Today for #SundaySupper we teamed up with the Beef Checkoff to share with you healthy, flavorful recipes that will make your tongue sing and your belly dance. I am so excited for this recipe because it contains all things I love! Lots of flavor, a little bit of spice and little bit of sweetness, plus it is a breeze to make and low-calorie too! My recipe today is Sweet & Spicy Asian Beef Tacos.
Yum!!! I'm just so full of joy with this recipe. The tacos are made with a thinly sliced Top Round Beef that has been marinating in soy sauce, crushed garlic and chili paste. Topped with a sweet and spicy mango salsa on a bed of coleslaw mix. It is an amazing combination of flavors. To keep it healthy I served it in a corn tortilla. Oh man, I think I need a taco now!
I wasn't sure what kind of beef to use, so I checked out the Beef Checkoff website and they have a section called the Interactive Butcher Counter. This is an awesome site for different cuts of beef. They have little green symbol called so I knew what kind of beef I wanted to serve for dinner. I found my Top Round Beef on it and when I clicked the photo, it had the calories and fat count on it. Pretty cool. Then one more click and it showed me a bunch of fun recipes using that cut of meat, plus how to cook it. I love it! So if you're not sure what kind of beef to serve your family, you should check that out.
For the salsa I took fresh mango, and diced it up, added a little bit of red onion and of course I can't have a taco without jalapenos. Plus, I squeezed a fresh lime on it. Perfect little combination. It's juicy, sweet, a bit of citrus, plus a pinch of heat. It's great on these tacos and great for dipping in chips. I made a big batch of it to get me through the weekend.
I marinated my meat for about an hour because I was starving and I don't have the patience to wait any longer. But you could marinate it up to 4 hours if you would like. I cooked my Top Round Steak on the grill for about 5 minutes on each side. Since I got a thin cut of meat, it doesn't take much time to cook. I actually cooked it perfectly, because it had a little strip of pink right down the middle. I have to admit, I am the grill master in my house. I know my Husband would have over cooked it and made it gray. He claims he likes his beef that way, but I think he's crazy. To me, the less it's cooked, the more flavor the beef has.
A sweet and spicy taco, made with beef that has been marinating in a Asian sauce and topped with a sweet and spicy mango salsa.
In a small bowl, mix together soy sauce, asian chili paste and garlic. Pour over steak and marinate for at least 1 hour up to 4 hours.
Heat grill to medium. Throw the marinade out and add the steak to the grill. Cook for about 5 minutes each side. Take off grill and let it rest for 5 minutes. Cut into thin strips.
Meanwhile, in a bowl, add mango, onion, jalapeno and lime juice. Mix until well combined.
Evenly divide the coleslaw mix over corn tortillas. Top with sliced beef and mango salsa. Serve immediately. You can also top with cilantro if desired.
Mango salsa can be made in advance.
I am just so excited to see today's #SundaySupper beef recipes. You know how much I love my beef. Plus, to boot the recipes are healthy. You have to check them out below. There are some very unique and creative recipes today.
You can also check out the Healthy Meals with Beef Pinterest Board for more great recipes.
I hope you have enjoyed today's recipe as much as I have creating it!
I love a sweet heat combo and your tacos sound amazing!
Our beef has to be rare, very rare! Your tacos look perfect–and I love the delicious addition of mangoes!!!
I couldn't agree with you more. I don't like over done beef.
Oh yum! These tacos with lean beef and mangoes?! Ah-may-zing!
Mango and beef sound like a delicious combo!
Thank you Cindy! I love the combo!
Love the sweet & savor combination!
I too love sweet & savory! One of my favorite combination of flavors.
That mango jalapeno mixture on top of the beef sounds so yummy!
Thank you, it is! Nice combination of flavors.
You're welcome! Hope you enjoy it as much as we have.
Sweet and spicy is such a winning combination!
Nice tropical flair to brighten up winter!
I love the combination of the Asian sauce with the mangoes and jalapenos. Yum!
Very cool idea with the chili paste and soy sauce. I can't even imagine how delicious these must be!
I love the Asian-Mexican fusion and that mango salsa!
I love Mango Salsa – sweet and spicy is so perfect!
The mango lime combination in this looks really interesting to me! Yum!
Mmmm I am a taco loving girl and these tacos are definitely worth loving!!


Being green can mean different things to different people, it also depends on where you live in the world as to the amount of green projects you might have access too. Understanding, and acting on being green, is a reflection on what it can do for you, too. The added benefits that being green can have on you, your home and even your finances, can mean that not only can you make a difference in the world it can also benefit you and your family's lives too.
I am not the greenest person in the world but I know that what I do is benefiting my family and me, as well as having an impact on the world. There are always more things you can do, but it is important to add these into your life slowly because just like a routine if you add too many at once you will probably not keep up with them; but, by adding them slowly, it becomes second nature and you don't think twice about doing something green.
So many different things you can do to help protect the environment are good for you too.
Buy eco-friendly items when possible.
Always recycle if you can. Choose products that are recyclable over non-recycle products.
Use the air to dry your clothes, try hanging out your laundry rather than using a tumble drier.
Change lightbulbs for low energy bulbs, LED are the new energy-efficient bulbs.
Reduce the temperature of your heating, even by just one degree, not only does this save you money it also saves energy.
Stopping using plastic bags, they are dangerous to animals if they're ingested and they take too long to decompose. Use cotton bags, they are a lot safer and you can use them more than once.
Stop bills arriving in your post, opt for paperless billing; often this is cheaper; pay your bills online, saving you time and money.
Consider plants, these can help to improve the air that you breathe.
Consider renewable energy, solar panels to reduce your electric.
Collect rainwater for your gardening needs.
We are lucky that the council collects many items that we use and these get recycled, from milk bottles, glass jars even tins to paper and garden waste too. This saves me a lot of time; I don't have to think of some of the items that are recyclable because these are all taken care of.
However, I do want to consider the products that we use in the home to make sure they are eco-friendly and green. I don't want to use a cleaning product, no matter how great the claims are to how good it is, if it is going to release chemicals into the atmosphere that are harmful to my family and ultimately to the planet too.
I dislike waste, for me throwing out something that costs money isn't using the items I have purchased wisely. Therefore, I look for the best bargains but only if I will use them. Buying something because it is cheap is not good use of your money if you never use the item.
Therefore, green to me means being thoughtful to the items I use and buy and to ensure that as much as possible stays out of landfills and I protect the environment as much as possible. What does it mean to you?
We have been updating our new (to us) home this past year and this winter realized the loft insulation didn't meet the requirements, so have had that sorted which we hope will cut down our heating bills. Also replaced a faulty extractor fan in the bathroom which was stuck on open.


text:
Movie Requests
SOLO!
0:00/ 45:00
SOLO! (2017)
A romantic comedy musical about a young Englishman who arrives in a remote, run-down Spanish village and has to reform their band – before they find out that it was his dad who ruined the village in the first place.
Genre: Comedy, Musical, Romance
Director: Nic Cornwall
Actors: Ben Freeman, Candela Gómez, Jaime Pujol, Tristam Summers
SOLO! Photos
It Happened Tomorrow
In the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Lawrence 'Larry' Stevens is an ambitious reporter of The Evening News. One day, he is celebrating with his colleagues and he tells his…
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy
Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000
In the future, corporations have taken over the world and banned sex. A group of rebellious high school students devise a way to go back in time to the present…
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
A Family Thanksgiving
A lawyer trying to make partner is shown the joys of living a more balanced life.
Santitos
When St. Jude appears to her to tell her that her daughter is still alive, Esperanza goes on a search to find her daughter.
Country: Canada,France,Mexico,Spain,USA
Hood vs. Evil will find a teen such as Red Riding Hood who will be training in a distant land with a mysterious, covert group called the Sister Hoods. When…
Genre: Action, Animation, Comedy
Amos & Andrew
When Andrew Sterling, a successful black urbanite writer buys a vacation home on a resort in New England the police mistake him for a burglar. After surrounding his home with…
Genre: Comedy, Crime
Billy Connolly: Big Banana Feet
Billy Connolly was, in the 1970s, a sort of Scottish Lenny Bruce, who, with devastating humour, sliced through the hypocrisies he perceived. This 1976 documentary follows the singer-comic during his…
Genre: Comedy, Documentary, Music
Wife vs. Secretary
Magazine publisher Van Stanhope is a hard-working, dynamic executive very happily married to his beautiful wife Linda. Although their relationship is is built on unconditional trust, friends caution her about…
The cut-scenes from Futurama (2003), edited together to form an episode. Mom attempts to take over the universe and it's up to the Planet Express crew to stop her.
English Babu Desi Mem
Vikram Mayur, a wealthy Indian, born and raised in England, returns to his ancestral home in Mumbai, India to look up his late brother's eight-year-old son Nandu raised by his…
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Musical
Doug Stanhope: Beer Hall Putsch
Named after Hitler's first failed coup attempt, Beer Hall Putsch draws you deeper into the acerbic comic's clear-sighted view of the world with his newest one hour stand-up special recorded…
Genre: Comedy, Documentary
This is the story of Enid and Rebecca after they finish the high school. Both have problems relating to people and they spend their time hanging around and bothering creeps….
Country: Germany,UK,USA
MovGoTV
Copyright MovGoTV © 2019. All rights reserved. Discover MovGoTV.com HD collection, just thousands of hours of streaming films to watch free movies online without downloading.
WATCHFREEMOVIES
FREE ONLINE MOVIES FULL
WATCH MOVIES ONLINE FREE HD

