Paul Francis Quin has proven himself an approachable enigma. The myriad glamour shots gracing the cover of his upcoming album ‘Life on Earth’ and various assorted publicity materials tend to portray him as otherworldly, a strange mixture of glamorous and uncanny. Nonetheless, he is quite happy to talk, in his wryly calm and personable manner, about any subject, no matter how taboo. In fact, taboo subjects are his speciality. They are fuel to his creative engine, and vital to his artistic expression.
“It’s been an interesting journey, especially at this point in history,” he tells me over the first of several hour-long Zoom calls we have. “But I can’t deny I’m excited to see these songs released into the world at last.”
Quin is a Wicklow native, born in Bray in 1971, and his serene, cut-glass accent is still inflected with the earthy intonations of that venerable seaside haven. The electro-pop singer-songwriter and exeperimentalist composer is on a homecoming journey of sorts. At the time of writing [note: this date has passed], his long-awaited solo album ‘Life on Earth’ will see its launch at Dublin’s Peppercannister Church with a gloriously disparate personelle, after a heady 2.5 years (“a slight exaggeration,” Paul purrs coyly) in the making. This represents a definitive return to music following an extended hiatus, although, it must be stressed, not a complete departure from it.
The designated venue is an interesting one, not least for its former ecclesiastical status. Paul tells me, a few months following the Zoom call and in person this time around, that: “To be quite honest, I was gagging to get on stage in somewhere like the Grand Social or the Sugar Club whatever, and do some live work there. Generally, I don’t sing live very much, I much prefer to work in a studio. But once I resalised I was actually still capable of it, I just pushed myself to get back to it. I’m at least determined to get back up on stage and at least do an album launch, and do a proper show with creative design and costumes and all that. It’s a dream away at the moment, but dreams are how I run.”
I jokingly suggest he do an alfresco gig, charging people a fiver per head; he politely laughs such a notion off.
“I mean, I am also just asking myself where did all the time go, really,” he says, laughing. “I didn’t do much music-wise, really. I mean, I had a nine-to-five job and then I went back to college, and all this time has flowed by. I remember how prohibitively expensive hiring out a recording studio could be back in the 80s and 90s, and I remember thinking I could never re-enter one again. Then again, I remember my Dad, who had a really philosophical take on life, saying to me. ‘You are going to be a very late starter. But you are going to get there’. Not sure where he meant. But I got SOMEWHERE, I suppose!”
Thankfully, such a dismal outcome has ultimately not materialised for him. We are both in the control room of the subterranean confines of EgoBoo Studios on Fitzwilliam Street, having just been buzzed in. Next to me sits Greg Malocks, EgoBoo’s owner and chief sound engineer (and now, musical director of the entire enterprise) working through a series of levels with an air of close absorption. The ensuing conversation is punctuated by occasional clicks coming from the recorder console as he works his digital magic. This is no problem of course, Paul is happy to defer to his expertise. “I need to come into a place like this,” he admits. “In order to work with a more structured environment. Even if I had a home set-up, I don’t think I’d have enough gauge of quality control and I’d never get anything finished as a result. I need to be in an environment like this.”
Paul himself lounges opposite on the studio couch, a punkish vision in a longsleeve shirt, docs and sleek denim, with long, serpentine Medusa-esque, peroxide dreadlocks and makeup stylishly pale enough to make David Bowie (were he still with us) envious. He is far from blase about the studio set-up, however, preferring it to a more home set-up favoured by many during the last two years.
“I need to come into a place like this,” he admits. “In order to work with a more structured environment. Even if I had a home set-up, I don’t think I’d have enough gauge of quality control and I’d never get anything finished as a result. I need to be in an environment like this.”
“You need a second ear, sometimes” Greg chimes in, without taking his eyes off the flashing blues and greens on the monito before him. “When Paul’s singing, he needs to be concentrating, and with a second ear, suggestions about what else he can try come about more easily. It definitely helps.”
Paul nods. “I think when there’s someone else present, it brings something else out of you as well. There is essentially an audience there, albeit one I can bounce ideas off. The love of stacling harmonies is something me and Greg share. I’ve often worked with producers and engineers in the past who would say ‘I think you’ve enough harmonies now,’ and the fact is, I can’t get enough of them! If possible, I’ll have a full choir of hamrony behind my vocals.”
Day 7 of highlighting beautiful writing from stories you recommended to us!!
