Neighbors patient as $1 billion redevelopment of County Square proceeds quietly
County leaders form public corporation to handle the business of University Ridge's redevelopment
Anna B. Mitchell
One of the largest, most ambitious redevelopment plans in Greenville history took another baby step toward reality on Tuesday.
At a lunch meeting in Greenville's County Square, about a dozen county leaders gathered to create and establish officers for a public facilities corporation that now controls 37 acres of prime, publicly owned real estate at University Ridge and Church Street, County Administrator Joe Kernell said.
"We will release the property as it is sold," Kernell said. "We will retain what the county needs for our facility and public improvements. The rest of it will be sold."
Kernell, County Council Chairman Butch Kirven and county finance committee Chairman Bob Taylor are the sole members of the public facilities corporation and will meet as needed, Kirven said. The corporation, Kernell said, provides the administrative mechanism necessary for the county to do business with developers.
"This will be kind of the quiet time where you don't see a lot. But there's a lot going on," Kernell said. "Till you start knocking buildings down and building buildings up, it doesn't appear like a lot is going on, but really a lot is going on."
Greenville County reached a final deal in May with Atlanta-based RocaPoint Partners on a multiyear plan to redevelop the grounds and former shopping mall where local government has conducted business for more than 30 years.
The size of 28 football fields, the area includes County Square — home to the county's tax office, County Council chambers and other key local offices — as well as buildings the county leases to the state Department of Motor Vehicles, the health department and Cobb Tire, among others.
If market forces play out as forecast under the deal, the redevelopment project a block off downtown Greenville's Main Street will add a planned $1.1 billion shopping-working-residential neighborhood to Greenville's West End over the next decade.
And the first building that will go up will be a five-story glass-and-steel county office building — smack on top of Cobb Tire and Auto Repair at the corner of Church Street and University Ridge.
Working nearby at the tire shop he has operated since 1979, Darrell Cobb said he is not in a hurry to vacate the county-owned building where he works with several members of his family. But, he said Tuesday, he is also not fazed about the inevitable.
"We are on a month-to-month lease and have been for the last 12 years," Cobb said. "We are here until they develop the property."
Developers and consultants will spend the next few months surveying and inspecting the land for environmental and stormwater issues as they prepare the site's county-owned buildings, streets, parking lots and sidewalks for demolition, Kernell said. RocaPoint representatives were in Greenville as recently as last week to go over final details of their agreement with the county, he said.
The county will need 5 to 7 acres for its planned 250,000-square-foot office tower.
"You are looking at 12 to 18 months before anything happens," said RocaPoint principal Phil Mays. "We also have land use and zoning to go through with the city."
Kirven has said ground could break on the project as soon as next year.
At the heart of the redevelopment is a creative $100 million deal with Atlanta-based RocaPoint Partners and its parent company, The Georgetown Co. out of New York.
More:Greenville County chooses Atlanta developer for $1.1 billion County Square redevelopment
More:Greenville County opens up books, releases details on $1B County Square redevelopment
More:Greenville County Council green-lights $1B redevelopment of 37 acres downtown
Kernell, who helped craft the University Ridge land deal, negotiated with RocaPoint for more than nine months. Under the deal, county leaders are counting on a threefold increase in the value on the roughly $32 million tract along University Ridge. Developers will get a 35 percent cut of land sales, and the county will keep 65 percent, enough to build a new $60 million government building designed by London-based Foster & Partners
Developers estimate the improved land, which will have realigned, pedestrian-friendly streets as well as a public square and up-to-date lighting, will sell in pieces for a total of $100 million. At full build-out, with retail, apartments, office space and the government building, the development will be worth more than $1 billion, they estimate.
The county owns all the land and buildings within the 37-acre redevelopment zone, and all of the tenants — some of whom have been there for decades — will have to find a new home.
Cobb said that his second shop on Wade Hampton Boulevard will easily absorb his downtown business and six employees.
"We are very happy with the way things are," he said, adding that county leaders have been talking about redeveloping County Square since 2000.
"It's now 2018. I think they will eventually develop it. When? I have no idea. We will stay until they do."


Conserving Land On Zion’s East Side
The Zion Forever Project understands that caring for our parks will always be a group effort as we continue to build a coalition of voices elevating the call of responsible stewardship in the parks and highlighting the increasing needs Zion faces in its second century as a National Park.
Working with our partners, we have helped conserve thousands of acres of land near to and surrounding the borders of Zion. These lands are now conserved in perpetuity, for their natural resource and recreational values. The holdings are integral to the park experience and recognizes the adjacent public lands values which draw tens of millions of visitors each year to the state of Utah and the southwest region. Maintaining a margin of excellence affirms the shared mission of ensuring our National Parks and all public lands remain spaces for emotional connection, healing, and inspiration for the next century of park visitors.
With gap funding provided by the Zion Forever Project, partners like The Trust for Public Land, The Nature Conservancy and the Virgin River Land Preservation Association have worked diligently to conserve parcels near Zion’s borders. Your gifts leveraged and unlocked dollars across state, federal, and private sectors targeting holdings critical to future conservation efforts across the Zion region, and that includes Zion’s east side.
East Zion remains the last unprotected gateway to a national park in the lower 48 states. With more than 5 million visitors this past season, the urgency to find sustainable solutions and perpetuate a high-quality visitor experience has never been greater.
“The East Zion Initiative is founded on a shared conservation vision. A balanced approach that protects the eastern gateway to Zion National Park in perpetuity, while providing new experiences and recreational opportunities that expand the Zion experience beyond the park’s traditional gateways.” –Jeff Bradybaugh, Superintendent, Zion National Park
The sense of place created by our collective actions on the park’s eastern plateaus benefits millions of Zion visitors and the rural communities and residents who call the Zion region home. This creative collaboration is the right people, coming together at the right time, with one chance to get it right.
The most recent success was a prominent 37.7-acre parcel adjacent to the park eastern entrance. Zion Forever grassroots supporters alongside significant partners including the George S. and Dolores Dorè Eccles Foundation, the National Park Foundation, the Donnell family, The Conservation Fund, and the State of Utah’s McAllister Critical Lands Conservation fund contributed a combined $1.28 million to secure a conservation and trail easement on this critical parcel. In addition, Steve Neeleman and his family, owners of the Zion Ponderosa Ranch, working with The Trust for Public Land, generously donated more than 1900 acres of land surrounding the Orderville Gulch area, providing public access through Orderville Canyon into the famous Narrows hike.
With some of the essential easements now complete, this continuing campaign seeks to work with landowners to focus on similar critical tracts. These acquisitions are at the heart of future planning on the east side, and without their conservation, the integrity of the East Zion Initiative would be in jeopardy. Your contributions are the catalyst to providing recreational access, complimentary visitor experiences and protecting sensitive habitats. The parcels are home to threatened species like the Mexican spotted owl and migration corridors for Zion’s iconic herd of bighorn sheep. Beyond wildlife, these lands also hold precious springs, streams, and creeks that affect downstream watersheds into Zion Canyon.
The eastern entrance to one of America’s most popular and revered national parks is fully deserving of our efforts, and with your generosity, we have an opportunity to enhance the Zion experience in collaboration with neighbors and partners . . . and you.


Nationalist
Aleksey Semenenko
National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine
Volodymyr Sirenko
Boris Lyatoshynsky
Cadogan Hall
Thursday October 19, 2023 at 19:30
Cadogan Hall, London
£49, £45, £37, £30, £24, £20
Phone for tickets: 020 7730 4500
Phone lines open: Monday – Friday 12 noon – 6pm
Other Sources: Box Office
Aleksey Semenenko (violin)
Volodymyr Sirenko (conductor)
Don Juan Op 20 - Richard Strauss
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No 1 in G minor Op 26 - Max Bruch
Finlandia - Jean Sibelius
Symphony No 2 in B minor Op 26 - Boris Lyatoshynsky
The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine has long been one of the most distinguished European orchestras, achieving worldwide recognition through its many international tours which include Australia, the US, Europe and Asia.
