal holy days in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Never mind the fact that universities such as UCLA are increasingly greedy for foreign undergraduate students, many of them Hindus and Muslims, since they furnish the dollars that help universities maintain their bloated administrations. The Hindu can have his holy cows just as long as the cash cows make their way to America and its "world-class" universities. We are accustomed to much noise about the greatness of America as a multicultural nation, and one is almost nauseated by the constant and rather pious sermons about the need to value "diversity". If Hermann Goring wanted to reach for his gun whenever he heard the word 'culture', I am tempted to reach for Shiva's trident whenever I hear the word 'diversity'. There was never any doubt that the United States has been and remains a resolutely Christian nation; nevertheless, it is critical to inquire why, and that too in a state which describes itself as the vanguard of progressive thinking and liberal attitudes, the academic calendar reinforces the notion that we all live under the Christian dispensation. In religious matters, it seems, there is to be little or no diversity, and certainly no parity among the religions.
Having said this, the question about "the unassigned day", which turns out to be the Jewish New Year, remains to be resolved. Why isn't the day simply declared a Jewish holiday? Does this subterfuge arise from the fear that if Jews are openly permitted their holidays, the practitioners of at least some of the other 'world religions' will have to be allowed similar concessions? On the other hand, the idea that Jewish people might remain unrecognized is altogether impermissible in American society. The Jewish presence in Los Angeles is considerable; in certain sectors of American society, among them higher education and the film industry, the Jewish element is all but indispensable. Then there is the consideration, to which I have already alluded, that the Judeo-Christian tradition is commonly viewed as the bedrock of American society: if that is the case, it becomes perforce necessary, and critically vital to any conception of American politics, that Jewish customs and traditions be acknowledged and given their just due. Yet, to complicate matters further, a latent hostility to Judaism and to Jews is inextricably part of the Christian inheritance, and there is a tacit compact which underscores the idea that the Jew in America should never be altogether visible. Here, as has so often been the case before, the liminal status of the Jew—thus the "unassigned day"—is once again reaffirmed.
Religious Holidays at Pacific University
There have been, and continue to be, societies where religious pluralism is understood differently. In my previous blog, in reviewing a book on Iraq under sanctions, I was struck by the authors' claim, which is substantiated by other accounts, that in Iraq each religious community was permitted its paid religious holidays before the commencement of the Gulf War. To admit this much does not diminish the other horrors of living under a dictatorship. India is scarcely without its problems, and no one could say that religious minorities have not experienced discrimination; but it is nonetheless an unimpeachable fact that Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs are all recognized by the state and that the religious holiday calendar has some space for each community. The notion that the founding fathers of the United States were deeply committed to the separation of church and state, and that this principle has ever since guided American society, is part of American 'common sense' and rarely questioned. It is this cunning of reason, this fundamental dishonesty, which mars America's engagement with the question of religious pluralism.
Posted in American Society and Culture, The Politics of Culture | Tagged "unassigned day", Grover Cleveland, Haymarket riot, history of Labor Day, Jewish holidays, Jewish New Year, LAUSD, Los Angeles school district, politics of diversity, President's Day, religious pluralism, Rosh Hashanah, UCLA holidays | 4 Replies
*Death by Inches: Sanctions and the Destruction of Iraq
[A review article on Abdul-Haq Al-Ani and Tarik Al-Ani, Genocide in Iraq: The Case Against the UN Security Council and Member States (Atlanta: Clarity Press, Inc., 2012); 258 pp.]
Since sanctions have assumed a critical place over the last few years in the foreign policy of the United States and its dutiful allies, with consequences that have often been chilling and ominous, it becomes imperative to understand how sanctions came to be deployed as a blunt instrument of terror and domination in our times. With the formation of the United Nations in 1945, and the resolution taken by member states to attempt to resolve conflicts between themselves through means other than war, sanctions were bound to assume an important place in the international regime of governance. It was in 1959 that Albert Luthuli, then President of the African National Congress, implored the international community to impose comprehensive sanctions against South Africa and so "precipitate the end of the hateful system of apartheid." Three years later, the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of the economic boycott of South Africa, but as Britain, the United States, West Germany, and Japan, which between them accounted for by far the greater portion of South Africa's exports and imports, chose to remain indifferent to resolutions expressing the general will of the rest of the world, sanctions against South Africa did not then come into force.
The General Assembly, repeatedly drawing the attention of the Security Council to the threat posed by South Africa to international peace and security, insisted that action under Chapter VII of the UN Charter was "essential in order to solve the problem of apartheid and that universally applied economic sanctions were the only means of achieving a peaceful solution." Under the terms of articles 41-42 of this chapter, only the Security Council has the power to impose mandatory sanctions, and attempts to render South Africa compliant were vetoed by the three Western nations that are permanent members of the Security Council. However, the tide of international opinion could not altogether be resisted, and in 1977 an arms embargo against South Africa was mandated. In 1993, the African National Congress, which was then almost on the verge of officially acquiring power, pleaded with the world community to remove the sanctions against South Africa and restore it to a respectable place in the community of nations.
These few nuggets on the history of sanctions suffice as a prelude to the understanding of how the most draconian regime of sanctions ever imposed upon a nation led to its devastation. Abdul-Haq Al-Ani & Tarik Al-Ani's Genocide in Iraq, published by the small and independent Atlanta-based Clarity Press, presents a severe but cogently argued and well-documented indictment of the United Nations Security Council, the principal vehicle through which the United States, the rogue-in-chief of all nation-states, effected the wholesale destruction of Iraq. The authors of this book—Abdul-Haq is an Iraqi-born, British-trained barrister who holds a doctorate in electronics engineering as well as one in international law, while Tarik Al-Ani is an architect, translator, and independent researcher who makes his home in Finland—mince no words in either describing the outcome of the sanctions or the inability of people to understand the implications of what transpired during the course of a decade. "Imposing sanctions on Iraq", they state in their conclusion, "was one of the most heinous of crimes committed in the 20th century. Yet it has received little attention in the Anglo-American world. Despite the calamitous destruction resulting from the sanctions, no serious attempts by legal professionals, academics or philosophers have been undertaken to address the full scope of the immorality and illegality of such a criminal and unprecedented mass punishment" (p. 222).
Poster on the genocidal impact of sanctiosn at an anti-war demonstration.
No one doubted that after Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait, it was incumbent upon the so-called 'world community' to show its strong disapproval of Saddam Hussein's irredentist designs by enforcing comprehensive sanctions against Iraq. This was accomplished by Resolution 661 of the UN Security Council, which urged all member states to adhere to a strict embargo on all exports from, and imports to, Iraq. The resolution exempted from the embargo "supplies intended strictly for medical purposes, and in humanitarian circumstances, foodstuffs." Another committee of the Security Council, known as the Sanctions Committee, was set up to ensure that there would be compliance with the resolution, and to report its observations and recommendations to the Security Council (pp. 196-214).
Before sanctions were first enforced in the late summer of 1990, Iraq unquestionably had among the highest standards of living in the Arab world, a flourishing and prosperous middle class, and a formidable social welfare system that provided enviable material security to ordinary citizens. The economists Jean Dreze and Haris Gazdar noted that the "government of Iraq has a long record of active involvement in health care, education, food distribution, social security and related fields. Notable achievements in these fields include free public health care for all, free education at all levels, food distribution at highly subsidized prices, and income support to 'destitute' households . . ." One of the more significant contributions of Genocide in Iraq is not merely to reaffirm the views of knowledgeable observers of Iraqi society, but also to offer a more sustained account of the achievements of the Ba'athist regime under Saddam Hussein. Chapters 3 & 4, on the economic development of Iraq, and "the progressive social policies" of the Ba'ath regime, ought to be nothing less than a revelation, particularly to those in the United States and Britain who allowed themselves to be led like sheep into believing that Iraq was nothing but a backward state full of hateful Muslims led by a blood-thirsty dictator, detailing as they do the strides made by Iraq in attempting to give a greater number of its people the benefits of a reasonably advanced social welfare state—an accomplishment all the more remarkable considering that Hussein was doubtless a brutal ruler who did not hesitate an iota to send to their death those politicians, activists, army men, public figures and opponents who might even remotely be construed as a threat to his own political survival and well-being.