— ShortsthePodcast (@ShortsthePod) October 15, 2021
A Breath of Fresh Air
Right now, he’s listening intently to the latest mix of a new untitled song, a pure 1970s disco-tinged track which, as it transpires, is actually for an entirely different project. Despite the studio’s confined, almost windowless space, Paul describes it as ‘a breath of fresh air’, allowing him to experiment with sounds quite divergent from his usual style, which has been nebulously described as very ‘eighties-esque’ in style, tightly syncopated and synth-heavy.
“People are always saying to me, ‘your music is very ‘eighties’, and no matter what I do I can never seem to get away from that. Or maybe that’s just because of the way I sing, I don’t know. But this other friend [dreampop songwriter Keeley Moss, who will also be opening for Paul at the Peppercannister gig on the 11th]had a track that was a bit more of a disco groove to it, and I thought it’d be interesting just to try to adapt a style that also manages to retain a bit of an indie feel as well.”
I mention The ‘Weeknd’, and his similar use of synth and uptempo beats in tracks such as ‘Blinded by the Light’ and ‘Save Your Tears’; songs that manage to simultaneously sound retro and futuristic. “It’s almost like a pastiche,” Paul says, “taking that sound and refitting them for a new generation. Even just listening to the instrumental [of ‘Save Your Tears’], you can tell it’s amazing track even when denuded of vocals. I’d have different lyric and vocal ideas for it, but it is a superb piece of pop music. And pop music is often the hardest to do because it has to hit the ear almost immediately. Whereas soul and R’n’B you can let grow on you more organically, but pop must have that instant grab for people. Almost like Eurovision, in a way.”
I ask why in hell he’d stoop to comparing himself to Eurovision, to general amusement of all present company in the studio.
“One can always hope,” he smiles.
This essay, a meditation on #depression and #toxicmasculinity, was published in @VoicesCassandra
a year ago. Since #Covid, I'm certainly a lot more grateful for what I have than what I don't. https://t.co/y11yBPStaX
— Daniel Wade (@danwadewriter) December 12, 2020
Behind Closed Doors
Everything happens underground now. Or at least, behind closed doors, within spaces impounded by our boundaries, with face-to-face communication kept to a minimum, as tablet, mobile and laptop screens now stand in for sociability. We are visible to each other only through screens, our voices reduced to garbled, disembodied transmissions over a Zoom audio feed. Even those of us who may live a few miles away from each other, even short distances, seem, at times, impassable.
Lockdown has been an atomising experience for virtually everybody: the blurring of the work-life balance, to the government-prescribed restrictions over not being able to leave one’s home, then one’s county, and finally with an inability to fly overseas, as well as the basic need to socialise in large groups (though this slowly but surely starting to change). The daily monotony, shot through with a vague tension of perhaps being next in line to be claimed by the pandemic, was once described in a half-joking fashoin as ‘the new normal’, a phrase many have abandoned as mounting imaptience. A sense of unreality has slipped into the very fabric of reality itself. The very autonomy we take for granted as adults has been brutally curtailed. Many of us wonder when and where we might see our friends and loved ones again. News of the impending climate collapse and a resultant creeping sense that the world is on the brink of an ill-defined but very imminent oblivion aren’t helping.
A lot of this is doomsday thinking as well: the temptation to fall into it is on the increase.
At the time of writing, the most recent restrictions have been tentatively lifted – though right now, it feels better to be discussing something, anything, other than the pandemic, lockdown restrictions and vaccines. News of the Delta and other assorted variants make for distressing reading, even with the rollout of a multiplicity of vaccines and much of the populace having received their jab (though, the presence of anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers keeping the pandemic of life support remains an ever-present worry).
Many artists on the P.U.P. now face having thiers cutoff unless they branch out into separate industries. Impatience with extended closures mandated by the Irish government’s directive to keep all indoor music events effectively cancelled. This was estimated to last no more than a fortnight. Now, nearly eighteen months on, live music in smaller venues remains illegal, with no roadmap for the event industry in sight. For many artists and creatives, ‘first to close, last to reopen’ has become a defining mantra of the Covid era.
The results of this are manifold. It seems we are at the risk of losing much of what made the nightlife so exhilarating. The unique intoxication that rises not just from a few pints and a spliff but from the very of sociability and togetherness itself, of being in the company of one’s peers and engaging in a shared sense of communal euphoria and solace. Dublin’s streets on a weekend evening are as likely to be deserted as they usually are in the midweek. The possibility that many of us are beginning to forget that unique euphoric rush of fellowship brought on by is now a horribly real one.