It has announced it will return to the UK for the first time in over 20 years next autumn with a rich programme of music by Richard Strauss, Bruch, Sibelius, and Ukrainian composer Borys Lyatoshynsky.
Richard Strauss is most well-known for his collection of great tone poems, of which Don Juan is perhaps the most exuberant and best loved by concert audiences. Composed in 1888, it is a work by a young man at the top of his form; a life-affirming inclusion in this programme.
Bruch belongs to that small group of composers who are really only known for one work – the Violin Concerto in G minor. But what a work it is, perhaps the most performed of all violin concertos, simply – and justifiably – because it is beloved by audiences the world over for its poetic beauty, deeply moving melodies and elegant musicality. Almost all violinists include this great Concerto in their repertoire and with good reason.
Sibelius wrote his patriotic Finlandia in response to the Russian invasion of his own beloved country. It is therefore understandable that Ukrainian musicians identify with this work of resolute defiance. It is aptly chosen for inclusion in this programme and we look forward to the NSOU’s heartfelt performance.
Boris Lyatoshynsky who died in 1968 is regarded as the father of Ukrainian contemporary music. His Second Symphony is a particularly fine work and in its dramatic accessibility is a major statement of Ukrainian national solidarity.
‘We are deeply grateful to the UK venues and tour promoters who are working with us to ensure this ambitious tour happens. We can’t wait to return to the UK after more than two decades and have the opportunity to perform to UK audiences all over the country.’ (Alexander Hornostai, NSOU managing director and producer)
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Mideast Tensions Force Arab-Israeli Writer To Leave Jerusalem
By Steve Inskeep,
Next, we'll report on a casualty of war. The war was the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas.
And this particular casualty is not one of the many killed and injured. Instead, he is a man who feels like he is losing his country. His name is Sayed Kashua. He is an Arab, a Palestinian who has lived all his life within the borders of Israel but doesn't think he can do it anymore.
SAYED KASHUA: I would like very much to find a different place, at least for now. I need to be very far away, and I need - I need to be a little bit more protected.
INSKEEP: He was already planning to spend a school year at the University of Illinois. And now says he might be leaving Israel for good. It's significant because this Arab man is a prominent writer in the Jewish state. He writes novels in Hebrew. He is a columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and the creator of an Israeli sitcom. Until recently, he lived with his family in an overwhelmingly Jewish section of Jerusalem.
What was it that happened in the last weeks that changed your plans?
KASHUA: The major thing that changed my plan was extremists in the streets of Jerusalem, the place that we live. I think that we were the only Arab family in our neighborhood in western Jerusalem. And there were groups of Jewish, extreme right-wing people beating Arabs in the streets of Jerusalem and just because they are Arabs. And when Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the young Palestinian teenager, was kidnapped and executed, I felt that I cannot really let my daughter take the buses in the streets of Jerusalem. But I think that more than anything else, it was this very strong feeling that I lost my world, in my case - because it's true. I was writing, and my writing, the novels and the TV shows and the movies, were doing huge success. But that was not the major reason that I started writing in Hebrew. It was because I wanted to create one story that both Palestinians and Israelis, Jewish Israelis sharing that land, can relate to or can live in peace with one story, not two stories, not two narratives that cannot live together.
INSKEEP: I want to make sure that Americans understand the group of people of whom you are a part, or of whom you could identify. People are, of course, familiar with Israelis and Palestinians. People are familiar with Muslims and Jews. You are an Israeli Arab. Would you describe who the Israeli Arabs are?
KASHUA: Sometimes, we are called to Israeli Arabs - sometimes, the Palestinian citizens of Israel. We're talking about 20 percent of the population of Israel, people that became citizens of Israel after '48. Our villages and towns were occupied, and we were forced, actually, to carry the Israeli citizenship. So we are Palestinian citizens of Israel. We are carrying Israeli passports and Israeli ID. But still, we are considered not equal citizens, and there is no way to compare between our situation and the Jewish people, citizens, inside Israel.
INSKEEP: How are you not equal? Do you not have the same voting rights, for example?
KASHUA: Yes, we do have - we have the right to vote. But we are discriminated in everything that you can imagine. It's the investment per person; if you are Jewish and Arab, it's completely different. And there's this very strong feeling that we are a threat, that we are a national threat, that we are considered still, in Israel, like, fifth column, like a mistake. So it's - we have the right to vote, and I'm not sure for how long we are going to practice it because sometimes it looks like a fig leaf for the fake Israeli democracy. And we cannot really talk about Israel as a democracy, and even Israeli sociologists would call it ethnocracy. It's a democratic country only if you belong to the Jewish people.
INSKEEP: You said that one frustrating thing was that Palestinian citizens of Israel are regarded as a fifth column, as a threat.
KASHUA: Yes.
INSKEEP: Is there a way in which people like you actually are a threat? Not a terrorist threat, but in a sense that there are Jews who would like Israel to remain a Jewish state, and they want it to be a majority Jewish state where Jews can make decisions for themselves and control their destiny as a people. And Arabs threaten that in some way, demographically threaten it,
KASHUA: So yes. So if people - yes. I think that there are a lot of Israelis who do not agree with my opinions and with my writings. But, you know, we are talking here about religions. Can you imagine a democratic state in Europe that Christianity, or Islam, or Judaism is the religion and the only religion of the state? It's a problem. I can understand the history of the Jewish people and the sad history of the Jewish people. And they can understand the fact that maybe because, as a result of the history, the Jewish people might need a shelter, a state like a shelter - of course. But also, the Palestinians, who used to have that land, have to have the same shelter. It's not enough to be born for a Jewish mother in California in order to become a citizen of Israel and to be more citizen than me. Of course, if you are under a threat and you are under - and you are persecuted because of your Judaism, you should maybe be a citizen of that state. But also, if you are a Palestinian persecuted because of being Palestinian, you should also find the shelter in that state. Of course, it's a dream. But that's the only dream I have meanwhile.
INSKEEP: Sayed Kashua, thank you very much.
KASHUA: Thank you, thank you.
INSKEEP: That's Arab Israeli writer Sayed Kashua on his recent decision to leave Israel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
Steve Inskeep is a host of NPR's Morning Edition, as well as NPR's morning news podcast Up First.


Home » Liverpool FC’s Anfield Stadium Expansion To Move Forward
Liverpool FC’s Anfield Stadium Expansion To Move Forward
September 22, 2021 No Comments By oladisquare
The redevelopment of Liverpool FC’s Anfield stadium is expected to be ready in time for the 2023-24 season.
Plans to increase the capacity of the stadium to 61,000 by adding,
7,000 seats to the Anfield Road Stand were backed by councillors in June.
The build will take place throughout the season while matches continue to be played throughout.
Andy Hughes, managing director of Liverpool FC, said the club was now in a position to move forward.
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Liverpool:
“We have been clear from the beginning that in order for this expansion to go ahead.
We needed the co-operation of local residents and the community,
to successfully navigate the complex planning landscape.
And to ensure the project is financially viable,”
“We began this journey in 2014 and are grateful to everyone for the contributions,
they have made to bring the project to this stage.”
Liverpool City Council’s planning committee voted to allow the club to increase capacity of the Anfield Road Stand,
which currently holds 8,819, with six in favour and two against the plans.
The Premier League club was also awarded permission to hold up to six concerts.
And major events at the stadium for a period of five seasons.
When complete, the expanded Anfield Road Stand is expected to create about 400 matchday roles, a spokesman for the club said.
This is in addition to the 2,200 people currently employed in various operations at each home game, of which 95% are known to live in the Liverpool City Region.
