text: I am beyond proud to announce that Swords Against the Outer Dark has a new and much improved header, illustrated by the world's finest Lovecraftian artist Dave Carson! This is one of his original pieces approved by Mr. Carson for the use on this blog. In the past I have prided myself on the use of public domain artwork when designing graphics, but that is not to say that I haven't been tempted to 'help myself' to artwork by a few of my favorite artists. Two artist come to mind that I have been tempted to 'borrow' from more than any others: Frank Frazetta and Dave Carson. I am proud to say I no longer have to be tempted. Thank you Dave Carson!


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Several people though have suggested that "Support Our Troops" actually means "Support The War":
Recent history suggests then, that "Support Our Troops" means support the war effort.
Another question raised by the use of this slogan is, what are the implications of its use regarding public policy?
Again, one needs only to look at recent uses of the slogan, by governments, as a tool for propaganda. In the U.S., the slogan has been a rallying cry for the support-the-war-movement and has stifled any opposition to the policy of aggression. People who might stand up and question the rationality of a military solution are easily silenced by being labelled "undemocratic" or "unpatriotic" for not getting behind the banner.
Does anyone other than defence contractors actually support war? I believe that any rational person would rather have peace than war, though there may be instances in which war is the only way to accomplish a stated goal such as fighting terrorism.
Canada fought in World War I and World War II because they thought it was the right thing to do. That seems also to be the case with the NATO-led war in Afghanistan. I’m sure that everybody would like to reach the fastest and safest possible conclusion to that war.
When I hear "Support Our Troops" I think of supporting the work and the safe return of troops from that war. I certainly don’t think of "supporting the war". As I’m sure most people do.
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domain: sociology


text:
If you live in northern climates or do not have an area to garden, you may feel that you cannot grow fruits and herbs. Using containers allows you to grow both herbs and fruits indoors, provided you have a south- or west-facing window where the plants can receive plenty of light. The size of the container or pot needed will depend on the type of plant.
Growing Fruits Indoors
Select dwarf varieties of fruit trees for indoor growing. Good choices include avocado, papaya, pineapple, lime, lemon and fig trees.
Fill the bottom of large containers, such as a half-round plastic barrel with holes, with 1 to 2 inches of pea gravel.
Fill the large container with a mixture of equal parts potting soil and sand.
Remove the fruit tree from its existing container. Dig a hole in the new soil large enough to accommodate the root ball of the tree.
Place the root ball in the newly dug hole and cover with the soil mixture. Ensure that the root union, or the grafting splice, is several inches above the soil level.
Water the tree until the soil is moist to the touch and water drains from the bottom of the container.
Place the tree in front of a south- or west-facing window. Water as needed to keep the soil moist.
Growing Herbs Indoors
Choose 6-inch pots or larger for growing herbs indoors.
Fill each pot with 1 inch of pea gravel and the soil and sand mixture. Water the pot until the soil is moist and water drains from the bottom.
Scatter the desired herb seed over the surface of the moist soil. Press the seed into the soil to ensure good contact. Cover with 1/4 inch of soil mixture.
Cover the pots with plastic wrap until the seedlings emerge from the soil. Remove the wrap and place the pots in a south- or west-facing window that receives approximately six hours of sun daily.
Thin the plants as directed on the seed package. Water as necessary to keep the soil moist. Turn the plants at least once a day in the window to keep the plants from becoming spindly and weak.

domain: agronomy


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Keep up with essential planning news and commentary, delivered to your inbox every Monday and Thursday.
In San Antonio, Planning Ahead for Affordable Housing
The population of San Antonio, Texas, is projected to increase by a million people over the next 25 years, and the San Antonio Housing Authority is planning now for the city’s future affordable housing needs, reports Jared Brey.
The agency recently approved $496 million in funding for a series of rental and public housing projects in the city. "In all, the funding will help support around 3,500 units of housing, according to the Rivard Report, a local nonprofit news outlet," says Brey.
Last year, the housing policy task force released a Housing Policy Framework that outlines development of a coordinated housing system, increased investments in affordable housing and neighborhoods, and more public accountability, notes Brey. "The Housing Policy Framework was meant to focus attention on housing challenges that the city is expecting will evolve over the next decade. And the housing authority’s $486 million funding request was a response to the same issues, [Marival] Resendiz says."

domain: news


A mega-scandal much older than Enron or WorldCom is about to shake the British financial establishment. More than a decade after the spectacular collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, its creditors are finally to put the Bank of England in the dock.
The stakes could not be higher for the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street. It was the financial regulator in 1991 when the BCCI crashed with £7 billion of undeclared debts, and has long been accused of turning a blind eye to fraud at the Middle Eastern bank.
Now it faces a giant lawsuit brought in London by BCCI's victims, who claim it is guilty of negligence amounting to 'misfeasance', or wilful misconduct. The Bank has fiercely denied the charge, and made every effort to get the legal action thrown out.
And no wonder. BCCI's creditors are claiming up to £1bn in damages. They are also breaking new ground by challenging the Bank's statutory immunity against being sued.
The Government's worries do not stop there. It will have to answer potentially embarrassing questions over what Ministers, civil servants and the regulator knew about BCCI before it crashed. The Bank's most senior officials, past and present, are expected to go into the witness box, and the High Court will also consider evidence from John Major, the former Prime Minister, as well as former Chancellors Norman Lamont, Nigel Lawson and Denis Healey.
Then there is the small matter of the role played by Britain's intelligence services, whose relationship with BCCI has long been questioned. Did MI6 use accounts at the secretive bank to pay sources and operatives around the world? Did BCCI channel Western funds to Mujahideen fighters in the Eighties - or even, as some conspiracy theorists have surmised, to Osama bin Laden?
All this may - or may not - come out when the trial begins in October. For now, though, both sides are engaged in pre-trial legal tussles over secret service documents.
The creditors are led by accountant Deloitte & Touche, BCCI's liquidator. They range from East End market traders to local councils to the state of Abu Dhabi, which had become BCCI's principal shareholder by 1991, and is thought to have lost £2bn.
BCCI remains the world's biggest-ever banking fraud, and the colour and complexity of the scam is awesome.
Press attention at the time tended to focus on such unsavoury customers as Panama's military leader Manuel Noriega, as well as the gilt-edged lifestyles of the bank's executives, many of whom remain fugitives from justice today. BCCI laundered drugs money, bribes and dictators' loot. But this reflected only part of an endemic culture of fraud, which would consume more than 90 per cent of the bank's assets.
BCCI was founded in 1972 by Agha Hasan Abedi, a charismatic banker and mystic from Pakistan. It grew rapidly, and would eventually boast offices in 70 countries and 14,000 employees. But from the start, it had a taste for opaque finances. It was incorporated in two tax havens, Luxembourg and Grand Cayman, and used two sets of auditors, allowing it to avoid publishing meaningful consolidated accounts.
Abedi's bank was beloved of Asian and Middle Eastern expatriates, and he cherished a vision of the BCCI as a force for unity in the developing world. But by the late Seventies, its biggest borrower, the Gulf shipping group owned by Abbas Gokal, was heading for bankruptcy. Concerned that regulators would shut down BCCI if its exposures were revealed, Abedi and other executives falsified the books. BCCI secretly poured money into Gulf, just to make it look like a going concern capable of servicing its debts.
This deception lasted for 15 years, involved 750 false accounts and an estimated total turnover of $15bn. BCCI also created fictitious transactions to mask other non-performing loans, as well as hundreds of millions of pounds' worth of losses at its London-based treasury department. Reckless expansion into the United States and Europe dented profitability further. By the time it went down, BCCI was routinely plundering customer deposits to maintain an appearance of solvency.
It had been granted a licence to trade in the UK by the Bank of England in 1980, and opened dozens of outlets here, its largest branch network in any single country. BCCI's collapse provoked fury in the UK, as tens of thousands of depositors were left out of pocket.
Several protagonists, including Gulf's Gokal, were put behind bars by the Serious Fraud Office, and the Bank of England was castigated for its failures of supervision by Lord Bingham, whose official inquiry into the BCCI reported in 1992. Bingham's sentiments were forcefully echoed by a US Senate inquiry.
Despite the criticism, Threadneedle Street has spent an estimated £10m in legal fees fighting creditors' attempts to gain financial redress. For years, the trial has been held up in pre-court hearings, with Government lawyers attempting to withhold reams of classified papers collected by Bingham's inquiry.
Much has been handed over, including witness statements from politicians and evidence from government depart ments at home and abroad. But the BCCI creditors have not had as much luck in getting key intelligence documents.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, secured public interest immunity orders last year to block the disclosure of 'sensitive' passages from an unpublished appendix of the Bingham report, which dealt with the security services.
Other material has been kept out of creditors' hands by invoking a statute that also relates to national security. In an extraordinary twist, however, the Government is refusing to identify exactly which statute it has invoked. Government lawyers may fear that to identify the statute would effectively reveal the nature of the material they are trying to keep secret. The BCCI creditors, however, are not satisfied. They believe they are not being given a proper chance to challenge the Government's non-disclosure.
The creditors insist they are not making mischief for British intelligence: they only want to find out what the Bank of England was told about BCCI. There are still a lot of secret documents to argue over. Expect more skirmishes in the months ahead.
Years and years of ignored warnings
1972 BCCI founded. First offices in Luxembourg, UK, Oman and United Arab Emirates.
1976 US regulators express concern about BCCI's status.
1980 BCCI is plundering accounts to conceal substantial losses by Gulf Shipping. Bank of England grants banking licence.
1985 Bank of England receives anonymous letter detailing fraud at BCCI. By now, clients include Abu Nidal's terrorist organisation and Medellin drugs cartel.
1988 BCCI employees charged with money-laundering in US. Bank of England ignores warning about BCCI from City fraud squad.
1991 Price Waterhouse reports massive fraud. Top Bank of England officials are 'devastated' and shut BCCI.
1992 Bingham report and the US Senate criticise Bank of England for supervisory failures.
1993-97 Six convictions following Serious Fraud Office investigations. Other BCCI suspects go on the run.
2001 House of Lords gives creditors leave to sue Bank of England.


