Home Cricket Ban v Eng England’s tour to Bangladesh will be a befitting answer to terrorism
Ban v Eng
England’s tour to Bangladesh will be a befitting answer to terrorism
Faisal Caesar
“Sport is extremely powerful. For more than a hundred years, it has done things which politics failed to do. It has the power to unite a nation and spread love all over the world. In this unrest world, it’s the perfect tool to undermine terrorism and thus, if England tour Bangladesh, it will be a befitting answer to terrorism”
July 1, 2016. All of a sudden the whole world was stunned. A horrifying night preceded the glorified Night of Power of Holy Ramadan. Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, was left in a state of stupor and in a dazed state of disbelief and heartbreak. The whole nation came to a standstill and the vengeance of that night jolted the whole nation.
Five militants took hostages and opened fire on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan, which is known as one of the most secured and posh areas of Dhaka. The assailants entered the bakery with crude bombs, machetes, pistols, and took several dozen hostages, both foreign and local. The Bangladesh Army took a drastic approach and ended the standoff via “Operation Thunderbolt.”
A few days later, during the Eid prayers at Sholakia, a group “Son of the Devils” carried out a bomb blast which added more grief to the heart and soul of the Bangladeshis who were already hurt and devastated by the Gulshan attack.
The incidents of Gulshan and Sholakia had put Bangladesh in a very bizarre state. They faced the risk of losing various foreign investments in the business sector and a major setback in tourism and sports, especially cricket.
Last year, Australia’s tour of Bangladesh was officially postponed due to concerns over security. An Italian charity worker was shot dead in Dhaka and later, Islamic State reportedly claimed the responsibility, and thus, Cricket Australia had no option but to abandon the tour.
BREAKING: Cricket Australia postpone tour of Bangladesh over security concerns. #SSNHQ
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) October 1, 2015
It was a sad state of affairs for the Tigers, who were eagerly waiting for the tour to happen. They were in such a wonderful form last year that it promised to be a cracking Test series against a team who are weak against spin and were down after losing the Ashes in England.
But Australia’s decision to postpone the tour left the Tigers devoid of Test cricket for almost a year and since the World T20 ended, Bangladesh are hardly involved in any international cricket. The likes of Shakib Al Hasan and Mustafizur Rahman featured in some T20 leagues, but that was not enough to quench the thirst of Bangladeshi cricket fans.
England are supposed to tour Bangladesh this year for a bilateral Test and ODI series. But the tragic incident of July 1 has cast a shadow over the tour. England Cricket Board’s (ECB) security delegation arrived in Dhaka last week and inspected venues in Mirpur, Chittagong, and Fatullah. They also inspected the hotels and had meetings with the intelligence agencies and BCB officials in Dhaka. They were also shown the security plan for the tour at the home ministry.
The ECB delegation left Dhaka, but it is still not certain whether the tour will proceed or not.
England should not postpone the tour. The whole world is affected by terrorism, but it doesn’t stop the day-to-day activities and sports at all. Moreover, the security state of Bangladesh is not in the doldrums like some of the countries where each day children have to wake up with the fear of a drone attack or bomb blast.
Mashrafe Mortaza, who has supported the tour, said, “Firstly, I would ask them to come, and I still believe they will come. We are all confident that the Bangladesh Cricket Board and the government will be able to make necessary security arrangements. As a player, I will say that the sport should continue. This kind of attack is happening all over the world. There were attacks in France and still the Euro was held there. I think it depends on ECB-BCB, what is going on between them. I think they should come.”
Again, if England’s tour to India in 2008 could proceed despite the horrifying terrorist attack in Mumbai, why not the Bangladesh tour?
The Government of Bangladesh has taken stern steps to control violence and terrorism all over the country and at the moment the state of security in Bangladesh is comfortable. The foreign investors have not stepped back, whereas many foreigners are still visiting Bangladesh as tourists and for various business purposes.
Bangladesh has stood up on her feet and moved on with enough determination and positivity.
England should realize what cricket means to the people of Bangladesh and how badly it will affect the country’s cricketing affairs if they decide not to tour Bangladesh. England should not forget, despite Australia’s sad decision, Bangladesh has successfully staged two major international events and a limited-overs series this year. The arrangement of security by the Bangladesh government was stupendous and there were no reports of any ugly incidents during those events.
Moreover, England must not miss the opportunity to enjoy Bangladesh’s eye-popping natural beauty, heartwarming hospitality, and passion for the game. No matter where they go to play, they will be greeted with a cheer, and no matter whom they meet they will never experience a moment of hostility. Bangladesh is the school of life.
Bangladesh are a rising force in world cricket and deserves to host and play against big teams like Australia and England. It’s quite sure, Bangladesh won’t wobble against them like in the past but will offer an exciting contest which will not only benefit both the teams, but cricket itself will be enriched a lot.
Sport is extremely powerful. For more than a hundred years, it has done things which politics failed to do. It has the power to unite a nation and spread love all over the world. In this unrest world, it’s the perfect tool to undermine terrorism, and thus, if England tour Bangladesh, it will be a befitting answer to terrorism.
Bangladesh v England 2016
Previous articleThe unique cricket culture of Sri Lanka
Next articleBangladesh bowlers will benefit from Courtney Walsh
http://www.faisalcaesar.blogspot.com
Faisal Caesar is a doctor by profession and a passionate cricket writer. He is the cricket editor of Cricketsoccer. Previously, he has worked with prominent websites like Cricket Country, News18 and Sportskeeda as a cricket analyst. He tweets @faisalyorker1


Abstract from Wikipedia : Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face". Buster Keaton (his lifelong stage name) was recognized as the seventh-greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Keaton the 21st-greatest male star of all time. Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton's "extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929, [when when] he worked without interruption on a series of films that make him, arguably, the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies. " His career declined afterward with a dispiriting loss of his artistic independence when he hired on to MGM which fueled a crippling alcoholism that ruined his family life. However, he later recovered in the 1940s, remarried and successfully revived his career to a degree as an honored comic performer for the rest of his life, earning plaudits like an Academy Honorary Award in 1958. Orson Welles stated that Keaton's The General is "the greatest comedy ever made, the greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made. " A 2002 worldwide poll by Sight & Sound ranked Keaton's The General as the 15th best film of all time. Three other Keaton films received votes in the magazine's survey: Our Hospitality, Sherlock, Jr. , and The Navigator.
Buster Keaton appears in...
Well Known People (1)
See All Pictures of Buster Keaton
Sample of Pictures


Local Knowledge Crucial to Minimising Future Flood Risk
Devastating flood damage caused by sudden bank breaches can be minimised by tapping into local knowledge and resources, while also helping to manage water levels and create availability during times of drought, says a major risk management authority.
“Climate change is a reality, and we have to accept that with more extreme weather conditions, there will be increased frequencies of river bank overtopping,” explains Innes Thomson, chief executive of ADA (Association of Drainage Authorities), the organisation representing drainage, water level and flood risk management authorities in the UK.
The discharge of water from the Steeping River into the Bellwater Drain which is within W4DIDB’s system and managed and maintained by them. The water is being pumped using one of the EA’s high-volume pumps mounted on the road bridge over the Steeping River at Thorpe Culvert.
“It is all about resilience, and we must ensure embankments can withstand overtopping without failing,” adds Mr Thomson. “The local knowledge of public bodies such as Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs), alongside others including the local Environment Agency offices, Local Authorities, Parish Councils, is key to providing a local service in managing water where it really matters, to the people and the environment,” Mr Thomson adds.
Citing the example of the sudden bank failure on the Steeping River in June, causing flooding devastation to the Lincolnshire village and community of Wainfleet, ADA warns that it is essential that when water does breach embankments, the infrastructure is in place to get rid of that water.
“The first priority is to ensure embankments are resilient to avoid dangerous breaches, and local IDBs are best placed to identify any concerns within their own drainage district, due to local knowledge and surveying of risk areas,” continues Mr Thomson.