The proposals, which follow the expansion of Anfield’s Main Stand in 2016, include:
A covered “fan zone” within the stadium
A renewed “public realm” outside the ground similar to 96 Avenue outside the Main Stand
Anfield Road will be re-routed around the back of the new stand


Temperature and Entropy of a Black Hole
M/
J/Mc
According to the "no hair theorems" of general relativity, the properties of an electrovac black hole (i.e., a black hole whose exterior is a vacuum and whose interior contains electromagnetic but no other charges) are completely determined by just three parameters: mass , angular momentum , and electric (or magnetic monopole) charge . While this suggests a possible violation of the second law of thermodynamics, since the entropy of the universe could be reduced by creating single-microstate black holes, the black hole region is classically experimentally inaccessible. Thus, it is possible that a quantum mechanical black hole can possess additional microstates. Moreover, in a series of papers starting in 1973, Jacob Bekenstein showed that the area of a black hole seemed to be a measure of the entropy of a black hole, in precisely the correct magnitude to preserve the second law. In 1974, Stephen Hawking proposed, based on quantum field theory (QFT), that the immense energy density of a black hole's gravitational field could give rise to continual creation and annihilation of virtual particles and antiparticles, with lifetimes consistent with the uncertainty principle, . Should one of the virtual pair be swallowed up by the black hole, its partner would become a real particle which, to an outside observer, would appear to have been radiated by the black hole. Moreover, the effective temperature of the black hole corresponded nicely with Bekenstein's classical derivation, giving a physical justification for the earlier ad-hoc identification.
Thus, Hawking and Bekenstein worked out the principles of black hole thermodynamics. We limit our considerations to the case , a rotating Kerr black hole. The horizon has a radius (for , this reduces to the Schwarzschild radius ). The spherical horizon is surrounded by an oblate spheroidal ergosphere, which corotates in the same direction, a consequence of frame dragging. The ergosphere, shown in gray, is just a region of spacetime containing no matter. According to the Bekenstein–Hawking theory, the temperature of a black hole is given by and the emitted radiation follows a blackbody distribution. The temperature is inversely proportional to the mass: K, where g, the Planck mass. For the Earth's mass, K, while for a solar mass, nK, both less than the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation (2.725 K). Evidently, smaller black holes are hotter and, when radiating into empty space, should eventually evaporate.
In the graphic, variations in temperature at the event horizon are simulated by colors of the visible spectrum, but with the scales of space, time, and temperature being grossly exaggerated for display purposes. Black holes of the order of the Planck mass are considered.
The Bekenstein–Hawking entropy of a black hole is given by , where is the area of the event horizon, equal to , expressed in units of the Planck area, , where cm, the Planck length. Thus each element of area on the horizon represents one Planck unit of entropy. Since a Planck mass contains over proton masses, it can be surmised that 1 Planck unit corresponds to something of the order of bits of information on the atomic level.
While Hawking radiation provides a physical basis for black hole entropy, it also raises new questions. According to the no-hair theorems, the radiation must be perfectly blackbody and therefore devoid of any information. All research into the QFT of black holes supports this conclusion. When the black hole evaporates completely, all of the information from the particles it absorbed disappears, leading to the so-called black hole information paradox. In a more radical direction, since the state of a three-dimensional system can, in concept, be represented on its two-dimensional boundary, Gerard 't Hooft and Leonard Susskind (2001) proposed a general "holographic principle" of nature, which suggests that consistent theories of gravity and quantum mechanics can be represented by lower-dimensional structures. Both the information paradox and the holographic principle remain active areas of investigation.
Contributed by: Itai Seggev and S. M. Blinder (January 2012)
[1] Wikipedia. "Black Hole." (Dec 19, 2011) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole
[2] Wikipedia. "Black Hole Thermodynamics." (Dec 19, 2011) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamics_of_black _holes
Black Hole (Wolfram ScienceWorld)
Itai Seggev and S. M. Blinder "Temperature and Entropy of a Black Hole"
http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/TemperatureAndEntropyOfABlackHole/
Published: January 4 2012
Einstein Rings from Light Flash at Black Hole
Geodesic Precession on a Timelike Circular Orbit around a Schwarzschild Black Hole
Effective and Inertial Masses of a Photon Near a Black Hole for a Family of Envelope Orbits
Wladimir Belayev
The Planck Scale
Trajectory of a Particle around Two Black Holes
Nora Finegan and Jiamin Huang
Orbits around a Spinning Black Hole
David Saroff, Glenna Clifton, and Janna Levin
Scalogram of Gravitational Wave from a Binary Black Hole Inspiral
Particle Moving around Two Extreme Black Holes
Enrique Zeleny V.
Spacetime Curvature for a Falling Object near the Earth's Surface
3D Kerr Black Hole Orbits
David Saroff
Gravitation Theory


Romania wins €2.36bn lawsuit against spirits producer
The Drinks Business | 10 March 2020
by Phoebe French
According to a statement from the Romanian Ministry of Public Finance, the country won the case at the arbitration court at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington D.C.
The Micula brothers accused Romania of allowing the development of a black market for the sale of alcohol, and failing to properly enforce taxation. They alleged that authorities had taxed their distilling operations, but had not applied the same measures to other investors.
They demanded total compensation of €2.36 billion euros from the Romanian state.
However, the court found in favour of Romania, and ordered the twin brothers to pay 75% of court costs – approximately €4.5 million – at 2.91% interest per year.
It stated that the country had adequately imposed its tax laws and noted that there was a “sophisticated mechanism” already present to enforce these regulations.
The ruling added: “Romania has shown that it has a complex mechanism for applying its laws, a strategy that ensures its effective application from a cost perspective, and an execution structure both at the level of individual households and at the level of industrial producers, involving ANAF, customs and anti-fraud.
“In the view of this tribunal, Romania has engaged in ‘serious and visible’ efforts to enforce its taxation laws relating to alcohol. The claimants’ argument that Romania has failed to enforce its alcohol taxation laws is really a disagreement about how Romania has gone about enforcement.
“This does not demonstrate that there have been no ‘serious and visible’ efforts at enforcement or that there has been a ‘manifest, systematic and sweeping failure’ to enforce the law.”
The brothers, who own companies including European Drinks, European Foods, Scandic Distilleries, Rieni Drinks and Transilvania General Import Export, won a separate dispute against Romania in 2013 worth €78 million.
keywords: agriculture | farmers | food, investor-state disputes | ISDS, Romania
source: The Drinks Business


College Baseball: Eddie Emerson already a winner for Black Bears
By Kalle Oakes, Staff Writer
Eddie Emerson’s journey to the University of Maine and Division I baseball was rated ‘PG,’ for postgraduate.
Not that there was anything deficient about his run at Lewiston High School, where Emerson was the left-handed ace on the baseball diamond, not to mention an outstanding football quarterback and hockey defenseman.
To get where he wanted to go, however, Emerson knew he needed to hit the road for a year. He had to specialize. He had to develop his craft. He had to grow, physically and mentally.
“I had a velocity jump to the middle and upper 80s (miles per hour). I definitely worked on my mechanics,” Emerson said. “And the big thing I think is that I’m 15 pounds heavier than I was in high school.”
The late bloomer is making an early impact in his rookie season at Maine.
Emerson registered the first win of his career this past Wednesday night, working two perfect innings in an extra-inning win over Lehigh, 11-6, in Winter Haven, Fla. The verdict snapped a four-game losing streak for the Black Bears, who were 5-12 through Friday.
It was the second scoreless appearance by the 6-foot-3, 190-pound southpaw.
“He doesn’t pitch like a freshman,” Maine coach Steve Trimper said. “He pitches like he’s been doing this for a while.”
After graduating from Lewiston in 2014, Emerson elected to forgo the American Legion season and accepted a spot on a select team out of Worcester, Mass.
His first extended conversation with Trimper took place at a tournament that summer in Manchester, N.H. Not that the former Blue Devil was a complete unknown to the coach.
“A lot of our success has come from the Maine kids,” Trimper said. “Not to stereotype too much, but Maine kids are just tough. Eddie is from the same mold. The ceiling is high.”
Emerson took that potential to IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.
Although its roots are as a tennis factory founded by Nick Bollettieri in the 1970s, the school now houses 12,000 athletes from 80 countries in nine major sports. The price tag for its baseball prep program is more than $60,000 per year.