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


18V ONE+™ Compact Radio with Bluetooth® Wireless Technology is rated 4.1 out of 5 by 16.
Rated 1 out of 5 by As It is from Not worth the money I have heard more thane Ryobi One r18r radio in action and they both have the same problem... and that is they have very very poor reception. If you put side by side to a really cheap radio the cheap radio holds reception where as the Ryobi One r18r radio. I have other Ryobi products and most are pretty good but the a radio needs to hold reception and this just doesn't. I have had mine for well over 12 months, so plenty of time and places to evaluate it.
Rated 3 out of 5 by Kashasha from 2 year review Purchased in 2016 Worked great till now. So about a two year life.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Rob0715 from Nice sounds Bought two of these, one for home & one for work. Price the other & Ryobi was much cleaner with many features.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Parrothead3629 from Wouldn't work without it! This little radio stays by my mill, makes the day go by. Had it for months with no problems.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Blister from Little monster Just purchased this radio it's a great addition to my ever growing collection of ryobi tools.
Rated 5 out of 5 by George from Plays nice and loud I got this as a xmas gift. Plays music clear and loud! Battery lasts a long time.
The RYOBI 18V ONE+™ Compact Radio with Bluetooth® Wireless Technology is a must have addition to your ONE+™ tool collection. The ONE+ Compact Radio has many convenient features including the ability to charge smartphone devices and provides durability on the jobsite or at home while delivering crisp sound quality. Its value is unparalleled in the power tool industry with integrated Bluetooth® Wireless Technology at a retail offering of $39.97. The RYOBI 18V ONE+™ Compact Radio with Bluetooth® Wireless Technology works with any 18V ONE+ battery (sold separately) and is a part of the ONE+™ System of over 50 great tools that all work with the same 18V battery platform.
My phone isn't connecting to my RYOBI radio via Bluetooth.
There are several reasons this could be the happening. Make sure your phone is within 30 feet of the RYOBI Radio, with BLUETOOTH pairing turned on. Ensure the RYOBI Radio is in BLUETOOTH mode and the screen is showing these blinking symbols: 'bt'. If that symbol is not on the display, cycle through your modes by pressing the MODE button until you once again land on BLUETOOTH mode. If the screen still does not show 'bt' flashing (which shows it is in BLUETOOTH pairing mode) hold the PRESET button to erase the memory on the BLUETOOTH module. This should allow the radio to start looking for BLUETOOTH connections once again.
The music is very quiet on Bluetooth mode.
Remember you have two volume controls when connected to the RYOBI Radio via BLUETOOTH. The volume buttons on your radio, and the volume slider on your phone. Ensure both are between 25% to 85% of their maximum for the highest possible sound quality.
The radio is not playing music in Aux-In mode.
The radio will only play music in Aux-In when an auxiliary cord is plugged into the Aux-In jack and then into your device's headphone jack. The USB port is for charging only, not data (music) transmission.
The USB charging port is not charging my device.
Ensure that the RYOBI Radio is turned on. USB charging will work with the radio off, but only for 45 minutes. Ensure the cord you are using is a registered accessory for use with your device. Many third-party cords do not always work with devices. Lastly, make sure the USB is fully seated in the USB port.
My favorite radio station won't come in.
Radio reception varies greatly due to a lot of factors. If you are inside a building, there are a lot of materials between your radio and the transmission. Ensure the folding antenna is up for the best possible FM reception. Also make sure the radio is in a high place and radio transmissions are not being blocked by surrounding objects.
Why were two AAA alkaline batteries included in the box?
The two included AAA alkaline batteries included in each RYOBI Radio, when installed, allow your radio to remember radio station presets, keep the clock accurate, and remember the last device you connected to via BLUETOOTH. They will only be used when a RYOBI ONE+ battery is not connected to the radio.


This Trial Offer is only available for a limited time with payment in advance by credit card. You get to test ADMIN Magazine with no obligation to continue your subscription.
You will receive 2 consecutive issues (one every two months) of ADMIN Magazine, starting with the current issue (no back issues please). Should you decide not to continue reading ADMIN Magazine, just inform us on subs@admin-magazine.com within 7 days of receiving your second issue.
To keep reading ADMIN Magazine, you don't need to take any action – after the 2 trial issues, your subscription will continue as a 6-issue digital subscription at the yearly rate (see online shop).
If you decide to continue your subscription, you can still take advantage of our Money Back Guarantee – you can cancel at any time for a full refund on all unreleased issues, no questions asked.


text:
WorldViews Analysis
Trump 'finally' condemned killing of Indian man as act of hate. Was he too late?
Two Indian politicians hold placards in front of the cremation pyre of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, a 32-year-old engineer who was killed in an apparently racially motivated shooting in a crowded Kansas bar, in Hyderabad, India, on Feb. 28. (Mahesh Kumar A./Associated Press)
By Annie Gowen
Annie Gowen
National correspondent
President Trump used a big bully pulpit — his historic first address to the U.S. Congress — to condemn the shooting of an Indian computer engineer on Feb. 22 in Kansas that the FBI said Tuesday it is investigating as hate crime.
"We may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms," Trump said, speaking of both the Kansas attack and the vandalism in Jewish cemeteries and other anti-Semitic attacks in recent days. Earlier in the day, the White House gave its first direct comment on the Kansas attack, calling it "an act of racially motivated hatred."
Critics on social media reacted quickly — praising Trump for addressing the issue, but wondering why it took so long.
"Finally, Trump condemns the hatred in Kansas and elsewhere. Finally," author Anand Giridharadas said in a tweet.
Trump's high-profile denunciation came after nearly a week in which several prominent former State Department officials and others criticized the White House. Among them was the former U.S. ambassador to India, Richard Verma, and Nisha Biswal, the former assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia.
On Tuesday, Biswal thanked the president for "doing the right thing" by condemning this "act of terror."
"Now stop the policies and rhetoric that fuel this hate," she said in a tweet.
Thank you for doing the right thing Mr President by condemning this act of terror & hate. Now stop the policies & rhetoric that fuel hate. https://t.co/lOMEDkrBxq
— Nisha Biswal (@NishaBiswal) February 28, 2017
Yet the "sound of his silence" has already spoken volumes, the Kolkata writer Sandip Roy wrote in a column for the Huffington Post shortly before the president's speech. He noted that Trump was quick to denounce terrorist acts in Paris and Florida but also said nothing when a white supremacist attacked a mosque in Canada.
On Tuesday, more than 200 people attended the cremation service for the slain computer engineer, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, after an emotional day for the slain man's family. His weeping mother told The Washington Post that she had begged her other son not to return to the United States, where he also lives, and politicians turned up waving signs that said "Down With Trump." The attack has stoked fear among Indians that thousands of friends and relatives living in the United States are not safe, given its racially charged political climate of recent months.
Kuchibhotla was shot and killed by a drunken attacker in an Olathe, Kan., bar who shouted "Get out of my country" and may have mistaken him for an Iranian, authorities have said. Another Indian national was wounded in the attack, as was an American who tried to intervene.
Now, the pressure may build for India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, to comment, as well. The prime minister was quick to tweet about last year's Orlando nightclub massacre, the opinion website DailyO noted in an opinion piece, but he has remained "eerily silent over an issue that directly relates to the well being of Indians residing in Donald Trump's America."
Was Modi hesitant in calling out xenophobia because it would draw "immediate and strong parallels to what's happening in India?" the piece wondered. The article referred to violence and riots that occurred when "bigotry got the better of majority Indians" — including the killing of a Muslim man over rumors he had eaten beef, which is sacred to the Hindu faith, and the rowdy acts of a right-wing Hindu group on college campuses.
Madhusudhan Rao performs rituals around the funeral pyre of his son Srinivas Kuchibhotla. (Mahesh Kumar A./Associated Press)


Yup! That's right folks yet another development house has risen from the ashes of Ensemble Studios. This is the second development house which is confirmed to be working on iPhone games (the first being NewToy). The company has just released thier first game titled "iQuaterback" and is available to download via the App Store right now! If you have an ipod it may well be worth checking out!
It would seem alot of Ex Ensemble employees enjoy iPhone development - lets hope Apple culture inside Ensemble didnt affect their Microsoft shut down!
It looks like the developer is already showing Ensemble like success as already 1 million footballs have been thrown. More details on this title as more statistics arrive.