“When water does overtop embankments, it is essential to have the infrastructure in place, with well-managed and maintained sluices and pumping stations to divert water and relieve pressure.”
Mr Thomson flagged up the recent £1.8 million sea defence project at Wrangle Banks, on the Lincolnshire coast north of Boston, funded by Defra, with European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) support via Lincolnshire County Council. Here sea defences were raised and re-profiled to increase their resilience in an area of the Wash shoreline previously viewed as potentially catastrophic.
Headed up by Witham Fourth District IDB (W4IDB) as the lead risk management authority, this partnership project protects 3,400 hectares of prime grade one farmland and 460 domestic and industrial properties.
The project involved re-profiling the sea banks and raising them to over 7 metres high, with a slope leading to a soke dyke to cope with future over-topping. The project created a maintenance strip behind the bank and larger soke dykes. During high tides, these accommodate the water that permeates up through the ground and during heavy rainfall, they enable surplus water to flow to the W4IDB managed pumping stations.
This is a prime example of a co-ordinated effort, and highlights the importance of landowners and communities working together with local risk management authorities.
One example where working together brings obvious benefits, is in balancing environmental and habitat demands with the need to manage water level and flood risk requirements. Burrowing animals, for example, can have a significant impact on the resilience of a flood embankment, and this needs to be carefully managed. It is essential, therefore, that IDBs and other risk management authorities work closely with the Environment Agency and Natural England to address problems with the right balance.
While the lasting memories for many of the viewing public, watching coverage of the devastating Wainfleet flooding, may well be the two RAF Chinooks and a Puma helicopter dropping 342 one tonne bags of aggregate to plug the breach, what was going on behind the scenes was more engaging for the local communities.
Recognising the incredible response from all the emergency services and authorities involved, Lindsey Marsh Drainage Board were at the heart of the operation, the IDB’s Thorpe Culvert pumping station moving 430,000m3 per day out of the flood cell and back into Steeping River. When water levels threatened breaching the sub-station, the IDB team were joined by members of the local community, the emergency services, the Environment Agency and others, battling to keep flood water out of the station’s structure by building temporary defences, using over a thousand sandbags.
Witham Fourth District IDB also played a decisive role by taking water into their neighbouring system, from the Steeping River. They diverted water 17 miles through a well maintained drainage network and two pumping stations to get to the Wash, helping to relieve pressure on the Steeping River system.
The heroic urgent intervention of all those teams working together remarkably kept the station operational throughout. Its loss would have resulted in a larger number of homes being affected in and around Wainfleet. In total, the station shifted in excess of five million cubic metres of water from the flooded area over 11 days.
Both these examples, very much replicated in lowland areas at risk across the country from the Fens to the Somerset levels, demonstrate the positive and proactive role of IDBs. Often however, there appears to be some disconnect between what happens on the ground, and the public perception.
Ultimately, IDBs are often best placed due to their connection to the local community. Public consultations help raise awareness, avert or reassure concerns but also justify expenditure and levy payments in internal drainage districts.
Mr Thomson concludes,
“Working in close collaboration with the Environment Agency and other authorities and voluntary groups, IDBs provide a cost-effective, efficient, local service in managing water where it really matters to people and the environment. The Wainfleet event demonstrated how professionals can come together in a very effective way behind the scenes. It is increasingly important, however, to publicise that joint service provision more and allow people to understand and support the work being done to reduce the risks of their lives being affected by flooding and drought.”
UK Needs Sustainable Economy Act say's Think Tank
Huge Decline in Bird Species When Grouse Management Ends
Wildfire Warning from the CLA
CLA Urges Farmers to Follow Hedge Cutting Rules


Share this Story: Daphne Bramham: A step closer to preventing the deaths of thousands of mothers and babies
Daphne Bramham: A step closer to preventing the deaths of thousands of mothers and babies
With all the chatter about bike lanes, greenways and cetaceans in captivity, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that there are lots really big problems in the world, and there are people in Vancouver working on the solutions.
Each year, 76,000 pregnant women and 500,000 fetuses and infants die from pre-eclampsia. It is the second leading cause of maternal death, especially in developing nations. A mobile oximeter and smartphone application developed by three UBC professors can accurately stratify women into risk categories. Photo by UBC PRE-EMPT Team
With all the chatter about bike lanes, greenways and cetaceans in captivity, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that there are lots of really big problems in the world, and there are people in Vancouver working on the solutions.
One of the biggest problems is that every day, 750 pregnant women, 7,200 fetuses and 8,200 newborns die from preventable causes.
Daphne Bramham: A step closer to preventing the deaths of thousands of mothers and babies Back to video
Peter von Dadelszen, Mark Ansermino and Guy Dumont — three UBC professors — know how to reduce those deaths by up to 90 per cent.
They had hoped to get a $2-million grant from the Saving Lives At Birth partnership Friday and have their project completed within the two years.
(Savings Lives At Birth, aka SLAB, is funded by the government-supported Grand Challenges Canada, as well as the American, Norwegian and British governments and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.)
That didn’t happen. But they were awarded $250,000 to continue their work, which will now take at least four years. And instead of devoting all their time and attention to research, they will have to spend some of it raising money.
The trio has a solid track record.
They have proven in field trials that their technology can reduce deaths from eclampsia (a pregnancy complication) by 85 per cent. To get that done, they had a $17-million grant from the Gates Foundation and $250,000 from SLAB.
“I was surprised (at how well it worked),” says lead researcher von Dadelszen. “And I believe in the project.”
Dumont — an engineer — designed a mobile oximeter, which is a small finger clamp that connects through a USB port to a smartphone.
The oximeter measures the oxygen level in a woman’s blood and, based on the reading, a software application prompts health-care workers to ask specific questions aimed at determining how great the woman’s risk is for potentially fatal high-blood pressure (eclampsia).
The app assesses the answers and prescribes treatment that can range from “Must go to the hospital now” to “Needs magnesium sulphate and followup in a few weeks.”
Von Dadelszen, an obstetrician, developed the app along with Ansermino, an anesthetist and director of innovations in acute care and technology.
Even though eclampsia is the second leading cause of preventable maternal and infant deaths, it only accounts for 20 per cent of those deaths. The harsh reality in the developing world is that to be affordable and scale-able, the technology needs to do more than that.
So, the next step is to expand the app’s capabilities to diagnose women at risk of bleeding, prolonged labour, sepsis (a severe blood infection that can lead to organ failure) as well as those who have malaria, HIV/AIDS and possibly tuberculosis.
It must be also able to predict the risks of stillbirths, respiratory problems and jaundice in newborns, ensuring proper treatment.
One reason that the app can be developed so quickly is that they plan to use existing data compiled by other researchers and the Aga Khan Foundation.
Much of the money will be spent is on hiring PhD students in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Kenya and Tanzania to do the work, which provides the added benefit of strengthening the research capacity in those countries.
As good as the technology is, the UBC professors recognized early on that there are social and economic factors in play.
Many women never make it to hospital because their husbands or mothers-in-law won’t give permission. Many arrive too late to be saved. And many families, no matter how caring, can’t afford even the cost of taking a woman to hospital.
In scaling up the technology, von Dadelszen says they will have to continue identifying barriers specific to the countries in which they work, educate community leaders, and try to promote micro-financing so that communities can have a plan and money in place for the emergency transportation of women to hospital.
It is a measure of how many great and worthy ideas are out there that von Dadelszen and his team were passed over both this year and last year.
The four projects that did get $2 million each included a Kenyan group that provides e-vouchers for health-care; an American phone-based tool that supports screening and counselling of pregnant women; a Dutch project that will provide community-based health insurance for low-income families; and a portable counterfeit and substandard drug detector developed by researchers at Boston University.
Twenty-five other projects along with the UBC app received $250,000 to continue their work.
Winning the funding requires going through a gruelling week of presentations and various rounds of voting.
“My wife, who is a physician at Childrens Hospital, likens it to ice dancing, where everything depends on the Russian judges,” von Dadelszen says with a laugh from the competition site in Washington, D.C.
