Book reports outcomes of Olympic-sized events
Credit: North Carolina State University Winning a bid to host a ”mega-event” like the Olympic games is the start of a Herculean commitment for host countries. After years of planning, investment and construction, nations roll out the welcome mat for international visitors and media attention. But once the closing ceremonies are over, what are the enduring economic, environmental and human impacts of a mega-event? Those questions fascinate NC State professor Jason Bocarro in the College of Natural Resources, who studies the public health effects of recreation and sports programs and organizations. Bocarro, co-editor of Legacies and Mega Events: Fact or Fairy Tales? answered questions about the new book for The Abstract.
What exactly is a mega-event? Can you provide some examples?
Defining a mega-event is controversial. However, the general consensus is that mega-events require substantial investment by their hosts and attract considerable media attention. In addition to their scale, defining features of mega-events are that they move from place to place, last for a fixed duration, attract a large number of visitors, have a large mediated reach, come with high costs, and have significant impacts on the built environment and the population.
Some people think that a mega-event should be confined to sports. However, in our book we included non-sports related mega-events.
Sporting mega-events include the FIFA World Cup, Olympic games, Rugby World Cup and Asian Games, because they include multiple countries and their size, scope of their infrastructure, costs and media attention are significant. Some would also include the Super Bowl in that definition. Non-sporting mega-events include expos, political summits, conventions or festivals, such as Mardi Gras, which we discuss in the book.
Tell us about the different types of legacies that can occur because of mega-events, including economic, environmental and social impacts.
The impetus to measure legacy emerged from the Olympic Movement and a desire to legitimize it, gain global recognition, increase power and self-promote. Increasingly, as local mega sporting event advocates and governing bodies sought to justify considerable resource allocations for sport and supporting infrastructure to stakeholders, legacy was promoted as both a tangible and intangible benefit that will accrue to host states in return for their investments.
The rising cost of hosting mega sporting events, controversies over host government spending, allegations of corruption and increased scrutiny by a variety of stakeholders have all led to concerns over the sustainability of mega sporting events. This has resulted in a significant growth in legacy research, which some have attributed to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) mandate in 2000 that stipulated hosts produce legacy plans.
Some of the types of legacies that are being studied are economic, public health (participation), volunteer, infrastructure (both facilities and transportation), environmental, urban redevelopment, security, cultural, branding (linked to tourism), knowledge/education, social and emotional (linked to what the event means to the host nation).
You can see recent games, such as London, being focused on a few targeted legacies:the regeneration of East London (infrastructure/ urban redevelopment legacy)inspiring community activity by young people (volunteer legacy)encouraging business investment (economic legacy)inspiring sustainable living (environmental legacy)making the U.K. a world-leading sporting nation by getting people more involved in sport (health/participation legacy)Countries that bid to host mega-events like the Olympics often talk about their benefits for citizens in underserved areas. Does research show that this happens? If so, under what circumstances?
Although the potential impacts of mega-events are significant and well-documented, the actual impacts realized by host nations and regions often fall far short of expectations in terms of economic and non-economic impacts in both advanced and developing societies. For example, critics are already labeling the 2016 Rio Olympics as a legacy failure as expensive venues remain without owners and approximately 22,059 families were estimated to have been evicted from Rio’s favelas due to the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympic games.
Our research, backed up by many previous studies, shows that on the whole mega-events do not benefit underserved populations. Even in examples like the 1992 Barcelona Olympics or 2012 London Olympics, where parts of the city significantly benefited from the increased urban infrastructure, critics have pointed out that it gentrified parts of these cities, forcing poorer residents out.
We just had a postdoctoral student visiting from the University of Belfast. Her research examined the legacy of the 2014 Commonwealth Games on the East End of Glasgow (a very deprived part of Glasgow with high rates of poor health). Residents in that area complained about the disruption the games caused and the facilities and amenities left behind. Local people are not using the world-class velodome and swimming pool – in fact, people are coming from distances away to use them. In the case of swimming, use has actually decreased as residents look at the incredible facilities and see a mismatch with their ability.
The only ad hoc way I’ve seen mega-events benefit underserved populations is in the case of various programming that starts as a result of the games. For example, the Football Foundation of South Africa was started prior to the 2010 World Cup. It has continued to grow and serve children in the Gansbaai area and Masakhane township. There are similar initiatives throughout other mega-events, but they are very ad hoc and many continue to struggle to survive after the event.
With only two cities bidding, the IOC is planning to award Paris and Los Angeles the 2024 and 2028 Olympics. Based on what you’ve learned, will it be more difficult to attract bidders for mega-events in the future?
Yes, we’re already seeing that. In 2012 the Dutch government released a report that predicted that in the future only non-democratic countries will pay to host these events. The use of sporting and other mega-events to bring about transformation of socially deprived areas of major cities, as well as a host of other legacy claims, are becoming an increasingly important part of the rationale behind hosting such events. The tax-paying public increasingly has to be persuaded of the benefits, beyond the event itself, to spend the nation’s resources in this way.
However, the facts suggest that previous widespread support for embracing these events has waned. Data suggests that potential hosts are becoming more reluctant to bid in that 12 different cities bid for the 2004 Olympics, whereas the 2020 Olympics elicited just five applicants. After Oslo removed itself from consideration, only two cities—Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan—remained as viable candidates to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Hosting mega-events has also proven both costly and difficult to budget for. For example, the Athens Olympics’ projected budget was set at $1.6 billion, but the games eventually cost nearly $16 billion. For the Beijing Olympics projected costs for the organizing committee alone were reported as $1.6 billion with a final budget, including facilities and infrastructure, being $40 billion. Non-sporting mega-events do not often include a bidding process but also have the potential to produce considerable impacts for hosts. Cultural mega-events arguably produce fewer quantifiable economic impacts such as ”trading opportunities for nonprofit organizations and the contribution of the festival to local entrepreneurial culture.” The fact is that mega-events are happening throughout the world and the costs associated with these appear to be increasing significantly.
What is the most compelling example you’ve seen of a successful mega-event? Of an unsuccessful mega-event?
A couple of examples of successful sporting mega-events are the 1992 Barcelona Olympics (well planned) and the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England. Barcelona leveraged the games to promote the city. It rebuilt decaying infrastructure and used those improvements to attract business to the city. Manchester has used sport to revitalize communities and tackle social deprivation. Since successfully staging the 2002 Commonwealth Games. Manchester has had some excellent public-private partnerships that have turned into some good economic investments.
An example of an unsuccessful mega-event was the 1976 Montreal Olympics that crippled the city financially and took something like 40 years to pay off. I’d also say that the 2004 Athens Olympics was fairly disastrous, given the economic conditions that crippled the Greek economy shortly afterwards. However, I think in 10 years we’ll look back and see that Brazil, which hosted the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016, was a social, economic and environmental disaster. Recent pictures which you have probably seen from Sochi, Beijing, Athens and Brazil show white elephant stadiums alongside increasing debt. Some countries and cities (such as London, Beijing and Sydney) are able to absorb some of the negative impacts of the Olympic games.
Tell us about some unexpected effects your research uncovered.
One of the points we make in our book is that legacy does not take place in a vacuum and so much long-term impact is actually largely out of the control of those that organize the events. For example, most legacy planning for the truly major events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games and the FIFA World Cup takes place seven to 10 years before the event actually takes place. That makes it almost impossible for planners to know what the situation, in terms of the global/political economy, might be in the future, which makes guaranteeing any kind of legacy almost impossible. I think you will increasingly see the bidding process changed for mega-events, with potentially no bids or rotating hosts.