Of course, it is slight exaggerration, at least in the Anglophone sphere, to call this the apocalypse in easy mode, and there are far more urgent problems at hand than the halting of live performance and msic events. There is also an idea circulating that, post-Covid, there will be a flowering of creativity comparable to that of the Renaissance, which itself came gradually about in the wake of the bubonic plague. A generalised reaffirmation of life may come about from so much isolation, so much togetheness relinquished.
Frank Armstrong reviews a new book on the Irish government's response Covid-19 and wonders whether it will be said once again: “We didn’t know, no one told us”https://t.co/vikPQsuFMa @broadsheet_ie @danieleidiniph1
— CassandraVoices (@VoicesCassandra) May 25, 2022
It could be argued that lockdown is comparable to being in suspended animation. For many people, not just creatives, this has been a strange period of working from home and thereby taking it upon themselves to make a project happen. Dispiriting as the last year and a half has been, many creatives have demonstrated their endurance and the commitment to their art. Moreover, the technological advances of 2021 have permitted many artists to create and work unimpeded by limitations as studio time and costs. Nonetheless, this isn’t ideal either.
Yet, we are alive. We have survived a pandemic and all its accompanying madness. I consider myself healthily cynical about most things, but I doubt I am naive for being thankful to be alive, with my loved ones still here and my work still invigorating me.
It’s an overcast afternoon in early July of 2021. Gunmetal clouds lurk sluggishly overhead, the air heavy with the threat of rainfall. Overcast days in the city centre are nothing new or unusual, but for the last year they’d taken on a grimly hazardous feel. Even in summer, flurries of chill air can come blasting out of nowhere, as if to remind the average pedestrian of the universe’s innate precarity even at street level. The vague sense that perhaps one should not be out in broad daylight for too long was constantly hovering at the base of my skull.
Being out of the city centre for large swathes of time had also rendered it slightly unfamiliar. The buildings that hovered above me seemed alien. I felt like I was passing through a town I’d no previous knowledge of, having to stop every few minutes to check my Google maps and see if I still had the right place – even though a year ago I could traverse multiple streets and backlanes without having to even look up sometimes. The ongoing operatic thrum of traffic and buskers, bike couriers and people generally getting on with their lives had all but ceased, save for a few meagre pockets of people also going about their business.
Working to a Deadline
After eighteen months, the album is more or less finished, though with some quite-necessary mixing still underway. Working to a deadline can be as good a motivator as any, and the focus has thus far been sustained toward that goal. As any muso worth their salt will tell you, a spirit of collaboration is key to ensuring any album is the best it can hope to be, and ‘Life on Earth’ is no different, boasting a sizable personnel on a very disparate plethora of instruments.
And Paul, for one, welcomes the opportunity to be able to work in-studio again. His determination to see the album completed is heartening – as is his (ithin reason) refusal to be deterred by the pandemic and its attendant restrictions. I ask him what, if at all, effect the pandemic had on the albm’s production.
“I think lockdown actually helped!” he laughs. “It allowed me to focus on one thing (i.e. writing and making a record) without any other distractions like pubs, parties and the need for new clothes, new hair, new shoes. When all the background noise was taken away, it allowed me to hear the music in my head. At the same time you know they say the whole world was in suspended animation and that created it’s own little creative zeitgeist. You plugged in or you dropped out completely!”
Despite the relative freedom offered by advances in recording technology, enabling most people to theoretically record, mix and finaise entire albums from the safety of their living rooms, this is no guarantee of a high quality finished product or even of quality control: “I need to come into a place like this in order to work,” he says, “because, otherwise, I wouldn’t structure it well enough, because even if if I was recording at home with all of my equipment set up, I still wouldn’t possess enough gauge on quality control, and therefore would never get anything finished.”
“Much of the songs are more synth-pop, with some orchestral elements mixed in as well,” Paul tells me. The latter elements, he asserts, is largely the influence of the aforementioned and ever-prolific Aidan Casserly, the maestro behind such recent albums as ‘Incubus’ and ‘Ballads of Sorrow’. Aidan’s hand in co-writing “Be Yourself Girl” has proven vital to ‘Life on ‘Earth’s longevity.
“I never got to do a full album with Aidan,” Paul clarifies. “Prior to that, we’d done little demos here and there, though I’d alway wanted to do something a little more substantial. This album really started with that song ‘Be Yourself Girl’, which Aidan added both the keyboard and sax to. From there, he hept sending me bits and pieces until eventually it began to take shape.”