“But there are so many smart people. It’s been really exciting to be with them.”
dbramham@vancouversun.com
Click here to report a typo or visit vancouversun.com/typo.


Michael Jackson’s newest album exhibits freshness and modernity
Zach Smith, Staff Writer|May 28, 2014
Press release photo from hypetrak.com
Michael Jackson’s “Xscape” debuted at No.2 on the billboards on March 14
The King of Pop continues to release hits, even after his death. “XSCAPE,” a modernized mix of songs that did not make the cut on Jackson’s previous albums, is one of many albums to be released during the posthumous Michael Jackson era.
Timbaland executive-produced the album with assistance from other big name producers Rodney Jerkins, Jerome Harmon, Stargate, and John McClane, providing a fresh sound to the old recordings. Their works stuns, as the album maintains a true Michael Jackson vibe throughout, excluding “Blue Gangsta,” a beatboxed tune that screams Timbaland. Despite the lack of vintage Jackson on the track, “Blue Gangsta” appeals to young music fans, delivering a upbeat tempo sure to have listeners dancing.
The deluxe edition of “XSCAPE” features eight original tracks chosen from 1983 to 1999, in addition to nine renovated versions of the identical singles. “Love Never Felt So Good,” originally recorded over thirty years ago, sees two interpretations both produced by Timbaland. Michael Jackson meets Justin Timberlake in the second copy, making for a radio-friendly and likable hymn.
This is the fourth post-death album released by Epic Records and MJJ Productions. The previous records include “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” Soundtrack, “Immortal,” and “Michael.” “Michael” is the first posthumous compilation album of unpolished Jackson tracks, shedding light on the King of Pop’s impact on the music industry.
The producers manage to construct an album not entirely focused on reminiscing in Jackson’s past, introducing fresh sounds and tracks unlike his most popular anthems; however, there are several songs resting on nostalgia. The funk number “Chicago” bumps in a similar manner to Jackson’s smash hit, “Billie Jean,” in sound and overall bulk.
Outside of the controversy behind releasing the posthumous album, “XSCAPE” held a position on iTunes top ten albums for multiple weeks following its release. “Slave to the Rhythm,” once featuring Justin Bieber, has a techno sound and catchy chorus sure to have music listeners from any decade grooving to the rhythm of the beat. The album maintains a familiar sound, while experimenting with popular music of today, thus, ensuring a wide range of appeal to music enthusiasts across the globe.


Supply of Data Processor Object Storage Software and NVRAM Storage
The purpose of the work is to assess readiness of technology developments in storage for use in the SDP compute clusters.
United Kingdom-Cambridge: Research and development services and related consultancy services
The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge
Procurement Services, Greenwich House, 1st Floor South, Madingley Rise, Madingley Road
Contact point(s): Procurement Services
For the attention of: Tom Twitchett
CB3 0TX Cambridge
E-mail: purchasing.intend@admin.cam.ac.uk
General address of the contracting authority: https://in-tendhost.co.uk/universityofcambridge
Other: higher education/research
UCAM 046/15 For the provision of SKA-Science Data Processor Object Storage Software and NVRAM Storage.
Service category No 8: Research and development services
NUTS code UKH1
The notice involves a public contract
The Square Kilometre Array (SKA, http://www.skatelescope.org/) is a major international project to build a next generation radio astronomy observatory. The anticipated construction cost of the full SKA is about 2 000 000 000 EUR. When completed, the SKA will be, by a large margin, the largest and most sensitive low-frequency radio observatory ever built.
The design of the main elements of the SKA is being carried out by International Consortia, with the SKA Organisation coordinating the design process. The SKA Organisation is also the overall design authority for the SKA. The SKA Organisation is a UK company limited by guarantee and is based in the UK at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire.
An integral part of the observatory is processing the data from the streams produced by digital signal processing into calibrated, usable science products. This processing is the responsibility of the ‘Science Data Processor’ (SDP) element of the SKA which is led by the University of Cambridge. The ‘Science Data Processing Consortium’ includes members on five continents and a mixture of Universities and government organisation and institutes.
The deployment of the telescopes in SKA will be phased, with the first phase (SKA1) due to commence procurement in 2017. Until 2017 the SKA project is in a pre-production phase during which elements are undergoing design and technology is brought to production readiness level. The observatory will consist of telescopes which will be sited in Southern Africa and Western Australia. There will be a computing facility for Science Data Processing on each of the continents.
The purpose of the work is to assess readiness of technology developments in storage for use in the SDP compute clusters. The applications running in the SDP clusters have an extreme need for high performance read I/O. The details of a preliminary design of the SDP can be in the Bibliography below. Additional information on software can also be found here.
The SDP clusters may well have a hybrid storage system comprising ultra-fast node-local storage leveraging NVRAM, fast island-wide shared storage spanning a limited collection of nodes (e.g. 2 racks of computers may comprise an ‘island’) while a third storage system will provide an archive in which the science products will be stored. Given current industry trends, object stores are of considerable interest.
The purpose of this project is to establish if combinations of existing technologies are feasible to achieve the following goals:
— Can an application simultaneously use NVRAM storage as part of an object store and as memory class storage?
— Can a fast RDMA interconnect be leveraged to access an object storage backend?
— Layer a layout-aware I/O-interface, for example ADIOS, on an object store and demonstrate good performance?
73000000, 73300000, 72230000, 72200000
Variants will be accepted: yes
The Square Kilometre Array (SKA, http://www.skatelescope.org/) is a major international project to build a next generation radio astronomy observatory. The anticipated construction cost of the full SKA is about 2 billion Euros. When completed, the SKA will be, by a large margin, the largest and most sensitive low-frequency radio observatory ever built.
Legal persons should indicate the names and professional qualifications of the staff responsible for the execution of the service: no
Recourse to staged procedure to gradually reduce the number of solutions to be discussed or tenders to be negotiated no
UCAM 046/15
Time limit for receipt of requests for documents or for accessing documents: 7.8.2015 – 12:00
7.8.2015 – 12:00
Date: 14.8.2015 – 12:30
Persons authorised to be present at the opening of tenders: no
The University of Cambridge is not a public body within the meaning of the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 (Directive 2004/18) and is not subject to the procurement legislation. Where the University advertises contracts in the Official Journal of the European Union, it does so on a voluntary basis and does not undertake any obligation to comply with the procurement legislation. The University reserves its rights in full to adapt or step outside the procedures in the procurement legislation as the University considers necessary.
Information about the tender process to be followed does not amount to a legally binding offer by the University to follow the process so described. The University reserves the right not to follow or to modify the procedures as the University considers necessary.
The tender process is being conducted electronically via In-tend.
Suppliers are required to register on this website:
https://in-tendhost.co.uk/universityofcambridge in order to receive documentation. After registering the tender documentation can then be downloaded. All tender responses and any supporting documentation must be submitted through this system. There must be no postal correspondence from bidders unless agreed with the University. Tenders shall not be sent and will not be accepted by fax or email.


Yerra Sugarman is the author of two poetry collections: Forms of Gone and The Bag of Broken Glass, both published by The Sheep Meadow Press. She received a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and awards from PEN American Center, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Poetry Society of America, and The Nation magazine. She is a PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston.
Invisible Desire: Celia Dropkin (1888 - 1956)
Yerra Sugarman
Approximately five years after immigrating to the United States in 1912, Celia Dropkin, innovator of the erotic modernist love poem in Yiddish, began writing poetry in her mother tongue for the first time.
She was born in 1888, in Bobruisk, White Russia, a shtetl (the Yiddish word for town) about 85 miles southeast of Minsk in what is today the independent country of Belarus. At the outbreak of World War I, over half the inhabitants of Bobruisk were Jewish, but by 1939, when World War II started, they constituted less than 30% of its population. Hitler's army conquered the town in 1941, and shot 20,000 Jews, burying them in mass graves. Dropkin wrote verse in Russian until about 1917.