“It was all kids in the same boat, all 2014 graduates who wanted to improve their chances of playing in college,” Emerson said. “We played a lot of junior colleges. It was similar to the level of play we’re seeing now.”
In addition to the extra oomph on his fastball, Emerson’s exceptional curve evolved into something more closely resembling a slider or cutter.
Emerson also perfected a change-up, something he said wasn’t a significant part of his repertoire in high school.
“He’s a three-pitch guy, and most guys as a freshman you don’t see that all the time,” Trimper said. “He is cool as a cucumber out there. He has a lot of confidence.”
Freshman initiation also includes growing accustomed to a reduced, but important, situational role.
Like all pitchers at the major college level, Emerson was a top-of-the-rotation guy in high school, often throwing 100 or more pitches on three and four days’ rest. His new challenge: Being mentally prepared in the late innings and taking the mound to face one or two batters at a time.
Including non-countable game situations, Emerson has appeared in only eight innings this spring for the Black Bears.
“That’s more than I expected. I know my role is to come out of the bullpen like I have been,” Emerson said. “It’s definitely different, but that’s why you have the older guys, to help you learn and develop through that.”
That could change in a hurry. Trimper noted that Justin Courtney of Bangor started the season in a similar role last spring as a true freshman, yet he ascended to No. 2 in the rotation by the meat of the America East conference schedule.
Emerson will return to Worcester this summer, where his coach expects him to see longer stints.
“We try to develop a pitching staff, and then once we get into the conference schedule we kind of settle things,” Trimper said. “We wanted to get Eddie’s feet wet early.”
Homegrown arms and bats are becoming the rule again at Maine.
Trimper said his philosophy is to recruit infielders from the Southeast, “where they’ve fielded 10,000 more groundballs” than players in New England. But Maine pitchers, in particular, bring a toughness that excites the coach.
“Every kid we have from Maine was a three-sport athlete in high school, and everybody on our team was the best player on his high school baseball team,” Trimper said. “Guys like Justin Courtney, Trevor DeLaite and Eddie Emerson were great high school hockey players. The same with Scott Heath, who just graduated. We need to get athletic kids and develop them.”
Cody Laweryson of Bingham and Matt Pushard of Brewer will join Bangor’s DeLaite in next year’s freshman class.
It took Emerson a little longer to join them on the Black Bears’ radar screen, but the time and investment have proven well worth it, so far.
The PG already has a ‘W.’
“We haven’t played that well, but we have a good team from what I can see,” Emerson said. “Once we get into the conference, I think it can only go up from here.”
baseball, Black Bears, emerson, lewiston maine, Maine


Graft Chimera
Kaushik Patowary Aug 4, 2020 2 comments
On a small traffic island on Rodney Road, in Backwell, in the English county of North Somerset, stands a horticultural curiosity—a cherry tree producing two distinct colors of blossom: pink on one side and white on the other. The dual-color tree is thought to have been planted in the late 1950s. Its name, Strawberries and Cream Tree, was given by the town’s children.
The Strawberries and Cream Tree in Backwell, North Somerset, England. Photo: Mojo0306/Wikimedia Commons
The Strawberries and Cream Tree is a graft chimera of a native wild cherry tree (Prunus avium) and a Prunus 'Kanzan', an ornamental cherry variety from Japan. The wild cherry produces the white blossom, while the 'Kanzan' produces the pink blossom. A graft chimera arises when tissues of two genetically different plant partially fuses following grafting to form a single growing organism that preserves both types of tissue in a single shoot. A well-known example of a graft-chimera is the Laburnocytisus 'Adamii', caused by the fusion of a Laburnum and a broom. The resulting tree bears the typical yellow flowers of a Laburnum and purple flowers of a broom.
Laburnocytisus 'Adamii', also known as Adam's laburnum or broom laburnum. Photo: Simon Garbutt/Wikimedia Commons
Chimerism or chimera is an unusual phenomenon. In animals, a chimera forms by the fusion of two or more fertilized eggs, which can result in an individual who possess genetic materials of more than one type. This gets expressed in the individual through subtle variation in form, such as different eye color in both eyes, or the possession of both female and male sex organs. In plants, chimeras is often due to mutation during ordinary cell division. But sometimes a chimera can result from grafting.
Probably the world’s first graft chimera was the Bizzaria, a graft between the Florentine citron and sour orange. The tree produces both regular Florentine citron and sour oranges, as well as a bizarre ugly, lumpy, yellow and green fruit with the morphological features of both species.
Bizzaria. Photo: Labrina/Wikimedia Commons
Description of Bizzaria first appeared in horticultural literature in 1674, when the Florentine gardener Pietro Nati discovered the chimera growing from a graft junction. The repeated emergence of such unusual specimens initially puzzled the scientific community leading to extensive speculation about the nature of genetic inheritance and plant hybridization.
Charles Darwin proposed that these new hybrids are the result of the rootstock and scion fusing with each other at the graft-junction site to asexually generate a new plant. He called them “graft-hybrids”. But German botanist Hans Winkler in 1907 reinvestigated this phenomenon by grafting black nightshade (Solanum nigrum) into tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), and discovered that the shoots arising at the junction of the two tissues had the characters of both the nightshade on one side and tomato on the other. Winkler called this shoot a chimera, inspired by the fire breathing Greek monster composed of a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail.
Chimera is still a rare phenomenon, although many have been created through grafting. Today there are chimeras of roses and apples and pears.
A chimera apple. Photo: flyingbrickciderco.com.au
# Margaret H.Frank, Daniel H.Chitwood, Plant chimeras: The good, the bad, and the ‘Bizzaria’, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012160616300902
# Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/science/chimera-plant-anatomy
# Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberries_and_Cream_Tree
England Natural Wonders Plants
The Strawberries and Cream Tree is not a chimera. Read the first reference about plant chimeras.
the first reference is of no help in the matter. the strawberries & cream tree is either a simple graft where a shoot developed from the rootstock, or a mericlinal chimera [which allows the difference to appear in different sections of the tree, as opposed to periclinal chimeras]. the problem is that every available description is by someone who doesn't know the difference between the two things, and very likely trying to describe the latter using their limited grasp of the former. the best picture i can find is not definitive, but looks very like the tree has a single trunk until well above any possible graft ... which would mean it's a mericlinal chimera afaik


IACC Series > Blog > 19th IACC > In an Activist Era, Artists Ignore Corruption at Their Own Risk
In an Activist Era, Artists Ignore Corruption at Their Own Risk
by lunah
What role do music and artists play in fighting corruption and holding governments accountable?
This was the big question during the panel “Music for Accountability” at the 19th International Anti-Corruption Conference.
Drawing on the role of musicians such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Miriam Makeba, Fela Kuti, and several others who used music as a powerful tool to tackle social injustice in the past, the panellists urged contemporary musicians to produce music that would spark serious conversations around corruption, electoral fraud, inequality, and other social ills.
Nora Rahimian, a creative consultant and the co-founder of CultureFix, a global network of artists, entrepreneurs, and activists, said audiences are expecting more from their favourite artists nowadays and that it was no longer appropriate for artists to be silent.
“If your power comes from your fans then you have to speak on the things your fans care about,” Rahimian explained. “There is a shift where a lot of artists could have gotten away with being silent, and now if you are silent, you will get called out. Your fans will hold you accountable, and they will push you until you say something.”
She said ignoring important social issues would do artists more harm than good. There are millions of rappers and singers in the world; she continued, so one way to differentiate oneself as an artist would be to speak out on issues that matter to their fans.
“It is really about looking at the relationship between artists and audience and being able to leverage both for the wellbeing of the fan and the wellbeing and long-term sustainability of the artist’s career,” she said.
Nigerian hip hop artist Jude Abaga, popularly known as M.I. Abaga, also discussed the role of musicians in a more activist and socially conscious era. He referenced the recent #EndSARS protests, which began in early October in response to police brutality by the Nigerian Police’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad. M.I. pointed to well-known Nigerian musicians like Wizkid, Davido, Falz and many others supporting their fans’ calls for police reform.