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"Join us for a *spirit* filled evening as we welcome special guests and experts Steve & Amy Bohner of Alchemy Distillery. We will taste unique pairings of craft spirits and craft chocolate during the course of the evening. The pairings will include a rare barrel aged whiskey that will make it's debut during this class and feature a few other favorite craft spirits from across the state.
You will leave with in depth knowledge about whiskey, it's origins and production from grain to glass. Tickets include tastings of liquor...
Coastal Living Magazine scoured America’s shores, from Freeport, Maine, to the San Juan Islands, for the best food and drink on the market. And they chose US as their FAVORITE CHOCOLATE and featured our Brown Butter with Nibs in the "Best Sundae Fixings". We couldn't be more proud. Click photo above ^ to read the full article. OR - check out the October issue of the magazine.
It's Award Season around here and last month we raked in quite a few new awards! Check it out!
New Zealand Chocolate Awards 2017
In this inaugural year of the New Zealand Chocolate Awards we were honored to receive the Gold AND Silver in the International Chocolate makers category for two of our best selling chocolate bars.
New Zealand Chocolate Awards 2017 GOLD- Black Fig
New Zealand Chocolate Awards 2017 SILVER- Brown Butter with Nibs...
2017 marked the second year that we were invited to Judge the cacao contest at the Solomon Islands Chocolate Week. On our first trip, we were hoping to find out if there is any potential for great cacao being grown there, this year we were hoping to see consistency. It’s one thing to be able to produce great cacao once but to be able to do it year after year is another.
Last year we were...

domain: food


Sustainable upgrade to Ballarat’s heritage style street lighting
Phase two of the City of Ballarat’s LED residential street lighting upgrade is complete, with almost 850 heritage style street lights receiving new fittings.
Switching street lighting to LED (light emitting diode) is a flagship of the City of Ballarat’s Carbon Neutrality and 100% Renewables Action Plan, with the completion of phase two bringing the total number of street lights that have received the upgrade along Ballarat’s minor roads and residential streets to 7,400.
The old mercury vapour lighting is no longer supported in Australia and only had a four-year life expectancy compared with 20 years for the new LED lights. LED lighting is between 80 and 85 percent more energy efficient than the old lighting and is expected to save the City of Ballarat more than $10 million over the next 20 years.
City of Ballarat Councillor, Ben Taylor said LED is more reliable, lower maintenance and most importantly better for the environment.
“The new LED lights will save more than 40,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions over the next 20 years — the equivalent to taking 9,300 fossil fuelled cars off the road,” he said.
“LED is superior at delivering light along and across the street, resulting in improved compliance and less light spill to neighbouring areas and the atmosphere.
“At the City of Ballarat, we are committed to leading the way in sustainability, continuously seeking ways to actively reduce our impact on the environment, as well as working towards a circular economy. With that in mind, most of the materials from the old lights will be recycled into various new products.”
The $1.5 million replacement program demonstrates that the City of Ballarat is committed to delivering a better Ballarat and is line with Goal 1 of the Council Plan 2021-2025: an environmentally sustainable future.
The City of Ballarat shares responsibility with Department of Transport and Planning for almost 2,500 existing lights on main roads throughout the municipality that are yet to be converted to LED. Planning will kick off soon for this program of replacement works.
Hundreds to flock to Ballarat for Australian Ultimate Championships
Stage two pine tree removal and landscape revegetation plans for Binney Reserve get underway
Last chance to help grow a Master Plan for the Ballarat Botanical Gardens
Creative elements at the Ballarat Heritage Festival
Planning Delegated Committee Meeting | April 2024
Sebastopol Community Hub transformation about to begin


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Current Shunt Measurement Transducer for Low Voltage Systems with 1kV AC/DC Isolation
The Knick VariTrans P 29001 P2/01 DC Low Voltage Measurement Transducers offer a range of selectable low voltage inputs for use with precision DC current shunts or low DC voltage signals. The isolation system meets the requirements of EN61010-1 with 1kV AC/DC and protection against electric shock with protective separation to EN 61140. Robust 17.5mm wide rail mount housing with fixed screw terminals as standard.
What we like:
The VariTrans P 29001 P2/01 DC Low Voltage Measurement Transducers have been specially designed for the measurement of the millivolt output from precision DC current shunts and low voltage DC signals up to 100V DC. They reliably isolate high voltage potentials at the input circuit. The separation distances are designed to withstand permanent voltages up to 1kV AC/DC. Protection against electric shock is achieved through protective separation according to EN 61140 between input and output and power supply.
There are 32 selectable DC input ranges to choose from all via DIP switch selection suitable for use with DC current shunts and other low voltage output devices. Measurement input can be either Unipolar & Bipolar and cover the following 16 ranges 30mV, 60mV, 90mV, 100mV, 120mV, 150mV, 200mV, and 300mV for current shunts and then the following low voltage inputs 5V, 10V, 20V, 30V, 50V, 60V, 80V & 100V. You can then choose your output signal requirement from 6 options including 4…20mA, -20…0…+20mA, +20…0…-20mA, -10…0…+10V & +10…0…-10V.