Her earliest Yiddish poems were her own translations of work she had originally written in the language of her birthplace, her other mother tongue. Masterful in its invigoration of meter and rhyme as well as in its, less often, exploration of free verse, the radically passionate and personal lyric that establishes Dropkin's stature in Yiddish literature is groundbreaking in its candor about sex, love, death and relationships between men and women. It also addresses with freshness and immediacy other subjects: nature (often eroticized), motherhood, and childhood.
One later poem, "Shvere gedanken" ("Hard Thoughts") is a response to the Holocaust. By exposing how desire and erotic yearning are buried in a woman's body, to recall Virginia Woolf's demand of women writers, Dropkin now takes a place in 20th century literature. Exploring our inner conflicts and despair, Dropkin challenged her readers' preconceptions of women's poetry as a form of the pious and popular tkhine: a mainly woman's individual, noncanonical, prayer. Her transgressive work, sometimes compared to Plath's, exceeded the limits of acceptable discourse in her time, and even now challenges conventions about sex, marriage and motherhood.
If Yiddish poetry for women was a form of prayer, it was not a dignified one, as it would have been in Hebrew; it was a lesser form in a lesser language. Dropkin and other unrecognized modernist women poets reshaped this domestic village patois into writing in which the female self could speak. She was no longer on her knees scrubbing floors and asking God to get pregnant. She was a woman expressing desire.
Although Dropkin's poetry was acclaimed for its power and originality, it was likewise disparaged and overlooked by some Yiddish male critics and a number of her contemporaries who found it too openly erotic, personal, emotional, and insufficiently political for the leftist literary circles of the time or lacking in Jewish content. As Sheva Zucker points out in her essay, "The Red Flower: Rebellion and Guilt in the Poetry of Celia Dropkin," the leading Yiddish critic of the 1930s, Shmuel Niger, complained that the personal content of some of her work was more suited for a scrapbook than it was for poetry.
Dropkin, we now acknowledge, was among the significant immigrant poets in New York, many of them women, who rediscovered and recreated Yiddish, transmuting it into a modern poetic language. Born of exile and Diaspora, Yiddish, since about the 10th century, had been a vernacular of the people. A fusion of several languages created by Ashkenazi Jews, it was standardized only about a hundred years ago, influenced by the "classic" writers of modern Yiddish literature: Mendele, Peretz and Sholem Aleichem.
Dropkin and her contemporaries contributed to the swift and unprecedented burgeoning of Yiddish poetry in New York from the late nineteenth century until the beginning of World War II. A simultaneous development occurred in Europe -- the richest one in Poland -- with the years between the wars, especially the 20s, the high point as they were in the US. In Russia, this blossoming took place until the late 1920s. Modernism's impact (particularly that of its internationalism) on Yiddish literature, which in many ways paralleled trends in Europe and America, was intense by the 1920s.
The group with which Dropkin is sometimes associated, In Zikh ("Introspectivists" or "In the Self"), especially embraced it, espousing personal poems that conjured the harshness of Jewish experience, and used free verse and Imagism. The In Zikh poets and those in the three other major Yiddish groups in the US—the "Sweatshop" or "Proletarian" poets, Di Yunge ("The Young Ones"), the leftist poets of the 20s and 30s—created an important, new and genuinely American literary establishment, second only to the English one. Yet the Yiddish poets remained marginalized, and their work untranslated, for the most part. Still, they had an audience among the massive waves of refugees who had been fleeing persecution and anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe and Russia since 1880.
With her husband, Shmaye, a Bundist (a General Jewish Labor Union activist), who fled tsarist police in 1910, Dropkin had six children, one of whom died. Before they were married in 1909, she had been in love with, and inspired by, the renowned Hebrew writer Uri Nisim Gnessin. In the best Russian Romantic tradition, he discouraged a romantic relationship because he had tuberculosis. Dropkin's impossible love for him seems to have provided a powerful emotional subtext to her poems. She wrote while raising her children who contributed to her creative energy, motivating her to recall the Yiddish lullabies and rhymes of her childhood and a state of innocence to which she related.
If Dvorak wove the plaintive melodies of his homeland into his modernist music, and T. S. Eliot incorporated the speech of Cockneys in experimental poems, Celia Dropkin used Yiddish lullabies and children's rhymes to set a certain folk innocence and experience beside her modernist concerns with the experiences of a woman's body. Dropkin was also an accomplished painter during her last years and a short story writer, but had only one volume of poems published in her lifetime, In heysn vint (In the Hot Wind) in 1935.
After her death in New York in 1956, her children oversaw the publication of a more comprehensive collection of her poetry in 1959, by the same title, which included later and previously unpublished poems, her short stories and reproductions of her paintings. In 1994, with the guidance of her granddaughter, Frances Dropkin, a French translation of selected poems,Dans le vent chaud, was published. Dropkin's most important work was done in the 20s and 30s.
Her productivity, her family suggests, was possibly devastated by the effect that the Holocaust had on her. The tragic fate of European Jewry, and the end of Yiddish itself as the everyday language of 11,000,000 Jews, approximately 6,000,000 of whom had been exterminated, meant the demise of Europe's Yiddish culture, including poetry -- most of its Jewish poets victims of Hitler as well as Stalin. What has remained of Yiddish literature in the wake of the Shoah has largely been written by survivors and an aging generation of Jewish American writers in the US, where secular Yiddish speakers gradually succumbed to the pressures of assimilation.
Some post-Holocaust Yiddish poetry has also been written in Israel, despite the essential aversion there toward this mother tongue, once considered a threat to the establishment of Hebrew as the daily national language. Celia Dropkin's moving poems that redefine the boundaries of a woman's passions are a testament to Jewish women's transformation of their homely folk tongue of humble hearts into a proud lyrical language. Originally Published by the Center for the Art of Translation: August, 2009
Poems By Celia Dropkin Translated from the Yiddish by Yerra Sugarman
A Summer-Sonata I swam alone in fresh, clear waters, And through a light-green stream, saw my white, white feet. Barefoot, I walked home in lush woods That breathed hard and circled me sweetly. I came out onto a vast field, Where the wind lustfully licked my feet, The grass kissed them, and even a fat fly bit me With passionate delicacy. I got home full of love and ecstasy; I was breathing heat, my heart beating wildly, And everything was wonderful in my eyes, As if I was meant to be very lucky. And when the evening fell hot and still, Something sharp sucked, feeding on my heart, As if someone were going to kiss me at night, As if serpents were going to suckle.
(Published in Ekleksographia, Fall 2009)
\*\*\* My Hands My hands, Two small pieces of my body I'm not ashamed of showing, With fingers like branches From a coralberry bush. With fingers like two nests, White snakes. Or ½ like thoughts Of a nymphomaniac.
(Published in Prairie Schooner, Spring 2007)
\*\*\* To Lucifer My lovely Lucifer, Your cold-gray stare Looks at me unmoved, And contorted as an ape, I'm on my knees And lick your skinny feet. My back bends Like a question mark. Only it doesn't matter. As long as you keep looking, My lovely Lucifer, Unmoved, at me, I will crouch At your feet Like a gargoyle On Notre Dame.
\*\*\* And Wonderful Words I took a knife, Sharp as the steel of these eyes no longer alive, And cold as the gaze from your living eyes. With that knife, I opened my heart And I softly said: drink, -- Your lips snuggled up to my injured heart. You drank and you drank ½ And your eyes suddenly became hot And wonderful words broke Out of your warm thirsty mouth.