A clear example of the problems associated with choosing locations years in advance is the Rio 2016 Games, where the political and economic situation in Brazil in 2009 (the year they won the bid) was far better and more stable than in 2016 when the games occurred. However, it was impossible in 2009 for organizers to predict significant political and economic events such as the crash in global oil and commodity prices (upon which their economy was so dependent), the political scandals and corruption allegations that led to the impeachment of their president just before the games, or even the Russian doping crisis that enveloped the games. Placing legacy research within the wider context is vitally important when assessing the success or otherwise of a particular legacy plan in relation to a mega-event.
Also, I think our research from the 2012 London Paralympic Games was surprising and shows evidence of unintended consequences. We found that the success of the 2012 London Paralympic Games had a surprisingly negative legacy for people with disabilities. Ordinary people with a disability felt little connection, if any, to Paralympians, in terms of the issues they face in their everyday lives. Furthermore, the perceived expectations by the nondisabled population that all people with disabilities can perform like Paralympians only accentuated this disconnection. Thus, despite the games being the most watched (both in person and on TV), people with disabilities in the UK reported more discrimination in the years after the games.
Explore further:Sochi Winter Olympics ’cost billions more than estimated’
Provided by:North Carolina State University
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The Five Most Anticipated Games Of 2020
This year is going to be awesome for gamers. Besides the fact that the two best gaming console companies, Xbox and PlayStation, are going to launch new models somewhere at the end of November, there are also many much-expected games that are going to come out this year, and I’m sure you’re going to love all of them. Let’s take a look at the biggest titles that will get a 2020 release.
The Last Of Us: Part II
Although it’s a PlayStation exclusive, The Last Of Us was a huge hit and the second instalment of the series is almost ready. When I first saw the teaser for the second part of this game, I was impressed, but I was also shocked to realize that seven years have passed since the release of the original game. Time flies when you play. The Last Of Us: Part II is programmed to hit the market on May 29th.
I’m not a huge fan of remakes, but I must admit that the news about Final Fantasy getting a modern redone got me excited. This immense game kept me busy on PlayStation 1, and I’m sure that I’ll spend just as much time with this adventure gameplay on my PlayStation 4. However, the game won’t come in full. Because it’s this big, the developers divided it into multiple parts, set to be released in the coming months and years. The first release will feature the Midgar adventures only, and it will be available starting with April 10th.
Even Nintendo comes with a big release this year. They didn’t set a date year, but at last year’s edition of E3 they teased the public with a trailer for a new instalment in the Legend of Zelda universe. There’s not so much information on what the game will feature, but from the trailer, we can see that the story takes a dramatic turn.
Originally planned for a 2019 release, Doom Eternal got a reschedule for the end of March 2020. I was a bit bummed when I heard that it won’t come out in 2019, but I could see why. Doom Eternal is a multiplatform game, which will be available on Xbox, PlayStation, PC, but also on Nintendo Switch.
Finally, in 2020 we will get to see the release of Cyberpunk 2077, which will also be available on Xbox, PlayStation and PC. It’s set for a release on 17th September and it will surely be a lot of fun. After all, it has Keanu Reeves as the main character, and it will be an open world that plays in the same category with Grand Theft Auto V and The Witcher 3.
Anticipated Gamesxbox playstation


Home What we do Our medals and awards Metge Medal How to nominate
Learn how to nominate someone for the Dame Joan Metge Medal.
Nominations may be made by any person. The Royal Society Te Apārangi’s Academy Executive Committee reserves the right to decline any nomination.
An online Nomination must be completed.
Please email the Academy (academy@royalsociety.org.nz) if you wish to submit a new nomination and you will be provided with a URL to access the web portal.
Please also review general criteria that apply to all Royal Society Te Apārangi medals and awards.
Nominations are to include one set of the following:
One sentence citation of not more than 25 words, describing their work, which may be used for publicity purposes;
Nomination summary of not more than 100 words, that clearly explains their research contribution to a non-specialist;
Nomination statement of no more than 500 words highlighting their contributions to excellence and building relationships in the social science research community;
Curriculum vitae of nominee;
Two references (to be arranged by the nominator), at least one from outside the nominee’s institution.
Publications should include the names of all authors (Initials and Surname) and the full title of the journal in which a paper is published. Abbreviations should not be used.
“Working within New Zealand” includes all those who were employed in New Zealand for more than 50% of the time during which they performed the work that is being considered in making the award; and/or all those who were resident in New Zealand during that time.
Metge Medal


Ajit Pai Will Step Down As FCC Chair in January.
Nov 30, 2020 Updated Dec 1, 2020
Ajit Pai said Monday he will follow what has become a Washington tradition when a new President is sworn-in and vacate the chairmanship of the Federal Communications Commission on Jan. 20. In a statement he called his time at the agency “the honor of a lifetime” and noted that on his watch the Commission adopted more than 25 proposals updating media regulations. Among the other accomplishments he cited was the opening of the C-band for new mobile broadband services, and the designation of 988 as the three-digit number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, as well as making “tough choices” to close the digital divide while at the same focusing on promoting innovation and competition.
“I am proud of how productive this Commission has been,” said Pai. “I’m also proud of the reforms we have instituted to make the agency more accountable to the American people. In particular, for the first time ever, we’ve made public drafts of the proposals and orders slated for a vote three weeks before the agency’s monthly meetings, making this the most transparent FCC in history.”
Pai, 47, joined the FCC in 2007 as a staff attorney in the Office of General Counsel. In 2012, Pai was nominated by President Obama to fill one of the Republican-controlled seats on the Commission. Then in 2017, when President Trump was elected, he turned to the senior GOP commissioner to take over the agency.
“To be the first Asian-American to chair the FCC has been a particular privilege. As I often say: only in America,” said Pai, the son of Indian immigrants. His current term was set to expire in June 2021.
The National Association of Broadcasters says Pai always had “an open door” to hear from local radio and TV stations. “Chairman Pai has been a champion of free and local broadcasting since he joined the FCC. His fair, thoughtful approach to regulation led to many common-sense reforms that were long overdue,” said NAB President Gordon Smith. “Most notably, Chairman Pai modernized the Commission’s media ownership rules, authorized and promoted the transition to the Next Gen TV transmission standard, helped revitalize the AM radio band and cleared out some significant regulatory underbrush that was no longer in the public interest.”
Pai’s departure will allow President-elect Joe Biden to name a new head of the FCC with speculation already focused on former Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and current Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel as potential successors.
In a statement Monday, Rosenworcel acknowledged she sees things differently than Pai. “While we did not always agree on policy matters, I always valued our shared commitment to public service. Serving the American people is a tremendous honor and I wish him the best in the future,” Rosenworcel said.
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Home Embassy Embassy Information
Embassy Information
The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Budapest, located at Rómer Floris utca 57, a prime area of the second district, was opened in 1992 after twenty-eight years of the establishment of Diplomatic relations between Nigeria and Hungary.
The history of diplomatic relations between Nigeria and Hungary goes back to 1964 with Hungary having diplomatic presence in Nigeria since that period. The interests of Nigeria were overseen, on concurrent accreditation, initially from Warsaw, Poland, and then subsequently from Belgrade, Yugoslavia, before effective presence in Budapest in 1992. The Embassy presently has Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina as its countries of concurrent accreditation.
The Mission provides Consular, Immigration and other services to Nigerians and other nationals. The Mission is also engaged in representational duties on behalf of the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on political, economic, social, educational, humanitarian, cultural and other global issues including promoting trade ties and supporting new avenues for economic partnership between Nigeria and Hungary and other countries of concurrent accreditation.