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An iconic map of the American West, this is a beautiful presentation edition of Howard Stansbury's crucial mapping of the Great Salt Lake, the earliest accurate survey of the region. Originally published in 1852 as part of the Stansbury Report presented to the U.S. Congress that year, the present example is mounted on linen and folds into a case, as it was intended for a member of Congress. This is hand-down the finest example we've seen of this map, and if you are considering it for your collection, this is the one you want.
A Closer Look
Covering the Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, and their immediate surroundings, Stansbury's map is the result of a monumental feat of exploration and scientific tenacity. The detail throughout is extraordinary, identifying springs, rivers, passes, important buildings, American Indian settlements, canals, etc. Stansbury's work and this map are responsible for creating much of the region's nomenclature, but where it is not, both Mormon and American Indian names are provided. This is also one of the earliest maps to delineate the street plan of Salt Lake City (still 'Great Salt Lake City' here).
Stansbury attempts to provide useful information for the traveler. Both the Emigrant Road from California (passing north of the lake) and the Pilot Peak Road to California (Passing South of the Lake) are shown. He also provides useful commentary, for example in the lower left
This desert consists of clay and sand impregnated with salt. When wet, it has the consistency of mortar. Lightly loaded wagons can pass between Spring Valley and Pilot Peak in the driest part of the season. Forage and water must be carried for cattle, and the journey begun in the P. M. and continued through the night. Distance between springs 70 ms.
As much as possible, Stansbury includes nautical details and depth soundings for both the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake. In the process of creating the first hydrographic survey of the lake, the Stansbury team was also the first to identify and chart Great Salt Lake's islands, as might be deduced form their names: Stansbury Island, Carrington Island, Gunnison Island, and Fremont Island.
A Seminal Map of the American West
Carl Wheat, in his classic study of American exploration, Mapping the Transmississippi West
, devotes considerable attention to this important map,
Obviously a major production... an illuminating map of Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, their respective valleys, and a portion of ‘Youab' (Juab) Valley to the south.... This map permanently established the cartography and many place names of northwestern Utah.... One of its most attractive features is that it gives the Indian as well as the Mormon names of the various creeks draining from the mountains. For Great Salt Lake itself the map was definitive, of course, permanent names being given to all the islands and shoreline features.... Scientific cartography for the Territory of Utah may be said to date from the appearance of this map.
Similarly, William Goetzmann emphasized the importance of the map and the intrepidness of the expedition which created it:
It had been a daring feat of exploration, succeeding where the mountain men had all failed, and by means of his map of the western portion of the lake, Stansbury had painted at least one more bold stroke into the unfinished portrait of the national landscape.
Following the completion of this map, Stansbury and his team returned east, in the process surveying part of the route and creating another important map of the area. A year after this map was presented in Washington, Gunnison was commissioned to return to the region to survey a viable route for the Pacific Railroad. In the process of completing this project, Gunnison and several other members of his party were killed in an ambush (see biography below), delaying the survey and the development of the Pacific Railroad for several years.
Euro-American Discovery of the Great Salt Lake
The first Westerner to visit the Great Basin was most likely Silvestre Vélez de Escalante in 1776. However, Escalante, who visited Utah Lake to the south, never truly laid eyes on Great Salt Lake. That honor would fall to unnamed trappers and mountain men traveling the region in search of furs and other tradable commodities. Unfortunately, few of these men were literate and did not record their discoveries. The first scientific expedition to this area was headed by John C. Frémont in 1843. Daunted by the season and climate, Frémont never circumnavigated the lake. That task fell to Howard Stansbury who, in 1849, was assigned by Congress to survey the Great Salt Lake, the Utah Valley, and the emigrant roads passing through the region. Stansbury, working with Gunnison, Carrington, and others, took about two years to complete his survey before presenting it to Congress in 1852. This map was part of that presentation.
Publication History and Census
This map was drawn by army officers John W. Gunnison and Charles Preuss and published in 1852 as part of the Stansbury Report (full title: Exploration and Survey of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah
). The cartography of Utah and the Great Basin truly begins with this map, making it a seminal production and a must for any serious cartographic collection focusing on the Great Salt Lake or the American West. This example is especially appealing given its condition and format, a linen-backed folding map, as opposed to other examples on the market and institutional collections, which were printed on low quality, easily-damaged, paper to be folded into the report. The name Milton Dimmick appears on the inside of the case; his father, Milo Melankthon Dimmick, was a member of the House of Representatives at the time of the report's publication, which likely explains the spectacular presentation of this example.
Howard Stansbury (February 8, 1806 - April 13, 1863) was an important surveyor, cartographer, and explorer who did his most important work in Utah during the middle part of the 19th century. Born in New York City, Stansbury trained to be a Civil Engineer. Shorty after getting married to Helen Moody of Detroit in 1827, Stansbury took a position with the United States Topographical Bureau. Under that organization he surveyed the James River in 1836, and the Illinois and Kaskaskia Rivers in 1837. In 1838, he oversaw the construction of a road from Milwaukee to the Mississippi River. Later in 1838, when the U.S Corps of Topographical Engineers was created, he joined as a first Lieutenant. With the Topographical Engineers he surveyed the Great Lakes, the harbor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and constructed Florida's Carysfort Reef Lighthouse. During the Mexican-American War he constructed fortification in the Dry Tortugas at the westernmost point on the Florida Keys. Upon achieving the rank of Captain, Stansbury received a commissioned to head a survey of the Great Basin that would ultimately become the crowning achievement of his career. His assignment was to survey the emigrant trails to California, including the Oregon Trail, as well as the Great Salt Lake, and report on the status of the growing Mormon Community in Salt Lake City. Working with J. W. Gunnison and Alfred Carrington, a Mormon scout, Stansbury produced a masterful survey of the region that had a lasting effect not only on the development of the Great Basin, but on the development of the west in general. Upon completion of his survey, Stansbury set out on the road to Washington, completing another important survey in the process. On the way, he fell off his horse, taking an injury from which he never fully recovered. Following the presentation of his report to Congress, Stansbury was charged with additional survey work around the Great Lakes. Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, he was assigned to recruitment duties in Ohio and later Wisconsin. Shortly after starting work at this post he suffered an abrupt heart attack and passed away. He is buried in St. Paul, Minnesota. More by this mapmaker...
Charles Preuss (1803- 1854), or as he was born George Karl Ludwig Preuss, was a German born lithographer and cartographer who produced an number of important maps of the American West in the middle part of the 19th Century. Preuss was born in Hohscheid, Germany, where grew up and studied the science of Geodesy. There he also studied the art of lithography with its inventor, Aloys Snefleder. After mastering the art, he was employed with the Prussian Government as mapmaker and surveyor. In 1834 he immigrated to the United States with his wife and children. In the United States he worked at a few minor drafting positions before taking work under Ferdinand Hassler and the U.S. Coast Survey. Hassler introduced Preuss to Captain John Charles Fremont, who was then planning his landmark surveying expedition to the American West. Impressed with Preuss' work, Fremont hired him as the expedition's cartographer. Preuss seems to have been singularly unimpressed with Fremont and the American West, complaining bitterly in his journals about both. Fremont he considered "childish" and the scenery "dull" and "lackluster." Nonetheless he was convinced to participate in one expedition after another and the maps he produced, both under Fremont and under Stansbury, were among the most important maps of the region ever drafted. These include, among many others, the first map of the Oregon Trail, the first accurate mapping of the Great Salt Lake, the naming of the Golden Gate, and the first identification of the California Gold region. Preuss's maps influenced North American cartography for the next two decades. Kemble Warren who assembled Preuss' maps as well as the work of many others into his "General Map" of the American west, said of Preuss, "his skill in sketching topography in the field and in representing it on the map has never been surpassed in this country." Ultimately, despite his many successes, the admiration of his peers, and a life of adventure, Preuss seems to have suffered from chronic undiagnosed depression. In September of 1854, he hung himself from a tree limb in Washington, D.C. Learn More...
John Williams Gunnison (November 11, 1812 - October 26, 1853) was a surveyor and officer in the U.S. Army. Born in New Hampshire, he attended West Point starting in 1837 and graduated second in his class. After serving as an artillery officer in fighting against the Seminoles in Florida, he was reassigned due to health reasons and joined the Army's Corps of Topographical Engineers. He spent most of the 1840s surveying lands around the Great Lakes, and in 1849 served as second-in-command to Howard Stansbury's expedition to map the Great Salt Lake. In addition to his cartographic work, Gunnison spent considerable time interacting with Mormons and wrote a book about the people and their religion on returning to Washington D.C. After additional surveying work around the Great Lakes in present-day Wisconsin, in 1853 Gunnison was assigned to lead an expedition to survey a railroad route through Utah (the Gunnison–Beckwith Expedition). While doing so, he was killed in a massacre committed by Pahvant Ute Indians, who had likely mistaken his surveying team for a group of Mormons, with whom the Pahvant were fighting a low-level war (the Walker War). In the context of existing tensions between the U.S. Government and Mormon settlers, rumors swirled that Brigham Young had orchestrated the massacre to prevent the railroad's construction, a charge which later investigations found to be baseless, but which nevertheless was widely believed at the time. The incident was one of several that increased mistrust between Mormons and the U.S. Government in the lead up to the Utah War of 1857 - 1858. Learn More...
James Ackerman (1816 - March 24, 1864) was an American painter, engraver, and lithographer active in New York City in the mid-19th century. Ackerman was born in New York. He rose to prominence as a lithographer and painter - best known for his floral prints, some of which were favorably lauded by none other than Edgar Allen Poe. He was also associated with the banner and sign painting firm of Ackerman and Miller until his death. His offices were at 120 Fulton Street and later at 379 Broadway. He frequently printed for the U.S. government, including work for the U.S. Coast Survey and the General Land Office. I have found few references to what happened to Ackerman later in life, but his residence at death is identified as the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum. Ackerman is interred in Brooklyn at Greenwood Cemetery. Learn More...
Albert Carrington (January 8, 1813 - September 19, 1889) was an apostle and member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Born in Royalton, Vermont and graduating from Dartmouth College, Carrington began a career in law before moving to the Wisconsin Territory and encountering the LDS Church, into which he and his wife were baptized in 1841. He moved with the Mormons westwards and helped establish one of the first newspapers in Salt Lake City. He also served as Brigham Young's secretary, at which point he was hired by Howard Stansbury as part of the latter's expedition to survey the Great Salt Lake. Carrington later lost his prestige in the LDS Church and was excommunicated for extramarital affairs, but late in life was rebaptized and was posthumously ordained as an elder of the church. Learn More...
Stansbury, H. J., An Expedition to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake of Utah…, 1852.
Very good. Toning along fold lines. Very light foxing. Dissected and laid on linen. Folds into hard case. An excellent example.