At the time of writing, Paul is currently in the promo phase of putting the album forth, doing the usual round of interviews and trying to see it gain airplay across as many platforms as possible. A Herculean task, some would argue, but also doubly complicated in that he has been trying to do so in the midst of a global pandemic as well. He is certainly far from alone in this.
In that time, he’s also managed to amass a formidable crew of collaborators and other musicians to join him onstage when the big night finally rolls around. If the measure of a man lies in how his peers speak of him, there is no shortage of hossannas being directed Paul’s way by his tribe. The aforementioned Keeley Moss is especially forthcoming in her praise of him, telling me: “Paul is a flamboyant force of melodic magic, who delivers a torch song like few others. There’s a lavish grandeur to his Art-Pop that brims with all the tasteful grace of a sonic connoisseur.”
Meanwhile, Pheonuh Callan-Layzell, bassist and co-songwriter of heavy metal outfit Beyond the Cresent Moon, and Paul’s longtime friend and designer, tells me: “There’s a lot of creative symbiosis with what we do. Paul’s very aware of what he wants and how he wants to present his work, and he tends to be really spot-on with what he’s aiming for. He’s quite magical as well. I mean, the Paul that I know and the Paul that I see, whether on stage or in a music video, say, are to very different people, which is applicable to a lot of artists, I’d say. The Paul I’d chat to and the Paul in ‘show-mode’ if you like, are almost complete inversions of one another.”
"They shoot pool like they’re born for it. Some for cash, others for pride or thrills; there’s no sole reigning champion. Anyone might wear the crown." Niall is new Fiction from @wadeinthewate11 https://t.co/2WVWURIsiw@broadsheet_ie @Andrea_Rey48 @CSBlenner @IlsaCarter1
— CassandraVoices (@VoicesCassandra) November 12, 2020
‘Sebastian and the Dream’ Fame
As a full-length album, ‘Life of Earth’ originally started production under the auspices of singer, composer, producer, electronica wunderkind and multi-instrumentalist Aidan Casserly, of ‘Sebastian and the Dream’ fame. Of Paul, Aidan tells me: “I’ve always seen Paul as a very unique individual and free spirit/thinker. I’ve only met a few people similar in my life and they always bring out great creative energy in creative people such as I. His humour is pitch perfect and generous and cutting when necessary. I think we may have met in a previous lifetime, but that’s another conversation!”
If the two have a shared thematic concern, it is with the underdog, the outsider, and anyone generally unmoored from mainstream society, in particular the many upheavals experienced by the queer community and the often-seismic changes that Irish society has undergone in the last three decades. ‘Be Yourself Girl’ addresses such themes directly, insofar as, lyrically, it depicts the struggles of a young trans-woman coming to terms with the vagaries of an increasingly mercurial world. July saw the release of ‘Be Yourself Girl’, the first single off the album, but there is little time to be euphoric. In a seperate track, ‘A Better place’ lyrical approach and the album’s cover, Paul assumes the aloofly compassionate role of a guardian angel, assuring the listener that
IF I COULD CHANGE THE WORLD
you know I’d make it a safer place, for you
As the title suggests, the song is a hymn to love at its most altruistic, and that the hope for a better world is not only possible, but also quite plausible. Despite his often-acidic wit, Paul’s music in fact comes from a place of deep compassion and empathy for such corners of the human experince, corners, that, despite the progress of even the last ten years, still remain sidelined. That sense of being sidelined is something Paul himself knows very well.
If electro-pop could be deemed culturally subterranean in the contemporary Irish music scene, this is not to say it is not rich in its variety of acts. If it is treated at best as niche genre of oddity or, at worst as a target for critical ridicule, Paul will soon prove otherwise on both counts.
Covid or not, the work can often feel neverending for most musicians, an endless round of recording, mixing, promo on both social media and regular media outlets (if you’re lucky, that is), trying to land a performance slot at any venue you care to name, as well as plugging the album before, during and after its release. Lack of media coverage, whether in Hot Press or in more mainstream publications, remains another hurdle, though, to Paul’s credit, he has embarked on an interview campaign with as many forums as he can. For his part, Paul has not shied away from this necessary evil. If anything, he has taken to it with a certain dogged gusto:
“I just wonder how many singles get released every week, but every time you’re doing, you’re trying desperately to be heard along with everything else that’s been unleashed on the airwaves. And it’s been extra hard to grow an audience and excite some interest in your work with no gigs and venues. So basically, all you’ve got is radio and, I suppose, to a lesser extent, the livestream gigs that people are doing at home, although I’m not quite prepared for that at the moment.