The Embassy is currently headed by Ambassador (Dr) Ajayi Eniola Olaitan who arrived Hungary on 23rd October, 2017 and presented her Letter of Credence on 1st December, 2017. Ambassador Ajayi presented her Letter of Credence in Bosnia and Herzegovina on 21st February, 2018. On 9th May, 2018, Ambassador Ajayi presented her Letter of Credence to the Croatian President, H.E. Ms. Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic at the President's Office. Ambassador Ajayi offically became Nigeria's Ambassador to Serbia on 25th June 2019 after presenting her Letter of Credence to the Serbian President, H.E. Mr. Aleksandar Vucic.
EMBASSY HOME BASED STAFF
H.E. Dr. (Mrs) Eniola Olaitan AJAYI
(Ambassador/Head of Mission)
Mrs. Misitura ABDULRAHEEM
(Minister)
Mr. Ahijo Yabo YUSUF
(Counsellor /Head of Chancery)
Mr. Sunday James OCHEIDI
(Finance Attaché)
Mr. Opubo EKINE
(Admin Attaché I)
Mr. Noah Akomolafe BAMIYO
(Admin Attaché II)
Mr. Ayotunde ADIGUN
(Immigration Attaché I)
Mr. Murtala ADAMU
(Immigration Attaché II)


DRAWN REGION
MIN. PRICE MIN. PRICE $25,000 $50,000 $75,000 $100,000 $125,000 $150,000 $175,000 $200,000 $225,000 $250,000 $275,000 $300,000 $325,000 $350,000 $375,000 $400,000 $425,000 $450,000 $475,000 $500,000 $525,000 $550,000 $575,000 $600,000 $625,000 $650,000 $675,000 $700,000 $725,000 $750,000 $775,000 $800,000 $825,000 $850,000 $875,000 $900,000 $925,000 $950,000 $975,000 $1,000,000 $1,250,000 $1,500,000 $1,750,000 $2,000,000 $2,250,000 $2,500,000 $2,750,000 $3,000,000 $3,250,000 $3,500,000 $3,750,000 $4,000,000 $4,250,000 $4,500,000 $4,750,000 $5,000,000 $5,250,000 $5,500,000 $5,750,000 $6,000,000 $6,250,000 $6,500,000 $6,750,000 $7,000,000 $7,250,000 $7,500,000 $7,750,000 $8,000,000 $8,250,000 $8,500,000 $8,750,000 $9,000,000 $9,250,000 $9,500,000 $9,750,000 MAX. PRICE
MAX. PRICE MIN. PRICE $25,000 $50,000 $75,000 $100,000 $125,000 $150,000 $175,000 $200,000 $225,000 $250,000 $275,000 $300,000 $325,000 $350,000 $375,000 $400,000 $425,000 $450,000 $475,000 $500,000 $525,000 $550,000 $575,000 $600,000 $625,000 $650,000 $675,000 $700,000 $725,000 $750,000 $775,000 $800,000 $825,000 $850,000 $875,000 $900,000 $925,000 $950,000 $975,000 $1,000,000 $1,250,000 $1,500,000 $1,750,000 $2,000,000 $2,250,000 $2,500,000 $2,750,000 $3,000,000 $3,250,000 $3,500,000 $3,750,000 $4,000,000 $4,250,000 $4,500,000 $4,750,000 $5,000,000 $5,250,000 $5,500,000 $5,750,000 $6,000,000 $6,250,000 $6,500,000 $6,750,000 $7,000,000 $7,250,000 $7,500,000 $7,750,000 $8,000,000 $8,250,000 $8,500,000 $8,750,000 $9,000,000 $9,250,000 $9,500,000 $9,750,000 MAX. PRICE
Bedrooms BEDROOMS 1+ 2+ 3+ 4+ 5+
Bathrooms BATHROOMS 1+ 2+ 3+ 4+ 5+
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Built After BUILT AFTER 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
LOT. SQFT LOT SIZE 2,000+ sq ft 4,000+ sq ft 6,000+ sq ft 8,000+ sq ft 10,890+ sq ft / .25+ acres 21,780+ sq ft / .5+ acres 1+ acre 2+ acres 3+ acres 4+ acres 5+ acres 10+ acres 20+ acres 30+ acres 40+ acres 50+ acres 100+ acres
ANY FEATURE Air Conditioning Balcony Basement Elevator Furnished Garage Gated Community Golf Course Horse Property Multilevel New Construction Pets Pool REO Short Sale View Waterfront
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ANY STYLE 1 Level 1st Floor Multi-Story 2 Levels 2nd Floor Multi-Story 3 Levels 3rd Floor+above Multi-Story 4+ Levels Attached Bungalow Cape Cod Colonial Contemporary Corner Unit Courtyard Craftsman Custom Detached Dutch Provincial Efficiency Elevated End Unit Florida Four Story French Provincial Ground Floor Unit Ground Level High Rise Historical In M/H Community Key West Mid Rise Mid-Century Modern One Story Other Out of M/H Community Patio Penthouse Ranch Spanish/Mediterranean Split Level Three Story Townhouse 2-3 Floors Traditional Tri-Level Tudor Two Story Victorian
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James Bonard Fowler
American police officer
(1933-09-10)September 10, 1933
Geneva County, Alabama, U.S.
July 5, 2015(2015-07-05) (aged 81)
Alabama state trooper, US Army, farmer
Conviction(s)
Pleaded guilty to manslaughter, 2010[1][2]
Murder[1][2]
Six months in prison
James Bonard Fowler (September 10, 1933 – July 5, 2015) was an Alabama state trooper, known for fatally shooting civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson on February 18, 1965, during a peaceful march by protesters seeking voting rights. Fowler was among police and state troopers who attacked unarmed marchers that night in Marion, Alabama. A grand jury declined to indict him that year. It was not until 2005 that Fowler acknowledged shooting Jackson, a young deacon in the Baptist church, claiming to have acted in self defense. In response to Jackson's death, several days later civil rights leaders initiated the Selma to Montgomery marches as part of their campaign for voting rights. That year Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which President Lyndon B. Johnson signed.[3]
After the shooting, Fowler was reassigned to Birmingham. In 1968 he was dismissed from the state troopers after physically attacking his supervisor. He enlisted in the US Army, serving with valor in Vietnam. He was awarded two Silver Stars and a Purple Heart. After the war, he became a heroin trafficker in northern Thailand, returning to the US for brief visits. During his time in Thailand, he was convicted of heroin trafficking and served five years in a Thai prison. After returning to the US permanently in 1996, Fowler farmed with his wife in rural Geneva County, Alabama.
In 2005 Fowler admitted the shooting of Jackson in an interview with a local newspaper, saying that he had acted in self defense. In 2007 he was indicted by the district attorney in Perry County for Jackson's death, and in 2010 he pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He was sentenced to six months in prison but was released one month early because of needing surgery.[1][3]
Beginning in 2007, Fowler was also being investigated by the FBI for the 1966 shooting death of Nathan Johnson, a black man fatally shot after being taken to the Alabaster jail.[4]
2.1 Shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson
3 Aftermath
3.1 Delayed justice
3.2 Shooting of Nathan Johnson
3.3 Dismissal from State Police
3.4 US Army service and decades in Southeast Asia
4 Later life
Fowler was born in 1933 to a farming family in Geneva County, Alabama. He attended local schools, which were racially segregated, as were other public facilities at the time. He played football in high school. After graduating, he served for a period in the US Navy from 1951 to 1953 during the Korean War as an Petty officer third class, and then attended the University of Alabama in the late 1950s.[5] He married a local woman but later they were divorced.[6]
After completing training, Fowler entered the Alabama State Police in 1961. By February 1965, he was a corporal. He and other state troopers were increasingly charged with managing or suppressing civil rights actions conducted by African-American groups seeking to regain their constitutional rights in the state and others of the South. The mid-1960s had become increasingly a time of tension in Jim Crow Alabama.