According to the authors, the transformation sought by the regime was such as would confer the "benefits of development" upon "workers, peasants and other poorer classes" (p. 97); if this is at all true, that is certainly far more than what the United States attempts to do for its working class population. "Prior to the 1990 Gulf War," the authors state, "93% of Iraqis had access to health care and safe water. Education was free, calorie availability was 120% of actual requirements, and GNP per capita was more than double its 1976 value" (p. 97). The book is rich in empirical data: we learn, for example, that between 1960 and 1990 the infant mortality rate diminished from 117 to 40 while the under-5 mortality declined from 170 to 50 (p. 108), just as the number of doctors grew by over 500% from 2145 in 1968 to 13621 in 1990 (p. 110). Impressive as are these achievements, a testimony to the Ba'athist government's progressive social policies, it is the authors' delineation of a multicultural society that commands even greater attention and will certainly invite outright skepticism from the critics of Saddam Hussein who were pushing for war. The authors argue that "up until the 2003 invasion, Iraq had been a very tolerant society with very responsible policies on religious freedom. People grew up in mixed neighborhoods with no segregation between sects or religions" (p. 100). They describe growing up in neighborhoods where Muslims, Christians, and Jews "lived side by side without any problem"; and each religious community was permitted its paid religious holidays, a privilege that is not conferred on Muslims in predominantly Christians nations such as the US, UK, and Germany. Though it is simply assumed by most people that religious minorities have always faced persecution in Iraq, leading to their migration and diminished numbers, the authors point out that Iraq's Christian population grew from around 149,000 in 1947, or about 3.7% percent of the population according to census figures, to about 1 million in 1987, or close to 5% of the population (p. 103).
Cartoon by Mike Flugennock, 18 August 2007. Source: http://sinkers.org/stage/?m=200708
A campaign of sustained bombing, and seven years of the most severe sanctions ever inflicted against any nation, were to relegate Iraq, in the words of an official UN fact-finding team, to the "pre-industrial" age. [United Nations, Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. "Forth-third session: Summary Record of the 10th Meeting." E/CN.4/Sub.2/1991/SR.10 (20 August 1991), 10.] Insofar as socio-economic indicators are reliable criteria, Iraq joined the ranks of the under-developed nations and become economically regressive: as oil revenues shrunk dramatically, the little that remained of its decimated infrastructure after the bombing fell to pieces. Iraq would soon have the highest rates in the world of maternal and infant mortality, and correspondingly the fewest number of hospital beds; an astronomical increase in diseases and mental illnesses was documented, and malnutrition, which had all but disappeared from Iraq before 1990, was estimated to have affected the majority of Iraqis by 1995. A report released in 1997 by UNICEF described 1 million children in Iraq under the age of 5 as being chronically malnourished, a condition that leads not only to stunted physical growth but considerably reduced capacity for development and education, and it ominously adds the following words: "Chronic malnutrition is difficult to reverse after the child reaches 2-3 years of age." One year after sanctions first went into effect, the real monthly earnings for unskilled laborers in Iraq had declined by nearly 95%, and were lower than the earnings for unskilled agricultural laborers in India, where levels of poverty are endemic.
Infant and Under-5 Mortality Rates in Iraq,
Severe as were the sanctions, they scarcely made a dent in the public imagination. There can be no more notorious sign of this indifference than the remarks of the American Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, who when asked whether the sanctions could be justified in view of the mass starvation and death of Iraqi children, replied without a moment's hesitation: "We think the price is worth it." (Of course this notoriety surrounding Albright did not prevent her from receiving the usual accolades from the establishment.) Some scholars take the view that the sanctions policy of the United States cannot be impugned, since it is conducted under the rubric of the Security Council; if this is the case, then it becomes incumbent to conduct a close examination of the human rights implications of the sanctions policy of the Security Council. This is the other signal contribution of Abdul-Haq Al-Ani and Tarik Al-Ani's book: its subtitle, "The Case Against the UN Security Council and Member States", hints at the boldness of the argument, since the authors are quite certain that the Security Council, which ought to act strenuously to prevent genocide, became the agent for the genocidal destruction of a people and their nation. Their argument, however, would have derived yet greater force if they had considered that, rather ironically, another (and far more widely representative) body of the United Nations, namely the General Assembly, would draw attention to the "Security Council's greatly increased use of this instrument", and to "a number of [attendant] difficulties, relating especially to the objectives of sanctions, the monitoring of their application and impact, and their unintended effects." The General Assembly was to recall the "legal basis" of "sanctions", which are described in Article 41 of the UN Charter as "measures not involving the use of armed force in order to maintain or restore international peace and security", in order to "underline that the purpose of sanctions is to modify the behavior of a party that is threatening the international peace and security and not to punish or otherwise exact retributions."
In making a representation before the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1991, the non-governmental International Progress Organization made the more forceful point that "the continuation of the sanctions policy implemented through the United Nations Security Council" constituted a "grave and systematic violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms" of the entire population of Iraq, who were being denied even the most basic right, the right to life. The figure often mentioned to indicate the number of Iraqis killed since the imposition of sanctions is about one million between 1991-95 alone; the respected British medical journal, Lancet, gave a figure of 567,000 children who had died as a consequence of sanctions by 1995, while UNICEF estimated that 500,000 children had been killed on account of sanctions and the collateral effects of war.
Sanctions constitute a form of nearly invisible death, and ought to alert us to the fact that oppression in our times is increasingly masked. We associate war with death and violence, but sanctions with human rights and non-violence: as the former United States ambassador to the UN, Thomas Pickering, put it in a Security Council debate, "sanctions are measured, precise and limited. They are a multilateral, non-violent and peaceful response to violent and brutal acts." [United Nations, Security Council, "Provisional Verbatim Record of the Three Thousand and Sixty-Third Meeting." S/PV.3063 (31 March 1992), 67.] This is, to put it mildly, a perverse, even macabre, view of sanctions, and just as strikingly it displays a singular naiveté about the nature of non-violence, which is erroneously equated with the mere absence of force. Non-violence is not only, or even, a doctrine of abstention from force: it requires us to take active measures for peace and the well-being of all, and it is obscene to suppose that the denial of basic amenities to people, including the right to life, might be construed as a respect for human rights.
There has been little endeavor to recognize the economic oppression of an entire people as a crime against humanity, indeed as a form of terrorism. The prospects for the international rule of law can be nothing but appalling, as the American scholar John Quigley has noted, if the United States continues to act on the presumption that multilateralism is a worthwhile enterprise only if it "can control the outcome." It becomes imperative, then, to ask what ought to be the place of sanctions in an international world order that purports to base itself on the principles of equity, 'rule of law', and democracy? Are sanctions only viable when they have the force of moral opprobrium of a world-wide citizenry, as was evidently the case when sanctions were at long last imposed on South Africa, or should they continue to be available, as they are at present, to any modern nation-state that chooses to impose sanctions unilaterally? There is almost nothing to warrant the belief that the wide and systematic use of sanctions will serve the dual ends of ensuring a just world order and help to make societies that are targeted by sanctions more open, just as there is compelling evidence to suggest that such wide and seriously abusive use of sanctions exacerbates political repression within targeted nations and paves the way for greater inequities between nations, eroding both the 'rule of law' and respect for the international system. I have discussed the legal and political implications of sanctions in greater detail elsewhere, but readers can turn to Genocide in Iraq with immense profit to understand both how sanctions are deployed as a modern means of 'pacification' and to understand how crimes against humanity came to be perpetrated against an entire people without any consequences for the perpetrators of such crimes.