\*\*\* My Mother My mother, A twenty-two-year-old, A widow left with two small children, Humbly decided never to be anyone's wife again. Her days and years spread out, muted, As if lit by a guttering candle. My mother never did become anyone's wife, But every day, Every year, every night sighs From her young and passionate spirit, Her yearning blood, Occupied my childish heart, Emptying deep inside me. And my mother's scalding invisible desire Rushed like an underground spring, Flowing in me freely. Now, openly, out of me, spurts My mother's boiling hot, holy, Deeply hidden hunger. \*\*\* In the Hot Wind 1 In the Morning The hot wind rocks The fresh, fresh leaves, Like a young mother rocking Her new-born. The hot wind whooshes In the fresh, fresh leaves, Like a young mother singing: Hush, little baby, hush. 2 In the Daytime Rocking in a hot dance, In the arms of that hot wind, With green fans, the branches Reel in a round of sin, Entwined with the hot wind, Adorned in sunlight. One minute they're apart, The next they're entwined again with the wind. Like hot blood in the veins of the branches, Each leaf dances in the round of sin. Not one wants to rest, or be silent And dances and sings a song of sin. 3 At Dusk Ended is the dance of sin, Asleep now is the hot wind, The trees weary, languishing, Stretch and stretch pondering Purest heaven up above Like thin, green smoke.
(Published in Wherever I Lie Is Your Bed, edited by Margaret Jull Costa and Marilyn Hacker)
\*\*\* \*\*\* To My Son Who Gave Me Light Blue Beads Your beads cool me, And I feel weirdly young; I don't know if I would ever want To be young again. But it seems to me, I can still please A nineteen-year-old boy, like you, Like this, the way I wear these beads With a smile of light blue calm. 1931
(Published in Poetry International, Fall 2009)
\*\*\* Between Being Between being a child and being a grandmother -- How many worlds must one spoil? How many must one plod through, step over? How often must a person cry and laugh and listen to mourning? From smooth youth to crumpled elder, When the gaze and blood become colder, How often must a person see on herself metamorphosis Deeper and deeper, like the flourishing and fading of grasses? But to go from being a grandmother back to being a child -- Is only to step over one stair. The stair to there, from where The grandmother will hear: "Go to sleep my child." 1948
(Published in Pleiades, Spring 2009)


← The Grand Austin Flour Sack: An Idea Whose Time May Come Again!
A March Through War →
A visit with “Old Kinderhook” on the 150th anniversary of his death
Posted on July 25, 2012 by Chris Mackowski
The secession of South Carolina triggered civil war in Martin Van Buren’s house before it ever triggered fighting on the battlefield.
After his public career ended, the former president had retired to the quiet life of a country farmer in his hometown of Kinderhook, just south of Albany, NY. His household included his son, Abraham, and Abraham’s wife, Angelica, who had served as Van Buren’s first lady during the widower’s time in the White House. A cousin of former First Lady Dolly Madison, who had fixed up Angelica and Abraham, had come from South Carolina.
Angelica Van Buren
When the Palmetto state seceded, it rankled Van Buren, who had done much during his time in Andrew Jackson’s administration to oppose the Nullification Crisis South Carolina had sparked some thirty years earlier. As tensions mounted between North and South in 1860 and early ‘61, tensions mounted in the Van Buren household—enough so that Abraham and Angelica left the premises for a while.
I arrived on Van Buren’s doorstep just before 11 a.m. yesterday. I’d been passing by the highway exit for Van Buren’s place—the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site—for the better part of four decades as I shuffled back and forth between family in western Pennsylvania and family in Maine. I’ve always said, “I’m gonna stop there someday”—and yesterday morning, at the start of my most recent trek north, that yesterday would be the day.
By sheer coincidence, it happened to be the 150th anniversary of Van Buren’s death.
The Red Fox in Winter
Van Buren’s presidency often gets overlooked, following on the heels, as it does, of Andrew Jackson’s. It doesn’t help, either, that Van Buren kicked off a twenty-four-year string of one-term presidencies that didn’t end until Abe Lincoln got reelected in 1864. He wasn’t part of the Virginia Dynasty, and his last name wasn’t Adams, so he’s really the first easy-to-forget president we’ve had.
One could make a credible argument, though, that Jackson’s presidency would not have happened without Van Buren’s masterful political maneuverings behind the scenes. He wasn’t called “the Little Magician” for nothing.
The Red Fox built a career starting as an Albany-area attorney; from there, he became a New York state senator, the state’s attorney general, a U.S. senator, New York’s governor, U.S. secretary of state, vice president, and ultimately president. While in office, as legend has it, he initialed documents with a shortened version of another of his nicknames, “Old Kinderhook,” and thus “O.K.” evolved into “okay,” which might be his most enduring legacy.
It’s worth noting, too, that Van Buren was the first American president actually born as an American—on December 5, 1782, just six years after independence. He’s the first president who didn’t come from English or Irish descent; as the son of a Dutch family, English wasn’t even his first language. In 1807, he married Hannah Hoes, a childhood sweetheart who’d grown up with him in Kinderhook. They had five children, but Hannah died after only a dozen years of marriage. He never remarried. During his time in the White House, his daughter-in-law, Angelica—wife of his oldest son, Abraham—served as first lady.
Van Buren failed in his reelection bid because of an economic slump caused by overzealous credit speculation by banks. It was the worst economic depression in America’s history up to that point, and not even the establishment of an independent treasury could save him. In 1848, he failed in a third-party bid for the presidency as the candidate for the Free Soil Party, which his son John had helped found.
The change in allegiance was a big deal for the Little Magician, who had helped found the Democratic Party that then propelled Jackson and, later, Van Buren into the White House. His opposition to the expansion of slavery put him at odds with his own party, triggering the eventual third-party run.
By 1860, in declining health, Van Buren keenly watched the unfolding crisis as Southern states began to secede in the wake of Lincoln’s election. The former president and his former first lady saw the situation from entirely different perspectives, leading to the family split.
As Van Buren’s health deteriorated, though, the family patched things up. Abraham and Angelica came back.
Dependent on his family for news about the war in a year when the Union wasn’t faring so well, Van Buren remained satisfied that the North would achieve victory—but only because his son and daughter-in-law avoided the question, fudged the truth, or lied outright to him. Van Buren died on July 24, 1862 convinced the Union he’d once led would remain preserved.
I stood only a foot and a half from the bed Van Buren died in a century and a half ago to the day. On the bed laid a hickory walking stick—a gift from Old Hickory himself—silver-tipped and engraved, with silver-capped knots that bear the letters to spell out “Andrew Jackson.”
At the Dutch Reformed Cemetery on the far side of the village of Kinderhook, an obelisk stands at Van Buren’s gravesite. It’s been landscaped with flowers and tall fronds of tufted grass. Someone has planted a flag, and someone else has left a wreath bedecked in red, white, and blue.
Van Buren would want to know that his Union was doing all right. I would tell him so, even if it meant stretching the truth a little in Abraham-and-Angelica fashion. On this of all days, Old Kinderhook should rest easy. Things, I would tell him, are okay.
Van Buren’s gravesite at the Reformed Dutch Cemetery
Van Buren’s home, Lindenwald, was completed in 1797. He purchased it in 1839.
Four-and-a-half flights up to Lindenwald’s tower.
The old hickory walking stick from Old Hickory, at rest on the bed Old Kinderhook died in
Van Buren’s desk in Lindenwald’s library. The bust of Van Buren is identical to one on display in the White House’s Red Room.
This entry was posted in Battlefields & Historic Places, National Park Service, Personalities, Photography, Politics, Slavery and tagged Andrew Jackson, Angelica Van Buren, Free Soil Party, martin van buren, Nullification, secession, Slavery, South Carolina. Bookmark the permalink.
2 Responses to A visit with “Old Kinderhook” on the 150th anniversary of his death
virginiaplantation says:
What a great house and great post!!
Thanks. It sure was a neat house to visit.


BOEING TO INTEGRATE CFT ON U.S. NAVY F/A-18 SUPER HORNET FIGHTER JETS - The Aviation Geek Club
BOEING TO INTEGRATE CFT ON U.S. NAVY F/A-18 SUPER HORNET FIGHTER JETS
Dario Leone Feb 17, 2018 Nov 12 2020 0
Advanced Super Hornet
The integration of the CFT is one of the several improvements that will feature the Block III Super Hornet which Boeing is currently developing
The Pentagon announced on Feb. 14, 2018 that Boeing has been awarded $219 million “for the design, development, test and integration of the conformal fuel tank (CFT) in support of the F/A-18.”