Shooting of Jimmie Lee Jackson[edit]
Leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and other civil rights groups had come to nearby Selma, Alabama, where they were conducting protests and marches about voting rights. On the night of February 18, 1965, around 500 people left Zion United Methodist Church in Marion, intending to walk to the City Jail about a half a block away, where a young civil rights worker was being held.
The march was to protest his arrest, and the unarmed marchers were singing hymns. They were met by a crowd of Marion City police officers, county sheriff's deputies, and Alabama State Troopers. In the standoff, streetlights were abruptly turned off (some sources say that they were shot out by the police),[7] and the police began to beat the protestors.[3][7] Two United Press International photographers were beaten by the police and their cameras were smashed.
Jimmie Lee Jackson, his mother, Viola Jackson, and his 82-year-old grandfather, Cager Lee, and some others ran into Mack's Café by the church, pursued by about ten Alabama state troopers. Police clubbed Cager Lee to the floor and his daughter Viola rushed to his aid. The 26-year-old Jackson went to help his mother and was shot twice in the abdomen by Fowler (who was not then identified). Jackson died eight days later in the hospital on February 26, 1965.[3]
A grand jury declined to indict Fowler in September 1965, and his name was not publicized.[3]
Aftermath[edit]
Jackson's death is considered the primary catalyst for the first Selma to Montgomery march that occurred a few days later on "Bloody Sunday", March 7, 1965. The violence unleashed there increased widespread public support for the movement to gain enforcement of voting rights, and later that year the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed.[3]
Delayed justice[edit]
After the shooting, Fowler returned to his duties as a State Trooper. A grand jury failed to indict him for Jackson's death. He was transferred to Birmingham, Alabama, and promoted. He said that he never received any negative reaction from supervisors about the case.[3]
Interviewed in 2005 by John Fleming of the Anniston Star about the shooting, Fowler said:
I don't remember how many times I pulled the trigger, but I think I just pulled it once, but I might have pulled it three times. I don't remember. I didn't know his name at the time, but his name was Jimmie Lee Jackson. He weren't dead. He didn't die that night. But I heard about a month later that he died.[3]
This was the first time he had been publicly identified as the former trooper who had shot Jackson.
On May 10, 2007, 42 years after the homicide, Fowler at the age of 73 was indicted by Michael Jackson, the district attorney for Geneva County (and the first black district attorney in the state),[8] on charges of first degree and second degree murder for the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson (no relation). Fowler subsequently surrendered to authorities.[2] Fowler was among a number of persons who were being prosecuted in criminal cold cases from the civil rights era.[5]
At the age of 77, Fowler pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree manslaughter on November 15, 2010.[1] Fowler apologized for the shooting but insisted that he had acted in self-defense, believing that Jackson was trying to grab his gun in the melee.[1] Fowler was sentenced to six months in state prison.[1] He was released early after serving five months, due to health problems that required surgery.[9]
Shooting of Nathan Johnson[edit]
In December 2007, the Anniston Star reported new information related to the 1966 shooting death of Nathan Johnson, an African-American man, allegedly by Fowler at the Alabaster, Alabama police station. Johnson had been arrested for suspicion of drunken driving on US Highway 31 and was shot in an altercation with Fowler, then still an Alabama state trooper. The Star said these details were known to both the prosecution and defense in Fowler's 2007 case related to the shooting death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, then under prosecution.[10]
According to details in Johnson's file, "obtained from the National Archives through the Freedom of Information Act", Johnson, an African-American man, had a "history of mental illness, and a "lengthy arrest record, including a manslaughter conviction in the death of a teenager" in a drunk driving accident. In addition, he was "intoxicated when Fowler arrested him."[10]
In 2011, FBI officials announced that they were seeking information about the May 8, 1966 death of 34-year-old Nathan Johnson, a cold case from the civil rights era. They repeated allegations that Fowler had fatally shot him.[4][11] At the time, the press had reported that law enforcement officials said that Johnson had grabbed a billy club from Fowler and was attacking him; the officer fatally shot Johnson twice in the chest.[11]
Dismissal from State Police[edit]
Fowler was dismissed from the state police in 1968 for physically attacking his supervisor.[5] His supervisor, Sergeant T. B. Barden, said that Fowler was angry about a poor job evaluation and had attacked him as he was getting into his car.[5]
Fowler and his attorney George Beck said that Fowler had taken time off to mourn with his mother after his father's death. He said that the state troopers did not give him sick leave for this absence. In the melee, he rammed Barden's head into a windshield. Barden was knocked unconscious and taken by ambulance to a Birmingham hospital.[12] Fowler entered the US Army after being dismissed from the state troopers and served in Vietnam. His brother Robert had died there, and Fowler was able to join his former rifle unit.[6]
In 2007 Barden said that after Fowler returned to the United States withdrawal from Vietnam, he called his former supervisor and apologized for his action. Barden said that they had a good talk and he bore no ill will toward Fowler. He had thought the man bound for a promising career before that incident.[13]
US Army service and decades in Southeast Asia[edit]
Fowler served with the U.S. Army in Vietnam War from 1968 to 1974 as a Sergeant First Class and was awarded Silver Star & 10 Oak leaf cluster for gallantry in action, Bronze Star Medal & 2 Oak leaf cluster for leadership in action, and Purple Heart for his injuries in combat during his military service.[6][5]
After the US pulled out of Vietnam, Fowler remained in Southeast Asia, living and working in northern Thailand.[6] For the next two decades, Fowler returned to the United States for brief periods to take care of business in Alabama but lived primarily in Thailand. During this period he became interested in Buddhism, married Noie, a woman from Burma,[3] and started a family in Thailand. [6]
In the late 1980s Fowler testified in a military case involving a alleged murder-for-hire plot, in which an army sergeant wanted to kill his captain. His life took another turn a few years later, when Fowler was convicted by Thai authorities of heroin trafficking. He served about five years in a Thai prison.[6][5]
Later life[edit]
After returning to the United States for good in 1996, Fowler settled with his second wife on a farm in rural Geneva County. He farmed for the remainder of his life.[5]
Fowler expressed a racist attitude in a 2005 interview with a local newspaper.[3] He said that he greatly respected such black leaders as Nelson Mandela and Colin Powell, but generally did not think that blacks and whites should mix in society.[3][5]
Death[edit]
Fowler died of pancreatic cancer on July 5, 2015, in Geneva County, Alabama at the age of 81.[14][5]
^ a b c d e f Brown, Robbie (November 15, 2010). "45 Years Later, an Apology and 6 Months". New York Times. Retrieved November 16, 2010.
^ a b c "Nation in Brief: Indictment Brought in Civil-Rights-Era Death". The Washington Post. May 10, 2007. pp. A08. Retrieved January 21, 2008.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k Fleming, John (March 6, 2005). "The Death of Jimmy Lee Jackson". The Anniston Star. Archived from the original on November 24, 2010. Retrieved January 21, 2008.
^ a b Associated Press (November 24, 2009). "FBI: Ex-Alabama trooper Fowler's 1966 killing of black man in Alabaster jail still probed". Anniston Star. Archived from the original on December 6, 2010. Retrieved February 3, 2011.
^ a b c d e f g h i Bernstein, Adam (July 8, 2015). "James Bonard Fowler dies; Alabama lawman was convicted 45 years after killing civil rights protester". The Washington Post.