Music has become a necessity in the fight against social ills in Nigeria, from corruption to poverty to unemployment, M.I. said and added that the #EndSARS protests called for self-reflection from the entertainment industry.
“For most people in the music business and entertainment, it was a moment for us to reflect in some way on the impact of what we are doing on culture, on how culture informs behaviour and [how] what we normalize comes back to haunt us,” he said.
Another member of the panel, Matt Clark, Programs & Marketing Director at J.M. International (JMI), the world’s largest youth-music non-profit organisation, said people want change and artists have to speak on behalf of people who don’t have a voice.
“I think it is crucial that we start building a community around these issues and start helping one another,” he said. “We can’t change the world unless we stick together.”
Clark introduced the winners of Fair Play, a global competition for songs by young artists with themes related to anti-corruption and social justice. Winners this year included the Nigerian singer Cill (born Chioma Ogbonna); the Congolese rapper and producer Alesh (real name Alain Chirwisa); and the Italian band Shantipowa. Their videos were selected after a review of submissions from activist musicians from more than 20 countries around the world.
In her award-winning song, “Sound the Alarm,” Cill sang she was “tired of sitting and waiting for change” and challenged her audience not to fold their arms and do nothing. She joined the panel and thanked them for the award: “Winning this award gave me the validation that I am doing something right, and I am on the right path.”
Enlisting Gatekeepers in the Fight Against Corruption – Where Do We Go from Here?
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Juventus' 15-point deduction and the 'plusvalenza' scandal, explained
Henry Bushnell
TURIN, ITALY - JANUARY 18: Roberto Spada, Monica Tardivo, Andrea Agnelli, Pavel Nedved during the Juventus Shareholders' Meeting at Allianz Stadium on January 18, 2023 in Turin, Italy. (Photo by Daniele Badolato - Juventus FC/Juventus FC via Getty Images)
Juventus, Italy's most powerful soccer club, will be forced to forfeit 15 Serie A points after an Italian court essentially found that it had rigged finances related to transfer deals.
The point deduction will be applied to the current season, pending a potential appeal, and will be a crushing blow to Juve's hopes of remaining among European soccer's elite. It will take the Turin-based club from third place all the way down to joint-10th at the midway point of the season — just a few years after it won nine consecutive titles.
Italy's soccer federation announced the point deduction Friday after prosecutors reopened the "plusvalenza" case. The term is Italian for "capital gains," which is what Juventus allegedly made by inflating the values of outgoing players when they were traded away from the club.
The 'plusvalenza' case
Juve, which doubles as a publicly listed company, first attracted the scrutiny of the Italian government in or before 2021. CONSOB, the government authority responsible for regulating the stock exchange, probed dozens of transfer deals that, it suspected, had run afoul of either soccer's financial rules or even criminal law.
Juventus wasn't the only club investigated, but it was the primary one. After a lengthy investigation, all involved were acquitted in May. But the Italian soccer federation announced last month that a federal prosecutor had decided to appeal and re-take up the case.
A month later, on Friday, it announced the sanctions stemming from the appeal. In addition to the point deduction, Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli will be banned from Italian soccer for two years. Other executives involved were also suspended.
The Italian court responsible for the ruling will reportedly lay out its reasoning in 10 days. Juve will then have 30 days to appeal. It's unclear whether the Serie A table would be modified while a potential appeal is ongoing.
What did Juventus do?
The case hinged on a loaded question: Who, exactly, gets to decide what a soccer player is worth?
In many high-profile transfers, the answer is simple. Two clubs negotiate a price. A player moves in one direction, millions of dollars go to the selling club, and those millions become the player's value on the club's accounts.
The answer gets murky, though, when a transfer is not just player-for-cash, but rather player-for-player(-and-cash). Take, for example, a 2020 swap between Juventus and Barcelona. On aggregate, Juve sent Miralem Pjanic and roughly $14 million to Barca in exchange for Arthur Melo. So how much, in dollar terms, was each player worth?
What Juve and many other clubs realized is that they could inflate the values of players in those swap deals. Juve and Barca decided that Pjanic was 60 million euros ($67.8 million) and Arthur was 72 million euros ($81.4 million), despite neither player being even remotely that good. They could then log those inflated values on their books to help their accountants.
They have argued — and in May, authorities agreed — that only they, the clubs, have the right decide how much a player is worth. Juve, on these grounds, has denied wrongdoing.
Why would Juventus do that?
The "capital gains" — the difference between reported sale price and market price — were short-term solutions that helped Juve (and other clubs) comply with soccer's "Financial Fair Play" rules.
FFP, which has since been overhauled, prevented clubs from spending far beyond their means. Under the rules, a given club's transfer fees and player wages could not exceed its income by more than 30 million euros over a three-year period.
But there were loopholes — namely, that transfer fees were amortized over the length of the player's new contract. If Juventus bought a player for $50 million, and signed him to a five-year deal, the transfer fee would only count for $10 million toward the team's spending limit each season.
The transfer fees it received for outgoing players, though, were simply income. When it sold Pjanic, technically for some $68 million, the sale immediately boosted its spending cap by $68 million.
So, by inflating the values of players in swap deals, Juve would give itself more room to maneuver in that season's transfer market — more financial flexibility to build a squad capable of challenging for the Champions League crown.
But of course, over a longer time horizon, this type of dealing has sent clubs like Juve careening toward financial ruin. The Bianconeri, as they're known, had already fallen off their pedestal atop Serie A and among the true Champions League contenders. They were, even before Friday's penalties, struggling to keep up with AC Milan and Napoli on the field, not to mention the top English Premier League clubs' bank accounts off it.
Now, pending the appeal, they risk missing out on next season's Champions League and the revenue it guarantees. Their short-term thinking has come at a grave long-term cost.
Why is only Juventus being punished?
Juventus is not the only Italian club that has engaged in this type of transfer dealing — and by rule, soccer's rules, it was permitted.
But this was not an investigation by European soccer authorities. It was an investigation by Italian government authorities. Juve is, at this point, the only club that has been punished presumably because, as a publicly traded company, it allegedly misled shareholders and engaged in illicit accounting practices.


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Meet our Warriors: Junior Rodriguez
Junior Rodriguez
Petty Officer Second Class, FMF Corpsman U.S. Navy (ret.)
By Erin Cartaya
I’m Here for a Reason
When does failure turn into success? When do feel like you are here for something greater than what you thought life had to offer?
“I felt like a failure; because I couldn’t even take my own life.”
When Junior Rodriguez reflects on the dark times in his life, he often wonders who is up there looking out for him. He knows there’s a reason he’s here. He knows he has a purpose and will continue searching for it as long as possible. Being a part of the Warrior Foundation and becoming the Program Director of the Wolfpack (the San Diego wheelchair basketball team) has been one of the most meaningful things for Junior since his time in the Military. You won’t see him boasting or touting his accomplishments. You will, however, see him celebrating with his athletes and bonding with the Wolfpack. “Wolfpack is my family. Like family at Thanksgiving.”
PTSD is a quiet Devil that continuously haunts your mind – no matter who you are with or what you’re going through. Some days are Hell. Some days maybe not so much. Each day, you never know. When the physical pain subsides and injuries heal, the stress and emotion from PTSD never fade. But even when you feel alone, it’s important to remember that you’re not alone. That’s what the Warrior Foundation taught Junior. He finally found people around to talk to, to listen, and to support him. When Junior found the Warrior Foundation, he found himself. With a renewed sense of purpose, Junior can face these demons and come out the other side, stronger. Working with the Wolfpack, Junior knows he has a support system that will always be by his side, no matter what each ay brings.
When you can’t run away from even your own mind, you hit rock bottom. But you have to hit rock bottom, says Junior, because at the bottom is where you can look up to see what you have on the other side.
“You have to go through Hell to get to Peace.”
Junior continues to fight through Hell. One day at a time. “Sometimes, one hour at a time.” This time, however, he has a purpose, a belonging, a family.