“This time around, putting something out there just feels in equal measure exciting and daunting. You ask yourself, in moments of doubt, is anyone going to be even vaguely interested? And then you realise, you have to make them interested, hence all this social media stuff. And it is very easy to do it that way, but then, of course, so is everyone else, and it’s a tough job. I’m in this first and foremost for the love of it, and the passion I had once before, that has been gobe for years, has been rekindled. I have been extending my pool of co-writers and collaborators, and i now have three or four different songwriters helping out.”
It must be stressed that none of this is any mean feat. The last few months have seen the restrictions of Covid finally lifted nationwide and a hesitant return to normalcy after two years of lockdown, quarantine measures, and the months of seemingly interminable isolation and uncertainty that accompanied them.
Paul manages to remain philosophical about the entire ordeal. “Covid seems to have brought people into communicating in a slightly different way,” he muses. “I’ve noticed people have been more open to collaborating than they might have been before. Some benefit has come out it, I’d say.”
It is these same changes in communication and understanding on a wider social level in the years preceding the pandemic that similarly have influenced Paul’s return to music.
While advances in music technology and methods have made the recording process comparatively easier when working in isolation, the roadblocks set in place by our inability to work together face-to-face has lessened such opportunities. This is before we even mention inflation, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and resultant food shortages that have occurred. To be able to see such a bleak period in human history through and to emerge with a fully-fledged work of art on one’s hands is testament to both one’s resilience, the indomitable will to endure, and perhaps even live again once the dust has settled.
Daniel Wade reviews Peter O'Neill's poetry collection Henry Street Arcade addresses the character of the flaneur to the backdrop of Dublin’s streets and architectural mismatches.https://t.co/vUj36HhdZa@broadsheet_ie @wadeinthewate11 @Andrea_Rey48 @Elzobub #flaneur
— CassandraVoices (@VoicesCassandra) July 3, 2021
No Stranger to Tests of Character
Yet Paul is no stranger to such haphazardly-inflicted tests of character. His personal history, a crucial spur to the overall composition and recording of ‘Life on Earth’, is riddled with such tests. Paul is a proud member of Dublin’s gay community and has been so from a very young age; the album serves as something of a songbook for the gay experience as Paul knows it, contemplating the length and breadth of social change that has occured within Irish society over the last two decades.
After singing at family gatherings and being encouraged to sing his local choir upon his discovery that he had effortlessly perfect pitch, Paul turned his musical attentions to guitar and piano before eventually joining up with John Butler, with whom he formed the electronic synthpop duo BiaZarre. Their first single ‘A Better Place/The Colour of Rain’, recorded in Windmill Lane, was released as a double A-side in 1989. “It did well on the Irish airwaves for most that year,” Paul recalls. “Or, at least, it was on the radio every day for at least a month. We played gigs in Sides DC, Blondes on Leeson Street. We were very influenced by synthpop, all that New Romantic styliings, which, little we realise at the time, was starting to go out of fashion.”
As it turns out, the first of that single, ‘A Better Place’ is making something of a comeback along with its maker: it has received a full reimagining and recording on ‘Life on Earth’. There is a poignancy to this development, however; John Butler’s untimely death in 1998 is what the song pays ultimate tribute to.
Much more than just a collection of songs, the album stands as a social document,
Artifice has long been a part of Paul’s aesthetic and personal philosophy. While mostly an aesthetic choice, it was also in part a consciously-developed survival and defense mechanism The album, therefore, is coming thirty-plus years after he left music behind and when attitudes toward LGBTQ+ people began to undergo quite the seismic sea change, from decriminalisation to eventual acceptance in the form of the 2015 Marriage Equality Referendum, which saw same-sex marriage fully legalised within the Republic. In an op-ed for Northern Irish political weblog Slugger O’ Toole, written several days after that historical day, Paul writes:
Those I had held in check for at least a couple of decades came freely and easily. Without any sobbing. They were simply tears of relief. And joy. It was now safe to cry. What had once seemed impossible was finally and unarguably here. Yet taking it all in was practically impossible… After a dirty tricks campaign against equality that must surely have reminded every LGBT person in the land of both the latent, and the blatant, homophobia that had followed several audible paces behind them through their lives, honesty and decency had won. The people of Ireland had seen through the thick smog of lies, distractions and fear mongering to the dawn of a new day.
This is not to say equality for queer people has been fully achieved: at the time of writing, the homophobic double-murder of Aidan Moffitt and Michael Snee in Sligo in mid-April still confounds the nation. Such an act of brutality serves as an unfortunately harsh reminder that small, if insidious, pockets of ignorance continue to blight Ireland’s supposedly enlightened socio-cultural landscape. Renewed calls for a comprehensive Hate Crime legislation have been made by organisations such as LGBT Ireland in the wake of the murders.