Majority of the work is to be carried out at El Segundo, California and St. Louis, Missouri. The job will be completed by 2022.
The integration of the CFT is one of the several improvements that will feature the Block III Super Hornet which Boeing is currently developing.
Along with the CFT in fact the aircraft will have a new engine (that will be the so called General Electric’s enhanced performance engine or EPE, that would increase the F414-GE-400’s power output from 22,000 lbs to 26,400 lbs) and the infrared search and track (IRST) 21 sensor system.
Noteworthy Block III Super Hornet is aimed to keep the aircraft relevant into the 2040s.
However unlike Boeing’s previous Advanced Super Hornet concept that was revealed in 2013, the new Block III aircraft is a more modest proposition that is designed to support the rest of the air wing including the Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, Northrop Grumman E-2D Advanced Hawkeye and the EA-18G Growler under the service Naval Integrated Fire Control Counter Air construct (NIFC-CA).
Nevertheless the Block III takes the existing upgrade path for the Super Hornet—including biennial hardware and software upgrades—and expands upon those. Indeed, some of the existing planned upgrades to the jet’s powerful Raytheon AN/APG-79 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, AN/ALQ-214 Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (IDECM) Block IV suite and the Lockheed Martin AN/ASG-34 Infrared Search and Track pod—the IRST21 sensor—are part of the Block III package.
This print is available in multiple sizes from AircraftProfilePrints.com – CLICK HERE TO GET YOURS. F/A-18F Super Hornet VFA-103 Jolly Rogers, AG201 / 166621 / 2007
Block III Super Hornet CFT conformal fuel tank EA-18G Growler F/A-18 Super Hornet IRST21 U.S. NavyShareFacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsappTelegramEmail
FIRST U.S. ARMY PILOT FLIES V-280 VALOR
EDWARDS F-35 INTEGRATED TEST FORCE NOMINATED FOR THE 2017 COLLIER TROPHY


Anglo-Saxon History
Early Modern & Modern History
Burgundian and French History
Early Modern and Modern French History
Posts on 17th and 18th Century French Artists
The Reign of King Francis I (1515-1547)
The Valois Dukes of Burgundy
Women of France
Queens of France
Scottish Queens
Kings of Scotland
Places and Stories of Scotland
Women of Scotland
Spanish and Portuguese History
Tudor History
Pre-Tudor History and the Reign of King Henry VII 1485-1509
The Reign of Edward VI 1547-1553
The Reign of Elizabeth I 1558-1603
The Reign of King Henry VIII 1509-1547
The Reign of Mary I 1553-1558
Vikings Related Articles
The Freelance History Writer
All things History
Category: Kings of Scotland
Joan of the Tower, Queen of Scots
July 13, 2018 July 16, 2018 Susan Abernethy11 Comments
For most medieval princesses, it was inevitable they would end up as a pawn in a diplomatic game. This was certainly true for Joan of the Tower who would become a party to the union of the youngest royal couple to be married in Scotland and England. David, the son of Robert I (Robert the Bruce) was four years, four months and thirteen days old and Joan was seven years, twelve days old at the time of the marriage. Joan was also taken from home and her mother at this young age.
Joan was born on July 5, 1321 in the Tower of London. She was the daughter of King Edward II of England and Isabella, daughter of King Philip IV of France. Nothing is known of Joan’s early life. She was the last child of the queen and at the time of her birth, Queen Isabella had grown resentful of her husband’s favorites and his treatment of her.
Discussions of a marriage for Joan began when she was four years old. The first prospect was the son and heir of the King of Aragon, Jaime II and then Philip, Count of Valois (later King Philip V) was a prospect. However, neither of these marriages materialized.
In 1327-28, Joan’s mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer deposed her father King Edward II and began ruling as regents for Joan’s brother King Edward III. The couple wanted to pursue peace with Robert I of Scotland. The Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 had not ended the war between England and Scotland. King Robert saw this as an opportunity to realize his most significant objective. He insisted that his status as King of Scots be recognized and that England renounce all claims of sovereignty over Scotland, something King Edward II had refused to do this during his reign.
It was not until March 1, 1328 that Edward III issued letters patent recognizing Robert the Bruce as King of Scots and establishing the border between the two countries as it was during the reign of Alexander III. In order for England to abandon this position, which they had held since 1291, Scottish friendship had to be assured. English envoys started negotiating a marriage between Joan and Robert I’s son and heir David, born to his second wife Elizabeth de Burgh.
All parties were counting on this marriage to guarantee Scotland’s friendship. Because of the youth of the two children, the marriage would not be truly valid until David reached the canonical age of marriage at fourteen in 1338. To cover this, the treaty contained a provision that if the marriage was not completely validated and consummated within two months of David turning fourteen, the concessions of the treaty were null and void. If Joan were to die before the wedding, Edward was obliged to find a replacement. If David died, Joan would marry the next son and heir instead. The Scots were to assure Joan had property with revenue of £2000 per annum.
The treaty did not discuss a dowry for Joan. If the wedding was not consummated by Michaelmas 1338, King Robert was to pay an enormous penalty of £100,000. The English feared the Scots would back out of the marriage which they could certainly do before David reached marriageable age.
The Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton was finalized and signed on March 17, 1328 in the King’s Chamber at Holyrood where King Robert lay ill. It was ratified by the English on May 3 at Northampton. Queen Isabella and Joan travelled to Berwick where Joan and David were formerly married on July 17 in the church there. Queen Isabella attended the wedding but Edward III inexplicably was not there and Robert I claimed illness and was absent. However, it was a grand occasion because King Robert spent £2500 on the festivities.
After the wedding, the couple were taken to Cardross to see King Robert. Some of Joan’s ladies returned to England while Joan stayed in Scotland to live with her husband. King Robert died on June 7, 1329 rendering David king and Joan queen. A double coronation took place at Scone Abbey on November 24, 1331 with James Ben, Archbishop of St. Andrews presiding. At the time of the ceremony, David was too young to realize the significance of the event. He was the first Scottish king to be both anointed and crowned due to the Pope having just recognized Scotland as a separate sovereign state, granting the king the right to be formally anointed. A new crown and small scepter were made for the occasion. Joan was also the first queen to be formally crowned and anointed as consort.
Nothing is known about Joan’s life in Scotland for the first six years. Because of David’s youth and his rule being subject to a regency, there were others who wanted to seize the throne. Joan’s brother Edward was dismayed and unhappy his mother and Mortimer had completed the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton in his name. People had given Joan a new soubriquet “Joan Makepeace” which Edward considered derogatory.
Edward ousted his mother’s lover Roger Mortimer and had him executed in November 1330. He was now in control of his own government and used the minority of David II as an opportunity to interfere in Scottish politics. Within a year of David and Joan’s coronation, the former King of Scots John Balliol’s son Edward was claiming to be king with the support and assistance of Edward III. Edward was banking on Balliol accepting his over-lordship of the Scottish kingdom.
Balliol engaged David’s army at the Battle of Dupplin Moor near Perth on August 12, 1332 and Balliol defeated the royal forces and was crowned at Scone on September 24. Balliol suggested to Edward III that he marry Joan assuming her current marriage could be annulled before it was consummated. Balliol was probably in his fifties at the time so nothing came of this suggested union. Balliol’s hold on the throne was tenuous and forces gathered in the name of King David surprised Balliol in a night raid and he was forced to flee over the border into England. Edward III intervened by taking an army north and won the Battle of Halidon Hill on July 19, 1333.
Joan and David at the court of Philip VI of France
Because of Balliol’s threat to David II’s position, David and Joan were removed from Dumbarton Castle in 1334 and taken to France for safety at the invitation of King Philip VI, Joan’s mother’s cousin. Philip gave them accommodations in Château Galliard in Normandy where they lived quite well for the next seven years with several Scottish attendants.
Balliol never gained enough authority to hold onto the entire Scottish kingdom and eventually fell from power. Joan and David returned to a warm welcome in Scotland in May of 1341. David was unprepared to rule his kingdom and found there were lords and nobles who had even more dominion than he did as king so it was rough going. When Edward III won the Battle of Crécy in France in August 1346, David was obliged to invade England in support of his ally of France, according to the terms of the Auld Alliance from 1295.