Serving His Time
Junior joined the Military partly through college, following in his family’s footsteps. His dad was in the Navy; his sister was in the Army, and his great uncle was a Marine Corp Officer during the Vietnam War; he thought it was the right thing to do. He was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and faced several injuries that he would recover from….physically. It wasn’t long after healing from an injury that a more permanent injury surfaced: PTSD. Seeing, dreaming, and remembering; it would ultimately become what Junior thought would take him from this world. It wouldn’t be until years later that Junior understood how his role in service and now after impacts his own life, his daughters, and his brothers (the WolfPack).
The Warrior Foundation Finds Junior
Dealing with PTSD wasn’t easy for Junior. He never accepted the severity of it; he only got angry. But while serving as an intern at the medical center, Junior was approached by a woman. Not thinking anything of it, Junior dismissed this approach and carried on. Soon after, he was encouraged to head to the Health & Wellness center one morning.
It was a Saturday, 8 am.
It would be the day that changed Junior’s life. It would be the day Junior learned about wheelchair basketball, the Warrior Foundation, and its Co-Founder and CEO, Sandy Lehmkuhler. Talking with Sandy, all she said to him was “to embrace it.” But when Junior saw himself retiring, still angry, unsure where his life was going, he was recommended to the Warrior Foundation and saw Sandy waiting for him when he arrived.
“This is your home now,” she said. But Junior didn’t want to believe it. Instead, he got into his car and drove to his dad in Houston. It was then Junior realized he had a choice. He could stay home and find a job or go back to California to “finish what he started.” When Junior found himself back in California, Sandy was there waiting. And he hasn’t left her side since.
The Warrior Foundation led Junior to the Wolfpack, San Diego’s adaptive sports team. The military wheelchair basketball team includes active duty and veteran U.S. Army, Marine Corps, and Navy players. While the players have sustained life-changing injuries such as amputations, spinal cord injuries, and traumatic brain injuries, they see this program as much more than a sport. The Wolfpack, and the wheelchair basketball community, have enabled its players to improve their mental health, physical health, and self-confidence by creating a peer group that focuses on what can be achieved – not what has been lost.
For Junior, it was the same. It wasn’t just a sport to keep busy or to distract himself. It was a group of individuals, warriors, and soldiers, continuously fighting and looking for something to give back to others. With the Wolfpack, Junior has not only become a coach and program director, but he serves on tournament committees, has been the commissioner for the women’s league, and helps people all over the country. But most of all, it allows Junior to share with others, to help give back–it gives Junior a reason to be here.
Because of the Wolfpack, Junior has felt a part of something. There is a special kind of bond that he has developed through this basketball program that gives him a sense of purpose. He’s been able to focus his mental energy on others, making his role with the program impactful. When Junior talks about this group of athletes, he does so with a sense of pride. Their success is his success. His success is because of this bond. Whether on the court winning games or hanging out grilling food, their humor and camaraderie remind Junior that he is here for a reason. What that reason is, he doesn’t know (or it changes), but having this brotherhood allows Junior to live one day at a time, or one hour at a time if need be.
We rely on your kindness, compassion and commitment to make miracles happen daily for those who need it most.
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You are here: Home » Government & Governance » U.S. government & governance 2012
U.S. government & governance 2012
Written by Diana Thebaud Nicholson // December 31, 2012 // Government & Governance, U.S. // 1 Comment
One thing we can count on with respect to this Congress is that if there is even one second left before you have to do what you’re supposed to do, they will use that last second. – President Obama
Read the Label — The new political group No Labels shows why labels exist.
What does No Labels really want?
Salon talks to John Avlon, co-founder of the well-funded “centrist” advocacy group that launched earlier this week
Are Super PACs Harming U.S. Politics?
(U.S. News Debate Club) Proponents of super PACs argue that free speech is protected under the First Amendment, and they contend that it’s a fair system since candidates are not allowed to coordinate with them. Opponents disagree, and many are disturbed by predictions of upwards of $2 billion being spent by super PACs on the upcoming presidential election. They also hold that the non-coordination caveat is impossible to uphold and are upset by the proliferation of negative ads.
Obama’s “fiscal cliff” remarks leave GOP angry, confused
(CBS News) In the latest twist of the “fiscal cliff” saga, President Obama today seemingly spiked the football before crossing the goal line, applauding a deal that hasn’t been finalized and raising the ire of some Republicans who accused him of moving the goalposts. To top things off, he took the opportunity to rib Congress for their dysfunction – a curious move at a time when it’s their votes the president should be seeking, not their criticism.
U.S. goes over cliff: Deal close but no votes scheduled
(Politico) Washington inched closer to a deal that would avert massive tax increases, but Congress will still fall short of passing legislation before a new year deadline, sending the country over the fiscal cliff at least temporarily as the two sides struggled to iron out the final details of a high-stakes package.
The main holdup right now: Automatic spending cuts poised to kick in during the year, which the two parties have vowed to reverse but have failed to broker an agreement over how to do just that.
112th Congress Set To Become Most Unproductive Since 1940s
As 2012 comes to a close, the 112th Congress is set to go down in American history as the most unproductive session since the 1940s.
According to a Huffington Post review of all the bills that hit President Barack Obama’s desk this session, Obama has signed 219 bills passed by the 112th Congress into law. With less than a week to go in the year, there are currently another 20 bills pending presidential action. In comparison, the last Congress passed 383 bills, while the one before it passed 460.
The 104th Congress (1995-1996) currently holds the ignominious distinction of being the least productive session of Congress, according to the U.S. House Clerk’s Office, which has records going back to 1947. Just 333 bills became law during that two-year period, meaning the 112th Congress needs to send nearly 100 more bills to Obama’s desk in the next few days if it wants to avoid going down in history — an unlikely prospect, considering that both chambers are squarely focused on averting the “fiscal cliff” before the new year.
The 112th Congress has done far less than the 80th Congress (1947-1948), which President Harry Truman infamously dubbed the “Do-Nothing Congress.” Those lawmakers passed 906 bills that became law.
The Fiscal Cliff: Poll Shows Americans Blame Republicans More Than Democrats
(Reuters) – Americans blame Republicans in Congress more than congressional Democrats or President Barack Obama for the current “fiscal cliff” crisis, as the deadline approaches for action to avert big tax increases and spending cuts, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Thursday.
When asked who they believed to be more responsible for the “fiscal cliff” situation, 27 percent blamed Republicans in Congress, 16 percent blamed Obama and 6 percent pointed to Democrats in Congress. The largest percentage – 31 percent – blamed “all of the above.”
David Bromwich: Chuck Hagel and the Trial-Balloon Method
(HuffPost) Chuck Hagel would make a superb secretary of defense. There is not another American of high reputation in public life who has proved himself so free of the disastrous illusions that led to the Global War on Terror. Is there any consolation in the loss, if it happens? Obama’s first choices for state and defense were Susan Rice and Hagel. The sickly trial-balloon method — so susceptible to the gradual buildup of an intimidating opposition — may end by sinking them both; yet they were contradictory choices in what they stood for: much harder to reconcile than, say, Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton. Rice is a careerist of the national security elite. Her only idiosyncrasy, if one can call it that, is excessive enthusiasm for “humanitarian intervention” and the remote-control wars that such enthusiasm breeds. Hagel, by contrast, is an independent thinker and a dissident, far more than the president himself: a man so alienated from the Republican war madness and other kinds of madness that he walked away from his party in 2008. A Kerry-Hagel team would have been interesting; but Obama’s original choice was the incoherent combination of Hagel and Rice.
In Barack Obama’s lexicon of prudential juggling, to go ahead and nominate Chuck Hagel now, after the opposition in the last two weeks has used the time it was given to grow, would be merely a “distraction” from the serious aims of his presidency. And in the playbook that is the constant guide of the maturity of Obama’s judgment, a distraction can never be allowed. Recall Obama’s expedient surrender of his early opposition to immunity of the telecoms from prosecution for illegal surveillance, and remember: that, too, was explained as a necessary avoidance of distractions in the 2008 campaign. Cap-and-trade legislation was pursued but ditched as a distraction in 2010. Work on nuclear proliferation was a hopeless distraction from 2009 through 2012 inclusive, and global warming, as the president has said, may be a catastrophe that is already upon us, but it is a secondary concern for most Americans now, and therefore may be filed away as a distraction in his second term. At best, global warming will be given the Commission Treatment and the slow boat to the next presidency.