^ a b c d e f Fleming, John (July 8, 2007). "Former state trooper had varied experience in Southeast Asia". The Anniston Star. Retrieved June 27, 2019.
^ a b Davis, Townsend (1998). Weary Feet, Rested Souls: A Guided History of the Civil Rights Movement. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 121, 122. ISBN 0-393-04592-7.
^ Editorial Board (November 17, 2010). "Justice, finally: Gratitude for case's resolution". The Anniston Star. Archived from the original on September 13, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2019.
^ Associated Press (July 7, 2011). "Blog: Former Alabama state trooper James Fowler freed in civil rights killing". Alabama.com. Retrieved October 7, 2013.
^ a b Fleming, John (December 7, 2007). "New details emerge in second shooting by former state trooper". Anniston Star. Archived from the original on December 2, 2010. Retrieved June 25, 2019.
^ a b Associated, Press (November 24, 2009). "FBI says ex-trooper's 1966 killing of black probed". Anniston Star. Archived from the original on December 6, 2010. Retrieved February 3, 2011.
^ Rawls, P. (2007, May 12). "Ex-trooper had rollercoaster career: man charged in historic killing was later fired for other reasons", The Charleston Gazette (subscription required)
^ Fleming, John. (10 May 2007). "State records: Fowler discharged after he beat superior officer", The Anniston Star
^ Schapiro, Rich (July 7, 2015). "Ex-Ala. trooper whose killing of protester sparked 1965 civil rights marches dies at 81". Daily News. New York City.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Bonard_Fowler&oldid=994571864"
People from Geneva County, Alabama
Military personnel from Alabama
University of Alabama alumni
American state police officers
American people convicted of manslaughter
American police officers convicted of crimes
Selma to Montgomery marches
Deaths from cancer in Alabama
Crimes in Alabama
Deaths from pancreatic cancer
Police brutality in the United States
Police misconduct in the United States
Use mdy dates from July 2015


WATCH: First look at...
WATCH: First look at new Clerys Quarter which includes a rooftop bar on historic O'Connell Street site
By James Fenton
A first look at the planned Clerys Quarter has been unveiled today, offering a glimpse at the proposed project on the historic Clerys Building site on O'Connell Street.
Clerys Quarter will be centred on the refurbishment and extension of the historic Clerys Building, which was known for being a prime meeting point for Dubliners for generations.
The development will be made up of retail outlets, a restaurant and a rooftop bar and will also include a 213-bed four-star hotel. The Earl Building will offer 28,107 sq ft of office space, with retail space and restaurants on the ground floor.
The rooftop bar and restaurant will provide panoramic views over the capital and you can have a look for yourself in the below clip, which was shared this morning.
A post shared by Clerys Quarter (@clerysquarter)
Clerys Quarter is scheduled to open in 2022 and you can find out more via this link.
READ NEXT: Christmas socialising for dummies - All of your pub and restaurant questions answered


Name: Ryan Morales
Born: 9/24/76 – New York City, NY USA
Astrological: Libra – Year of the Dragon
Nationality:United States & Colombia
DJ Since: 1989
Main Music Style: Progressive Hi-NRG
Other Styles: Trance, Tribal, Electro, Nu-Disco, Alternative
Favorite DJs: Tiesto, Paul Van Dyke, Armin Van Burren, Paul Oakenfold, Todd Terry, Markus Schultz, Sharam
Best Known For: Resident DJ at the infamous Limelight NYC, Production work including Bon Jovi Bad Name remix & Jana Found A Love remix
Favorite Quote: “Just do it!” – Nike
Favorite Movies: Spaceballs , Star Wars Series, The Hangover, Avatar, The Shinning, The Matrix, Lord of the Rings Series
Favorite Author: Edgar Allen Poe
Favorite Event: Ultra Music Festival
Brands Behind the Sound: Native Instruments, Electro Voice, Pioneer, Denon, QSC, Alesis, Yamaha, PreSonus, M-Audio, Sony, Korg
Miami-based producer, re-mixer and DJ Ryan Morales energizes dance music fans from around the world with his High Energy Progressive House sets. Boasting a career spanning over 20 years, Ryan spins with the ease of a well-oiled machine while at the same time demonstrating his ability to read a crowd and infuse a room with energy. He was influenced by some of the biggest pioneers in new wave, electro, dance and electronica; artists such as Todd Terry, Hex Hector, Depeche Mode, Lime, Paul Oakenfold, and Keoki. Ryan’s sound is a blend of high-energy house with a touch of our favorite classic sounds of yester-year and a breath of electro energy that keeps you pumping.
Schooled in piano and percussion since the age of six, spinning seemed to be a natural extension of Ryan’s musical abilities. As a kid, he grew up around well-known local New York and New Jersey DJs, and by the age of twelve began spinning at school and town functions. Encouraged to continue because of his natural ability, he soon became a regular at New York nightclubs, becoming one of the youngest resident DJs in the city (LimeLight) by the age of sixteen. Time Out magazine (1995) considered him one of the top New York City DJs at the time.
Besides his two year stint at LimeLight, Ryan was a regular at other New York nightclubs such as Tunnel, Palladium, Octogon, Expo and China Club. At the same time, he got schooled in audio engineering at the Institute of Audio Research in New York City. This education offered him the opportunity to hone his production skills while spending hours of studio time with artists including Wyclef Jean, Tracie Spencer, Jana, Dynamix, and more recently with vocalist and performer Tania Mashay.
Ryan’s production experience extends over the last 16 years and includes award winning remixes such as dance diva Jana’s “Found a Love” (2001), and radio favorites such as his Bon Jovi’s “Bad Name” remix (2004). He also extended his production abilities to a more serious avenue as a Sound Engineer at the Jazz Center New York.
Always looking for new ways to create music, Ryan prides himself with his ability to incorporate a variety of influences and evolving technologies into his work. More recently he has added the use of Native-Instrument’s Traktor DJ set up controlled by their Maschine Groove Box controller. This allows him to play four decs simultaneously for a better live mixing experience. These days, Ryan has been spending time in the studio working on a new album. He releases a monthly podcast which is downloaded by over 10,000 fans every month and you can also access his remixes through iTunes.
Here’s a bit more about Ryan…
As a DJ, he has played at some of America’s most famous events and venues including Ultra Music Festival (Miami), Winter Music Conference (WMC Miami), Carnaval de Cali (Colombia), Pawnshop (Miami), Crobar (NYC), Spirit (NYC), Exit (NYC), Sandbar USA (NJ), Studio 4 (NJ), Liquid (Miami), The Relyc (NJ), SandBar USA (NJ), Club Abyss (NJ), Columbus 72 (NYC), Porkys (NYC), The Grand (NYC), One (NYC), Aer (NYC), Anthonys (NJ), Supperclub (NJ), Carusos (NJ), StingRays (NJ), Element Lounge (NJ), Club Tribecca (NJ), Club Drama (NJ), The Warehouse (NJ), XTC (NJ), Liquid (WMC Miami), The Shelbourne (WMC Miami), Suite Lounge (Miami Beach), PawnShop Lounge (Miami), Cameo (Miami Beach), Aerobar (Miami Beach), Living Room (Ft Lauderdale), and many more.
Throughout his long career Ryan has played alongside lengendary and famous DJs including David Morales, Lil Louie Vega, Armand Van Helden, Frankie Bones, Sven Vath, Gonzo, Hector Romero, Skribbles, Anthony Acid, Denny Tsettos, Lil Cee, Louie Devito, George Morel, and Roland Clark among others.