Fittingly on #Bloomsday Russian-born writer based in Ireland Polina Cosgrave describes Kevin Higgins as the Daniel Kahneman of poetry in her review of his new volume of poetry Ecstatic.https://t.co/Wk18upjU1k@polina_reprint @KevinHIpoet1967 @corourke91 @danieleidiniph1
— CassandraVoices (@VoicesCassandra) June 16, 2022
Violent Homophobia in ’80s Ireland
For Paul, the spectre of overt, violent homophobia, so prevalent and normalised in Ireland throughout the ’80s when he first came of age, seems to once again rear its head, as if in a gesture of grotesque reminding: I haven’t gone away, you know.
In the aforementioned article, Paul writes: ‘Back then, the fight for expression of identity was a huge battle that I personally had waged upon my world and theirs. The heterosexuals. The grand majority. Aged seventeen I was now illegal but I wore my queerness like a suit of armour. Making myself highly visible and inscrutable all in one smart move. And it worked for me. But only up to a point. One had to run the gauntlet of a very real series of dangers, threats and annoyances. People mumbled discreetly about the young man [Declan Flynn, who was gay-bashed to death in Fairviw Park in September of 1982] who had been beaten to death in a park just a few years before. Ireland was a place entrenched in a deep mire of homophobia and gay love truly was consigned to the shadows. Love was not fit for public consumption, if you were queer.’
This same darkness, very real and very destructive, is one he wishes to stand against with ‘Life on Earth’. Paul remembers a time when the process of coming-out was (and for many, remains), a deeply painful experience; when the homophobic stigma endured by gay men of his generation was the norm. Ireland in the late ’80s was a far cry from the world of today where the first openly gay Taoiseach was elected into office and rainbow flags adorn virtually every shop front during Pride month.
The shame of being fundamentally unloveable over a perceived sense of difference is quite a universal one, but one felt acutely by many LGBTQ+ people, past and present. Arguably, it is actively manufactured by a society still slowly unloosening itself from the socially conservative trappings of the Church.
It must be noted at the time that homosexual activity remained illegal in Ireland. Reprehensible as its existence may seem to the contemporary mind, the infamous the Offences against the Person Act, 1861 (“the 1861 Act”) and the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885 (“the 1885 Act”) threatened a life sentence of penal servitude and a decade-long sentence of same respectively (itself an outdated concept and judicial practise even by late twentieth-century standards) for what each referred to as acts of ‘buggery’.
By the mid-80s, according to Paul, these acts of legislation were not very effectively enforced. Speaking on the Extraordinary Souls podcast, hosted by Mark Haslam, he elaborates: “When I first started going to bars, they would have been raided by the guards and so forth. So men were not supposed to be having sex with men. The act was considered to be illegal on the statute books. That said, I don’t think the law was enacted very strongly. But… for a long time, myself and my friends were technically illegal by our very existence. At least, what we were doing and the gatherings we had were, technically speaking, illegal, because of our desire for one another. It’s simply another version of the many ways society moulds and shapes sexuality.”
Conversely, he also was never a stranger to that subterranean world that arose in covertly defiant response to the aforementioned laws: a world where queer people could mix and mingle freely, without fear. Moving through Dublin in the mid-80s, a city and era both markedly different to now in terms of attitudes to queer people, he discovered it was also home to a vibrant-if-underground gay scene, with queer-friendly nightspots such as Flickers, Sides DC and the George [the former two now long since gone]. Paul described such a scene as: “A tiny little world of lingering stares of furtive glances. Apparently, I was home. I had no idea what to make of my new home, but there I was, regardless.”
Sebastian Reynolds regards the facility to preserve sound over decades a truly magical phenomena. His Athletics EP draws on heartbreaking loss, running and more.https://t.co/0ulYCHkvHc@broadsheet_ie @BowesChay @BenPantrey @danieleidiniph1 @PindropMusic
— CassandraVoices (@VoicesCassandra) June 14, 2022
In his fascinating 2005 book The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man’s World, clinical psychologist Alan Downs, himself an openly gay man, writes: “One cannot be around gay men without noticing that we are a wonderful and wounded lot. Beneath our complex layers lies a deeper secret that covertly corrodes our lives. The seeds of this secret were not planted by us, but by a world that didn’t understand us, wanted to change us, and at times, was fiercely hostile to us.”