John Boehner Proposes Millionaire Tax Hike In Exchange For Steep Entitlement Cuts
(HuffPost) Signaling new movement in “fiscal cliff” talks, House Speaker John Boehner has proposed raising the top rate for earners making more than $1 million, a person familiar with the negotiations said. President Barack Obama, who wants higher top rates for households earning more than $250,000, has not accepted the offer, this person said.
The proposal, however, indicated progress in talks that had appeared stalled.
Soured History Hampers Talks Between Obama and Boehner
(NYT) Unlike last year, when Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner negotiated while looking toward the 2012 elections, they now meet knowing that in all likelihood they will be dealing with each other for the foreseeable future and that their legacies and the good of the country depend on constructive engagement.
“Neither one can afford to win an absolute victory over the other,” said one Republican lawmaker who is close to the speaker but did not want to be identified commenting on the delicate talks. “If you push him into a deal that costs him his speakership, the next guy up is not going to be to the left of John Boehner. And we don’t want a weak president.”
Rush Limbaugh: Liberals, mainstream media will blame GOP
(Politico) Rush Limbaugh said Friday that liberals and the mainstream media will look to blame the Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting on Republicans and he added it was “sickening” some in the press were already pushing for more gun control.
Paul Rosenberg: A grand bargain is a grand betrayal: The forgotten, lonely world of facts
That the United States is centre-right and Obama must needs compromise on slashing the welfare state is a myth.
(Al Jazeera) In the world of stubborn and stupid, America is a centre-right nation, and it really does make no sense that Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney. He’s trying to compromise with the Republicans because he has to: Their insistence on slashing the welfare state represents the overwhelming consensus of American political opinion, regardless of the last election’s results. But in the forgotten, lonely world of facts, none of that is true.
… Robert L Borosage warned in a cover story for the Nation magazine, which cites some of these same strong views opposing what the fantasy rhetoric hides. “The grand bargain not only offers the wrong answer; it poses the wrong question,” Borosage writes. The right question, of course, is what to do about the stranglehold of wealth and income inequality that has developed over the past 30+ years, and how to secure the future of the 99 percent that have been left behind. “The call for shared sacrifice makes no sense,” Borosage argues, “given that in recent decades, the rewards have not been shared.”
A truly progressive vision, stubbornly rooted in the world of facts would focus like a laser beam on the right question. This is what FDR’s New Deal was all about at bottom – rebuilding the nation’s prosperity from the bottom up. The economic soundness of his approach can be seen in the decades of broadly shared prosperity that followed in his wake. The political soundness can be seen in the polling data cited above – particularly the measures of conservative support. Those are the stubborn facts that President Obama ought to be attending to. And leave the stubborn fantasies behind. It’s time he set aside his love affair with Ronald Reagan. John Adams is waiting in the wings.
“David [Jones] Versus David [Kilgour]” Yahoo Blog Forecasting President Obama’s Second Term
Jones: Obama’s second term: He must balance economics with international issues
Kilgour: Obama’s second term: Tackling economic woes must be his first priority
The Rise of 99Rise
(The Nation) The impact of the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission allowing unlimited and anonymous campaign spending has been profound and could yet be decisive in this election.
With an estimated $9.8 billion set to be spent during this electoral cycle, the 2012 elections will be the most expensive in history and have completely saturated the media and cultural environment in so-called swing states. As a result, according to the 99Rise.org, “One in four Americans say they are less likely to vote than in 2008, and 75 percent of Americans believe money buys results in Congress.
In response, 99Rise, a new grassroots group seeking to expose corporate spending in the most expensive election in United States history and get “big money out of politics” once and for all, has recently risen up. Coming out of the tradition of the Optor! movement in Serbia and the more recent Occupy protests in the US, 99Rise believes that strategic, nonviolent direct action is the only way to redress legislative loopholes that benefit profit over people.
While the 2012 elections have shaped our political climate in the past months, 99Risers are planning to continue nonviolent actions against banks well beyond the election, promising the kind of mass mobilization that Occupy Wall Street attempted in 2011. Our generation needs to learn from the model of organizing that acknowledges the success of direct action and legislative pressure working in tandem in order to build a broad movement and put ourselves on the line, strategically, when and where it really counts.
Super PACs
(OpenSecrets.org) Super PACs are a new kind of political action committee created in July 2010 following the outcome of a federal court case known as SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission.
Technically known as independent expenditure-only committees, Super PACs may raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals, then spend unlimited sums to overtly advocate for or against political candidates. Super PACs must, however, report their donors to the Federal Election Commission on a monthly or quarterly basis — the Super PAC’s choice — as a traditional PAC would. Unlike traditional PACs, Super PACs are prohibited from donating money directly to political candidates.
As of October 21, 2012, 946 groups organized as Super PACs have reported total receipts of $528,125,579 and total independent expenditures of $419,516,557 in the 2012 cycle.
Election 2012: top seven super PACs
(CSM DC Decoder) News organizations, public interest groups, and bloggers have covered super PACs extensively, especially in a bid to identify donors and their interests. Groups such as The Sunlight Foundation, The Center for Public Integrity, and the Center for Responsive Politics are tracking super PAC spending down to the dollar. The top 1 percent of donors (105 people) have contributed 58 percent of all super PAC funding, mainly directed to help conservatives.
Decoder has compiled a report on the seven top super PACs – the organizations that have spent the most and still have the most money in the bank – the candidates they support, and the donors behind them. Here is the bigger picture on the new groups funding this election.
How 17 people funded the Republican super PAC world — in one chart
That the rise of super PACs has given a small number of wealthy donors an outsized level of influence in our political discourse isn’t a secret.
After all, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wouldn’t have even been in the Republican primary game if it wasn’t for a supportive super PAC funded by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. And super PACs supportive of Mitt Romney have kept him within financial shouting distance of President Obama in critical swing states like Florida and Virginia.
Check out this awesome infographic that spells it all out. The most important point? In 2011, 17 people made contributions of $1 million or more to the nine biggest conservative super PACs. That $28 million in donations accounted for half, yes HALF, of all the money these groups collected.
Unshackling the Presidency to Fix the Government
(NYT) In all the discussion these days about how dysfunctional Washington has become, attention usually centers on a fractious Congress riven by partisanship and paralyzed at times by rules and obstruction. Often lost in that conversation is the possibility that the presidency itself may need fixing.
At least that is the conclusion of a bipartisan group of former advisers to presidents and would-be presidents who have drafted what they call a plan to make the presidency work better. With the help of several former White House chiefs of staff, the group, called No Labels, has fashioned a blueprint that would make whoever wins in November both more powerful and more accountable.
The idea is to cut through some of the institutional obstacles to decisive leadership that have challenged President Obama and his recent predecessors, while also erecting structures to foster more bipartisanship, transparency and responsiveness. If the proposals were enacted, the next president would have more latitude to reorganize the government, appoint his own team, reject special-interest measures and fast-track his own initiatives through Congress. But he would also be called on to interact more regularly with lawmakers, reporters and the public.
The plan is a follow-up to a similar blueprint from No Labels for making Congress work better.
The plan advances 11 proposals, some of them relatively minor but symbolically important and others fairly sweeping in scope. Many of them may be unlikely to be adopted, but the authors hope at least to prompt a debate about ways to address the dysfunction they see.
To build accountability, the plan calls on the next president to hold monthly news conferences and twice-a-year citizen news conferences; meet quarterly with the Congressional leadership of both parties; bill his political party for travel that involves fund-raising, rather than schedule extraneous official events so that taxpayers pick up part of the tab; and submit to 90-minute question-and-answer sessions each month on the floors of Congress, much as the British prime minister does in Parliament.