Miami Groove Cruise 2013
Twisted Halloween at LMNT Oct 27th
Retro Night Party at RokBar Miami Sept 15th
Sunday 9.9.12 Shore Club Miami
Friday August 24th Gryphon Hard Rock Ft Laud
2018 © Copyright @ Ryan Morales – All Rights Reserved – Website by DelPuma


Encore! The Renaissance of Wisconsin Opera Houses
272 pages, full-color photographs, 8" x 10"
By Brian Leahy Doyle
Photographs by Mark Fay
A remarkable number of Wisconsin towns and cities were home to an opera house in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Some were freestanding structures built by local benefactors, industrialists, and capitalists. Others were located within a city hall building and financed by local tax dollars with the support of government officials who believed in the value of the arts for their community.
Some of the biggest names in theater and vaudeville graced these Wisconsin stages: Marion Anderson, the Barrymores, Sarah Bernhardt, Enrico Caruso, George M. Cohan, Gracie Fields, Mario Lanza, Jenny Lind, Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne, the Marx Brothers, Sir Laurence Olivier, Bill "Bojangles” Robinson, Arturo Toscanini. But these theaters—especially those in smaller, rural towns—also served as "a public space for town meetings, lectures, political speeches and rallies, proms, high school graduations, church bazaars, and even basketball games,” notes Brian Leahy Doyle.
Doyle chronicles the histories of ten Wisconsin opera houses and theaters, from their construction to their heydays as live performance spaces and through the periods when many of these stages went dark. But what makes these stories so compelling is that all but one of the featured theaters has been restored to its original splendor. Just as the beginnings of these theaters were often the result of the efforts of local citizens, Doyle discovers that their restoration is due to the commitment of dedicated and passionate people. More than one of these revived theaters has spurred the revitalization of its surrounding downtown business district as well.
Mark Fay’s photographs capture the essence of these structures, from the austerely handsome to the magnificently ornate opera houses.
"Encore!" is the second book in the Places Along the Way series. Richly illustrated with historic and contemporary photos, the Places Along the Way series links Wisconsin's past with its present, exploring the state's history through its architecture.
places along the way series (1)
Horse-Drawn Days: a Century of Farming with Horses
240 pages, 140 b/w and color photos and illus., 8 x 9
Tavern League: Portraits of Wisconsin Bars
136 pages, 60 color photos, 9 x 9
Beyond the Trees: Stories of Wisconsin Forests
336 pages, 154 color and b/w photos and 17 maps, 8 x 9
Alexander Hamilton: From Obscurity to Greatness
200 pages, 5 ½ x 8 ½


Jeremy Scahill: Corporations Are Making a Killing Off US Targeted Killing
When it comes to targeted killing by US drones, “due process” is basically reversed — everyone killed in a drone strike is designated as an enemy killed in action until proven otherwise, says Jeremy Scahill. (Photo: Sergey Melkonov / Flickr; Edited: JR / TO)
If drone warfare has come up at all this election season, it’s been in passing. The candidates don’t differ much on the use of pilotless drones. But how is the face of war changing, and how do our peace movements need to respond?
Jeremy Scahill is an award-winning investigative journalist and a founding editor of The Intercept. He’s the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Dirty Wars (the book and the film), and now The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government’s Secret Drone Warfare Program, written with the staff of The Intercept.
Scahill joined me recently for a conversation that ranged from “death by metadata,” to corporations in the kill chain and the military-industrial complex.
You can watch the conversation in full (or listen to the podcast) on “The Laura Flanders Show.”
Laura Flanders: Let’s start with the meat of the matter, the book. It is based on a mountain of classified documents that you and your colleagues went through. Briefly, what is the most important thing we need to take from it?
Jeremy Scahill: The Obama administration and the president himself have claimed really from the first year of the administration on, that this is somehow a cleaner way of waging war, that it’s a smarter way of waging war and that it’s a more effective way of killing terrorists and protecting Americans. There’s no doubt that under President Obama dozens of people, who, I think, objectively could be declared terrorists, have been killed. Whether they went through a judicial process is a whole other story. But the entire thing is predicated on a lie, the lie that this is a cleaner, safer way of waging war. The reality is — and the documents that we obtained show this — in nine times out of 10, of the people killed in drone strikes by the US, the US doesn’t even know their identities. In other words, nine of the 10 people were not the intended targets of the strike. Were they other so-called bad guys? Maybe.
You have a chapter in the book co-authored with Glenn Greenwald called “Death by Metadata.”
Right. That’s how people are essentially being killed today. It’s not that you are locating an individual and killing them. They are locating people’s SIM cards [in their cell phones] or their handset numbers, and there’s a number of things. They call them selectors. Everything is in corporate language…. The SIM card has a way of communicating with the cell phone tower, and the phone itself has a way of communicating with the Wi-Fi communication. Your phone is basically just like a homing beacon that’s constantly admitting signals without your knowledge. So the US, the NSA, the CIA and the military are using those signals being emitted by everyone’s phones to triangulate the location of a phone that they believe to be in the possession of an individual, and that’s how they trigger the drone strike. In many cases, they’re not even 100 percent certain that they have the person, but they know they have the phone.
What if you’ve given your phone to someone?
It does happen. In fact, the source who gave us these documents, the whistleblower who worked on the targeted assassination campaign, said that they would watch the Taliban go into meetings. Then they would shuffle a bag of SIM cards, pass them out, and then they would all go their separate ways. They understand the system. There have also been a number of cases where people have been killed because they had a phone that US intelligence believed was connected to terrorism. Then a drone strike takes place, and it turns out not [to have targeted] the “right” person.
Now, the White House says it’s releasing documents purporting to tell us more about who’s targeted and why. What do we need to think about when we hear the White House talk about its releases?
President Obama is a constitutional lawyer by trade and training and has a lot of support from liberals … I think people generally on the liberal end of the spectrum say, “Well, we trust Obama with this stuff. We wouldn’t want the Republicans to have it” — which is a whole other moral discussion — “but we trust Obama.”
“Corporations are making a killing off of this killing.”
When the president of the United States looks into a camera and says, “The number of civilians killed is minimal” … I don’t think it’s that the president is knowingly lying to people. It’s that the system — and this is what our documents in the book show — is created so that the number will almost always be zero when asked how many civilians were killed because everyone killed in a drone strike, unless they are clearly a woman or a child, is going to be designated as an enemy killed in action. The only way you lose that designation after death is if posthumously you are proven to have not been a terrorist.
It’s sort of the reverse of due process. When Obama says, “The number of civilians killed is minimal,” it’s because the system produces the number zero or very low numbers every time they do a strike unless a journalist or a human rights organization goes to the scene and figures out, “Wait, these people weren’t terrorists. This was a wedding party.”
Now, you said some people even on the liberal side of the spectrum are comfortable with, “Well, as long as Obama’s in charge,” but he’s not the only person in charge. There’s a whole kill chain. An extraordinary part of your book is Cora Currier’s reporting on the materials that you were able to receive. The other piece of it is that corporations are involved in all of this, too. Talk a little bit about the role the corporations play in our assassination complex.
First of all, many of the slides that were produced that we have in the book for the US military were actually done by a national security division of the IBM corporation where they have a whole national security division. They use some of the same language and actually the same templates for slides that are about hunting and killing people for other corporate clients [too]. It seems like they are producing widgets. I mean that’s how they talk about it. The banality of evil just is kind of oozing from these things because it’s like, who are the authors who wrote these documents that refer to find, fix, finish, all of these terms that they use? We have a whole glossary of them in there.
“There’s nothing new in warfare except the technology.”