text:
Assessments of global drivers of vaccine hesitancy in 2014—Looking beyond safety concerns
Melanie Marti ,
* E-mail: MartiM@who.int
Affiliation Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
Monica de Cola,
Noni E. MacDonald,
Affiliation Department of Paediatrics, Dalhousie University, IWK Health Centre and Canadian Center for Vaccinology, Halifax, Canada
Laure Dumolard,
Philippe Duclos
Melanie Marti,
Melanie Marti Monica de Cola ... Philippe Duclos
Vaccine hesitancy has become the focus of growing attention and concern globally despite overwhelming evidence of the value of vaccines in preventing disease and saving the lives of millions of individuals every year.
Measuring vaccine hesitancy and its determinants worldwide is important in order to understand the scope of the problem and for the development of evidence-based targeted strategies to reduce hesitancy.
Two indicators to assess vaccine hesitancy were developed to capture its nature and scope at the national and subnational level to collect data in 2014: 1) The top 3 reasons for not accepting vaccines according to the national schedule in the past year and whether the response was opinion- or assessment-based and 2) Whether an assessment (or measurement) of the level of confidence in vaccination had taken place at national or subnational level in the previous 5 years.
The most frequently cited reasons for vaccine hesitancy globally related to (1) the risk-benefit of vaccines, (2) knowledge and awareness issues, (3) religious, cultural, gender or socio-economic factors. Major issues were fear of side effects, distrust in vaccination and lack of information on immunization or immunization services. The analysis revealed that 29% of all countries had done an assessment of the level of confidence in their country, suggesting that vaccine confidence was an issue of importance.
Monitoring vaccine hesitancy is critical because of its influence on the success of immunization programs. To our knowledge, the proposed indicators provide the first global snapshot of reasons driving vaccine hesitancy and depicting its widespread nature, as well as the extent of assessments conducted by countries.
Citation: Marti M, de Cola M, MacDonald NE, Dumolard L, Duclos P (2017) Assessments of global drivers of vaccine hesitancy in 2014—Looking beyond safety concerns. PLoS ONE 12(3): e0172310. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172310
Editor: Ray Borrow, Public Health England, UNITED KINGDOM
Received: July 19, 2016; Accepted: February 2, 2017; Published: March 1, 2017
Copyright: © 2017 Marti et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: All underlying data will be publicly available on the WHO website (http://www.who.int/immunization/monitoring_surveillance/routine/reporting/reporting/en/) by mid-2017. Currently, this website contains the disclaimer that data from more recently included indicators, including the vaccine hesitancy indicators, in the JRF are not yet available on the web. All interested researchers can access the data from WHO by the same means the authors accessed them. All data used can be requested from the main author by writing an email to vpdata@who.int. For further information on the underlying WHO/UNICEF joint reporting form data, please see: www.who.int/immunization/monitoring_surveillance/routine/reporting.
Vaccine hesitancy is defined as a delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite available vaccination services. It is a complex, context-specific, and rapidly changing global phenomenon that varies across time, place and vaccines. [1]
From 2002–2005, a pilot question was included in the annual World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Joint Reporting Form (JRF) in order to monitor and understand the increasing number of reports on vaccine hesitancy. The JRF was sent to national immunization managers globally asking whether they had responded to negative media coverage about vaccines within the previous year. Data showed that negative media coverage was reported by countries in all WHO regions. This survey question pointed to the extent of vaccine hesitancy already emerging even over a decade ago. [2]
The recent Decade of Vaccines (DoV) Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) [3] 2011–2020 set 6 Strategic Objectives for the decade, with proposed indicators to monitor and evaluate progress. The Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy developed 2 new indicators for the second Strategic Objective: Individuals and communities understand the value of vaccines and demand immunization as both their right and responsibility. These indicators were as follows: 1) The top 3 reasons for not accepting vaccines according to the national schedule in the past year and whether the response was opinion or assessment-based 2) Whether an assessment (or measurement) of the level of confidence in vaccination had taken place at national or subnational level in the previous 5 years. [4][5] The global launch of these indicators took place in the 2015 JRF to collect country data for 2014 (referred to as 2014 JRF data).
The objective of including the indicators in the JRF was to allow for identification of the reasons driving vaccine hesitancy globally and evaluate which countries have conducted an assessment of the level of confidence. The initial inclusion of these indicators was shown to be successful for determining the 3 main drivers of vaccine hesitancy in 2014 and establishing the percentage of countries that have conducted an assessment. These indicators also facilitate the monitoring of changes and progress over time.
In an effort to monitor the existence, global progress, and related determinants of vaccine hesitancy WHO and UNICEF included the vaccine hesitancy indicators in the JRF with data collection for 2014. [6]
The JRF is a standardized questionnaire that is sent to all 194 WHO/UNICEF Member States on an annual basis. The JRF was developed as a tool to collect data on immunization coverage, reported cases of vaccine-preventable diseases, immunization schedules and on indicators related to immunization program performance such as the establishment of national technical immunization advisory groups. [7] Most often, it is national immunization managers who complete the questionnaire.
The JRF was sent to countries in the first quarter of 2015; hence the collected data represents the country situation in 2014.
In the JRF, there were 2 indicators related to vaccine hesitancy each represented by 2 questions. Question 1 of Indicator 1 was structured as an open-ended question inquiring about the top 3 reasons for not accepting vaccines in the last year. Immunization managers were given a free text field within a spreadsheet to provide 3 responses. The questionnaire was designed for 3 reasons or less. The second indicator was phrased as a closed dichotomous question on whether an assessment of vaccine hesitancy within the previous 5 years (yes/no), followed by a free text field to provide title and reference of the respective assessment (Fig 1).
Fig 1. Indicators of vaccine hesitancy included in the 2014 JRF.
The JRF question response rate was calculated by region. For analysis, all WHO/UNICEF Member States were included as the denominator. Data were compiled using Microsoft Excel 2010. Data were analysed using Stata version 12.0 (StataCorp. 2011. Stata Statistical Software: Release 12. College Station, TX: StataCorp LP.).
The results were stratified by WHO region, [8] development status according to the 2015 World Bank national income status categories [9] and the country's population size using the United Nations (UN) population estimates. [10]
The main factors influencing vaccine hesitancy in each country in 2014, were analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. As a means of interpretation, the responses were categorized according to the matrix of determinants developed by the SAGE Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy (Figs 2–4). [1] The matrix of determinants displays the specific drivers influencing the behavioural decision to accept, delay or reject some or all vaccines in 3 different categories: contextual influences, individual and group influences, and vaccine and vaccination-specific influences.
Fig 2. Matrix of determinants of vaccine hesitancy.
Contextual influences.
Individual and group influences.
Vaccine and vaccination-specific issues.
Categorization was performed individually by 2 researchers. If the researchers came to different conclusions, a content-expert was consulted to make an executive classification.
The results were summarized according to the frequency with which the determinants were cited. Furthermore, similarities and differences in related codes across distinct original sources/contexts are discussed.
The analysis focused on low- and lower-middle-income countries with the largest population size, which are the priority countries for WHO.
If an assessment title was provided for Indicator 2, it was assumed that an assessment had taken place even if there was no response to Question 1 of Indicator 2. Assessments were grouped by target population and related vaccine for available qualitative data.
Out of all 194 WHO Member States who were requested to fill out the 2014 JRF, 185 (95%) returned the completed form and 154 Member States (79%) provided any information for either of the 2 vaccine hesitancy indicators. The response rate of countries by region ranged from a high of 100% in the South East Asian Region (SEAR), 89% in the Region of the Americas (AMR), 87% in the African Region (AFR), 76% in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR), 70% in the European Region (EUR) to a low of 67% in the Western Pacific Region (WPR).
Reasons for vaccine hesitancy
Of 194 Member States, 141 (73%) provided at least one reason for vaccine hesitancy (Table 1).
Table 1. Number and percentage of countries that responded to the question on the top three reasons for vaccine hesitancy in 2014.
Forty-nine (25%) Member States provided the requested 3 reasons, 25 (13%) Member States provided 2 reasons and 141 (73%) countries provided at least 1 reason for vaccine hesitancy in the previous year. The data collected for vaccine hesitancy were mapped against the matrix of determinants of vaccine hesitancy and grouped according to the 3 categories of specific influences: contextual, individual and group, as well as vaccine and vaccination (Fig 5).
Fig 5. Frequency of main themes indicated as top three reasons for vaccine hesitancy within all WHO regions.
Overall, the matrix of determinants was able to capture the diverse reasons provided by the immunization managers besides a small subset that were not classifiable (n = 14; e.g. "trust", "no confidence" or "did not want to be vaccinate"). Concerns related to the risk and benefit of vaccines were the most commonly cited reasons leading to vaccine hesitancy. Safety issues including fear of side effects and safety of the vaccine were grouped within this category and were especially prominent in EUR, SEAR and WPR. Issues around religion, culture, gender or socio-economic status, particularly in AMR were common. However, the religious sect was usually not specified. When an explanation was provided, the reasons ranged from Rastafarian belief, interference to spiritual development, no halal certification of vaccines, the disease is considered a divine will to anthroposophical beliefs.
The most frequently cited determinant of vaccine hesitancy by immunization managers from AFR and EMR was knowledge and awareness issues such as a lack of knowledge or information on vaccines and their benefits as well as low awareness of the need for immunization.
The top 3 reasons in each region are summarized in Fig 6. When comparing the results across regions, there was consistency in the causes provided across regions. However in AMR, communication and the media environment were often cited. Some immunization managers specifically pointed to the impact of increasing anti-vaccination lobbyists and misinformation quoted in the media as a driving factor for vaccine hesitancy. Two countries reported Ebola as a major barrier to vaccination in 2014. For some EMR and AFR countries, the design of the vaccination program was highlighted such as service-provider related issues including inconvenient times and opening hours for vaccination clinics, caregivers forgetting their appointments as well as the repetitiveness of immunization campaigns and preference for private vaccinators. A factor frequently cited in EUR was the low perceived risk of vaccine preventable diseases (complacency) and the lack of seeing the benefit of immunization, i.e. negligence and missing motivation to receive the recommended vaccines.
Fig 6. Top three reasons for vaccine hesitancy by region.
Analysis of the drivers of vaccine hesitancy by income status indicated that in low- and lower-middle-income countries a lack of knowledge and awareness of the required vaccines, immunization or immunization services were the most frequently cited contributors to vaccine hesitancy. In upper-middle-income countries, the reasons evolved around risk/benefit (epidemiological and scientific evidence) of immunization, in particular issues related to adverse events following immunization (AEFIs) and safety of the vaccine. In high-income countries, the main reason reported by immunization managers pertained to vaccine safety issues classified within the determinant of "Risk/benefit (epidemiological and scientific evidence)" (Fig 7).
Fig 7. Top three reasons of vaccine hesitancy by level of income globally.
Vaccine hesitancy issues related to religious beliefs ("Religion/culture/gender/socio-economic"-determinant) were prominent across all strata of income and WHO regions. In AFR, the predominant reasons in low- as well as in upper-middle-income countries and high-income countries were related to knowledge and awareness issues. In low-income countries in EMR, vaccine hesitancy was most often associated with geographic barriers.
In assessing whether these responses were evidence-based or opinion-based, relying on the expertise of the immunization manager in the 141 countries who responded with at least 1 reason, it was opinion-based for 80 countries (57%), evidence-based for 48 (34%) on evidence, and 13 (9%) did not specify.