Posted in Global Politics, Resistance and Dissent, Terrorism and Its Politics | Tagged Abdul-Haq Al-Ani, Albert Luthuli, Albright on sanctions, Ba'athist Iraq, Clarity press, destruction of Iraq, genocide by sanctions, genocide in Iraq, infant mortality, sanctions, Tarik Al-Ani, UN Resolution 661, UN Sanctions Committee | Leave a reply
*The Scottish Referendum: A Desirable Dissolution of the Union of Great Britain
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world": so William Butler Yeats famously wrote in his much-quoted poem, "The Second Coming". Some in Britain, contemplating the prospects of the dissolution of the Union of England, Scotland, and Wales, effected in 1707 and modified in the twentieth-century to accommodate the Unionists in Northern Ireland who resisted the idea of an independent Ireland, are warning of the impending anarchy if a majority of Scots should cast a ballot in favor of independence in Thursday's referendum. The beauty of the ballot, which will ask voters, "Should Scotland be an Independent Country", and then signal their choice with a 'yes' or 'no', resides in its simplicity; and it is precisely this simplicity which is no doubt the envy of many around the world—among others, Palestinians, Kurds, Basques, Kashmiris, Nagas, Texans, even some Californians and, if we may constitute such people as a 'nation', the gun-toting fanatics of the National Rifle Association in the US—who would certainly like to weigh in on the question of their independence. However, the simplicity of the Scottish referendum resides in other considerations, too: watching developments in Libya, Iraq, and Syria, nor are these the only places where the question of secessionism and new political formations looms large, one admires the Scots for attempting to settle this question through something other than the gun. Malcolm X might have thought the ballot little better than the bullet, and he doubtless had good reasons to do so in a country where in many places the African American could only cast his ballot at the risk of receiving a bullet in his chest, but in today's politics too little constructive use is made of the ballot. The Scottish referendum, if nothing else, gives one hope that American-style electoral democracy, a furious sound show signifying absolutely nothing except the lifelessness of an American politics that has been consumed in equal measure by money and sheer stupidity, is not the last word in electoral politics.
Many are the arguments that have been advanced by both the proponents and detractors of Scottish independence. Not surprisingly, nearly all the arguments that have been encountered in mainstream media—print, digital, television, social networks—verge on the economic and what might be called the narrowly political. England's three major political parties, though here again there is little that any more really distinguishes them from each other, have spoken in one voice in suggesting that the dissolution of the Union will be a major blow to Scotland itself. It has been argued that bereft of its Union with England, Scotland would experience job loss, the advantages of the British pound, and the flight of capital; as a small nation-state, it is likely to become quite invisible and would be without the benefit of the political and economic security umbrella under which it is presently sheltered. The advocates of Scottish independence argue quite otherwise, insisting, before anything else, that the Scots must be in a position to decide their own future and political outcomes. Scotland's priorities, argue the proponents of independence, are poorly reflected in the constitution of the British government. There is little appetite in Scotland, for instance, for foreign wars, and a good many people would be only too happy to be rid of the nuclear submarine base. Scotland has 59 Members of Parliament in Westminster, but only one of those belongs to British Prime Minister David Cameron's ruling Tory party. On the economic front, the cheerleaders for Scottish independence have argued that Scots are much more hospitable towards the idea of a welfare state than the English, and working-class support for Scottish independence is particularly high. The notion that revenues from the North Sea oil and natural gas fields would, in the event of independence, be used only for projects to advance the advance of the Scots is often trumpeted as the clinching argument, though it is germane to point out that the 8 billion dollars in North Sea energy revenues that the British government received in 2013 amount to about only about three percent of the Scottish economy.
If there is to be a compelling argument for Scottish independence, it must surely also emanate from the tortuous history of the Union and the brutality with which the Scots were treated by the English for the greater part of two centuries. To suggest this is by no means to excuse the Scots from the part they played in forging the British empire; indeed, they occupied a disproportionately prominent role in Indian administration. But it is perhaps a truism that only those who have been brutalized go on to brutalize others, and the first principle for the student of colonialism is to come to the awareness that the English did not practice in their colonies in Asia or Africa anything that they had not first tested out on their subjects in Scotland and Ireland. The story of how Europe underdeveloped its various others, not least in the British Isles and in what is called Eastern Europe—just what was "Eastern Europe" becomes amply clear from the writings of the so-called Enlightenment giants such as Voltaire, for whom "Eastern Europe" was nothing more than the point at where the allegedly savage and animal-like Slavs began to predominate in the population—need not be rehearsed at any great length at this juncture, but a few fragments of this history are essential to convey the enormity of English injustice. Following the Jacobite uprising of 1745, an attempt by "Bonnie Prince Charlie" to win the British crown for the Stuarts, Scottish Highland clansmen, who aided in this failed attempt, had to bear the burden of callous retribution. What the English effected in Scotland was nothing short of ethnic cleansing: the clan system was destroy
"Last of the Clan", a painting by Thomas Faed, c. 1865 (Kelingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow)
ed and in various other ways the English struck at the heart of the Scottish way of life. The tartan plaid and kilt were banned by the Act of Proscription of 1746-47—in the precise language of the act, which would not allow for any lesser penalties, the offence of wearing Highland clothing would attract "imprisonment, without bail, during the space of six months, and no longer; and being convicted of a second offence" would make the offender "liable to be transported". Highlanders were deprived of the right to own arms, and similarly Gaelic could no longer be taught in schools. One might easily add to this list of persecutions, but nothing summarizes better what would become the pacification—an ugly word, which describes well how colonial powers acted with utter disregard for human life in their colonies—of the Scots than what is known to historians as the "Highland Clearances" which led to the mass-scale removal of the population of the Highlands, leaving it, wrote the popular historian John Prebble, "void of most, possibly 85-90%, of its people, trees and forests."
Memorial Stone marking the site of the Battle of Culloden, 1746
In his charming but now little-read book, Two Cheers for Democracy, E. M. Forster, while championing English-style democracy over other forms of government, withheld the third cheer. The English, he argued, had one insufferable vice: hypocrisy. How far this is peculiar to the English rather than a common condition afflicting a good deal of humankind is a question that need not be addressed at the moment. Taking my cue from Forster, the argument for Scottish independence certainly deserves two cheers. England, frankly, has not been humbled enough: its immigration policies continue to be rotten, its visa regimes for citizens of its former colonies are not merely absurdly insulting but draconian, its disdain for the contributions of its own working class to the shaping of a humane society is appalling, and virulent racism is encountered in nearly every aspect of English life. The nonviolent break-up of Great Britain is a most desirable thing; one hopes that if the referendum for Scottish independence succeeds, it will be eventually be a prelude to even more desirable outcomes, such as the break-up of the United States, which is far too big and powerful for its own good and certainly for the good of the rest of the world. Secondly, no arguments are too strong for the devolution of power, the decentralization of authority, and autonomy for people who might choose their independence for ethnic, religious, linguistic, or other reasons. There is, to put it in another language, an optimum size for a nation-state, and a great many nation-states are already far too big to both be governed efficiently and at the same time give all their people equal opportunities for their just advancement in various domains of life. Nevertheless, there is something to be wary about in the demand for Scottish independence: nationalism is almost always accompanied by a diminishing capacity for self-reflection. When the Union dissolves, who will the Scot set himself or herself up against to know better his or her own self? This is the problem that nationalism has not yet been able to resolve, and there is little to suggest that Scottish independence will yield new wisdom on this old and intractable problem.
The emptying out of the Highlands: A pamphlet on Scottish emigration, Glasgow, 1773
Posted in Global Politics, Resistance and Dissent, The Politics of Culture | Tagged "The Second Coming", Act of Proscription 1747, ballot and the bullet, ban on tartan, colonization of Scotland, demonization of Slavs, destruction of Scottish clans, E M Forster, Highland Clearances, Highland clothing, internal colonization, Jacobite uprising of 1745, John Prebble, nationalism and self-reflection, North Sea revenues, Scots and British empire, Scottish independence, Scottish Referendum, small states, underdeveloopment of Eastern Europe, Union of 1707, Yeats | 1 Reply