I mean corporations are making a killing off of this killing. You have Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and then you have these huge farms filled with private contractors who are on loan or being rented to the US government to be drone pilots or to be intelligence analysts. Those individuals are essentially part of a matrix that is a for-profit industry of killing. It’s wrapped in this flag of patriotism and national security. But at the end of the day there’s very little difference between what is happening now with the warfare industry and drones [and] what happened with [President] Lyndon Johnson when he was throwing contracts to Bell Helicopter because they were a Texas company and the Vietnam War seemed like a great market for them.
The military-industrial-war-killing complex is, as you said, nothing brand new, but this definitely is a new form. We often talk on this program about the history of capitalism and how it keeps going. First you exploit land, then you exploit people, and increasingly it looks as if war has become the way capitalism self-perpetuates.
If you look at what the US is doing in Africa right now, it is a form of neocolonialism…. You have an increasing number of what they call small footprint bases throughout Africa. The US, rather than deploying large numbers of troops, is starting to create outposts where they can fly drones and other essentially robotic tools of war and then also partnering up with unsavory militias or human rights-abusing governments. I recently did a story about how Erik Prince … the creator of Blackwater [is] creating a privatized air force using crop dusters manufactured by a farm company in the US state of Georgia and weaponizing them to sell to the Christian supremacist leader of South Sudan.
You have this growing covert or not-so-covert military presence in Africa. If you just rewind history half a century, there were these liberation struggles against exploitation of natural resources, against stomping out any attempts at self-determination. I feel like there’s nothing new in warfare except the technology. These companies are very much like the Dutch East India Trading Company and United Fruit. They’re just a little bit more sophisticated in how they conduct their business.
One of the topics we hear about a lot is the close relationship between the US policing system and Israel’s. Does Israel show up a lot in these leaks?
Well, Israel doesn’t show up in these documents. In some ways, Israel is more effective at keeping secrets than the US intelligence community. You haven’t had this scale of a leak on the Israeli program at all. In fact, the only real … remember, and I know you’ve reported on this a lot, Mordechai Vanunu, the former Israeli nuclear worker, blew the whistle in the early 1980s about Israel having nuclear weapons, which was an open secret, but he confirmed it. Then, he was, as a result of that, kidnapped and then had his entire life destroyed, spent decades basically in prison or being driven to insanity.
“All of these policies that were unleashed around the world now have come home in the most real way ever.”
There is a very deep Israeli connection to this. That is that the US has whole cloth adopted the Israeli assassination model. In the ’90s, Israel began very openly and proudly bumping off people, Palestinians who they considered to be either too popular of leaders or they accused of being heads of terror cells. After 9/11, when the Bush administration was trying to basically keep all of the blame on the Clinton era, Richard Clarke, who was the counterterrorism czar in the waning years of Clinton and then continued on with Bush, testified in the secret hearing in front of Congress that the reason that they didn’t want to use a weaponized drone to kill [Osama] bin Laden early on or to launch a cruise missile strike that would effectively kill him is they didn’t want to give the perception to the world that the US was running an Israeli-style assassination program. Fast forward to the middle of the Bush administration and then the Obama administration, [and] we have become the Israeli assassination program across the globe.
How does our peace movement need to change to respond to the current moment?
I think that if we step back and look at it, especially people that are just really focused on antiwar activism [need to] pay attention to the fact that everything you’ve been opposing around the world is here now … It’s in the targeting of young Black people by law enforcement. It’s in the paramilitarization of police forces in this country…. It’s [in] the militarization of the border. All of these policies that were unleashed around the world now have come home in the most real way ever, where local police forces all look like SWAT teams now. There’s a whole program that the Homeland Security Department runs to give grants to local law enforcement to obtain armored vehicles that the military is done using in Afghanistan. Those are now facing down against protesters, but also [more generally against] Black communities or poor communities.
Jeremy Scahill’s book is The Assassination Complex co-authored with the staff of The Intercept. “The Laura Flanders Show” airs multiple times weekly on KCET/LINKtv, (DIRECTV Ch. 375 and DISH Network Ch. 9410), on FreeSpeech TV and in Spanish and English on the Latin American network teleSUR. For more information or to watch more coverage of drone warfare, go to LauraFlanders.com.
Anti-Drone Movement Grows: Ethics, Legality and Effectiveness of Drone Killings Doubted
Zeese and Flowers examine the US drone program, its security effectiveness, legality under US and international law, state of development, and position in US opinion.
Kevin Zeese &
Margaret Flowers,
Drones and Lethal Robotics: The Future of the Police War on Black Lives
In a society where Blackness equates to risk, technology will reproduce the defining characteristics of anti-Blackness.
William C. Anderson,


Two local high school musicals nominated for 2012 Stage Top Honor Awards
by Linda Hubbard on May 15, 2012
Editor’s note: Evidently it’s the day for local student musical theatre. Soon after we posted the story on Grab Bag Theatre below, we received word about these high school musical nominations.
Musicals produced by Menlo-Atherton High School and Menlo School have been nominated for the 2012 Bay Area High School Musical Theatre Stage Top Honors Awards. The awards program, sponsored by the San Jose Stage Company, encourages and rewards exceptional accomplishments in the production of high school musical theatre. Sixteen private and public high schools competed for the 2012 Awards, which are modeled after Broadway’s Tony Awards.
MA’s four nominations for the musical Once Upon a Mattress include Hannah Berggren for Best Leading Actress (pictured top) and Zachary W. Abt for Best Supporting Actor. The school also picked up nominations for Shayda Abadi for Best Graphic Design and Kent Kurrus for Student Orchestra.
Menlo School received seven nominations for its production of Spring Awakening, including Best Leading Actor Andrew Klingelhofer and Director Beth Orr (pictured right). Other nominations include Best Chorus; Best Supporting Actor, Brett Caplan; Choreography, Jan Chandler; Lighting Design, Tripp Robbins; and Costume Design, Kim Klingelhofer.
Winners of the 2012 Stage Top Honor Awards will be announced on Monday, June 4 at 7:00 pm at the California Theatre in downtown San Jose. More information and tickets are available online. Winners of the the Best Actress and Best Actor categories will be sent to the National Musical Theatre Awards in New York City.
Photo of Hannah Berggren by Gillian Bostock
Photo of Beth Orr courtesy of Menlo School


OSCAR GOLD: THE 84TH ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS
In a night that was a tribute to classic Hollywood glamour, the big winners at the Oscars this year were films like The Artist and Hugo, which were an ode to vintage Hollywood cinema. TV TALK takes a close look at the glitzy affair that was magical and resplendent in every way…
For a complete list of winners, CLICK HERE
Photo Courtesy: AMPAS
To bring back to the magic of Hollywood and the Oscars, the biggest event on television, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences played up the classic and vintage value of the motion pictures, even with Billy Crystal as host, his ninth time on the job. The night wasn’t full of surprises, even though the most deserving nominees did take home Oscar gold, and there weren’t any major snubs.
Moreover, I thought that the host did a fine job, even though he received criticism from many. And in addition to that, most presenters were effective and entertaining, especially Jennifer Lopez and Cameron Diaz, Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow, Chris Rock, Ben Stiller and Emma Stone, and the cast of Bridesmaids.
FAVORITE RED CARPET LOOKS
Penélope Cruz in Armani Privé
Cameron Diaz in Gucci
Sandra Bullock in Marchesa
Gwyneth Paltrow in Tom Ford
A still from the Cirque Du Soleil performance
The show seemed shorter than other years, with the introductions to the categories not as elaborate as always, and even the presentation of nominees in the technical categories also toned down. Additionally, the tradition of all the Best Original Song nominated being performed has been phased out since 2010, and this year, with just two songs nominated, there weren’t any song performances. The only major performances were the opening sequence with host Billy Crystal, and the breathtakingly amazing exclusive performance by the Cirque Du Soleil, with their largest ensemble ever, to the music of renowned Hollywood composer Danny Elfman.