Of the 10 world's largest countries by population size according to 2015 UN estimates (China, India, United States of America, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia and Japan), 5 are classified as low-middle-income countries (the remaining 5 as upper-middle or high-income countries). In the 5 low-middle-income countries, 4 countries provided a total of 11 reasons for vaccine hesitancy in their country. The most frequently cited reasons for hesitancy were lack of awareness and information gaps, classified within the knowledge/awareness determinant (Knowledge/awareness n = 5), followed by fear of adverse events (Risk/benefit (epidemiological and scientific evidence) n = 3). Other reasons cited, each named once, related to the low perception of risk posed by the disease, belief in use of local remedies and rumours. Three of the 4 countries indicated that an assessment had been done and provided specific information on the assessment.
Globally, only 7% of the immunization managers (n = 13) indicated no knowledge of vaccine hesitancy within their country, noted that vaccines were well received by the population, or both. Of these countries, 4 were in EUR (8% of the region's Member States), 4 were in EMR (19% of the region's Member States), 3 were in AMR (9% of the region's Member States), and 2 were countries in SEAR (18% of the region's Member States). According to the World Bank income level classification, 3 countries were low-income countries, 6 lower-middle-income, 2 upper-middle-income and 2 high-income countries.
Assessment of vaccine hesitancy; confidence component
An assessment of vaccine confidence had been done within the previous 5 years in 56 (29%) Member States; 64 (33%) reported no assessment and 74 (38%) did not provide a response.
Fifty-three (percentage) countries provided detailed information or assessment titles and references to any publication or report on vaccine hesitancy (S1 Table). Five countries reported on multiple surveys and 1 country indicated an annual survey. The number of reported assessments also increased over time in the surveyed time period. The highest number of reported assessments were indicated to have taken place in 2014 (n = 19), compared to 10 in 2013, 9 in 2012, 3 in 2011 and 4 in 2010. Assessments were conducted in all regions in 2014.Countries in AFR conducted the most assessments: 2 in 2010 and 2011, 6 in 2012 and 5 in 2013 and 2014. Countries reported having conducted an assessment in 45% of SEAR countries (n = 5/11), 28% of EUR countries (n = 15/53), 24% of EMR countries (n = 5/21), and 22% of WPR countries (n = 6/27).The type of assessment used, when provided, was as follows: immunization coverage surveys (review of the Expanded Program on Immunization) (n = 11) followed by knowledge, attitude, behaviour and practices studies (n = 10) and post-campaign surveys (n = 2). Other examples listed were drop-out survey, online survey, formative research, polling and demographic and health survey (n = 1).
Confidence issues also varied depending on the type of vaccine. The most frequently named were routine childhood vaccines (unspecified) (n = 20), measles vaccine (n = 3), HPV and seasonal influenza (n = 2) as well as new vaccines and tetanus vaccine (n = 1).
When indicated or retrievable, target population of the assessments were most commonly parents and caregivers (n = 7), adults (n = 1), young women (n = 1) or health care workers (n = 1). Distinguishing whether the assessment was conducted at the national or subnational level was not feasible in the majority of cases based on the answers provided.
No indicators have been identified to date that will facilitate the measurement of various vaccine hesitancy determinants accurately across all contexts. [2] Given the complexity and length of the JRF adding, or changing a quesiton or both has to be done with care and caution. As such, the new data generated must be compelling enough to justify the change.
The results of the vaccine hesitancy indicators from the 2014 JRF data provide useful insights for global program planning and for tracking of hesitancy. However, they still fall short of measuring the depth and breadth of the hesitancy problem. Nevertheless, the indicators support tracking of perceived reasons for vaccine hesitancy within a country and summarize the kind of surveys conducted thus far that have aimed to assess vaccine confidence.
The findings from the 2014 JRF data survey are also consistent with previous observations that vaccine hesitancy varies by time, place, and vaccine. In Ebola affected countries, [11] people were afraid to access health care centres due to the potential risk of Ebola transmission, an example of a temporal determinant. In EUR, the fact that vaccine preventable diseases were not perceived as a risk illustrates complacency with immunization as defined by the matrix of determinants. This is especially important because this region has been struggling with re-emergence of some vaccine preventable diseases such as measles, mumps and pertussis in spite of well-established and reliable vaccination programs. In particular, the measles outbreaks in the region have been attributed to intentional under-vaccination. [12] As a result, interventions to address hesitancy in Ebola affected countries will be quite different than in countries where complacency is a key factor, reinforcing that vaccine hesitancy is highly context specific.
Furthermore, as observed in a previous study, [13] the WHO matrix of determinants was demonstrated to be robust, as only a few factors identified in the survey fell outside of the scope of the matrix.
The majority of reported reasons for vaccine hesitancy were related to vaccine and vaccination specific issues. Globally, the most frequently reported explanations were related to the risk/benefit determinant (epidemiological and scientific evidence). In particular, vaccine safety issues and fear of AEFIs were cited, which reinforces the need to address this concern globally and locally. However, since alleged vaccine safety issues are known to have triggered prominent episodes of vaccine hesitancy in developing as well as developed countries, [14] immunization managers may have felt compelled to place it on the list, Therefore, the information provided by the immunization manager may be subjective, which highlights one general limitation of this indicator. As a result, the information provided may not necessarily reflect the situation in the country or at the sub-national level and specific determinants may be over- or underreported.
The second most frequently cited reason for vaccination hesitancy was knowledge and awareness issues. This was a common concern in low-and lower-middle-income countries. Addressing the gaps in knowledge may help decrease vaccine hesitancy. However, determinants such as education enable and well as hinder immunization uptake. [15]
The third most common reason for vaccine hesitancy was religious and cultural issues, particularly religion. However, the religion or belief was often not specified. A review by Grabenstein et al. [16] of the populous faith traditions of the world including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam found minimal evidence of "canonical bases for declining immunization". This suggests that in countries where religion and culture are barriers to immunization, more work needs to be done with religious leaders to determine the precise concerns and then review if this truly has a religious basis or not. One must be aware that sometimes religious concerns are cited to cover up underlying concerns or to bring attention to a community where problems other than vaccines need to be addressed.
Limitations in this analysis approach were observed when categorizating Indicator 1 by the matrix of determinants. In some instances answers fit in more than one category. For example, "Complacency of well off families" could be grouped as perceptions of a lack of risk of vaccine-preventable diseases "Risk/benefit (perceived, heuristic)" as well as "Immunization as social norm" with vaccine hesitancy being influenced by the named peer group. Moreover, imprecision of the information provided demonstrated challenges for grouping. It was unclear whether "Fever" relates to fear of AEFIs, "Risk/benefit (epidemiological and scientific evidence)," or "Experience with past vaccination". Furthermore, the classification of the provided reasons may be subject to personal perception. If no reason was provided, it was unclear whether the main 3 reasons were unknown to the immunization manager or whether no hesitancy was presumed to be present in the country. Evaluating vaccine hesitancy by immunization managers on a yearly basis may improve the quality of the answers or bring forth more concerns as immunization mangers become comfortable with the query.
With respect to the second indicator, the number of assessments on vaccine confidence might serve as a proxy for the number of countries being confronted or facing difficulties with vaccine hesitancy. However, the current JRF question focused more narrowly on "confidence" instead of broadly on hesitancy. This led to some difficulties in interpreting the results as some reports clearly were assessing hesitancy more broadly than others. Changing the first question of the second hesitancy indicator to a query about the conducted assessments on "vaccine hesitancy" rather than about assessments on "confidence in vaccination" may be advisable to allow the indicator to encompass the broader scope of vaccine hesitancy and avoid confusion among immunization managers. Nevertheless, the 2014 findings are of interest as they showed a broad range and breadth of studies being undertaken in this discipline across the globe. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the number of assessments per year has increased over the time period surveyed. This increase may be related to recall bias, in particular as staff rotate, but also may reflect a true increase in concern in this area. Future JRF reviews will provide more evidence to show if this observation is a true upward trend.
Addressing vaccine hesitancy requires an understanding of the magnitude and setting of the problem as well as a diagnosis of the root causes using valid and reliable measures deployed in populations large enough to draw confident conclusions. [17] Vaccine hesitancy must always be viewed in the context of other factors contributing to un- or under-vaccination. The 2 indicators evaluated herein may assist with advocating and raising awareness of vaccine hesitancy within countries. They may also stimulate action, thorough assessment and identification of the specific determinants of vaccine hesitancy within a country or sub-country level. Evidence-based strategies can only be tailored to address these causes successfully if the underlying determinants of hesitancy in that context are well understood.
Overall, the results gathered from the 2 indicators highlight specific factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy across regions and suggest that vaccine hesitancy affects all countries regardless of income status. These indicators are of particular importance because to date there is no global assessment, to our knowledge, of the causes of vaccine hesitancy. Both indicators are useful in that they will not only raise awareness about hesitancy among countries and encourage the development of targeted strategies to reduce vaccine hesitancy, but also promote monitoring progress to address vaccine hesitancy across the regions and countries over time.
S1 Table. List of assessments by country as indicated in the 2014 JRF data.
Disclaimer: Some of the authors are World Health Organization staff members. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the decisions, official policy or opinions of the World Health Organization.
Conceptualization: MM PD.
Formal analysis: MM MC.
Methodology: LD.
Resources: LD.
Supervision: PD.
Validation: MM NM.
Visualization: MM.
Writing – original draft: MM MC.
Writing – review & editing: NM PD.
1. MacDonald NE, the SAGE Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy definition, scope and determinants. Vaccine. 2015; 33 (34): 4161–4164. pmid:25896383
2. Larson HJ, Jarrett C, Schulz WS, Chaudhuri M;, Zhou Y, Dube E, et al. Measuring vaccine hesitancy: The development of a survey tool. Vaccine. 2015; 33 (34): 4165–4175. pmid:25896384
3. World Health Organization Global Vaccine Action Plan (2014). Available: www.who.int/immunization/global_vaccine_action_plan/GVAP_doc_2011_2020/en/.
4. SAGE working group dealing with vaccine hesitancy [established March 2012]. Available: www.who.int/immunization/sage/sage_wg_vaccine_hesitancy_apr12.
5. SAGE Decade of Vaccines Working Group [established March 2013]. Available: www.who.int/immunization/sage/sage_wg_decade_vaccines.
6. WHO/UNICEF Joint Reporting Process. Available: www.who.int/immunization/monitoring_surveillance/routine/reporting/reporting.
7. Duclos P, Dumolard L, Abeysinghe N, Adjagba A, Janusz CB, Mihigo R, et al. Progress in the establishment and strengthening of national immunization technical advisory groups: Analysis from the 2013 WHO/UNICEF joint reporting form, data for 2012. Vaccine. 2013; 31 (46): 5314–5320. pmid:24055304
8. World Health Organization Countries. Available: www.who.int/countries.
9. The 2014 World Bank Development Indicators Online. Available: http://www.data.worldbank.org/indicator.
10. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2015). World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision, DVD Edition.
11. Kieny MP, Evans DB, Schmets G, Kadandale S. Health-system resilience: reflections on the Ebola crisis in western Africa. Bull World Health Organ. 2014; 92(12): 850. pmid:25552765
12. Muscat M. Who Gets Measles in Europe? The Journal of Infectious Diseases. 2001; 204:S353–S365.
13. Dube E, Gagnon D, Nickels E, Jeram S, Schuster S. Mapping vaccine hesitancy—Country-specific characteristics of a global phenomenon. Vaccine. 2014; 32 (49): 6649–6654. pmid:25280436
14. Eskola J, Duclos P, Schuster M, MacDonald NE, the SAGE Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy. How to deal with vaccine hesitancy? Vaccine. 2015; 33 (34): 4215–4217. pmid:25896378
15. Larson HJ, Jarrett C, Eckersberger E, Smith DM, Paterson P. Understanding vaccine hesitancy around vaccines and vaccination from a global perspective: a systematic review of published literature, 2007–2012. Vaccine. 2014; 32 (19): 2150–2159. pmid:24598724
16. Grabenstein J. What the World's religions teach, applied to vaccines and immune globulins. Vaccine. 2013; 31 (16): 2011–2023. pmid:23499565
17. Leask J, Willaby HW, Kaufman J. The big picture in addressing vaccine hesitancy. Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics. 2014; 10:9, 2600–2602.
Is the Subject Area "Vaccines" applicable to this article?
Vaccination and immunization
Is the Subject Area "Vaccination and immunization" applicable to this article?
Is the Subject Area "Vaccine development" applicable to this article?
Is the Subject Area "Religion" applicable to this article?
Is the Subject Area "Immune response" applicable to this article?
Is the Subject Area "Measles" applicable to this article?