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I want to simulate the minute hand of a clock and am doing so by multiplying the line vertex (not at origin) with the rotation matrix. Is there a simpler way e.g. rotating the actual graphic object symbolically?
This question seems to be a duplicate of the one here.


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La farmacovigilancia fue definida en 2002 por la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) como la ciencia que trata de recoger, vigilar, investigar y evaluar la información sobre los efectos de los medicamentos, productos biológicos, plantas medicinales y medicinas tradicionales, con el objetivo de identificar información sobre nuevas reacciones adversas y prevenir los daños en los pacientes.

Objetivo
Todos los medicamentos antes de empezar a comercializarse se prueban en ensayos clínicos. De forma muy controlada, van pasando por diferentes fases hasta su salida al mercado. Sin embargo, estos ensayos se realizan en un número reducido de personas, comparado con la cantidad y diversidad de pacientes que los utilizarán una vez estén disponibles en las farmacias: ancianos, embarazadas, pacientes recibiendo otros tratamientos, niños, etc. Estas situaciones, distintas a las llevadas a cabo en los ensayos clínicos, pueden traer consigo la aparición de nuevas reacciones adversas, que no aparecieron antes por la presencia de nuevas variables tales como la exposición prolongada, la interacción con otros fármacos, la baja frecuencia o simplemente porque determinados grupos, tales como los niños, no fueron incluidos en los ensayos.