domain: history


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Friday, January 6, 2017
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Vox’s Dylan Matthews wants the media to stop making excuses for Trump supporters. The Trump phenomenon isn’t about “post-industrial decay,” he writes. It’s not happening because “neoliberal capitalism is failing.” Such depictions, by Beltway media types on one side and “leftists and social democrats” on the other, willfully ignore the obvious.
“The press has gotten extremely comfortable with describing a Trump electorate that simply doesn’t exist,” Matthews says. If you want to know the Trump supporters’ concerns, you just have to look at what they’re saying in polls: It’s about racial resentment. It’s about white nationalism. Matthews has the data to prove it.
For one thing, they’re not working class, or even economically struggling; “Trump’s supporters are not the wretched of the earth.” Matthews points out that at the national level the median income of Trump’s primary voters was higher than Hillary Clinton’s. Support for Trump in polls was “correlated with” higher income, even among whites. Yet, perversely, the media has been pumping out feature stories about the fervor for Trump in hard-scrabble places like Leetonia, Ohio, or Creston, Iowa -- places that, statistically, don’t even exist by Matthews’s calculations.
It’s not that Matthews doesn’t care about real economic suffering; he’s no conservative. He recognizes that globalization has been hard on many Americans. He knows that there are poor whites in this country as well as poor blacks and Latinos. “The government should help people who are materially struggling,” he writes. “And Hillary Clinton, to her great credit, has offered programs…that will leave millions of white Trump supporters much better off.”
But for Matthews, the key point is this: “This isn’t worth doing to win back their votes; it’s worth doing because it’s the right thing to do.”
That’s a curious idea. If Matthews supports the Democratic party’s agenda, why wouldn’t he want it to win back as many Trump votes it can? How can the Democrats gain the kinds of majorities they need to push through all the beneficent policies he cites if they fail to win votes away from the other side? Isn’t that one of the ways parties win elections -- by taking votes from the other side? In fact, isn’t that why Hillary Clinton’s campaign is now wooing anti-Trump Republicans?
Obviously Matthews wouldn’t want Democrats to use racist appeals to win Trump votes, and neither would I. But neither does he claim that anyone’s calling for such a step. He certainly doesn’t cite anyone who is.
What he does complain about is the “unprecedented outpouring of sympathy” for Trump voters that he sees in the media: the earnest pleas, often written by conservatives or Beltway-pundit types, that we should listen to the concerns of “the millions of white voters living on the edges of the economy,” the “decent, sincere people who feel disregarded,” and so on.
Matthews finds these stories exasperating. And you do have to agree with him when he points out that there was never any comparable litany of hand-wringing about the “concerns of Mitt Romney voters” or the “interests of Hillary Clinton supporters.”
But then again, when I look at my Twitter feed, which is full of elite media types, the main outpouring I see is just the opposite: a flood of contempt and disgust for Trump supporters, not just for the irresponsible votes they cast, but for their defective character as a group. Come to think of it, that might help to explain the rash of sympathetic pieces.
Matthews’s admonition against trying to win back Trump voters reminds me of one my favorite quotes from the ever-colorful Grover Norquist. In a 2006 American Prospect roundtable, the conservative anti-tax impresario was asked about the gay rights issue -- at the time, he was taking heat from fellow Republicans for his work with gay organizations:
I speak to the Log Cabin Republicans and work with them on a whole host of issues … The Human Rights Campaign on certain things … So I get trashed from time to time by some of my friends. I think it’s a mistake to write off any group.
I was in Romania, they’re having elections in four weeks, and I was organizing the non-communists. And I had them write on a blackboard: Who’s Voting for Us, Who’s Voting for Them. And they had to list [the voter groups and] understand why everybody was [voting that way].
They had the gypsies voting for the Communists. And I said, “OK, I get why the Communists are voting for the Communists, and the Army and the police and the guys with government jobs. But why the gypsies?” If I were a gypsy I’d want to live outside [even] touchy-feely U.S. law, much less harsher communist law.
And they said, “Well, the communists buy them liquor and then they vote for them.”
And I said, “We can do this. George Washington did this, it’s OK.” And they said, “No, the gypsies are scum and we won’t talk to them.” And I said, “OK, I guess you’re not getting the gypsy vote then.”
In politics, you want to have as few gypsies as possible, as few groups of people who are not voting for you because you’re not talking to them.
Maybe it’s not surprising that a conservative like Norquist and a liberal outlet like Vox would have differing views of politics. What’s surprising is Vox’s preference for the outlook of the Romanian right.
But aren’t the Trump voters inseparable from the racist appeals of Trump himself? That’s what Matthews seems to argue, with the aid of a raft of studies and data.
In doing so, he sheds useful light on the standard liberal way of thinking about politics. Matthews seems to take individuals as the elementary particles of political life. The individual is apparently endowed with a more or less well-defined set of attitudes on all the major issues of the day. If you sum up the aggregate of those opinions, what you get is “politics”: election returns, opinion polls, legislative roll calls, all the quantitative mass phenomena of national politics. These are just the sum of individual brains.
As for how those opinions got manufactured and sorted into all those brains, that’s a question for psychology, or history, or economics, not politics.
You can see this methodology at work in the studies Matthews cites to make his case. Almost all of them follow the same approach. First, they measure the attitudes expressed by Trump supporters in multiple-choice polling questions. Then they compare them to the answers of non-Trump supporters. (Usually they control for other factors as well.) Whichever issues most sharply distinguish the Trumpist group from non-Trumpists are assumed to reveal the Trump supporters’ innermost feelings, hopes, and fears – in short, their motivations. Individual motivations, it’s assumed, can be inferred from group differences.
In summing up all the correlations and cross-tabs, Matthews is very clear on this point: “Trump’s voters [are] motivated by genuine political disagreement about race”; “these people [are] motivated by racial resentment”; “Trump’s supporters are not, in fact, motivated by economic marginalization.”
I’ve seen most of the studies Matthews links to. As far as I can tell, none analyzed polling questions that actually asked people what was “motivating” them. Instead, they used standard polling questions like: What is your household income? Do you approve of Obama? Should taxes be cut? Should immigration be reduced? Is black poverty caused by a lack of effort? Actual motivations were never recorded: they were inferred by researchers, using math, and then imputed to Trump supporters en bloc.
For example, one of the studies Matthews cites analyzed questions from the 2016 ANES pilot survey. According to Matthews, the study concluded that while “support for Trump is correlated most strongly with party ID, the second biggest factor…was racial resentment.” The study’s author concluded that “Trump support isn’t about the economy.”
Meanwhile, the same ANES survey had actually included a battery of questions that did try to ask respondents about their motivations. It listed 21 different political issues and asked: “Which of the following issues are the most important to you in terms of choosing which political candidate you will support?”
Trump’s three signature racially-coded themes -- immigration, terrorism, and crime – were among the possible choices; a third of Trump supporters picked one of those as their top issue. Two-thirds did not. 51% chose traditional kitchen-table issues like the economy, health care, Social Security, taxes, or the national debt. Another 8% chose culture-war issues like abortion, gay rights, or “morality.” And the remaining 8% chose “military strength,” “foreign policy,” or gun control.
Let me be clear. All of the following are true: From the start, Trump has put naked appeals to racism at the center of his campaign. In the process, he has magnetized a congeries of alt-right eugenicists, Confederate flag-wavers, and paranoid Mexican-haters to his cause. And then he went on to win 52% of the Republican vote in the primaries; he’ll probably win at least 40% of the popular vote in November.
Those facts aren’t in dispute. The question is what to make of them. There’s no doubt that the nation’s “white nationalists” provide disproportionate support to Trump’s racist campaign – and given the campaign’s tone, it would be very strange if they didn’t. Presumably, the nation’s socialists also provided “disproportionate” support to the Bernie Sanders campaign. And that sort of effect seems to account for how all the studies Matthews cites arrived at their findings, mathematically speaking.
For example, Matthews points to a study by UCLA’s Michael Tesler who found that “support for Trump in the primaries strongly correlated with respondents' racial resentment,” and did so more strongly than McCain’s support in 2008 or Romney’s in 2012. What that means concretely, if you look at Tesler’s charts, is that on the one hand Trump did a lot better than Romney and McCain among the more racially-resentful half of Republicans; but on the other hand, he did equally well as them among the less racially-resentful half. From eyeballing Tesler’s charts, it appears that the more racially-resentful half of Republicans contributed a bit under 50% of Romney and McCain’s primary support. For Trump, the number was about 60%.
If that difference doesn’t seem all that big, it’s because while Trump has been very effective at mobilizing the most obsessively racist fraction of Americans to his cause -- and great at winning Republican votes overall -- he hasn’t been manufacturing more racists.
Indeed, amid the flood of “explainer” articles reporting the findings of complicated regression studies on racist attitudes, it’s striking how rarely you see simple aggregate numbers. The heated polarization of the Obama and Tea Party era in particular gave rise to an outpouring of intricate studies on the political correlates of “racial resentment” – dozens of which have been reported in Vox. Meanwhile, in a co-authored academic article published this year, Donald Kinder, the University of Michigan social scientist who first developed the concept of racial resentment, reported: “Racial resentment is essentially stationary over the last quarter century, as measured by the ANES or by the GSS. We detect no sign here that White Americans’ racial resentments hardened during the Obama Presidency.”
Likewise, Gallup regularly asks the question, “Should immigration be kept at its present level, increased, or decreased?” Anti-immigration sentiment has been in long-term decline among non-Hispanic whites. In 2002, those wanting less immigration exceeded those wanting more by 43 percentage points. This year that number was 22 percentage points.
And that seems to be the case all around the world. Take the example of France, where the level of racism in political discourse seems to reach new heights every week and the far-right has been on the ascendant for decades. Yet, the percentage of the French who say there are “too many immigrants in France” fell from 75% in 1988 to 50% in 2012. The percentage who think immigration is a “source of cultural enrichment” rose from 44% in 1992 to 75% in 2009. The percentage who agree that immigrant workers “should be seen as being at home here, since they contribute to the French economy” rose from 66% in 1992 to 84.5% in 2009.
In one sense, these figures -- taken from a comprehensive 2013 study of long-run French public opinion by a team of political sociologists led by Vincent Tiberj of the Center for European Studies at Sciences-Po -- shouldn’t come as a surprise. As the authors note, it’s long been understood that tolerance rises with education levels, and education levels have been rising for decades. Older and less-educated groups, in turn, are affected by the liberalizing cultural climate driven by younger and more-educated cohorts, albeit with a lag.
Thus, over the long run, each generation tends to express more tolerant attitudes than the last, and each generation tends to get more tolerant as it ages. “In all Western countries,” Tiberj says, “electorates are, generally speaking, more open and more tolerant than they’ve ever been.”
Yet you’d never guess any of that from watching the reactionary spiral of French political discourse. Tiberj explains the “paradox” this way:
Historically, France has never been more tolerant. Yet polarization on cultural values has never been as strong, either. The explanation is simple: If there’s a rightward shift, it’s above all a shift in the political debate.
When Mitterrand was reelected in 1988, the electorate still voted according to its socio-economic values. To put it simply, white-collar professionals voted for the right and workers voted for the left.
Starting with Nicolas Sarkozy’s [hard-right] 2007 campaign, things changed: voters started to vote according to both their socio-economic and their cultural values….
[And] while Nicolas Sarkozy didn’t hesitate to assert a right-wing ideological narrative to push a wedge into the debate, François Hollande has a lot more trouble with that….
Generally speaking, political discourse re-shapes the logic of voting: the rightward shift isn’t a demand coming from the electorate, it’s a result of the political supply… Our study tends to demonstrate the primordial importance of ideological combat.
Sensational events like riots, scandals, or terrorist attacks do cause short-run declines in tolerant attitudes, Tiberj finds. Eventually they're forgotten and tolerant attitudes resume their long-run rise. But in the meantime, they can have long-run effects on politics by altering the terms of political debate -- the ideological formulations offered by visible representatives of the left and the right. These are crucial in determining the tenor of the political discourse. And that tenor, in turn, alters how individuals understand their own relationship to politics, their own interests -- even their own “motivations.”
“The same individual can simultaneously present dispositions to tolerance and to prejudice,” write Tiberj and his co-authors, “with the prevalence of the one over the other being strongly dependent on the environment, the information received, and recent events that have made an impression on them.”
In one of those journalistic forays to the struggling pro-Trump hinterland that Matthews finds so annoying, the Guardian’s Paul Lewis and Tom Silverstone recently traveled to West Virginia for a video reportage on the most pro-Trump county in the state's Republican primaries: McDowell County. A former coal mining area that lost its mines, McDowell is about as destitute and decrepit as you might expect.
One man they spoke to, a poor and elderly former coal miner of 26 years, was a life-long member of the United Mine Workers. “I voted for that black guy two times,” he says with a laugh. Asked how he’ll vote in November, he says he’ll vote for Trump. His reason is, “Donald’s going to put all the coal mines back.”
Historically, being a member of a union – especially a combative union with an active internal life – is the most important instance of the kind of external force that Tiberj points to as having the potential to transform how individuals translate their “dispositions to tolerance and to prejudice” into their political outlook and behavior.
West Virginia’s history is a fine example of this. In the 1920s, when the UMW was weak and declining, the state’s politics were reactionary, dominated by ruthless coal operators and the Ku Klux Klan. But the resurgence of the UMW in the 1930s on the back of militant mass strikes transformed West Virginia politics, integrating its otherwise insular working class tightly into a national labor-liberal New Deal coalition that depended for its survival on black workers and black voters.
That’s why in 1964, four months after Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, West Virginia voted for him against the anti-labor Goldwater by the sixth-largest margin of any state. It’s why in 1968, when the Democrat on the ticket was the labor-liberal Hubert Humphrey – a figure who for twenty years had been more visibly committed to the civil rights issue than any other national politician – West Virginia's vote for him was the seventh-largest in the country. (And its vote for George Wallace was far lower than the other border states.)
And remarkably, that union effect continues today, on a smaller scale: in 2012 Barack Obama’s deficit among non-college whites in the top half of the racial-resentment scale was 26 percentage points smaller among those who belonged to unions than those in non-union households, according to data from the large-sample Cooperative Congress Election Study.
What’s remarkable about this is that union membership today is so often a lamentably low-intensity, low-commitment affair. It’s almost surprising to find it having any aggregate effect at all. And yet by re-shaping the individual’s understanding of the stakes of politics, being in a union still has a powerful effect on how “dispositions to tolerance and to prejudice” translate into political behavior.
Trump’s voters in November will come in different varieties. There will be McMansion-dwelling evangelicals in the Atlanta suburbs. There will be owners of prosperous construction businesses in rural California. And there will also be voters like that West Virginia ex-coal miner in the Guardian report.
A charitable reading of Matthews’s piece is that he merely wants us to keep those first two types in mind, lest we succumb to the illusion that the Trump phenomenon was all about downtrodden coal miners. A less charitable reading is that he wants us to forget that it was about that, too.
Given the long, slow slide in the Democrats’ performance in the House of Representatives, the governors’ mansions and the state legislatures, many will ask what the party could do to strengthen its position. As analysts sift through the returns, Trump’s eye-popping margins among non-college whites will generate a great deal of commentary. (In 2012, Obama lost even whites with a college degree but without postgraduate training.)
The numbers will be clear: downscale whites are a big pool of untapped votes. Yet if a cordon sanitaire is placed around that demographic territory and hung with the notorious label, “Trump Vote,” the Democrats will be even more likely to let the party system drift down its current path: into the culture-war politics of the reactionary Tammany-vs.-Klan 1920s, rather than the class-based politics that followed.
Thursday, January 14, 2016
On Thursday, the well known French media critic Daniel Schneidermann, founder of the left-leaning media critique website "Arrêt Sur Images," published this column at the site.
It takes the form of an open letter to Riss, the Charlie Hebdo cartoonist who drew the already notorious cartoon (published Wednesday) depicting Alan Kurdi, the drowned Syrian refugee child, as an adult groping women in the street. Below is a translation.
An Open Letter to Riss, Care of The Internet
by Daniel Schneidermann
Hey Riss! Can I talk to you for a minute? We don’t know each other, I don’t have your cell number, or even your publicity department’s. But since je suis Charlie, I’ll allow myself to address you as tu, and to send you a letter, care of The Internet.
Yesterday afternoon, the social networks, buzzing with outrage as usual, were spreading around this drawing, apparently taken from the latest Charlie Hebdo, which had come out that same morning.
The drawing did not especially disturb me. Nor did it make me laugh. It only brought to mind the spirit of Hara-Kiri [CH’s anarchic 1960s forerunner], the spirit of its Choron-Cavanna-Reiser era, indiscriminately going after everything that moves -- the cops AND the protestors, the generals AND the pacifists, the idiots, the government bureaucrats, the fascists, the academics. And so, why not, the migrants too, without giving all that much thought to whether we’re talking about the migrants themselves, or the migrants as les fachos depict them. Throw it all in, it’s all good for ink.
Yeah but, you see, here on staff, people didn’t take it that way. The young members (practically zygotes), those for whom the great Choron-Cavanna-Reiser go-after-everything-that-moves era is just something they’ve read about in books — you know what? They totally saw a racist drawing.
It should be said that yes, this is a generational issue. What image do they have of Charlie Hebdo? A journalistic oddball, the main debate about which is whether or not it’s made up of Islamophobes. A paper whose content we’ve meticulously combed for traces (or not) of Islamophpbia. And, recently, a paper known for stints by [Philippe] Val and [Caroline] Fourest, footsolidiers of French Islamophobia, even though — I know, I know — they haven’t been there for a while.
Seen from that point of view, nothing differentiates your drawing, Riss, from a drawing that could be published in Minute or Valeurs Actuelles [publications aligned with the FN]. Nothing. To see the difference between it and a drawing in Minute or Valeurs Actuelles, one would have to have a picture of the whole page or the whole issue it was published in. I’m not going to show all the drawings from the issue. Above the fateful doodle, another sketches Valls and Taubira [the prime minister and justice minister]. Below, another mocks the cartoonists themselves. Just as savagely, throughout the issue, sketches of Bowie, the imam-priest-rabbi trio, God, Hollande, the cops, Johnny Halliday, Depardieu, the Dakar motor race, Sarkozy, Juppé, Trump, a pedophile priest, etc., etc. I draw no conclusions. But this is one of the elements that characterize the “lieu d’énonciation” [a semiotic term meaning, roughly, the context of the speech-act], which is important for anyone who wants to make their own judgment on the drawing.
The problem is that this drawing, assiduously propagated by the very people who want to denounce it, will reach audiences who will never have access to the whole issue of Charlie Hebdo. And the same goes for this letter that I’m sending you with my meager weapons, my words, seeing as how I draw about as well as a saucepan. It’s a huge problem. We talked about this with Luz [former Charlie cartoonist and survivor of last year’s attack – video of that interview is here], this terrible risk of misunderstanding, multipled a hundredfold by the social networks, when he came here to talk about his lovely book, Catharsis (and was left perplexed by one of your drawings, mashing up Boko Haram sex slaves with child benefits).
The problem is still there. With no other solution than, laughably, to patiently explain the lieux d’énonciation, which I proposed recently in a little book. Patient-explanation-of-the-lieux-d’énonciation. Just writing those pompous words, I feel how laughable that solution is when faced with the power of a drawing.
There are things that can be done, however. If you really tried, you could find ways to signal that the message of your drawing (“don’t hassle me about Aylan, if he’d lived he would have become a rapist like the others”) does not express your thought — the author’s — but that of a narrator who might be, for example, a fat, ugly, racist Archie Bunker type. A talented and experienced cartoonist like you, if he really wants to, can always signal, if he really does want to do it, this distance between author and narrator. But he still has think through this distance. And this distance still has to exist.
 A side note: The French word used here – beauf (short for beau-frère, or brother-in-law) – refers to a Drunk Uncle/Al Bundy/Archie Bunker type. It was the name of a character made famous in the 1970s by the cartoonist Cabu, and is now an everyday word in informal French (to the point that many French people use it without knowing where it came from). Cabu was also killed last year in the attack on Charlie Hebdo.
Monday, October 26, 2015
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Hillary Clinton is an astute campaigner. In a Facebook Q&A the other day, she was asked about the Black Lives Matter protestors who interrupted Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley. The moderator asked her the same question those protestors had posed to her rivals: How would she “begin to dismantle structural racism in the United States"?
Her answer was deft:
Black lives matter. Everyone in this country should stand firmly behind that. We need to acknowledge some hard truths about race and justice in this country, and one of those hard truths is that that racial inequality is not merely a symptom of economic inequality. Black people across America still experience racism every day.
Like any good politician, Clinton knows what her audience wants to hear. She also knows how to put her opponent on the back foot. Because how could Bernie Sanders respond to that? What's he going to say -- racial inequality is merely a symptom of economic inequality? He's not going to say that. Nobody would.
Well, get ready for a hot take, ladies and gentlemen, because that’s exactly what I’ll say here. Angry responses can be addressed to the comments box at the bottom.
Here’s my question to the angry commenters. If racial inequality isn’t merely a symptom of economic inequality, what is it a symptom of?
I already feel like I can hear the answer: it's a symptom of hundreds of years of slavery, colonialism, Jim Crow, and urban apartheid.
Yes. But what were slavery, colonialism, Jim Crow, and urban apartheid if not extreme forms of economic inequality?