text:
The "Gray Ones" Fade To Black
Bill Mesce
"How come you only show us clips from movies none of us ever heard of?"
She was 30, a single mom who'd admirably gone back to school for a business degree to better things for her and her family. She'd taken my film appreciation class as an elective, a break from the grind of her business classes, expecting it would be – her word – "fun."
But, due to the aforementioned "movies none of us ever heard of," she was not having the anticipated fun.
I explained, "Because most movies were made before you were born."
Simple and obvious, it still didn't satisfy her, and the unasked next question in her eyes I guessed to be, "But why do we have to see them?"
Most of my class – not all, but most – I knew felt similarly. They didn't say it but I could tell: rolled eyes, glazed eyes, eyes glued to smart phones they mistakenly thought I couldn't see hidden in their laps under their desks instead of on the projection screen. The occasional snoozer, head down on his/her desk.
Mind you, we're not talking about obscure, challenging, subtitled art house imports. The class was a chronological study and by the time my business major had been frustrated enough to say something, "the movies none of us ever heard of" included, among others, Dead End (1937), His Girl Friday (1940), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), This Gun for Hire (1942), Double Indemnity (1944), On the Waterfront (1954), Ben-Hur (1959), Spartacus (1960), Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Fail-Safe (1964), In the Heat of the Night (1967), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), The Wild Bunch (1969), Patton (1970), Network (1972), Chinatown (1974), Apocalypse Now (1979).
Not to mention they didn't know who Bogart was, or Stanwyck, Lancaster, Grant, Fonda, Bergman… Some didn't know there'd been a The War of the Worlds (1953) before Spielberg's (let alone that there'd been a – "Really?" – book!); that there'd been a Planet of the Apes (1968) before Tim Burton's monkey fest. And those few who did know, hadn't seen the originals. With the exception of Jaws (1975), Star Wars (1977), and (for just a few) The Godfather (1972), it seemed most of them didn't know any movie before Independence Day (1996) and Titanic (1997).
As frustrating as it had been, something about my business major's question wouldn't let me go. It buzzed around and around in my head for days afterward. I wasn't sure why,
then it jelled for me: why didn't they know? The Internet, Netflix, DVDs, dozens of cable channels…my students had incredible access to a virtually limitless library of movies, yet almost every day I went into class it was like I was speaking in tongues to them.
And then a flip side of her question presented itself, also nagging at me: how come back when I was a kid with just six TV channels, I knew about all those classic (and even more not-so-classic) flicks?
After mulling it over for a couple of days, I had my epiphany: an outrageous paradox. For all their access, my students saw astoundingly little; and as limited as my access had been, I'd seen so, so much more.
Up until about 1970, movie releases were managed as if pictures were valuable objects to be carefully nursed through the distribution system. It wasn't because Old Hollywood had any great respect or high regard for their product; they had no illusions that they were handling some kind of – God forbid – art. This was a matter of simple, economic practicality; they adhered to a methodology designed to wring every last possible dollar out of each title.
Wide releases were reserved for anticipated disasters: you pushed a flick onto as many screens as possible hoping to haul in some quick box office cash before the bad word of mouth got out. But what you normally did was this:
A movie was initially released only in the better theaters only in the major markets. When its drawing power began to fade at that level, only then was it cycled through smaller markets, more downscale theaters, and then dropping down another tier to second- and then third-run houses, finally bottoming out – depending on the era – at drive-ins and grindhouses. It was a process with the goal of squeezing out every possible buck at a given level of exhibition before moving on to the next one.
Movies considered special, top-of-the-line, one-of-a-kind releases were kept on an even shorter leash. We're talking the kind of big budget spectaculars we'd probably refer to today as "event" pictures; movies like Gone With the Wind (1939) , The Ten Commandments (1956), Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and so on. These kinds of cinematic dreadnaughts would premiere in – literally – just a handful of cities and only in the most upscale venues, like Grauman's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, or New York's Radio City.
I'm not throwing the word "event" around loosely: that's exactly what exhibitions at these showcases truly were. There'd be souvenirs and programs on sale in the palatial lobbies, movies would open with a musical overture as if they were Broadway plays, there'd be an intermission. Only after business had peaked at these kinds of imperial displays did a trimmed-back version of the movie trickle out into the usual distribution network.
Whether the movie was a megamillion-dollar epic or a routine studio release, this limited distribution pattern could preserve the entertainment value of a title for months, with those movies generating positive word of mouth teasing out a tantalizing expectancy in markets further down the ladder. I can still remember, as a kid in Jersey, hearing about movies opening in New York, and envying the few kids whose families had the money to "jump across the river" to see a movie in The City while the rest of us wondered how long it would take to come to our side of the Hudson, and then to our neighborhood.
With this kind of release pattern, it wasn't unusual for a successful movie to be in exhibition for as long as a year. For the biggies – the Ben-Hurs and such – it might take a couple of years before the last tired, pitted print rattled for the last time through a projector at some drive-in out in the boonies.
Still, for as long as a movie might be on the exhibition circuit, it was only being seen by a limited number of people at any given time. In this way, all movies – no matter how pedestrian – were evanescent experiences. A movie came to the neighborhood theater, and, once it left, it was gone forever, like – to steal a line from Blade Runner (1982) – "tears in rain."
Well, most of the time.
Some of those prestigious Radio City-caliber releases were able, under this restrained distribution pattern, to retain a lasting appeal, a cultural echo, a sense that they were too special to only pass through this life once. When you saw Gone with the Wind or The Longest Day (1962), you knew there was never going to be another movie like that. Ever.
And the studios recognized that impact. These super-memorable flicks belonged to their own special class, were treated like rare treasures occasionally brought out of their sacred vault for rare occasions – a re-release — possibly to be seen for the last time by an older generation who fondly remembered them, and a newer generation which had only ever heard about them.
While re-releases were a regular feature of the old distribution model, they were rare enough for individual titles for a re-release to be considered as much of an event as a movie's first time on screens. It was a form of cultural resurrection. That's how I got to see – on the big screen – movies like Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, even the everybody-in-comedy-worth-a-damn It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (with the re-release promo line recognizing just how dysfunctional the 1970s were: "If there was ever a time for It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, it's now!").
Considering its age, I would guess Gone with the Wind would probably be the re-release champ, showing up on the big screen every so many years decade after decade (Wikipedia lists eight theatrical re-releases). But the man who had re-releasing down to a science was Walt Disney.
Disney re-released his animation classics – pictures like Bambi (1942), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Fantasia (1940), et al – about every seven years. The calculation was that was how long it would take one generation of viewers to age out of a given movie's appeal, and a new generation to age in. Disney – always a far-sighted guy – also anticipated that at a certain point parents who had seen these animated jewels as kids would enjoy reliving the experience with their own kids.
Re-releasing made sense in a cinema world where there was no aftermarket. A movie made its money in theaters and that was that.
Until television.
Initially, many of the major studios wanted nothing to do with TV. As TV ownership increased, movie attendance decreased, and Hollywood considered the little flickering box a thief in the night running off with the movie industry's audience, a pillager, a rapist, a Pied Piper seducing ever more viewers each year with its bluish glow. Television was the great evil, The Dark Lord, so much so that some studios even had embargos on their contract players making TV appearances, or even against having a TV appear in a movie as, say, part of a living room set's decor. To actually provide TV with movie programming was tantamount to aiding and abetting a Class A felony.
But in Hollywood, even then it was already a long-established tradition that the dollar spoke louder than ideals, and the big ice-breaker came in 1955 when RKO sold the TV rights to740 of the studio's features. It was kind of like, "How dare you, you miserable little box, showing up on my doorstop with your hand out, wanting my prized — . Wait, how much did you say?" The other studios – most of whom, like RKO, were financially struggling at the time – looked at the millions RKO had reaped, figured most of their oldies weren't doing them any good sitting on the shelves gathering dust, and thereafter followed suit in a torrent of similar – and even bigger – TV deals.
The studios bundled their old movies in packages, and syndicators sold these packages to local stations around the country. The licensing terms might run as long as 20 years, but that was fine; in those days, there was no advantage to a quick turnover. Buying these big blocks of movies, and holding on to them for such long periods gave TV stations the ability to not only build up substantial film libraries, but to develop their own market-specific programming traditions.
Where I lived in northeastern New Jersey, we were part of the New York metropolitan viewing area, then and now the biggest, most densely-populated TV market in the country,