La farmacovigilancia se crea con el objetivo de supervisar los medicamentos contribuyendo a su uso seguro y racional mediante la evaluación permanente de sus riesgos. A la detección y evaluación de los riesgos asociados a los medicamentos una vez comercializados se suma la prevención. Se trata de una actividad compartida tanto por las autoridades sanitarias como por la industria farmacéutica y los profesionales de la salud, de manera que la contribución de todos cumple un papel fundamental en la monitorización y toma de decisiones sobre si un medicamento posee una relación beneficio/riesgo adecuada o bien ha de suspenderse su comercialización (prevención) o su uso, retirándolo del mercado.

Véase también

 Ensayos clínicos
 Reacción adversa a medicamento
 Problemas relacionados con medicamentos (PRM)
 Atención Farmacéutica
 Farmacoepidemiologia
 Seguridad del paciente
 Directiva 2011/62/UE

Enlaces externos
Sociedad Española de Farmacología Clínica
Asociación Colombiana de Farmacovigilancia

Farmacia
Farmacología

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Ron DeSantis, Jeanette Nuñez and Manny Diaz Jr. met with Doral Residents.
On September 28th the Federated Republican Women of North Dade organized a meet and greet event for Doral residents with Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis and his running mate Representative Jeanette Nuñez.
State Senator Rene Garcia was in attendance, along with Representative Manny Díaz Jr. candidate to State Senate for District 36, and Doral Vice Mayor Ana Maria Rodriguez who is running for State Representative for District 105. All of them made introductory remarks before Mr. DeSantis addressed the residents present.
Before the event Diaz, DeSantis and Nuñez talked to the press regarding local issues like immigration, infrastructure, resources for schools, traffic, and safety.
Diaz has represented District 103rd at the State Legislature since 2012. This district covers from Hialeah Gardens to Miramar. As a member of the Education Committee, K-12 Subcommittee and Education Appropriation Subcommittee he has worked on bringing needed resources to Miami-Dade Schools. He has strong ties with the Doral community as he serves as COO at Doral College.
Diaz also interacts with the School District to help provide needed funds from the State for school infrastructure and for improving the income for teachers. "Part of that mission has been in the House to be able to provide $1200 bonuses for teachers who were highly effective to help them stay in the classroom and the district's cost differential formula" which includes the cost of living increase in the calculations so that schools in Miami Dade would receive more funds.
Regarding traffic safety, Diaz considers that red light traffic cameras "should not be a source of revenue for anyone" but can be useful if "a study is done of the intersection to determine what is causing the accidents", police presence is provided to make sure people are more careful and there are documented issues on the intersection that justify the use of the device. Therefore he wants to push legislation including those requirements to make sure the cameras are used properly statewide.
De Santis' vision for Florida is based on "principles of freedom and liberty" and looks forward to putting his leadership to service once more as Governor. And for Nuñez "Florida is a great place to live, grow, raise a family and advance; our policies will continue moving Florida forward" to provide opportunities for the future generations.


I was at Group Publishing today in Loveland Colorado to dialogue about the condition of vision and leadership development in the church. I had a great morning with Thom and Joani Schultz (Thom founded the organization 35 years ago.) The facility is impressive with 350 employes and two notable accomplishments: 1) The sell more VBS curriculum than any other publisher, 2) They are repeatedly mentioned as a great place to work from folks who measure those sorts of things. What I liked best about the place is that you could sense the ministry-corporate culture they have created.
I enjoyed time with the new leadership of the pastor resources (including Rev magazine) - Dave Thornton and Brian Proffit. In particular, I was struck by a mind stretch vision that Group has with the Church Volunteer Central initiative. They call it the 80/20 vision by 2020. The idea is that they want to reverse the 20% of the folks doing all the work in the church by seeing a general trend toward 80% involvement from churches who use their equipping resources. Is that a Big Hairy Audacious Goal or what? The heartbeat of the place was inspiring!
I ran across this fascinating post. If you were wondering how unique churches can get, wonder no more!
Today I spoke to 25 stewardship strategists with Generis, a group that I consider to be the leading player among folks who want to help you raise money for your church. What I appreciate most about them is their desire to add value beyond the typical campaign approach that has been around for 40 years. At their annual training event they spent time learning about how to be thought leaders, and how to leverage the message of Church Unique- casting missional vision and creating redemptive movement.
It's an exciting time to think about renewing and reinventing our approach to capital campaigns. What can you look for? Savvy leaders are moving beyond campaign language and even stewardship language to the ideas of transformation and creating a culture of generosity. The movement is away from an event orientation to an ongoing process with unique approaches for each local context.
One of the characteristics of great brands is delivering an experience that is consistently consistent. Today, an answered prayer was met with an inconsistency for my 14-year old Jacob. Our church leaders have trained Jacob to utilize the weekend services to invite unchurched friends. Finally, and with much anticipation, a lost friend named Juan came with Jacob to The Matrix, a seeker service targeted to the junior high crowd.
--"Dad, Juan loves X-box and I told him that we can play in the Matrix gameroom before the services starts. Today all of the games remained unplugged."
--"They always have great videos or some creative element. Today was the first time I can remember when they didn't do anything like that."
--"The singer during worship was off vocally. During the worship, it killed me when Juan asked, "what are they saying?""
Today was a helpful reminder that God's sovereign goodness and love for Juan are infinite whether our X-boxes are plugged in or not. Yet while the battle belongs to the Lord, we must still prepare our horses.
On my recent visit to San Francisco to meet with my publisher (Sheryl Fullerton at Jossey-Bass) I made a last minute change in hotels. The Whitcomb Hotel on Market Street was the best rate I could find, but the experience of a beautiful and historic lobby (how the website sold me!) was sandwiched between the worst drive up experience and smelliest hallways I have ever encountered. Before the door to my room could close behind me, I made a b-line for the front desk to execute an exit strategy.
Thirty minutes later I entered the promised land- Hotel Vitale. One of the few Hotels in the city built completely new in the last three years, the environment was pristine, elegant and inspiring- even refreshing. As I departed it was no surprise to discover that crystal clear sense of mission guides the company. Founder Chip Conley shares in a letter to guests, that their mission is to "create opportunities to celebrate the joy of life." What's their vision? It's connected to their name which means "vitality" in Italian. "We want to create a few lasting memories, or little vignettes that contribute to your vitality. Vitality means the abundant physical and mental energy usually combined with a wholehearted and and joyous approach to situations and activities."