Taking the theme forward were videos of several actors like Tom Cruise, Reese Witherspoon, Adam Sandler and others speaking about being a part of Hollywood, the motion pictures, expression and telling stories that go down as pieces of cinematic history. That was an interesting addition to the show, while montages of scenes from successful movies of the past seemed to be an attempt to add elements that would appeal to the audiences of more popular movies. Even the ‘In Memoriam’ section, paying tribute to those personalities who passed away in the last year, was innovatively presented with music and portraits.
Hollywood history was created again in several ways again, with some of the results in particular. Christopher Plummer (Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for Beginners), 82, became the oldest individual to have ever won an Oscar. Meryl Streep, the actress with the maximum number of acting nominations (17) ever, won her third [very well deserved] Oscar (Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for The Iron Lady) almost thirty years after winning her last one. The Artist became the first silent film since 1929 to be nominated for Best Picture, and it won!
Christopher Plummer, Octavia Spencer, Meryl Streep and Jean Dujardin
Among other noteworthy wins were Octavia Spencer’s (Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for The Help) and Jean Dujardin’s (Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for The Artist), who both got really emotional on stage. Dujardin’s speech, ending with, “Merci formidable! Merci Beaucoup!”was the stuff that classic Oscar acceptance clips are made of. Plummer’s speech, which began with him saying to the statuette, “You’re only two years older than me; where’ve you been all my life?” made one of the best lines of the evening. And with all these wins being announced by last year’s winners in the categories (Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, Melissa Leo and Christian Bale), they became even more special.
The Artist wins Best Picture
With a well-paced-out announcement of categories and winners, the evening drew to a close steadily, with the Lead Actress announcement being pushed to after Lead Actor. And after Meryl Streep’s heartfealt, humble and beautiful acceptance speech, Tom Cruise came on stage to present the big one of the evening—Best Picture. The Artist, which also won Michel Hazanavicius an Oscar for Direction, turned out to be the very deserving winner this year, with the simple story that The Artist was having been told with such brilliance and honesty. The endearing sight of Uggie the dog up on stage, along with the cast and winners, accepting the award added so much charm to a largely perfect show.
on Monday, February 27, 2012 3 comments
Tags: Academy Awards, Awards, Colin Firth, hosts, Jean Dujardin, Meryl Streep, Natalie Portman, Oscars, presenters, Records, Red Carpet, Star Movies, The Artist, The Help, The Iron Lady
THE TV TALK BEST OF 2011, NOMINEES
I look back at the year of TV that 2011 was, recognizing the best in popular television
From starting new shows, to catching up on the old ones, to bidding adieu to others, 2011 was an interesting year in television for me. I started watching BONES, and it became my favorite crime show. BROTHERS & SISTERS ended after its five-year run. It was announced that one of my all-time favorite shows DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES would be ending after its eighth season. Hit comedies like HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER and THE BIG BANG THEORY got renewed for multiple seasons. Actors like Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ashton Kutcher and Rachel Bilson returned to television with RINGER, TWO AND A HALF MEN and HART OF DIXIE, respectively. DEXTER took a deadly turn with its sixth season finale… And so much more! 2011 was an exciting year to say the least. And here’s a small way to acknowledge my favorites from the year gone by. Presenting the nominees for the TV TALK Best of 2011…
Series – Drama
Series – Musical or Comedy
Performance by an Actress in A Leading Role – Drama
Emily Deschanel, Bones
Eva Longoria, Desperate Housewives
Glenn Close, Damages
Madeleine Stowe, Revenge
Marcia Cross, Desperate Housewives
Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
Performance by an Actor in A Leading Role – Drama
David Boreanaz, Bones
Hugh Laurie, House MD
Michael C Hall, Dexter
Patrick Dempsey, Grey’s Anatomy
Peter Krause, Parenthood
Tom Seleck, Blue Bloods
Performance by an Actress in A Leading Role – Musical or Comedy
Courteney Cox, Cougar Town
Julie Bowen, Modern Family
Kat Dennings, Two Broke Girls
Lea Michele, Glee
Performance by an Actor in A Leading Role – Musical or Comedy
Breckin Meyer, Franklin & Bash
Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory
Johnny Galecki, The Big Bang Theory
Josh Radnor, How I Met Your Mother
Matthew Morrison, Glee
Ty Burrell, Modern Family
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role – Drama
Jennifer Carpenter, Dexter
Kadee Strickland, Private Practice
Lisa Edelstein, House MD
Sandra Oh, Grey’s Anatomy
Sara Ramirez, Grey’s Anatomy
Vanessa Williams, Desperate Housewives
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role – Drama
Ed Westwick, Gossip Girl
John Goodman, Damages
Justin Chambers, Grey’s Anatomy
Kevin McKidd, Grey’s Anatomy
Matthew Rhys, Brothers & Sisters
Paul Adelstein, Private Practice
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role – Musical or Comedy
Alyson Hannigan, How I Met Your Mother
Cobie Smulders, How I Met Your Mother
Jane Lynch, Glee
Kaley Cuoco, The Big Bang Theory
Mayim Bialik, The Big Bang Theory
Sofia Vergara, Modern Family
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role – Musical or Comedy
Chris Colfer, Glee
Eric Stonestreet, Modern Family
Jesse Tyler Fergusson, Modern Family
Kunal Nayyar, The Big Bang Theory
Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
Writing – Storylines & Dialogues
Music – Background Score
Music – Compilation
Titles – Opening & Closing Credits
Like last year (Click for results of TV TALK Best of 2010), there will be a Readers’ Choice also for the series and acting categories. For that, you may vote in the polls that are in the right-hand panel of this page.
The TV TALK BEST OF 2011 will be declared soon…(watch this space)
**Please note: The nominated series are only from the list of shows that I watch. The list of those is also further down in the right-hand panel.
on Sunday, February 12, 2012 8 comments
Tags: Awards, comedy, Desperate Housewives, drama, Grey's Anatomy, House MD, How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory, TV TALK Best of
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CURRENT SHOWS THAT I FOLLOW
Affair, The
Crown, The
Goldbergs, The
Good Fight, The
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The
Morning Show, The
30 Rock (8) 90210 (4) ABC (18) Academy Awards (35) American Idol (6) Anne Hathaway (4) Awards (104) Boardwalk Empire (6) bonding (4) Bones (12) Brothers and Sisters (15) Castle (10) character development (32) competition reality show (4) Damages (6) death (6) Desperate Housewives (29) Dexter (19) Family Drama (9) finale (30) Friends (7) Glee (19) Golden Globes (21) Gossip Girl (8) Grey's Anatomy (36) House MD (18) How I Met Your Mother (20) Idol judges (4) James Franco (2) Jennifer Lopez (4) Mad Men (22) Marc Cherry (7) medical drama (14) Modern Family (39) Mr Sunshine (3) Natalie Portman (2) Off The Map (6) Oscars (35) Parenthood (6) premiere (25) presenters (8) Primetime Emmys (32) Private Practice (23) Protagonists (7) Randy Jackson (2) Readers' Choice (3) reality tv (3) relationships (28) Ryan Seacrest (4) Screen Actors Guild (14) Shonda Rhimes (21) siblings (1) Star Movies (3) Steven Tyler (2) The Big Bang Theory (26) The Good Wife (19) TV TALK Best of (12) Ugly Betty (3) Who's the Boss (1) winners (8) Women's Day (1)
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