Paul knows this hostility, which, as Downs points out, was and remains systemically enshrined across much of the western world. As with many an artist before him, whether gay or straight, Paul’s own wounds feed into his work. Shame and pride go hand in hand for him, but it is not simply limited to his own experience. His track “Everything I Loved I Lost (That Day)” is a paean to his his long-dead father who, Paul movingly avers, did everything he could to ensure his children grew up knowing they were loved.
“My dad was consigned to a 1940s industrial school in Glasnevin,” he tells me, “and only after he died did we discover the extent of his physical and psychological and other trials, simply because he was a poor child with no parents or guardians. Instead of turning his heart to stone, my father channeled all his terror and rage into ferociously loving and protecting his family. His heart turned to gold. Having lost both of his parents by the age of seven or eight his greatest fear was not being there for his children. And he always was. He stayed young both inside and outside and died swiftly without any fanfare and with tremendous dignity. I think he knew very well what it was to suffer adversity from all sides, but to keep going in the hope of a better day.”
This same desire to keep hope ever-enkindled and passed on to any and all who need it is one of the chief driving forces behind the album; at the same time, the wounds it seeks to remedy are rarely ever so easily healed. I am reminded of a line in a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, No Worst, There Is None, that I think applies to this question:
O the mind has mountains, mountains of fall:
Frightful, sheer, no man fathomed:
May hold them cheap who never hung there.
Essentially, it’s very easy to be cavalier, dismissive or even outright contemptuous of someone’s perceived vulnerability (“may hold them cheap”), especially if one has never undergone or been made aware of the other person’s struggle. Whether grief or worry or depression or extreme anxiety (“mind has mountains”), an inevitable toll is taken upon one’s emotional state, in turn affecting how they interact with the world.
Returning to Downs, he clarifies his point by saying: “Velvet rage is the deep and abiding anger that results from growing up in an environment when I learn that who I am as a gay person is unacceptable, perhaps even unlovable. This anger pushes me at times to overcompensate and try to earn love and acceptance by being more, better, beautiful, more sexy – in short, to become something I believe will make me more acceptable and loved.”
With ‘Life on Earth’, however, Paul will see the wounds caused and exaserbated by such rage finally overcome. My only hope is that it is the beginning of something better.
Feature Image Image: Billy Cahill


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Private James B Wade, served from 2/64 till he died of disease on 8/12/64 at Hatcher's Run Va. The 4th Massachusetts Cavalry was organized in Readville, Massachusetts beginning December 26, 1863 and mustered in under the command of Colonel Francis Washburn.The regiment was attached to Light Brigade, District of Florida, X Corps, Department of the South, to April 1864. Unattached, Department of Virginia and North Carolina, X Corps, XVIII Corps, XXIV Corps, and XXV Corps, Department of Virginia and North Carolina, to August 1865. Department of Virginia to November 1865. The 4th Massachusetts Cavalry mustered out of service on November 14, 1865 and was discharged at Boston, Massachusetts on November 26, 1865. First Battalion (Companies I, K, L, and M) was initially formed as Independent Battalion, Massachusetts Cavalry (formerly the 3rd Battalion, 1st Massachusetts Volunteer Cavalry). It was assigned to the regiment on February 12, 1864. McGrath's Creek, Cedar Run, March 1.
Ordered to Bermuda Hundred, Va. Operations against Fort Darling April 1216. Jordan's Crossing and Petersburg June 9. Siege operations against Petersburg and Richmond June 16, 1864 to April 2, 1865.
At Headquarters, Department of Virginia and North Carolina, June 21 to August 15, 1864. At Headquarters, X Corps, until December 1864.
Demonstration on the north side of the James River August 1320. Flusser's Mills August 1819. Company M detached at Harrison's Landing on outpost duty August 23, 1864 to March 1865.Before Petersburg August 24 to September 28. Chaffin's Farm, New Market Heights, September 2830. Harrison's Landing October 13 (Company M). Expedition into Charles City and Henrico Counties November 15.
Duty before Richmond until March 1865. At Headquarters, Department of Virginia and North Carolina, December 1864 to April 1865 (Companies I, L, and M). At Headquarters, XXIV Corps, December 1864 to April 1865 (Company K).
Appomattox Campaign March 28-April 9, 1865. Fall of Petersburg April 2. High Bridge, Farmville, April 67. Appomattox Court House April 9, Surrender of Lee and his army. Duty at Richmond until November.