1PaintYou was founded through the service of providing unique, quality and creative handmade paintings for customers from various backgrounds or purpose.
Whether it be for a home-setting, or your office, 1PaintYou adapts to it's customer's needs. Adding a little personality to your home or office can make all the difference in comfort, sales, and standing out from the competition. 1PaintYou also specializes in the creation of art-work for your loved ones or friends, so don't hesitate to customize your request so that we can show you our various types of art.
Since 2012, 1PaintYou has employed experienced, reliable, and knowledgeable oil-painters to create custom portraits – including those based on real photos. 1PaintYou specializes in spreading the unique, imaginative beauty of art-works to customers of all types, throughout the world. We pride ourselves on not only quality, but also affordable art-work.
We value each and every one of our customers, and hold a strong sense of pride, integrity, and sense of worth for each and every piece of art produced.
To really enhance the quality of art and services rendered, we offer previews and review-services so that each and every one of our customer is guaranteed satisfied, before purchasing and receiving their finished art.
We don't treat our customers like numbers here at 1PaintYou. In fact, at 1PaintYou we treat each and every customer like family – and we value creating potential long-term relationships with our customers. The services we provide and the art we produce is the kind that keeps customers coming back for more – and recommending us to their family and friends!
From pre-order questions or concerns, to post-receipt of art-products, we always stand behind our product with a guarantee. Our artwork is designed to last you, your loved ones, and even those within your office a lifetime.
Using the most reliable, durable and quality materials ensures that each piece of art produced is of the utmost satisfactory nature, and that it will not break, fade away, or wear in an otherwise unnatural or undesirable manner.
Serving over 20,000 customers throughout the United States all the way to Europe, we're confident that we'll have just the design and creation to match all your desires and needs!
Give 1PaintYou a shot today, and learn why customers have come back time and time again, and remained loyal to our artwork productions service for years to-date.
Treat yourself, your loved ones, or friends to a special piece of artwork to demonstrate your pride, love, or friendship for a lifetime.


text:
package org.lla_private.rest.satz;

import javax.inject.Inject;
import javax.ws.rs.GET;
import javax.ws.rs.Path;
import javax.ws.rs.Produces;
import javax.ws.rs.core.MediaType;

import org.lla_private.rest.json.mapper.IObjectMapperService;
import org.lla_private.service.IManipulationMethod;
import org.lla_private.service.ManipulationMethods.Assoc;

@Path("/satz")
public class SelectMethod {

	private final IObjectMapperService objectMapperService;

	private final IManipulationMethod manipulationMethod;

	@Inject
	public SelectMethod(IObjectMapperService objectMapperService, IManipulationMethod manipulationMethod) {
		this.objectMapperService = objectMapperService;
		this.manipulationMethod = manipulationMethod;
	}

	/* HINT: @POST oder @GET ist hier Pflicht! */
	@GET
	@Path("select")
	@Produces(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON)
	public String satzAlgorithmen() {
		final Assoc[] items = manipulationMethod.getMethods();
		return objectMapperService.createJsonString(items);
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
WIORA
Solo Sailing
Comanche Breaks Monohull Transatlantic Record
Thomas Hall
Jim and Kristy Clark's world-beating crew sets new monohull transatlantic record of 5 days, 14 hours, 21 minutes 25 seconds *
At 12:19:41s GMT today, Thursday 28th July, Comanche passed Lizard Point (UK) to complete the 2,880 nautical miles from West to East across the Atlantic and smashed the monohull transatlantic record*. This illustrious record had been held by Mari Cha IV since 2003 and stood at 6 days 17 hours 52 minutes and 39 seconds. The talented crew of world class sailors beat the previous record by 1 day, 3 hours 31 minutes 14 seconds in a total elapsed time of 5 days, 14 hours, 21 minutes 25 seconds at an average speed of 21.44 knots.
Comanche's owner Jim Clark said: "Comanche was built to break ocean records and the guys have once again powered our fantastic fat-bottomed girl to another title. I am so proud of the entire team and everyone involved in the entire program from top to bottom, the best in world, getting the best out of Comanche. Perfect harmony, and Kristy and I are over the moon."
The experienced team left New York (USA) on Friday evening July 22nd at 20:58 UTC and headed East aiming for the South West tip of England.
Comanche had been on standby for a number of weeks waiting for optimum conditions to slingshot across the Atlantic, managing a fluid rota of over 30 world class sailors on standby over a three month period, primed to be ready at a moment's notice. On Thursday the team were moved to a 'green' as world class navigator Stan Honey alongside skipper Ken Read, agreed that this was the time to go.
With Comanche skipper Ken Read committed to TV commentating at the Louis Vuitton America's Cup World Series in England, the world class crew was led by team leaders Casey Smith, Tony Mutter, Richard Clarke and Navigator Stan Honey. Due to other commitments, Comanche was also missing regular crewmen such as Kelvin Harrap, Warwick Fluery, Jimmy Spithill and Ryan Godfrey (see full crew list below).
Ken Read concluded: "This latest record is testament to Jim and Kristy's vision. This is the culmination of six years of hard work and a huge team of experts offshore and onshore all working as one. I never had any doubt this crew would deliver the goods – the boat was in perfect condition and the only thing that would scupper the record would be Mother Nature. Luckily she didn't throw a spanner in the works and this team have once again proven why they are some of the best in the business."
The weather window promised fast conditions with strong winds, great angles and flat seas all the way to Europe. And overall it delivered, enabling the team to tear across the Atlantic in record time, using only manual powered winches and hydraulics. But it wasn't all plain sailing, the crew encountered some cold, foggy and squally weather with some nail biting lighter patches that kept them all guessing and hoping that they could stay in the same weather system for the duration of the crossing. They also encountered the danger of ice ensuring the team remained on high alert making the trip, and the record, even more of an achievement. Stan Honey used all his experience to identify this unique weather window, once again showing his colours as the best navigator in offshore racing.
Quotes from the boat:
Casey Smith: "What a boat! Now we have got the 24 hours record, the Sydney Hobart, and now the transatlantic. What a boat! Awesome!"
Stan Honey: "There are only about two weather windows a year where a monohull can make it all the way across the Atlantic in one system, and we found one of them. Beating this record by more than a day is above my expectations and I am delighted."
Tony Mutter: "To achieve something like that, it is important to be fast and reliable. I am happy for all the people involved in this project from the very beginning up to now."
Richard Clarke: "Delighted. Awesome trip, I have been loving every minute of it. Now I am proud of the accomplishment for the boat and for the team."
Pablo Arrarte: "I think this is something big. I don't think anyone will beat it in the near future."
Shannon Falcone: "This was sort of the Everest of the whole Comanche program, and I am both proud and delighted to be part of it."
The record continues to illustrate Comanche's pedigree since the Supermaxi was launched in October 2013. Comanche has taken line honors in all races but one entered and currently holds four ocean records.
*Record still to be ratified by the WSSC (World Speed Sailing Council)
Published in Offshore
Smallest Boat in Fleet Wins RORC Transatlantic Race
RORC
Transat AG2R La Mondiale Courts Mixed Crews For 2020 Race
Alcock & Brown's First Transatlantic Airmail Delivery Marked by An Post