big enough to support six channels: the flagship stations for the three broadcast networks (WCBS Channel 2, WNBC Channel 4, WABC Channel 7), three independent stations (WPIX Channel 5 which would later become part of Fox; WOR Channel 9 which would later become part of UPN, and then MyTV after UPN folded; WPIX Channel 11, which would later be part of The WB which evolved into The CW); and one "educational station," WNET Channel 13 (later part of PBS). Every Sunday morning, Channel 11 had a Bowery Boys flick. Every Christmas, they'd air the 1934 version of Babes in Toyland with Laurel & Hardy. On Thanksgivings, Channel 9 would run, back-to-back, King Kong (1933), Son of Kong (1933), and Mighty Joe Young (1949). What giant gorillas had to do with Thanksgiving, I'll be damned if I know, but there reached a point where it didn't seem like Thanksgiving without the big apes on a tear. Saturday night was for the kids with Channel 5's Creature Feature at 8:30, and then at 11 came Channel's 9's Chiller Theater. Those Saturday night slots were where I was introduced to the Frankenstein monster and vampires, werewolves, alien invaders (I've hardly met a male of my generation who doesn't remember the original Invaders from Mars [1953] – an indelible concoction of silliness, low-budget embarrassment, visceral childhood paranoias, and brilliant visuals).
Stephen Whitty, reviewer for New Jersey's The Star-Ledger, one of the largest newspapers in the New York metro area, remembers the varied "flavors" of the different NY stations: "In the NY area…you had Channel 2 running MGM pictures, Channel 5 had Warners and old Universal titles, Channel 9 had RKO and a lot of British imports, Channel 13 ran foreign imports and silents, and Channels 4, 7, and 11 divvied up the rest."
Another childhood memory: Channel 9's Million Dollar Movie (keeping in mind that, in those days, you could make a pretty good movie for a million bucks). MDM had a unique scheduling strategy: they'd run the same movie every weeknight at eight, then run it several times each day on Saturday and Sunday. For a kid, that kind of encoring was like a form of hypnotic brainwashing. There were images I still haven't forgotten after sitting through them as a thrill-hungry 10-year-old, watching them a half-dozen times in a week: a tentacled monster barging through an inn's front doors in The Crawling Eye (1951), Jack Palance's arm crushed by a German tank in Attack! (1956), Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis watching in terror as Walter Pidgeon's "Monster from the Id" burns its way through steel doors to get at them in Forbidden Planet (1956), John Wayne trying to single-handedly save a railroad bridge from being washed away by a flood in Tycoon (1947), having a crush on one of the eponymous women of Atlantis in Hercules and the Women of Atlantis (1961 – Channel 9 had all those cheesy – pardon me — mozzarella-y Italian-made Hercules movies).
As much money as Hollywood could make selling its oldies, the movie industry still hadn't "gone all the way"…but the potential revenue for selling newer flicks to the major networks was too tempting to ignore for long. In 1961, NBC debuted NBC Saturday Night at the Movies, a weekly movie slot featuring comparatively recent films which soon became one of the network's highest-rated spots on its schedule.
The studios were still careful about how much exposure their product received. There was an embargo period on new movies; they couldn't be sold to TV for at least several years after their theatrical runs. And some movies – Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz – were held back from TV for decades.
The prices the studios exacted for their biggest features steadily rose. By the late 60s, the nets were paying an average price of $800,000 per title, a four-fold jump from what NBC had been paying at the beginning of the decade, while particularly upscale flicks went for much more: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) went for $2 million; Cleopatra (1963) for $5 million.
As far as the networks were concerned, the movies were worth the money. Movies quickly proved themselves to be tremendous draws. From the mid-1960s until the late 1990s, one of the several prime time movie slots on one or another of the networks finished among the highest-rated programs for the season, often among the season's Top 25. Network movie telecasting reached a peak in 1968 when there was a network movie on every night of the week: ABC had Monday and Wednesday, CBS took Thursday and Friday, and NBC copped the rest.
One memory I have shows you how big a deal movies were for the networks – and for their audience. As a kid I remember that during the tail end of the summer, NBC would air a 10-minute (I think) spot at the end of one of its movie nights promoting the top end titles they'd be premiering throughout the upcoming season. Most of the movies they were running – even the best ones – hadn't gotten that kind of advance promotion when they were in theaters!
Between what the network affiliates were airing between network programming blocks, and what the indies were scheduling throughout the day, and what the nets were airing in prime time, there was almost always a movie on somewhere at most times of the day.
Stephen Whitty remembers: "When you got home from school, there were old movies on Channels 4, 7, 9, and 11 to choose from; weekends, Channels 5, 9 and 11 all ran horror movies on Saturdays, while The Late Show on Channel 2 ran classics."
Emmy-winning producer/writer/director Bill Persky (The Dick Van Dyke Show, That Girl) remembers the same cinematic horn of plenty: "In the 50s through 80s, movies were the equivalent of TiVo – when there was nothing to watch, there was always a movie…Many a bleary-eyed morning was the result of The Late Show and The Late Late Show. Since you couldn't record them for later, you had to put in real time to watch, and many was the night I was awakened at one a.m. by a call from a friend – 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is on!'"
Granted, not every market was as cinematically plush as New York. I went to college in Columbia, South Carolina, a rather feeble market by New York standards. Columbia only had three network affiliates and the only movies they carried were those on the network schedule. Out in more rural parts of the country, there were areas that didn't even have all three networks!
Still, in a number of cities, a generation of young people was growing up exposed to much of what had passed for movie entertainment since the beginning of the sound era. The local stations gave us the oldies, the nets the newer flicks we might've missed in theaters (or wanted to see again). We might not have known John Ford from Henry Ford, but we saw She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and They Were Expendable (1945).
As Peter Biskind tells it in his 1998 account of Hollywood's creative explosion in the 1960s/70s, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, as much as TV, movies became a cultural glue holding us Baby Boomers together. We were all seeing the same movies, seeing them over and over when they were re-run on TV like some shared group ritual, entertaining each other playing out their scenes, swaggering like John Wayne, twitching lips like Humphrey Bogart, doing lock-jawed imitations of Burt Lancaster ("I'm a pig!" – Vera Cruz, 1954) and Kirk Douglas ("Odin!" – The Vikings, 1958). I can still remember when Channel 5 got the rights to West Side Story (1961) when I was in high school. The next day, you couldn't pass down a hall between classes without hearing the snap snap snap of any number of students snapping their fingers a la the Jets and Sharks.
Those years parked in front of the TV as kids laid the bedrock for what would become the country's first – and perhaps last – cinematically literate generation. As we grew older and went off to college, some of us actually studied movies, some studied how to make movies. From our ranks came a truly memorable class of filmmakers who quantumly jumped from replaying favorite scenes in the schoolyard to a stratospheric level of cinematic artistry: Scorsese, Coppola, DePalma, Lucas, Spielberg, Friedkin, Schrader and others.
The great generational irony of that time was that while the youth of the day seemed to be violently at odds with The Older Generation about damned near everything else – politics, race, the war in Vietnam, economic disparity, social conventions, music, fashion, Women's Lib, Gay Lib, sex – movies remained a point of connection, a bridge across the generational divide.
While the Boomers made the landmark convention-busting movies of the 1960s/1970s possible, they also had an affection for the classics. Long-haired peace/love/dove types still enjoyed watching John Wayne beat hell out of somebody; a generation that had never known James Dean still identified with his smoldering rebellion; Bogart had died in 1957, but you could still find his face on dorm walls in 1977, usually a still from Casablanca (1942), because after Vietnam and the urban riots and Kent State and Watergate, it was hard not to identify with tavern-owner Rick's disillusionment and cynicism; and out of that same fed-uppedness with the rather sorry shape of the world at the time, we equally identified with – and adored — the nose-thumbing, nose-tweaking, kiss-my-ass anarchy of the Marx Brothers.
I might spend one night telling my mother how her generation had thoroughly screwed up the world for my generation, but then the next night –
"Hey, I just saw On the Waterfront (1954) for the first time."
"Good, huh?"
And off we'd go, me babbling about how blown away I was by Brando's performance, her still blown away by how good a young, in-his-prime Brando had looked in a T-shirt.
It was the rare cultural torch that we Boomers took up from our elders. We may not have thought much of oldsters and their skinny lapels and corny music and their Richard Nixon, but their movies were just as much our movies. It was a natural feeling; after all, we'd been raised on them.
So…what changed? How did we get from there to, "How come you only show us clips of movies none of us ever heard of?"
Actually, quite a few things changed.
Distribution patterns for one. Back in The Day, wide releasing was for movies expected to bomb. Today, it's the standard. This summer saw Bridesmaids open on over 2900 screens; Scream 4 on over 3300; Fast Five on 3644; Thor topped 3900; and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides debuted on 4,155 screens. On opening weekend, there's hardly a multiplex in the country that isn't running that weekend's major release…often on more than one screen.