What was the point of England’s colonization of Ireland if not to impose a lucrative “economic inequality” on its victims? Was the urban apartheid of Haussmann’s Paris not the “symptom” of nineteenth century economic inequality?
And what exactly do you think all those African slaves were doing in the American South?
To quote Barbara Fields:
Probably a majority of American historians think of slavery in the United States as primarily a system of race relations—as though the chief business of slavery were the production of white supremacy rather than the production of cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco. One historian has gone so far as to call slavery ‘the ultimate segregator’. He does not ask why Europeans seeking the ‘ultimate’ method of segregating Africans would go to the trouble and expense of transporting them across the ocean for that purpose, when they could have achieved the same end so much more simply by leaving the Africans in Africa.
No one dreams of analyzing the struggle of the English against the Irish as a problem in race relations, even though the rationale that the English developed for suppressing the ‘barbarous’ Irish later served nearly word for word as a rationale for suppressing Africans and indigenous American Indians. Nor does anyone dream of analyzing serfdom in Russia as primarily a problem of race relations, even though the Russian nobility invented fictions of their innate, natural superiority over the serfs as preposterous as any devised by American racists.
It’s true, of course, that racial inequality is due to hundreds of years of slavery, colonialism, Jim Crow, and urban apartheid – to white supremacy. But to say so is merely to recount how one particular form of economic inequality came about. Just as the story of English imperialism is merely a history of how Ireland, even fifty years after winning independence, still found itself the poorest country in all of capitalist Europe.
What Hillary Clinton is really hinting at when she says that racism can’t be reduced to “economic inequality” is racial animosity. I can’t think of what else she could mean. The new generation of radicals on Twitter like to talk about “structural” racism or “institutional” racism – but behind the verbal bravado, what they, too, are really referring to is racial animosity.
So let’s talk about interpersonal animosity, because it’s certainly not irrelevant here. That Texas trooper in the Sandra Bland video I still can’t bring myself to watch – I would be shocked to learn that he’s not a violent racist. Forget “structural” racism for a minute. Let’s talk about plain old-fashioned racism. Let’s stipulate the obvious: the archetypal “hick Texas bigot cop” really doesn’t like black people.
But can that explain why Sandra Bland ended up dead? I doubt it, because there’s a lot of people the archetypal hick Texas bigot cop doesn’t like. He hates the nose-pierced vegans in Austin. He hates the liberal Jewish foundation executives in New York. He hates the Harvard WASPs who write about structural racism. He hates Nancy Pelosi.
But none of those groups is likely to turn up dead in his jail cell – not as likely as a black man or a black woman.
If freedom means anything, it means the freedom to go about your life without having to worry about all the people who hate you. Because let’s be honest: lots of people hate each other. Yankees fans hate Red Sox fans. Brocialists hate identitarians. Nancy Pelosi probably hates that Texas cop just as much he hates her. So do the nose-pierced vegan and the Harvard WASP.
But the Texas bigot doesn’t have to worry about ending up dead because some people hate him. Blacks in this country don't enjoy the same luxury. If that’s not due to “economic inequality,” what is it due to? What could possibly account for that difference?
Is it just a coincidence that the rate of incarceration for blacks is six times the rate for whites – and that the rate for whites who didn’t graduate high school is, likewise, six times the rate for whites who did? Is that not due to economic inequality? Is it a coincidence that the white incarceration rate is almost four times greater in poor Idaho than in rich Connecticut? Or that so far just this year, cops in Oklahoma (population: 3.9 million) have killed 29 people, 18 of whom were white – more than the entire English police force (population: 53 million) has killed in the last decade?
The connections between economic stratification and ascriptive hierarchy, between social structure and subjective affect – these issues are not new and, believe it or not, Twitter, they weren’t even born in the antebellum American South.
Here’s Karl Marx in 1870, advising an activist friend in America about the Irish question:
England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he regards himself as a member of the ruling nation and consequently he becomes a tool of the English aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the “poor whites” to the Negroes in the former slave states of the U.S.A.. The Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees in the English worker both the accomplice and the stupid tool of the English rulers in Ireland.
This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes. This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organization. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power.
As a social theorist, Marx unfortunately lacked the subtlety of, say, a Hillary Clinton. His simplistic solution was for the Irish to free themselves from their English landlords in Ireland -- and unite with the English workers in England.
Monday, July 13, 2015
1. "The Problem Was That Greece Failed To Implement The Program."
2. "Greece Is Different. Public Debt Was Growing Even In The Good Years."
3. "But Look At How Much Greece Spends On Pensions."
4. "It's Not About Demand. Greece Doesn't Export."
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Well, it's not really a prediction, just my best guess about both sides’ next moves and the considerations they’ll be taking into account. Like most guesses about the future, it’s probably wrong, but hopefully illuminating. (If there's a Yes vote, I have no idea what will happen, except that Varoufakis will resign and the Eurogroup offer will be signed.)
Immediately after the No vote, Greece demands that the ECB restore full liquidity to the banking system (as any normal lender of last resort is supposed to do). A threat is made -- either publicly stated or implicit but communicated to the Eurozone authorities -- that if this doesn't happen, Greece will immediately issue a parallel currency redeemable against future tax payments.
At that point the ECB has to decide what to do. It won't make the decision without clear guidance from the political authorities, because the issuance of a parallel currency is a major step -- albeit potentially reversible -- towards a Grexit.
So the EU will have to decide which outcome is least unpalatable to it. Of course, neither is desirable from its point of view. If it complies and restores ELA, the bank panic ends, cash controls can be lifted, and a calm atmosphere can proceed in which Syriza can negotiate for a better deal -- now armed with a democratic mandate and a public admission from the IMF that the existing deal on the table was not sustainable.
Obviously that would be a terrible outcome from the EU's perspective. It would be perceived (rightly) as a major political victory for Syriza.
So the EU might refuse to restore bank liquidity. In that case Greece will issue the parallel currency.
In my view, the best way to do this is in the form of tradable tax credits redeemable starting in, say, a year. (See here and here.) A fresh batch of these would be allocated immediately to citizens and firms. These credits are obviously worth something: every retailer can use them to pay his VAT, every individual can use them to pay his payroll tax, etc. (Greek businesses have to pay VAT tax every three months, so these credits will come in handy.) Since they're tradable and valuable, Greeks will be willing to buy these credits for euros, albeit at a discount, mainly reflecting the risk that the drachma will be introduced at some point and the tax credits redenominated. As a result, the credits would be a form of money whose supply would be under the Finance Ministry's control. The result, if it works the way it's supposed to, would be Greece's ability to stimulate aggregate demand and increase economic output, which it can't do as long as the ECB has a monopoly over issuance of means of payment. In Milton Friedman’s terminology, the tax credits would accelerate the velocity of euros inside the Greek banking system.
There has been some talk about the technical and logistical difficulties of quickly changing over Greece’s electronic payments system or distributing currency to ATMs. But as I see it, no such complicated operations are needed. Greece can mail every household a paper check worth, say, 600 euros of future tax relief. Individuals can take the check to a currency exchange [SEE UPDATE BELOW], like the ones at the airport, and exchange it for, say, a 300 euro check, which they can then deposit at their bank. (Banks are closed for withdrawals but they’re happy to take deposits!)
At that point, 300 real euros will be transferred in the usual way, electronically, from the currency exchange’s (Greek) bank to the customer’s (Greek) bank, and 300 euros will be credited to the customer’s account. The individual can spend the money using a debit card -- debit cards are working normally for domestic transactions -- or make (limited) currency withdrawals. Afterward, the currency exchange can sell the tax credits to business and individuals. Again, the point is that the velocity of money is increased, which increases GDP. And Greece can print as many of these credits as it thinks prudent.
So the EU's decision about whether to comply with Syriza's post-referendum threat will depend on how it views this parallel currency scenario: is it better or worse, from its point of view, than the Syriza-negotiating-triumph victory?
Of course, the upside of the parallel currency for the EU is that it doesn’t hand Syriza a major immediate victory. The obvious downside is that it would clearly be a big step towards Grexit. Moreover, it's a step that allows Syriza to keep its promise to voters not to take Greece out of the eurozone: there would still be euros in Greek bank accounts and the Bank of Greece would still be hooked up to the Eurosystem payments network.
The EU has put on a brave face about not really caring about Grexit, but behind the scenes it is deeply divided. Many on the Right, in Germany and Northern Europe generally, seem OK with the idea. (In fact, Schaeuble himself recently mentioned the possibility of a parallel currency in Greece.) But many others, on the center-left and in Southern Europe, privately view the prospect with horror. Francois Hollande, in particular, is now panicking. All along he assumed that Germany would never push things this far; he thought that if he privately and politely urged Berlin to go easy it would listen to him. Now the masks have come off and France is scrambling. God only knows what Renzi et al are feeling.
So if the EU takes this path -- if it denies Greece bank liquidity and forces it to introduce a parallel currency -- the immediate outcome would be a political crisis within the Franco-German core the likes of which haven't been seen in many decades.
Even worse is what might happen after the immediate crisis. If a major expansion of the effective Greek money supply does what one would expect it to -- stimulates the Greek economy -- this would be a real nightmare for the Eurozone, for reasons that are too obvious to explain. In many ways, it would really be the worst of all possible worst-case scenarios, politically speaking. And economically speaking, there is the question of what the markets' reaction would be in Spain, Italy, et al., which until now have weathered the Greek crisis OK.
Of course, the eurozone could retaliate against Greece and shut off its access to the payments network, or achieve the same thing by drastically reducing ELA, thus kicking it out of the euro. Politically speaking, this would presumably require a unanimous vote of the EU heads of state at the European Council. (If the ECB took this step over clear French opposition, I think the European project would be effectively over, at least for many years.)
Obviously it would be terrible for Syriza (and the whole country) if Greece were forced out of the euro. It would cause an appalling economic collapse, a visible humanitarian crisis in a NATO country. But in a sense it would also let Syriza off the hook: Hey, we tried our best to fight austerity within the euro, the voters agreed with us, and then the evil Europeans kicked us out.
So a lot depends on three things, in ascending order of importance:
(1) how smoothly Greece can roll out the currency issuance;
(2) how much it would stimulate the economy;
(3) above all, the Europeans' perceptions of (1) and (2).
The risks are high for both sides, but I think Greece is in a stronger position than most people think. Again, I’m probably wrong.
UPDATE: Actually, this could be done without middlemen. Banks could accept and deal in the credits directly.
UPDATE: Actually, this could be done without middlemen. Banks could accept and deal in the credits directly.