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


If you'd like to talk, Call Me!
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From automotive defects to dangerous drugs and medical devices, we have worked on class actions in a wide range of consumer contexts including: GM defective ignition switches, Lumber Liquidators falsely labeled and hazardous flooring, and others.
Landowners who lease their land for oil and gas exploration and development effectively give up ownership to 3/4 their minerals. In exchange, the company is supposed to pay royalties. However, many oil and gas producers are skilled at minimizing the amount of royalties they pay. Class litigation is usually the only way to hold oil companies to account.
Employers must comply with federal regulations regarding pay. However, many employers skirt or even intentionally flaunt these regulations. Working families bear the brunt of employers' refusal to pay their employees properly. Class litigation can help employees get what they deserve.


After selling WallaBee last year, I changed my company name to Dodo Apps Ltd. Now that I'm publishing my own apps again (in addition to my freelance work), it seemed time for me to make a few changes to my website.
Today I've updated bendodson.com so that my client work and my self-published apps are now in separate sections1. I have also created a new site at dodoapps.io to advertise my own apps that are currently available in the App Store2.
I am currently available for freelance work from February 2016. For more details, please contact me.


text:
The Flight by Erin M. Leaf
Close Proximity, 4
Flirting at thirty thousand feet with a charming rock star is a terrible idea, especially since Sebastian can't afford to lose his job as a flight attendant. Ethan "Duke" Clementine may be hot and oh-so-talented, but Sebastian has no desire to join the mile high club, or so he tells himself. The truth is that he misses playing music, and he would love to fall in love with the right guy, but everyone knows Ethan is into women.
Ethan is tired of traveling, tired of fame, and he's especially tired of pretending he's straight. He's been in the closet for so long it seems pointless to come out as bi, especially with his career in the balance. So what does he do when he meets sexy flight attendant Sebastian? He sings the man into the sack, because one hookup doesn't mean he's going to fall in love, right?
Be Warned: m/m sex
The moment Ethan's fingers touched his shoulder, Sebastian wrapped his fingers around the musician's wrist and drew him closer. He had no idea if the man was into guys, but he didn't particularly care at this point. He'd given the rock star an out, and Ethan hadn't pulled away. "I know we've just met—" he murmured, but Ethan slid his hand up and put a finger on his lips. Sebastian shuddered. He'd been in a constantly shifting state of embarrassment, nervousness, and arousal from the moment Ethan had stepped onto the plane, and this sure as hell wasn't helping restore his equanimity.
"I told myself I wasn't going to do this anymore," Ethan said cryptically, and then he leaned in.
"Do what?" Sebastian tried to ask, but Ethan's mouth met his and all hell broke loose in his body. He groaned, arms going for Ethan's hair, but the musician knocked his hands away and climbed up onto his lap. Sebastian froze, then swallowed hard when his cock pressed up into the juncture of Ethan's legs.
"Fuck, you're gorgeous," Ethan muttered, and then he kissed Sebastian again.
Sebastian gripped Ethan's ass through the soft jeans, mind whirling. Ethan tasted like insanity and heat, and he couldn't get enough. When Ethan finally lifted his head, Sebastian gasped, barely able to catch his breath. His cock was so fucking hard he was afraid he would go off in his pants. His lips stung. "You're into guys?" he asked, and then he bit his lower lip in frustration. What a stupid question. The man was on his lap, for God's sake. Duke Clementine just kissed me, he thought inanely, and then he wondered if he was dreaming, but the weight of the man on his legs felt all too real.
Ethan laughed. "Yeah. I'm into guys. I'm bi, not that I advertise it. I don't need the hassle." He rolled his hips, pushing his erection into Sebastian's abdomen. "I'm assuming you're into guys, too, or you would've dumped me on my ass, right?"
"Uh," Sebastian said, not really able to think clearly. Dump the hottest man I've ever seen onto the floor? Yeah, no. Ethan rolled his hips again. "Oh my God," Sebastian said, gritting his teeth. He would not come in his pants like a damned teenager. "Fuck." He banged his head against the soft cushions of the seat even as his hands kneaded Ethan's ass. He wanted to suck Ethan off. He wanted to fuck him. He wanted all sorts of things he hadn't thought about wanting in far too long.
"Relax, Sebastian," Ethan said, cupping his face. "I'm not going anywhere."
Sebastian laughed, then moaned when Ethan leaned in closer. "I feel like I'm dreaming," Sebastian said.
"Don't think so hard," Ethan replied, kissing him again and again, until Sebastian stopped trying to figure out why Duke Clementine chose him, of all people, to do this with. There had been literally no hint of Ethan being bisexual anywhere in the media, so for him to do this now, and with Sebastian, shocked the hell out of him.
"You know I won't tell anyone," Sebastian gasped out.
Ethan stilled. "I know," he said, and then he started to unbutton his shirt.
Sebastian stared as the man's lean torso slowly came into view. Ethan had a collection of tattoos scattered across his body, and though nothing Sebastian saw was new to him—the musician had done a number of interviews with photos of his body spread in glossy high definition across numerous platforms—there was something entirely shocking about being able to touch instead of just look. "Seeing you in a magazine is nothing like being here in real life," he murmured, reaching up to trace a finger across warm skin.
"This is real life, Sebastian," Ethan said, voice warm and husky. He sucked in a breath when Sebastian's fingers trailed down the middle of his chest to the waistband of his jeans and back up again.
"I want to suck you off," Sebastian said, trying to make himself move, but his fingers were too busy learning every last inch of ink on Ethan's skin.
"What a good idea," Ethan said, standing up, but instead of undoing his jeans, he went to his knees.
"What are you doing?" Sebastian asked, sitting up. He tried to drag Ethan back to his feet, but the rock star put his hands on Sebastian's pants and undid the zipper. He slid his fingers inside. Sebastian gasped when those fingers brushed against his cock.
"This is the ugliest uniform I've ever seen," Ethan said, fingers drawing down Sebastian's underwear. He licked his lips as Sebastian's erection sprang out.
Sebastian's hips bucked. "Oh, God." Ethan's electric blue eyes stared up at him. "You're killing me, Ethan."