To build presidential power, the plan proposes that the next president be given expanded authority to send individual items in spending bills back to Congress for up-or-down votes. It also proposes renewing presidential power that lapsed in 1984 to consolidate and even eliminate parts of the federal government.
The next president would also have more freedom to appoint his administration, a process now widely considered broken.
Perhaps most provocative is a proposal to allow the president to send legislation to Congress twice a year that could not be amended but only approved or rejected. That is patterned after what is known as fast-track authority, often applied to trade agreements. By preventing lawmakers from changing such legislation, a president could get yes-or-no answers on his top priorities.
William A. Galston, an aide to President Bill Clinton who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, suggested that one possible subject of fast-track authority could be the bipartisan plan to reduce the deficit that was created by a presidential commission led by Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, and Erskine B. Bowles, a White House chief of staff under Mr. Clinton. The Simpson-Bowles plan included a cornucopia of unpopular tax increases and spending cuts, but under this proposal Congress would have to accept or reject the whole plan.
Mark McKinnon, a Democratic media consultant who crossed lines to work for Mr. Bush’s campaigns and later helped found No Labels, said that the fast-track idea “would be a big game changer” by itself, but that the overall effect of the various proposals would go a long way toward restoring faith in the presidency.
PACs, Big Companies, Lobbyists, and Banks and Financial Institutions Seen by Strong Majorities as Having Too Much Power and Influence in DC
Small business and public opinion seen as having too little
(Harris Interactive) When one thinks about how Washington, D.C. works, certain groups are always seen as being too powerful and wielding too much influence whether in the halls of Congress or the White House. Almost nine in ten Americans say that political action committees or PACs (88%) and big companies (86%) have too much power and influence in Washington, D.C. More than four in five U.S. adults believe political lobbyists (85%), and banks and financial institutions (81%) carry too much influence inside the Beltway while almost three-quarters believe the news media (73%) has too much power.
These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 1,016 adults surveyed by telephone between April 10 and 17, 2012 by Harris Interactive.
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One Comment on "U.S. government & governance 2012"
TB December 28, 2012 at 12:03 pm · Reply
Following the discussion around Hagel’s nomination makes one wonder whether he is being appointed to head the US Army or IDF.
Europe & EU September 2022-
Middle East & Arab World Lebanon August 2021-


Aura Rosenberg
Adjunct Professor - CCE
arosenbe@pratt.edu
Monographs include Head Shots (Stop Over Press, 1996), Berlin Childhood (Steidl, 2002), and Who Am I? What Am I? Where Am I? (Hatje Cantz, 2008); exhibitions include The European Month of Photography (2014), Martin-Gropius-Bau (Berlin), MUSA (Vienna), Art Center Casino Luxembourg, Museum der Moderne (Salzburg), Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin), Deichtorhallen (Hamburg), the Sculpture Center (Long Island City), Le Magasin, Centre D’art Contemporain (Grenoble), Musée d’art Moderne et Contemporain (Geneva), Martos Gallery (New York), Metro Pictures Gallery (New York), Meliksetian Briggs Gallery (Los Angeles), OHWOW Gallery (Los Angeles); collections include Guggenheim Museum, Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies Museum, Bass Museum of Art (Miami), Cincinnati Museum of Art, New Museum (New York), Lhoist Collection (Brussels), Norton Foundation (Los Angeles), Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (Kansas City).
B.A., Sarah Lawrence College; M.A., Hunter College; participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program.


2 guys win the Internet's heart with their epic performance of 'evolution of dance'
By Manuela Cardiga
Two students made a video for their graduation celebrating the history of dance.
Two young men unexpectedly became social media stars when a video they made paying homage to the different dance styles of the 20th Century went viral.
They posted it on Youtube/ Jānis Šķēls where it went viral with thousands of viewings and share.
Before the 20th Century dance was strictly structured, with people moving to music in choreographed steps, and personal expression was not seen as "proper." and everyone danced in exactly the same way, like clock-work dolls. But a revolution was on its way - or rather an evolution.
The "Great" World War I shattered social restrictions, and men and women eager to forget death and destruction and enjoy life threw themselves into the feverish era known now as "The Roaring Twenties." Dance would never be the same again
Source: YouTube/Jānis Šķēls
The Roaring 1920s
Dances from the 1920s were wild and carefree, danced by the jazz babies with their short skirts and their rouged knees. The rage of the era was the energetic "Charleston" which was performed in speakeasies and in dance-til-you-drop dance competitions.
The 1930s and 1940s
In the 1930s and 1940s, jazz and swing were kings, just as the depression hit the world economy, and people needed something to enjoy. Dance became an escape from the harsh reality of a starving world.
After WWII the young wanted to distance themselves from what they saw as the staid and steady musu«ic of their parents and that rebellion birthed rock and roll - not just a dance but a whole attitude and fashion style.
Dances from the 1950s like "the bop" and "the twist" influenced movies like "Grease" and "Hairspray".and are still popular today.
In1960s dancing became individual. A person didn't need a dance partner. A dancer simply jumped onto the dance floor and "did your own thing" didn't include a dance partner. Dances like the "Mashed Potato", the "Monkey" and the "Funky Chicken" were the rage - at least for a while. Over 400 new dances were invented and nearly every month a new craze appeared.
The 1970s saw the rise of glamorous disco and dances like the "Hustle", or the "YMCA". Disco dragged sex out of the bedroom and onto the dance-floor with sexy and sensual dance moves, as is so beautifully exemplified by "Saturday Night Fever" and John Travolta's inimitable dance moves.
Acrobatics took over the dance floor with "Breakdancing" and street dancing became the most influential genre.
This was also the era of punk and heavy metal with "moshing" to the sounds of loud heavy metal music the rage in certain circles.
The 1990s saw the ascendency of "hip-hop" and "line dancing" which influenced world dance culture and is still growing and developing to this day.
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THE 50s IN THE 80s
https://stars.amomama.us/94998-john-travolta-stuns-dance-moves-cult-mov.html
One peculiar anachronism was the movie "Grease" which depicted the rise of the rock and roll culture in the 50s. Actor John Travolta, now 64, played the rocker hero Danny in love with a teeny-bopper played by Olivia Newton-John.
The movie is now a cult classic, and in June 2018 Travolta appeared on "The Tonight Show" and had to teach the fascinated Fallon the dance moves called 'four corners dance,' which can be seen in the finale "You're The One That I Want."
Music and dance never really go out of fashion, and shows like "Dancing With The STars" have brought back all the old moves to a new generation.
In a related story, Danelle Umstead, a visually impaired alpine skier, is dazzling the public with her grace on "Dancing With the Stars."
Inside Patrick Swayze & Widow Lisa Niemi’s 7,261-Acre 'Dream Ranch' They Owned for 23 Years
Inside Tom Bergeron's Marriage with Wife of 39 Years Who Helped Him with His Anger Management
'Law & Order's' Camryn Manheim Turns 61 - Meet Her Son Milo Who Is All Grown-up & Is Also an Actor
Patrick Swayze's Last Words Before He Slipped into a Coma
Grieving 96-Year-Old Widower Charms Dancing World Champion with His Moves
18-Year-Old Dancer Cuts Parents Out of Her $3M Prize After They Urge Her to Get Rid of Her Baby — Story of the Day
When Is the New Florence + the Machine Album Coming Out? Everything We Know About 'Dance Fever'
Lisa Ann Walter Is a Mother of 4 Children Including Identical Twins - Meet Her Family
Is Jacob Elordi Dating? Inside the 'Euphoria' Star's Dating History That Includes Zendaya & Kaia Gerber
Jenna Bush Hager Proposed to Her Future Husband a Few Months after the ‘Worst First Date’ - He Said ‘No'
Son Who Lived with Biological Mom Asks Dad's Wife to Adopt Him
15-Year-Old Son Storms into Mom's Boyfriend's House after She Came Home Crying – Story of the Day
Jeremy Renner Broke 30+ Bones Risking His Life to Save Nephew — The Latter Saved Uncle in Return
Lorraine Martin Smothers Is a Mother of 6 Kids, an Author, and a Chef


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