The Battle of Neville’s Cross on October 17, 1346 was a humiliating defeat for David with many Scottish nobles dying and David himself being taken prisoner. David was kept in captivity for the next eleven years, spending some time in the Tower of London and a great deal of time at Hertford Castle. He had one short stay in Scotland in 1351-2.
It is unclear if Joan remained in Scotland, stayed in England or divided her time between the two countries. She may have stayed mostly in Scotland possibly as a hostage for David’s security. David’s nephew Robert ruled as Steward of Scotland while he was captive. David never liked Robert but he was his heir. Even though Joan and David were married for over thirty-five years and obviously had sexual relations, there was never any evidence Joan became pregnant.
David II, King of Scots (pictured left) and Edward III, King of England (pictured right) from an excerpt from folio 66v of British Library MS Cotton Nero D VI medieval manuscript “Edward III and David II of Scotland, in a Historical Compilation
January 17, 1357, the Scots sent ambassadors to England to negotiate the return of their king. In August the preliminaries were agreed upon and the terms were ratified by the Scots Parliament. Joan does not appear in any of the documents regarding the discussions for David’s release. The Treaty of Berwick was finalized in November. David was to return to Scotland in exchange for a payment of 100,000 merks which was spread out over ten equal installments. This was never fully paid. On Christmas Day, Joan, the Bishop of Andrews and Earl of March received safe conducts to go to England to organize the first installment of the ransom.
David’s return precipitated a crisis in his relationship with his wife. As a captive, David had taken a mistress by the name of Katherine Mortimer and apparently was deeply in love with her. For all intents and purposes, Joan and David severed their relationship and Joan would spend the rest of her life in England. King Edward gave Joan a pension of £200 per annum. Katherine Mortimer was murdered in Soutra, Scotland in the summer of 1360 by being stabbed at the instigation of jealous Scottish lords. David then took up with Margaret Drummond, the daughter of Sir John Drummond and the widow of Sir John Logie.
In September of 1356, the Prince of Wales, son of Edward III won a resounding victory at Poitiers in France and captured King John II and his son along with much of the French nobility. Peace was made between England and France in March, 1357. On May 5, the Prince of Wales landed at Plymouth with the captive king. A series of tournaments and celebrations were planned. The greatest of these was a tournament held at Windsor on St. George’s Day 1358. Joan attended the Windsor Tournament along with her mother. A contemporary chronicler described Joan as sweet, debonair, courteous, homely, pleasant and fair.
After the tournament, Joan nursed her sixty-six year old mother who was ill. Queen Isabella died on August 22, 1358. By 1362, the payment of Joan’s pension was running far in advance, indicating the amount was inadequate to cover her expenses. Joan died on September 7, 1362 at the age of forty-one while visiting her brother at Hertford Castle. She was interred in the church of Greyfriars in London where her mother had been buried. About a year later, King David married Margaret Drummond.
Further reading: “The Origins of Scotland’s National Identity” by T J Dowds, “Scottish Queens 1034-1714” by Rosalind Marshall, “The Kings and Queens of Scotland” edited by Richard Oram, “The Kings and Queens of Scotland” by Timothy Venning, “The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation” by Ian Mortimer, “British Kings and Queens” by Mike Ashely, entry on Joan of the Tower in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography by Bruce Webster
New Decade, New Bride: Henry VIII and Anna of Cleves ~ A guest post by Heather R. Darsie
The Funeral of Catherine of Braganza, Queen Consort of England
Description of a Pageant Witnessed in the Courtyard of Old Somerset House During the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I
Empress Hermine and Emperor Wilhelm II – An Unwanted Match – A guest post by Moniek Bloks
Letter from Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox to William Cecil, Principal Secretary of Queen Elizabeth I – October 5, 1570
Daily Life and Commercial Activities in Roman Macedonia ~ A guest post by Grigorios Charalampidis
The Five Fiancées of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V ~ A Guest Post by Heather R. Darsie
Sir John Gates, Tudor Courtier
Queen Elizabeth I, the Spanish Armada and the Celebrated Speech at Tilbury – 1588
Hans Holbein the Younger – Podcast featuring The Freelance History Writer
Susan Clarenceau, Tudor Courtier
An English Adventure in Portugal During the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I
The Odyssey of Richard the Lionheart – A guest post by Olivia Longueville and J C Plummer
Margaret Clifford, Countess of Derby
Anglo-Saxon History (31)
Cathedrals in a Minute (38)
Early Modern History (43)
French History (107)
17th & 18th Century French Artists (13)
Burgundian and French History (73)
Portuguese History (9)
Kings of Scotland (12)
Women of Scotland (30)
Spanish history (10)
Stuart history (8)
Tudor History (122)
Viking History (6)
Women's History (222)
Religious Women (9)
Follow The Freelance History Writer on Pinterest
Visit Susan's profile on Pinterest.
The Anne Boleyn Files
The Seventeenth Century Lady
Keira Morgan – Renaissance Historical Fiction
The Freelance History Writer Notes and Reviews
French Renaissance Women with Keira Morgan
A Bit About Britain
Madame Gilflurt's 18th Century History
Discover Middle Ages
Party Like 1660
Shannon Selin
The Tudor Society
Mimi Matthews: Author
Follow The Freelance History Writer on WordPress.com


Howard L. Hawks Hall
Graduate Certificate Programs
Future Undergraduates
Future Master's Program Students
Future Doctoral Students
Future Graduate Certificate Program Students
Undergraduate Scholarships and Aid
Life at Nebraska
Business Advising and Student Engagement
Clifton Strengths Institute
Business Abroad
Outreach & Impact
Executive and Professional Development
Marijane England
Associate Professor of Practice in Management
HLH 325 BB
marijane.england@unl.edu
Ph.D. in Community and Human Resources, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
M.S. in Animal Science, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
B.S. in Mathematics and Statistics, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Hancock Vita 2019.docx
CliftonStrengths ®
Dr. Marijane England is an Associate Professor of Practice. England is a “second-career” faculty member. Prior to teaching in Management, her career focus was in resource management and applications of computer systems in advancing business practice. From 1994-2000, England put theory to practice and directed the Arctic logistics and science support activities for UNL’s Polar Ice Coring Office.
England taught in the Department of Management from 2000-2006 and was awarded the Excellence in Teaching award in 2004 and 2006. She left teaching to serve as Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs and Director of Institutional Research for the University of Nebraska from 2006-2008. Prior to returning to the classroom in 2011, England was Dean of Administration for the Bryan College of Health Sciences with responsibility for finance, human resources, IT and facilities.
England is a graduate of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with a bachelor’s degree in statistics, a master’s degree in animal science and a doctorate in community and human resources. She currently teaches Strategy and Business Policies.
MNGT 475 Strategic Management
Strategic Management is a senior-level capstone course designed to build on and integrate the knowledge and skills acquired during the business school curriculum. The goal of this course is to study the company as a whole rather than any one functional area. Students will learn principal concepts, frameworks, and techniques of strategic management and will use written and oral communication skills to analyze and critically think about strategic problems, solutions, and decisions. This course requires students to formulate and apply business strategies through the analysis of cases and business simulations. Students will gain an understanding and appreciation of how strategy affects careers, company performance, and industry attractiveness.
Significant External Service
Lancaster County Planning Commission CAFO Working group 2019
Nebraska Women's Leadership Network 2014-present
Chair Undergraduate Curriculum and Assessment Committee 2018-present
Chair Dept of MNGT Curriculum Committee 2019-present
Member College Awards Committee 2019-present


Webb’s evolution takes him to West Liberty
South Point Pointers’ senior guard Austin Webb signed a scholarship letter-of-intent to play at West Liberty University. Attending the signing ceremony were: seated left to right, father Jeremy Webb, Austin, mother Leslie Webb and sister Gracie Webb. (Kent Sanborn of SouthernOhioSportsPhotos.com)
SOUTH POINT — Austin Webb has gone from a 140-pound freshman to a 175-pound senior.