"No, I can't do this while you're wearing that hideous sweater," Ethan said unexpectedly, reaching for Sebastian's top. He tugged on it. "Take it off."
Sebastian nearly tore it in his hurry to get it off his body. "This is crazy."
Ethan undid the buttons of Sebastian's shirt, and then he reached down and gripped his cock in a firm, warm hand. "Yeah, it's crazy, but I'm not sure I care." He leaned in and sucked Sebastian's erection into his mouth.
Sebastian jammed the heel of his hand against his mouth, hips jerking. He didn't want to thrust. He didn't want to do anything that would hurt Ethan. Shit, maybe this isn't a good idea. What if I push into his throat? He needs to be able to sing. He said he's paranoid about his vocal cords. He reached down and pulled Ethan up.
"What?" Ethan licked down the side of Sebastian's erection.
"I don't want to hurt you. You need to sing tomorrow," Sebastian said, barely able to put the words together.
Ethan laughed. "You're worried about my voice?"
Sebastian flushed.
"Giving head is not going to wreck my vocal cords," Ethan said, sounding amused. "But there are other things we can do, if you prefer." He stood up.
Sebastian stared as Ethan stripped off the rest of his clothes. He looked strong and sure of himself, and Sebastian's mind flashed on one of the interviews he remembered reading. They'd been talking to some of the fans at one of Ethan's concerts, and a girl they'd interviewed had said that Duke Clementine was pure sex when he was on stage. If Ethan is pure sex on stage, off stage he's lethal, Sebastian thought, digging his fingers into the cushions. He couldn't believe he was actually doing this. "You realize this is insane."
Ethan leaned over and carefully moved his guitar to the seat behind him, brushing his fingers over the strings as he let go. The sound of a chord lingered in the air, quietly tantalizing. "Maybe it is," he murmured, and then he straightened up. His blue eyes had darkened with arousal. Sebastian couldn't look away. Ethan's cock was thick and hard, and Sebastian wanted it inside him in the worst way. He swallowed thickly as Ethan went to his knees. His hands went to Sebastian's pants and wrestled them off. "Take off your shirt," he said.
Sebastian obeyed, half crazed with lust. "I'm going to get fired for this."
Ethan shook his head. "No one will know." He climbed back onto the sofa, legs going on either side of Sebastian's hips. "No one ever has to know."
Written by Fern on 28th Jan 2019
Sebastian wants nothing more than to work on his music. His fledgling career, however, doesn't pay the bills, and so he works as a flight attendant. Sick of cleaning up baby puke and trying to stop random strangers sitting next to each other from killing themselves, Sebastian does some extra training and lands a good job working for a private charter airline that caters to wealthy clients. When Sebastian recognizes Ethan Clemantine – rock star musician – he can hardly believe his good fortune. Surely flirting a little with such a handsome guy wouldn't be too bad, right? This is a really sexy, light short story. I really enjoyed how even though there was clear chemistry as soon as Ethan and Sebastian met they didn't jump right into bed immediately. There was a little time for me as a reader to see them both interact – first as worker and client but then as musicians collaborating together. This helped give me a good feel for how they fit together out of the bedroom and made their attraction and sexual chemistry a lot more believable to me. I also really liked the slight twist which the author put on the whole story – that of the star-struck fan, Sebastian, not being the one leaving their one-night-stand with regrets and wishing for more. I really enjoyed how that subtle shift in the usual plotline altered the whole story and made it feel fresh and different to me. With two interesting characters and a whole world of differences in their circumstances and life, I found this to be a great story that held my attention throughout. While a bit of a fantasy – that of a famous person entering your life and the chemistry rocking off the charts almost immediately – there's enough realism scattered throughout this story to make it both believable and relatable. A great, quick read that I enjoyed.
TBR Pile
Written by Bella Star on 5th Dec 2018
Sebastian is dealing with his mom's death, being broke and now a rock star that gets him interested in the mile-high club. Ethan is tired. Tired of his music career, tired of fans, tired of the drama. Can a chance meeting make them both find a happy future? Poor Sebastian. Poor Ethan. This story is about two unhappy guys finding each other. There's an instant and fantastic chemistry as soon as they meet but the sex happened way too fast! Then it jumps to three months later where Ethan is miserable without Sebastian. They meet again at a concert and Ethan is ready to start something real. This is a very sweet scene that did have me swooning. This story is very rushed though. I wish the author had fleshed the story out to really give us some depth. At 51 pages it needed more meat but there is so much promise in this story that I had to give it four stars. If you like romance that revolves around music, you're going to love The Flight!
Written by Merissa on 29th Nov 2018
The Flight is the fourth novella in the Close Proximity series. This time we meet up with Sebastian, a flight attendant, and Ethan, a musician. Now, you may think this is the normal rockstar romance, but it's not. This story is intricate in a way novellas rarely are. Not only do we see Sebastian as a flight attendant, but also as a young man who has lost his mum. A young man who writes music. And yet we still find out more about him as the story progresses. As for Ethan, tired musician, songwriter, travelling to a charity concert. When these two meet, sparks fly. I loved this book! It's a novella, and I really wish it wasn't! I could have sat down with this one and read happily for much longer. Instead, I got all the good bits in one easy read, including a perfect HEA for our guys. There is plenty going on, but the pacing is smooth. With good supporting characters, a great storyline, and a couple of smoking hot MCs, this is a story I highly recommend. * A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and my comments here are my honest opinion.
Kiss Is A Four-Letter Word by Erin M. Leaf
Devotion by Marie E. Blossom
Shane's Submission by Erin M. Leaf
Thief by Erin M. Leaf
Caged Killer by Erin M. Leaf


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For more details about any of these properties, please contact us.
Yardleys is a truly unique and beautifully crafted family residence that has been built to an extremely high specification, providing an elegant interior and a spacious layout, ideal for modern day-to-day living. The property extends to approximately 9,500 sq ft.
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