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The Chinese currency traded stronger at 6.3975 yuan to $US1.0 on Friday, after the central bank’s surprise devaluation that lasted three consecutive days.
The daily reference rate was up from the previous day’s fix 6.4010, and in line with yesterday’s close of 6.3982 yuan.
Since Tuesday, the yuan had fallen 4.4 percent – its biggest drop in value for decades.
Friday’s slight strengthening is in line with central bank assistant governor Zhang Xiaohui’s statement in a Thursday press conference that there would not be a continued depreciation of the currency.
According to some analysts, the devaluation could spark a currency war.
Paul Mackel, head of emerging markets currency strategy at HSBC, said in a Financial Times interview: “The likelihood of the renminbi trading with elevated volatility [against the dollar] implies that other dollar-Asian exchange rates should be more volatile too.”
According to a UK Reuters report, the slide of the yuan has put other Asian economies at a disadvantage and rendered both Indonesia’s rupiah and Malaysia’s ringgit fall to their 17-year lows on Wednesday. In addition, the Australian and New Zealand dollars also fell to six-year lows.

domain: finance


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Mumbai, India (PressExposure) August 02, 2009 -- Bharat is not only known for birdsâ paradise but it is also known for its birdsâ name hotels including hotel Sunbird, hotel saras, hotel Eagleâs Nest [http://www.indiatourismz.com/hotel-eaglenest-bharatpur.html], hotel birderâs inn etc. Bharat is a pride and glorious city of Rajasthan; it has a spectacular wildlife bird-sanctuary which is famous all over Asia and in the globe. This bharatpur bird sanctuary is known as Keoladeo Ghana National Park, offers a wide variety of wild animals and rare birds such as Siberian Cranes, licans, Cranes, Ducks, Eagles, Hawks, Pipits, Warblers, Wheatears, Wagtails, Flycatchers, Buntings, Larks, Shanks, Painted storks, Pipits, White Ibis, Cormorants, Pale, Marsh Harriers and wild animals consisting of Jungle cat, Leopard cat and Fishing cat, Sambar, Chital, Chinkara, Blackbuck, Nilgai and many more.
Within the district of bird sanctuary, you will have the options of staying at the hotels that offers warm and comfortable hospitality. Hotel sunbird offers deluxe and supper rooms facilitated with fully modern amenities, serves delicious Indian, Rajasthani and Continental cuisines to its guests. The hotel has a guider of birdwatcher to provide accurate information to the bird lovers. The guests can entertain in folk dance at the hotel.
Hotel Saras is not only the ideal hotel but it is also a leading hotel in Bharatpur [http://www.indiatourismz.com/hotels-in-bharatpur.html]. It is much suitable for leisure travelers who are in rummaging around for a leading hotel. Saras hotel is an economical hotel in Bharatpur offers mouth-watering dishes at affordable price. Through the hotel you can book a taxi on hire to paint with the town red. The hotel also provides you therapist (doctor) on request. Other hotels in Bharatpur including hotel Udai Vilas Palace, Hotel Park Palace, Chandra Mahal Haveli, The Bagh Resort Hotel Bharatpur Ashok, Hotel Laxmi Vilas Palace and the list goes on.
Make your Bhratpur tour of Rajasthan unforgettable in your life; you have the best time of winter season from November to February. In the winter season, you will be able to visit a wide variety of rare birds which are thronged in the bird sanctuary from all over the globe. To add few imaginative facts in your Bharatpur bird sanctuary, the multiple hotels of the city offers warm hospitality and cozy manner staying in their relaxed ambience.

domain: geography


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MUSC 4000 Music in Secondary Schools 3/2/3
Prerequisite: MUSC 3900
Principles, methods, and materials for teaching music in the middle, junior high, and high schools. Includes the study of instructional procedures, techniques, resources, and tools for teaching appropriate for secondary school children; appraisal of instructional innovations; classroom organization and management; and measurement and evaluation techniques. Includes a field-experience component.

domain: library


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Leitrim to London
UP FOR THE MATCH 💚💛
Before the match why not participate in this completely FREE event taking place next Sunday morning 3rd March from 7am-12:30pm in the Aura Leitrim Leisure Centre
We are trying to reach a total of 1,500km by rowing, running, swimming and cycling.
There will be a 5k walk/run will also place at 10am as part of this event, ran by Carrick Athletics Club
Donations may be made to Special Olympics Ireland on the day 😊
TO REGISTER please contact Leitrim Sports Partnership
on 0719650498 or email email@example.com
Week long Challenge 18th-25th March
As part of the Leitrim Be Active European Challenge we ran a week long challenge from 18th March-25th March 2018. As part of the challenge 6 clubs tracked their distance from the 18th March-25th March 2018, clubs involved in the challenge were: Drumshanbo Athletics Club, Carrick Finns Swimming Club, Lough Key Tri Club, Leitrim Cycling Club, Carrick Athletics Club and Carrick Rowing Club. Across the week long challenge a distance of 10.379.93 km was covered.
6 hour day Challenge 25th March
Over 300 people participated in the Leitrim to Lyon 6 hour day challenge on Sunday 25th March in the Aura Leisure Centre Carrick on Shannon. The aim of the challenge was to cover a distance of 1,700km in the space of six hours. We surpassed our target and travelled a total distance of 1976km! A breakdown of the distance covered per discipline can be seen below:
|| Distance covered (km)

domain: sports


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Emergency Preparedness 2017Published on 09/07/2017
Did you know that University of Georgia Cooperative Extension has a library of information on how to prepare for and recover from natural disasters and household emergencies? From packing an emergency preparedness kit to rehabbing a water logged landscape, Georgians can find the emergency information they need by visiting extension.uga.edu/topic-areas/timely-topics/emergencies.html .
Fall Gardening 2017Published on 08/31/2017
University of Georgia Cooperative Extension offers fall gardening advice through this year's Fall Gardening 2017 packet. These articles are written specifically for Georgia gardens, from novice to advanced 'green thumbs.' For more help on specific topics, contact your local UGA Extension agent or read the UGA Extension publications at http://extension.uga.edu/publications.html.
Georgia’s cotton crop sustained at least $100 million in losses following Irma’s trek across the state, according to University of Georgia Cooperative Extension cotton agronomist Jared Whitaker.
The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) Department of Horticulture will host Ornamental Horticulture Research Field Day at UGA’s Durham Horticulture Farm in Watkinsville, Georgia, from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 6.
It is well-known in the medical field that the pig brain shares certain physiological and anatomical similarities with the human brain. So similar are the two that researchers at the University of Georgia’s Regenerative Bioscience Center have developed the first U.S. pig model for stroke treatments, which will provide essential preclinical data and speed the drug discovery process.
University of Georgia, state and industry leaders cut the ribbon on Sept. 21 signifying the official openings of three new turfgrass research and education facilities on the Griffin, Tifton and Athens campuses. The largest of the facilities is on the UGA Griffin campus, where the ceremony took place.
A Christmas-tree-shaped conifer, 'Patti Faye' is a classic conifer that is cold hardy through zone 7. Most deodar cedars have pendulous branching that is ever so graceful, but this is what makes ‘Patti Faye’ deodar cedar so incredible. Also called the “Himalayan cedar,” the deodar cedar does have the ability to reach 40 to 50 feet with a 30-foot spread.
University of Georgia President Jere W. Morehead and state leaders learned more about challenges facing Georgia agriculture and Northeast Georgia's farms, nurseries and the agritourism industry Tuesday during the annual farm tour.
Steven Stice to lead University of Georgia's Regenerative Bioscience Center researchers in consortium designed to hasten the develop 0053 ment of advanced cell therapies for chronic diseases like heart disease and cancer. 4FD2
It’s football season, and tailgating before a game is a traditional part of the experience. Unfortunately, grilling your favorite cut of beef means increasing the potential for foodborne illness due to improper handling of food. These reminders from the University of Georgia Meat Science and Technology Center will provide you with grilling skills to keep foodborne illness far from your fall tailgating get-togethers.
As farmers around the world battle extreme drought and other climate events, researchers turn to pearl millet to find ways to make other grains more resilient to climate change. A global team of 65 scientists, including nine from the University of Georgia, have decoded some of the secrets to the crop’s coping strategies.
While many Georgia churches and government buildings welcomed Florida residents who fled their homes to avoid Irma’s wrath, the University of Georgia Tifton campus’ 129,000-square-foot Tifton Campus Conference Center functioned as a staging site for Georgia Power personnel who worked nonstop to restore power to residents in Tifton, Georgia, and surrounding areas.
Formerly referred to as FACES, our media newswire continues to feature stories from the CAES news team relating to family, agricultural, consumer and environmental sciences, as well as UGA Extension news.