And these mass openings roll out on a tidal wave of advance, shrill, multimedia hype – promos, gossip items, behind-the-scenes pieces — searing those titles deep into the consciousness of even the most determinedly disinterested. That sense of mystery and expectancy which used to go with waiting for buzz-worthy titles to finally come to the neighborhood bijou is gone. J.J. Abrams recently told Entertainment Weekly how hard it was to maintain that brand of longed-for mystery around this summer's Super 8, the 1970s-set sci fier he directed for producer Steven Spielberg: "There are a lot of advantages to living in the age of instant information. The downside is that we know about things more than we want to. By the time the movie comes out, not only do we know everything about its production, you've seen a trailer that's told you almost everything."
Even after TV came along, the exposure of any given title remained somewhat limited. The life cycle of a typical movie in the 1960s ran something like this: maybe a year in theatrical release, then a cooling off period of a couple of years before being licensed to one of the broadcast networks where it would air maybe twice a year over a period of 3-5 years, then another cooling off period before it would be bundled with other titles for syndication. TV appearances were rare enough that even some movies which had been shown on TV still retained enough drawing power to make a re-release viable ("See Lawrence of Arabia/The Wild Bunch/Spartacus/Gone With the Wind et al on the big screen again as it was meant to be seen!").
Today, the theatrical window is typically only four months, and with the saturation bombing pattern of today's wide releases, most titles have exhausted their theatrical viability long before that. DVD release comes in month five, pay-per-view the following month, and 10 months after a movie opens in theaters it's on a pay-TV channel like Home Box Office or Showtime. In the early days of pay-TV, a movie might run four-six times a month, appearing in only three months of its one-year license period, but now it might air two-three times that many times in a single month every couple of months, and with pay-TV services now "multiplexed" – each service offering multiple channels – it may seem like a movie is never off the air as it rotates through a service's various channels. That kind of overexposure can't help but kill the specialness that went with rarity.
Usually after pay-TV, a movie is sold to a basic cable network like TBS or A&E for a short term (12-18 months), then is bundled with library product and sold back to pay-TV, then back to basic cable and so on ad nauseum, generating fresh revenue with each turnover. It's not unusual to see highly "playable" movies – the type of flick which draws an audience no matter how many times it's aired – finish their license period on one channel one week, and show up on another the very next week (in fact, at this writing, I'd just seen Kelly's Heroes [1970] on TCM over the Memorial Day weekend, then saw a promo for the movie's debut on The Military Channel's Officer and a Movie slot the very next weekend).
Whereas 40 years ago or so you couldn't wait for a favored movie to show up for one of its two or three plays that year, today it seems you can't get away from a movie. Any movie.
Well, not any movie. If it sometimes seems cable stations continually draw from the same limited pool, you're right. Says Stephen Whitty: "TV has given up on classic movies. Yes, TCM runs them around the clock, but it's the only station (we won't count AMC, which mostly gave up…). And if you don't like TCM's theme of the day – Alice Faye, say, or Westerns – well, you're out of luck. Every other station runs films from the last five years or so, which is fine, but hardly representative of the art."
Because of "clutter."
What's clutter?
Clutter is the average cable system offering a bit over 100 channels of programming (mind you, this is an average, meaning there are systems with much more), so many that subscribers can't always distinguish them from each other let alone even remember all the channels they have at their disposal.
To cut through the clutter and capture eyeballs, cable channels have moved, over the last 30 years, from the kind of generic programming which marked the early years of the business (old movies and TV shows) to more channel-defining original programming. Those channels that still have a strategic use for movies tend to air – and re-air and re-re-air – those titles they know are instantly recognizable to the mass audience. And what that doesn't include are the old classics, the black-and-whites – what my kids, when they were younger, called "the gray ones."
Josh Sapan, president and CEO of Rainbow Media which owns cable channel AMC, puts it this way: "In the 70s, each of the broadcast networks had 15-20 million people watching each show or movie in prime time. If a network – or even PBS – aired a classic film, it was inevitably seen by millions." But with the splintering of the mass audience into smaller niches by the proliferation of cable channels, "Audiences, with rare exceptions, are smaller today. The choice and diversity on TV and the Internet has made some wonderful films victims of their obscurity." This was, Sapan admits, part of the reason AMC in the early 2000s re-formatted itself from a classics station – almost a twin of Turner Classics – to one focusing on original programming (Mad Men, Breaking Bad) and – according to the channel's promo spots – "The New Classics" – the more familiar films from the 1960s, 70s and up.
Stephen Whitty says the expansion of the cable spectrum has been a case of "…be careful what you wish for…when I was a kid, I imagined a science fiction world where I would just push a button and be able to see any movie I ever wanted on my TV. And that's the world we're supposedly living in now. Except take a look at what TV is really offering: six different channels showing Land of the Lost (2009) with Will Ferrell, another half-dozen running The Bounty Hunter (2010) with Jennifer Aniston. It's like TV has become the Multiplex from Hell, only on a six-month tape delay."
There have already been any number of cultural studies suggesting a strong disconnect between Gen X/Yers and their predecessors; a disinterest in any number of topics, both of large import and small, predating their own generational awareness. But perhaps there is no disconnect as complete between this generation and those before it as the dropping of this particular pop culture torch. Or perhaps "dropping" is the wrong word; a disinterest in picking it up might be more accurate.
A writer who'd worked for Saturday Night Live in the mid-90s tells me that even then writers were being instructed not to reference anything more than three years prior because "a lot of viewers won't get it." Compare that to SNLs from the show's debut years in the 70s when the show riffed on decades of old TV shows and movies, its writers knowing that they and we all shared the same pop culture touchstones.
My old film teacher, Dr. Benjamin "Bernie" Dunlap, now president of South Carolina's Wofford College, describes it as "…a new sort of simultaneity…wanting everything to be happening now, at this instant, with consequences still to be determined. In a curious and debased fashion, it resembles a Zen-like insistence on the here and now."
Curiously, disturbingly, that disconnect is just as strong among many young people – like my students – who study film. Says Bernie Dunlap, "Film students often need to be taught to excavate (a film), but unsophisticated viewers grow impatient with what they view as antiquated technique ("What – no color?"), and, of course, they tend to limit their experience of a film to the crudest level of storytelling."
I once interviewed director John Dahl (The Last Seduction, 1994) who frequently speaks to filmmaking students. The new Gen X/Y aspiring filmmaker doesn't share Dahl's generation's respect for the oldies, doesn't see their connection to the cinematic evolutionary chain. Ford, Hitchcock, Wilder – irrelevant. Citizen Kane: boring. "These young people," Dahl told me, "have never seen Double Indemnity or Treasure of the Sierra Madre. They probably think they're just dusty old pictures."
The question I usually come to when I write these musing pieces is, Does it matter? Who cares? So what? This new simultaneity, this disconnect with the vast treasure trove of our cinematic heritage – does it really cost us anything?
Bernie Dunlap – the man who kindled a passion for movies in me, and taught me how to truly, deeply understand, appreciate, and enjoy their magic – says it does matter.
The new, grounded-only-in-the-present sensibility "…ignores what has always been for me the magical ability of film to capture and reenact a present instant from the past. What's so astonishing about Lumiere's recording of a baby's breakfast, or visitors to the Paris Exposition – or, for that matter, the ambient reality of Casablanca or any film from the past – is that it enables us to study and re-experience that 'now' over and over.
"This is, of course, what (film theorist) Siegfried Kracauer meant when he spoke of the 'redemption of physical reality.' It's also at the heart of Werner Herzog's new documentary, The Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2011), in which he attempts to retrieve the 'now' of prehistoric cave painters flickering into life – the analogy often used to explain the psychological power of film."
In the same way that cutting ourselves off from any older aspect of our culture diminishes us by dimming our awareness of who we were and how that made us who we are, there is something lost when we turn away from the gray ones.
"(The) greatest choices were made by accident," says Stephen Whitty. "The first time I saw Laura (1944) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), I'd been simply flipping the channels and was caught by an image…there are no longer any happy accidents. Just as newspapers offer surprises to their readers – you turn the page to jump with something and there's an article on something you hadn't even thought of that catches your interest – so did (pre-cable broadcast) TV. Now, though, niche cable and Netflix offer the same sweet trap as the Internet – you can always get what you're looking for, if you know what you're looking for.
"So people go online and read opinions they already agree with. People go on Netflix and stream movies they've already heard of. Nobody grows an inch. And our national mythology – which is The Duke and Sam Spade and Some Like It Hot (1959) and Psycho (1960) – slowly disappears."
Tags:Ben Hur, Breaking Bad, Casablanca, Double Indemnity, Fast Five, Forbidden Planet, Gone with the Wind, It's a Mad, Laura, Lawrence of Arabia, Mad, mad men, Mad World, On the Waterfront, The Last Seduction, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Wild Bunch