But Webb has done a lot more growing than just some weight gain.
In fact, Webb’s evolution during his four years playing basketball for the South Point Pointers has been so impressive he garnered the attention of a lot of college programs.
On Wednesday, Webb removed some mental weight from his body as he secured his future by signing a letter-of-intent scholarship with the West Liberty University Hilltoppers.
“This just lets me focus more on this year and this season with my guys and we can win some games and hopefully change the district banner in there,” said Webb referring to changing the recent banner from district runner-up to champion.
Last season the 6-foot-3 Webb averaged 22.4 points a game last season along with 7.3 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.6 blocked shots.
Due to a torn muscle injury, he missed the end of the season and fell 10 points shy of 1,000 points.
“I would have had it if I hadn’t got injured last year, but the first game this year I’ll be back with 1,000,” said Webb.
“It was the weirdest thing, I tore my groin somehow. I woke up the next morning and I had torn my groin and then I got the flu and I was in the hospital for two weeks. I lost 20 pounds.”
Pointers’ head coach Travis Wise said Wise has grown both as a player and a person during the past four years.
“Austin is a great kid. Individually as a person he is just top-notch,” said Wise. “Great, great kid. Academics, he’s a 4.0 (grade point average) and going to be the valedictorian of his class. He came in as a skinny freshman, about 140 pounds, and had to play the post and then we started moving him out away from the basket.
“He’s worked his butt off all the way up. Never missed an open gym, never missed a workout. Just a great ballplayer and the ceiling, he’s still got room to grow. He’s always in early and stays late. If we had 12 of him, our job (as coaches) would be a lot easier.”
Webb said he talked with Marshall University on a few occasions as well as other schools in Mountain East Conference that includes Alderson Broaddus, University of Charleston, Concord University, Davis & Elkins College, Fairmont State, Glenville State, West Virginia State, Frostburg State, West Virginia Wesleyan, Wheeling University and Notre Dame College of Ohio.
But after weighing his options, Webb decided on the NCAA Division II program for several reasons including head coach Ben Howlett.
“I had a lot of D1 interest, but I thought this was the best option for me,” said Webb.
“I just liked their coach. Their coach is really good guy and he’s straight up with everything. I just like that they have a good, winning program and they send a lot of players overseas and that’s something I want to do is go play basketball overseas. I just felt it was a good fit for me.”
West Liberty plans to keep Webb on the outside when he lands on campus.
“I’m going to be doing pretty much what I’m doing now. Just run up and down the floor and shoot 3s,” said Webb with a grin.
Wise said Webb’s work ethic is something that will keep him improving.
“He comes in early. We come in at 6 o’clock in the morning and he calls and says, ‘can I get in early?’ Three days a week he’s coming at 6 o’clock in the morning working on his shot. He just works hard,” Wise said.
Besides being a good player, Wise said Webb is a leader by example and should have a lasting effect on the Pointers’ program and he will do the same for West Liberty.
“I told Coach Howlett you’re getting a kid who is a gym rat. He loves to be in the gym and he loves to get better,” said Wise.
“And he still has something to prove. As a player, he still thinks there’s room for him to grow. That’s what I like about him. He’s not content to be where he is right now. He’s a great kid to have in the program and hopefully the younger kids will see that and work to get better.”
Webb is undecided on a major and said, “I’ll just see whatever fits me.”
Cy Young Facts & FIgures
NL Cy Young National League Cy Young Winners 2020 — Trevor Bauer, Cincinnati 2019 — Jacob deGrom, New York 2018... read more


Carrying the torch for San Francisco - Olympics or not
Let’s pause for a moment to give thanks to the United States Olympic Committee.
By rejecting San Francisco’s bid to be the United States’ representative city in the competition to host the 2024 Summer Olympics, the USOC saved us a decade of kvetching about traffic gridlock, spiraling debt and the idiocy of hosting rhythmic gymnastics.
Also, by picking Boston over San Francisco — like Pablo Sandoval, the committee was unmoved by Larry Baer’s charms — the USOC allowed us to play locals’ favorite game:
Why would anyone choose any place on Earth over the Bay Area?
But that’s what they did, rejecting our glorious city, as well as Los Angeles and Washington, in favor of Boston.
Why? No one knows because the only thing you can say for sure about any Olympic decision is that you won’t ever know the real reasons behind it.
Like San Francisco, Boston has no obvious place to host either the opening and closing ceremonies or track and field, and has proposed a possible temporary stadium. Like San Franciscans, Bostonians are decidedly lukewarm on the idea and have already organized a vocal anti-Olympic movement.
Boston’s charms might have something to do with more accessible public transportation. Or a more compact plan. Or the USOC members might have felt some patriotic impulse, thanks to Boston’s revolutionary history and the city’s Boston Strong response in the face of an attack during its biggest annual sporting event, the Boston Marathon.
1of2Boston may look enchanting at dusk, but how could it have the panache to beat out San Francisco to be the U.S. city bidding to host the Olympics?Michael Dwyer / Associated PressShow MoreShow Less
2of2Harvard Stadium in Cambridge, Mass., would be one of many university venues that could be used to host the 2024 Olympics if Boston were chosen by the International Olympic Committee.Stephan Savoia / Associated PressShow MoreShow Less
Maybe the committee looked at the history of the “Big Dig,” and figured, “if any city can live with horrible construction and traffic problems, it is Boston.”
Or maybe the members wanted to sleep in the dorm rooms at MIT and Harvard (which are expected to be used as Olympic housing) and feel smarter by osmosis. Or maybe they just want to meet Tom Brady.
So sure, we produce tons of Olympic athletes, regularly pull down the highest ratings for Olympics coverage, are the world’s technological center, have refreshing summer weather (think of all the Olympic sweatshirts that would be sold!), stunning vistas, and are annually mentioned as one of the world’s top tourist destinations. And you pick Boston? Really?
I love Boston. And I love the Olympics. I truly do. It is the most unique sporting event in the world, littered with goodwill and higher ideals, straining to break through the corporate greed and corruption. My streak of covering every Games since Lillehammer in 1994 was finally broken by not going to Sochi in February.
But Sochi is Example A as to why we should breathe a sigh of relief over this decision. Sochi cost $51 billion to host — and that’s a Winter Olympics; the Summer Games are much larger. The spiraling costs of the Olympics are just one reason to be happy this won’t be our burden. All the talk about private funding is too often just that: a huge portion of the cost of hosting the Games will land squarely on the taxpayers.
Being awarded the Olympics potentially could have solved the issue of a stadium in Oakland; there had recently been talk of exploring an Oakland Olympic Stadium as part of the bid, and part of the “legacy” of the Olympics. However, the USOC might not have been too enthusiastic about having the Black Hole literally be their legacy. A black hole of debt is usually enough.
And the Games won’t be awarded until 2017. By that time the Los Angeles Raiders and Derek “Hollywood” Carr may be firmly entrenched in Inglewood.
The past two American cities proffered as hosts have been knocked down: Chicago lost in the first round of voting on the 2016 Olympics, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro, and New York was shot down for the 2012 Games, which went to London. The last time our country hosted the Olympics was the Salt Lake Games in 2002; it has been 19 years since we’ve held a Summer Games, the roundly panned competition in Atlanta.
Though there is talk that the USOC has repaired our country’s image and reputation with the International Olympic Committee, one still has to wonder about American chances. The IOC still likes public over private funding, opaqueness over transparency, and lots and lots of gifts. The American bid is expected to compete with Rome, Paris, Berlin, Istanbul and Cape Town.
Meanwhile, it’s not like we need any more tourists. Have you tried to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge on a weekend lately? It’s almost impossible.
Though having the Olympic Flame flicker atop the south tower would have been pretty cool.
Ann Killion is a San Francisco Chronicle staff columnist. E-mail: akillion@sfchronicle.com