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Interchangeable Magical Celebration Ears
Features Customized ears with Multi Color 3D Prints
Extremely durable and well made.
Ears pair best with Magical Earidescent Bow
These ears are interchangeable, which means you can swap out different colored ears but also from hat to hat or headband to headband with bow system.
Holds firmly on the magnetic headband system and does not flop over.
*** Please allow 10-30 business days processing time for us to create your one of a kind ear!**** Please ensure that you let us know of any deadlines as soon as you order, and that you get confirmation from us that we are able to accommodate your request!

domain: design


ZETA SADDLES ARE DESIGNED AROUND PROPRIETARY MULTI DENSITY REACTIVE PADDING™
Inventor And Lifelong Cyclist Dr. Patrick O’Shea Has Applied His Biomechanical And Anatomical Knowledge With The Physics Of Cycling And Plus Advanced Shock Absorbing Materials To Develop Unique Zeta Saddles. (Patent# 10,464,624_B2)
ROAD BIKES * MOUNTAIN BIKES * E-BIKES * SPIN BIKES * COMMUTERS
HOW ZETA'S REACTIVE PADDING™ CUSHIONS THE RIDER ANATOMY
Zeta Saddle's proprietary design and technology reduces pain for spin, MTB, road, gravel, and commuter cyclists.
No risk 30-day money back guarantee!
Saddle designers and engineers deploy shock absorbing materials to dissipate bump forces.
Entry level saddles often use a single layer of inexpensive foam or gels which are highly susceptible to “compression set,” allowing a rider's pelvic sit-bones to sink to the hard saddle base.
The result is hard contact pressure. In addition, higher frequency vibrations from uneven surfaces make there way up into the base of the saddle, ultimately creating continuous impact to the pelvic bones, spine and soft tissues. Zeta’s 7-piece dynamic padding composite structure absorbs the bumps and dissipates the forces while eliminating contact with the saddle's rigid base.
Like carbon bike frames, Zeta ‘lays-up’ different shapes, thicknesses and densities of proprietary elastomers in each saddle to optimize force dissipation. The dynamic forces a rider feels in the body are reduced, eliminating acute sit bone pain and reducing the fatigue experienced as you ride longer.
How does Reactive Padding™ work?
Zeta’s proprietary Reactive Padding™ is not susceptible to compression-set, whereas foam saddles are highly susceptible to this compression-set which makes them fail miserably at protecting and providing the much-desired comfort riders seek. (see Explainer Video)
What is the main difference between the different Zeta models?
Each of Zeta’s saddles is designed and made with the same high-quality elastomers for both high performance and incomparable comfort. There are only slight differences in weight due to the differing amounts of Reactive Padding™ used in each. (See detailed product descriptions).
How do I know which model makes the most sense for me?
Zeta offers three different models based primarily on your desired comfort level, then your bike type and riding style. Racing, serious fitness, or fun and recreational, we have the most comfortable and uniquely designed saddles for you!
Which model is the lightest?
Modus is our lightest, high-performance carbon racing saddle, offering greater comfort without sacrificing performance being in the lightweight range of the best carbon saddles.
I’m old (67) and big (6’6”, 275). This was my first ride of the season. The saddle is always an issue for the first ride. I’ve been riding the same Specialized Body Geometry saddle for probably 25 years. It’s great that once you get your butt broken in, it’s a good saddle for long distance. I tried the Optima today, 156mm ti rails, and it just disappeared under me. It was so comfortable that I didn’t have to think about it the entire ride. I’ll update when I get more miles on it, but I expect it to stay comfortable.
I'm happy to say the road saddle is great! Unfortunately I haven't been on a longer ride on it but I'm doing 60 to 100 miles a week in 10 mile increments commuting to and from the shop. I don't think about the saddle much and that's a good thing. It's one of the best saddles I've used to date. I find that with any saddle I've used in the past there's a point where I end up switching to another preferred saddle before doing the reverse ad infinitum, sometimes mixing in a new saddle. I think I did get maybe a 25 miler in at some point and again, not spending any notable time thinking about my saddle is a welcome change. I did find that one of my cycling shorts is less comfortable on the Zeta saddle than previous saddles. Presumably a shape or consistency of the foam combined with the chamois design? It's a denser chamois.
Wife's new Trek FX4 was not comfortable. Replaced the saddle with the Ultima eight months ago...... Happy wife, happy life !
Not more saddle issues and her rides remain comfortable as she is increasing distance & duration.
Love this saddle!
Zeta’s “ULTIMA” saddle is a dream come true! I love riding my Peloton so much
more now! I also have an E-bike that I commute on and it’s super easy to switch
my Zeta saddle between the two. I have zero discomfort or soreness during or
after my multiple spin sessions and e-bike rides each week. Thank you ZETA!
Carrey H. — Retail Manager
My trail rides are so much more enjoyable now with my ZETA OPTIMA saddle! To say it’s a lot more comfortable is only part of the story. It actually conforms to my body, my pelvic sit bones sink into the padding but, do not bottom out and feel the hard sit-bone pressure felt on all previous saddles. You can feel the shock absorbing padding working as you ride. Love the sleek, low-profile design too!
My new OPTIMA saddle by Zeta Saddles is absolutely the most comfortable saddle ever made! I can’t believe how comfortable it is. There’s such a huge difference in comfort level and performance. Zeta’s Reactive Padding™ absorbs all the bumps and vibrations, and doesn’t have that increasing sense of hard contact pressure and discomfort I’m so used to with my previous saddles. 5-Stars!
After going through seven road saddles in ten years, I finally found a light weight, high-performance carbon saddle that actually gives me greater comfort and support. I ride even longer and more often without feeling that typical saddle hardness, sit-bone soreness and groin area numbness that occurred during most rides, especially on my longer rides.
Wanted to know how your saddle feels. Over the last few weeks, since I put your saddle on my mountain bike, I have been on 15 rides for about 230 miles.
After I put the saddle on, (which was easy, with the open top to the saddle), the moment I sat on the saddle I could feel the comfort. During my rides, (road several mountain bike trails), I noticed the design did help protect tissue in my groin and sit bone. I have had 10 different saddles on various mountain bikes; the Zeta is by far the most comfortable padding and performance with the titanium rails I have ridden on.
I have been riding the saddle for 6 weeks now and the numbness problem I was experiencing is well, solved. I was surprised to be honest. I mounted it on my classic Bianchi steel bike and have gone as long as a century riding it. For me, it works. I do ride with a nice bib under my casual pocketed shorts. Vance
RISK FREE TRIAL
Try a Zeta Saddle for 30 days
Order your seat, set it up and give it a test ride. If it does not give you the pain-free ride we claim, return to us and we will refund your order.
REACTIVE PADDING™ INVENTOR AND ZETA FOUNDER DR. PATRICK O’SHEA
As a cyclist, I’ve long been aware of the issues with mass-produced bike saddles causing numbness, post-ride soreness, and damage to the perineal region. Being a Doctor of Chiropractic who specializes in soft tissue injuries and biomechanics, I treat hundreds of cyclists, mountain bikers, triathletes, and spin enthusiasts who suffer from the build-up of adhesive scar tissue, brought on by overuse and altered body mechanics.
One day while treating a cyclist for chronic pain in the sit bones, I explained how the inability of foam saddles to dampen and absorb forces into the body was one of the main contributors to progressive pain and damage in these areas.
I’ll never forget their reaction: “Why hasn’t anyone invented a bike saddle that prevents this?
”I realized in that moment that I’ve always understood the problem but had not considered taking on the challenge myself. And because of my expertise in biophysics and soft tissue injuries (mixed with my love for cycling) I was the perfect person to solve this universal problem once and for all.
It took a long time. But after years of research and hundreds of iterations, I succeeded in my mission to create Zeta’s 7-piece, proprietary Reactive Padding™.
All of our Zeta Saddle’s provide the ultimate level of comfort and safety without sacrificing performance or speed.
Our saddles remain ultra-light and are made of the highest quality while protecting you from the painful ground reaction forces that come with riding.
By ordering your Zeta Saddle now, you’re helping us in our mission to protect riders around the world from pain, soreness, and soft-tissue damage.Thank you for joining us!
-Dr. Patrick O'Shea, licensed Doctor of Chiropractic


Die casting and injection molding machines place some hefty demands on hydraulic systems. They must operate with high repeatability to ensure high product consistency and low scrap rate. But first and foremost, they must operate with the highest possible throughput to maximize productivity in order to minimize cost per part. And don’t forget reliability, which is a big reason why hydraulics is used so often in these applications.
A key to a machine’s high productivity lies with the motion control system of its main hydraulic cylinder — which injects molten metal or plastic into a die cavity. The challenge is to move the cylinder’s piston rod quickly during non-injection portions of a cycle while offering precise pressure control near the end of an injection cycle to ensure high quality and consistent parts.
Electrohydraulic proportional directional control valves with pressure and flow (P/Q) from Atos Spa, Sesto Calende, Italy, lend themselves to the requirements of plastic injection molding, metal die casting, and cushion control of vertical presses. The valves control hydraulic fluid flow to quickly move machine elements into position, then control pressure applied by the cylinder for tight control of the particular process. The valves also greatly simplify the machine architecture by integrating the functions previously performed by multiple proportional controls into a single digital proportional valve.
These valves add pressure control to the conventional closed-loop control of a proportional valve’s spool or poppet. The valve is commanded by two reference signals, flow and pressure (or force). A dedicated algorithm automatically selects which control is active based on feedback and time in a cycle.
Flow control is in command when hydraulic pressure is lower than the relevant reference signal. Conversely, pressure control becomes active if the system’s pressure reaches or exceeds this value.
Any of three basic functional schemes can be used to fulfil the most common motion control applications:
• pressure control with one remote pressure transducer. Closed-loop pressure control is performed by interfacing the valve with one remote pressure transducer.
• force control with two pressure transducers. Closed-loop force control of the cylinder is accomplished by interfacing the valve with two remote pressure transducers installed at the cylinder’s work ports. The actuator force is calculated by the pressure feedback balance (Pa – Pb).
• force control with a load cell. A load cell is installed between the piston rod end and the load. This setup provides the most accurate application of force by measuring force directly.
Integral digital electronics offer easy software settings by Atos’ E-SW/S tool. The software also improves motion dynamics and controllability and diagnostics. Programming interfaces include Serial PS, Fieldbus BC (CANopen), or Fieldbus BP (PROFIBUS-DP).
Of course, the P/Q concept and electrohydraulic proportional valves can be applied to other applications requiring closed-loop pressure and force control, and quick and easy tuning.
For more information on Atos’ electrohydraulic proportional valves with P/Q control, visit www.atos.com.