text:
{% extends "base.html" %}
{% import 'match_partials/match_table_macros.html' as mtm %}

{% block title %}Advanced Insights - {{event.name}} ({{event.year}}) - The Blue Alliance{% endblock %}

{% block meta_description %}Advanced insights for the {{event.year}} {{event.name}} FIRST Robotics Competition.{% endblock %}

{% block more_head_tags %}
  <meta property="og:title" content="Advanced Insights: {{event.year}} {{event.name}}" />
  <meta property="og:image" content="https://www.thebluealliance.com/images/logo_square_512.png" />
  <meta property="og:description" content="Advanced insights for the {{event.year}} {{event.name}} FIRST Robotics Competition."/>
  <meta property="og:site_name" content="The Blue Alliance" />
{% endblock %}

{% block content %}

 Back to main event page

{{event.name}} {{event.year}}

Advanced Insights

Qual Match Predictions

Ranking Predictions

Playoff Match Predictions

      {% if match_predictions.qual %}

Qualification Match Predictions (?)

Remember, match predictions are JUST FOR FUN! Please do not be discouraged by our predictions -- they are almost certainly wrong.

          {% if fake_matches %}

Note: Match teams are not shown because FIRST does not allow the re-hosting of the preliminary match schedule. Sorry for the inconvenience.

          {% endif %}
          {% if match_prediction_stats.qual.wl_accuracy %}
Win/Loss prediction accuracy: {{match_prediction_stats.qual.wl_accuracy|round|int}}%
{% endif %}
          {% if match_prediction_stats.qual.wl_accuracy_75 %}
Win/Loss prediction accuracy (>75% confidence): {{match_prediction_stats.qual.wl_accuracy_75|round|int}}%
{% endif %}
          {% if match_prediction_stats.qual.err_mean %}
Match score prediction average error: {{match_prediction_stats.qual.err_mean|round(1)}}
{% endif %}

          {{mtm.qual_match_prediction_table(matches, match_predictions.qual, fake_matches, event.year)}}

      {% else %}

No qual match predictions available. Check back later!

      {% endif %}

      {% if ranking_predictions %}

Ranking Predictions (?)

Remember, ranking predictions are JUST FOR FUN! Please do not be discouraged by our predictions -- they are almost certainly wrong.

Predictions will update throughout the event.

            {% if last_played_match_num %}

Predicted rankings as of qualification match #{{last_played_match_num}}

            {% else %}

Predicted rankings with no matches played.

            {% endif %}

                  Predicted Rank
                  Team
                  Average Rank
                  Highest Rank
                  Median Rank
                  Lowest Rank
                  Average RP
                  Highest RP
                  Lowest RP

                {% for team_key, (avg_rank, min_rank, median_rank, max_rank, avg_rp, min_rp, max_rp) in ranking_predictions %}

                  {{loop.index}}
                  {{team_key|strip_frc}}
                  {{avg_rank|round(1)}}
                  {{min_rank|int}}
                  {{median_rank|int}}
                  {{max_rank|int}}
                  {{avg_rp|round(1)}}
                  {{max_rp}}
                  {{min_rp}}

                {% endfor %}

      {% else %}

No ranking predictions available. Check back later!

      {% endif %}

      {% if match_predictions.playoff %}

Playoff Match Predictions (?)

Remember, match predictions are JUST FOR FUN! Please do not be discouraged by our predictions -- they are almost certainly wrong.

          {% if fake_matches %}

Note: Match teams are not shown because FIRST does not allow the re-hosting of the preliminary match schedule. Sorry for the inconvenience.

          {% endif %}
          {% if match_prediction_stats.playoff.wl_accuracy %}
Win/Loss prediction accuracy: {{match_prediction_stats.playoff.wl_accuracy|round|int}}%
{% endif %}
          {% if match_prediction_stats.playoff.wl_accuracy_75 %}
Win/Loss prediction accuracy (>75% confidence): {{match_prediction_stats.playoff.wl_accuracy_75|round|int}}%
{% endif %}
          {% if match_prediction_stats.playoff.err_mean %}
Match score prediction average error: {{match_prediction_stats.playoff.err_mean|round(1)}}
{% endif %}

          {{mtm.playoff_match_prediction_table(matches, match_predictions.playoff, fake_matches, event.year)}}

      {% else %}

No playoff match predictions available. Check back later!

      {% endif %}

{% endblock %}

{% block inline_javascript %}

{% endblock %}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


On the surface, Black Lives Matter demonstrations can appear to simply be collective acts of rage against U.S. law enforcement agencies, not the "love note to black people" the movement's founders intend it to be. I was reminded of this "love note" while perusing Twitter during the Freddie Gray demonstrations in Baltimore. While cable news outlets were covering the looting and unrest, black children and adults were dancing in the midst of civil unrest. In that moment, those dancers were participating in the old tradition of resisting the brutality of white supremacy through practicing joy.
During the brutality of chattel enslavement and the era of white-dominated sharecropping, black people wrote and performed songs of resistance, reaching into the inner-recesses of their suffering to uncover balms of joy. They sang of "gospel trains" and "sweet chariots" coming to rescue them and of not having long to "stay here". While some have claimed that these songs of joy symbolized blacks' passive acceptance of subservience, Frederick Douglass, the formerly enslaved abolitionist, claimed that "Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains." While black bodies were chained, black psyches weren't.
In the Civil Rights era, activists wrote protest songs, sometimes repurposing the music of their antebellum ancestors to combat the racist tactics of Jim Crow America. As protesters "woke up" with their "minds stayed on freedom" and intoned the inevitability of overcoming racism, they engendered a new world based not on white supremacy, but on an economy of shared humanity, forged through common suffering. The August 29, 1963 edition of the New York Times went as far as describing the mood at the March on Washington as "festive".
Enslaved and oppressed people often know something that oppressors don't: Oppression is untenable. The economic, social, and political subjugation of people of African descent in the United States can't last forever. This, of course, is counterintuitive to those who are convinced that there is no end in sight for state-sanctioned violence against black people in the forms of police brutality, incongruous black imprisonment, and low-performing black schools. And yet, black joy remains, in the words of Terrance Laney, "Undead, unchained, and fearless." It dances in the face of armed officers, sings in the presence of death, and shouts down systems of terror. Black joy is the Spirit of liberation that inhabits black bodies in church services, defying order of rows of pews for spontaneous joy.
When enslaved people of African descent were converting to Christianity, their white enslavers began panicking. "If they discover the freedom that comes in the message of Jesus Christ," the enslavers thought, "they will surely escape our labor camps and kill us." The enslavers' fears weren't completely unfounded, seeing as Nat Turner and his associates launched the Southampton Insurrection as a result of being told by God to rebel against the institution of enslavement. Insurrections like Turner's caused some white enslavers to squash every possible sign of black joy as they split up black families, suppressed black prayer gatherings, and publicly raped black women and men. These grotesque practices, however, did not crush black joy.
In present struggles for black liberation - from Oakland to McKinney - demonstrators are embodying this rebellious joy, from playful chants to rhythmic choreography. We do this, not because of black deaths, but because of black life; life that is fleeting, complex, and beautiful. We will not be crushed because we know that while the history of white supremacy is long and triumphant, white supremacy itself is not the last word; joy is.


IMF Statement on Mozambique The Managing Director welcomed the initial steps being taken on the agreed reforms and policies WASHINGTON D.C., United States of America, September 16, 2016/APO/ -- Mr. Gerry Rice, Director of Communications at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), issued the following statement today: "The IMF's Managing Director Christine Lagarde and Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi met today to discuss the economic challenges that the country is facing. The Managing Director welcomed the initial steps being taken on the agreed reforms and policies. She stressed the need for further policy action aimed at stabilizing the economy and for more decisive efforts to improve transparency, in particular an international and independent audit of the companies that were funded under the loans disclosed in April 2016. The Managing Director welcomed that the President indicated the Government of Mozambique's willingness to work with the IMF on the terms-of-reference for this process—to be initiated by the office of the Attorney General—and to implement it. To this end, an IMF staff team will visit Maputo next week." Distributed by APO Group on behalf of International Monetary Fund (IMF).


Jen Huang is one of my favorite image capturers ever. She has a way with the light, this one. It's the kind of photo taking that is equal parts gorgeous and insanely magical. so when she offered up the prettiest midsummer night's dream inspired shoot I ever did see, I of course jumped at the chance to share with you all. It's boho bridal musings at its best with wild, overgrown bouquets and a headpiece by Poppies and Posies that will make your inner hippie sing. I know mine is.
WOW!Amazing shoots!The flowers are gorgeous!
The wedding dress is very famous and using high quality. Cocktail Dresses is very costly and beautiful dresses in iwedplanner.


text:
© 2018 by Cindy Shapiro
It's An Update!
Anaïs and stuff
I'm in Sales!
Always in the Act of Scaring Myself Silly
Anaïs, A Dance Opera -- tix, pix and more info!!
You want to be in our show! (You know you do...) + info on CINDY'S BRAIN
It's the Anaïs, A Dance Opera WORKSHOP!
NEWS -- (there's news). Also: Build-a-Show
Some of that Jazz
Cindy Shapiro
Right. So we're in a "pause" on the show right now. We have a solid booking in Casablanca, Morocco in March of 2018, so that'll be fun!
But right now we're in pitching mode for our show. We want to continue on with the type of experience we had at Chapman U at the INCREDIBLE Musco Center for the Arts.
Janet and I were treated so well there by the Executive Director (Richard Bryant who booked us), the Musco Staff, the professors from the performing arts areas of the U, the MUSCOS THEMSELVES, founders, and other stake holders. It was pretty swell, you guys. Also, there was outreach to students through the dance department. Janet taught a master class and had those student dancers doing a combination from the Nightmare/Guernica sequence from Act II. One of my beloved former students is studying dance there, so I got to see her at the show. That was a beautiful thing in and of itself.
We want to pitch the show to other PACs across the country, particularly those that are affiliated with universities. We think that women's studies, literature, music, opera, theater and dance departments would be obvious links for us into the academic environment. We are also working hard on putting the show in Paris. You know, Paris, France. I happen to love Paris, France.
I'm also working on several more projects, mostly in research mode at the moment.
Sales and Research. Those are my departments.
If you have a place where you think we should pitch the show, LET ME KNOW, ok?
musco center
chapman u


Our residents are important to us at Canyon Heights Apartments. We have improved our property with new amenities! Canyon Heights is a community that emphasizes amenities that our residents love. With our convenient location everything you need is just minutes away. Our community is more than a place to live, it's a home where you can enjoy a quality of life uncommon in rental living. Our floor plans are both functional and affordable offering many features such as fully equipped kitchens, balconies and patios, and more. Why settle when you can have the best at Canyon Heights Apartments!