Second Battalion (Companies A, B, C, and D) sailed from Boston for Hilton Head, S. On the steamer Western Metropolis March 20, 1864, arriving April 1. Picket and outpost duty at Hilton Head until June. Expedition to Ashepoo River May 2226 (2 companies).
Two Companies moved to Jacksonville, Fla. June 68, and served duty there until January 1865, participating in a skirmish at Front Creek July 15, 1864.Raid from Jacksonville upon Baldwin July 2328. Skirmish at South Fork, Black Creek, July 24. Mary's Trestle July 26. Raid on Florida Railroad August 1519. 2 Companies on duty at Hilton Head, S.
Expedition to John's Island, S. Operations against Battery Pringle July 49.
Expedition to Boyd's Neck November 2930. Battle of Honey Hill November 30. Expedition to Deveaux's Neck December 16. March to Charleston January 15-February 23, 1865. Potter's Expedition to Camden, S.
Occupation of Camden April 17. Boykin's Mills April 18. Denkin's Mills April 19. Beech Creek, near Statesburg, April 19. Duty in the Department of the South until muster out.
Third Battalion (Companies E, F, G, and H) sailed from Boston for Hilton Head, S. On the steamer Western Metropolis April 23, 1864, arriving April 27. Moved to Newport News, Va. May 13, then to City Point May 23, and duty there scouting, picketing, and on the fortifications until June 16. Duty at Bermuda Hundred until August 23.
Companies E and H at Headquarters of XVIII Corps June 16-December 4, and at Headquarters of XXV Corps December 1864 to April 1865. Company F at Headquarters of XXIV Corps December 1864 to April 1865. Company G detached at Yorktown and Williamsburg, Va.
August 23, 1864 to April 1865. Occupation of Richmond April 3, 1865 (Companies E and H). Company F on Appomattox Campaign March 28-April 9.Appomattox Court House April 9. Surrender of Lee and his army. The item "Civil War CDV Private James B Wade Hardwick Mass, 4th Mass Cavalry DOD" is in sale since Thursday, February 13, 2020. This item is in the category "Collectibles\Militaria\Civil War (1861-65)\Original Period Items\Photographs". The seller is "civil_war_photos" and is located in Midland, Michigan. This item can be shipped worldwide.

domain: history


SpaceX scores first successful Starship landingEuropost
US high-tech company SpaceX announced it had achieved in successfully landing its Starship prototype, Reuters reported. Before the safe touchdown, the company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, has conceded four failures which resulted in crashes and explosions on landing. The latest test involved a next-generation launch vehicle in south Texas.
It marked a key milestone for the private rocket company in its development of a resusable heavy-lift launch vehicle to eventually carry astronauts and large cargo payloads to the moon and Mars. The Starship SN15 blasted off from the SpaceX launch site in Boca Chica, along the Gulf Coast and reached its planned maximum altitude of 10 kilometres, then hovered momentarily before flying nose-down under aerodynamic control back toward Earth. Maneuvering itself back into vertical position under rocket thrust as it approached the ground, the 16-story, three-engine vehicle descended to a gentle touchdown on its landing gear. "We are down, the Starship has landed," SpaceX principal integration engineer John Insprucker said during live commentary for the flight.
A video feed of the landing showed flames continuing to burn at the base of the rocket after the engines cut off, but an automated fire-suppression system trained a steady stream of water onto the landing pad, eventually extinguishing the blaze. The flight came on the 60th anniversary of the first spaceflight by an American astronaut - Alan Shepard's launch on a 15-minute suborbital mission atop NASA's Mercury-Redstone rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. A first orbital Starship flight is planned for year’s end. Musk has said he intends to fly Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa around the moon with the Starship in 2023.


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A fan asked Harry if he'd yet heard 1989 and, though shouting to him while he was driving off, you can hear his answer through the rolled down window.
Guess what? He says he has heard the album and even throws a compliment Taylor's way, saying, "Yeah, it's good, isn't it?"
Thanks for asking, Directioner - and thanks for the answer, Harry. Rumors that Harry has defended Taylor's songwriting may not be that far off base, after all.
The fan shared the video on Instagram, writing: "I still can't believe this happened! #harrystyles #london #secretlocation #loveofmylife #omfg #imshaking"
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Gallery | One Direction On the Road Again Tour 2015

domain: celebrity


Bearings have become indispensable in engineering, automotive industry by helping reduce energy costs, improve productivity. Essentially bearings are meant to reduce friction and save energy. Different types of bearings are used in industry-ball bearings, roller bearings and plain bearings.
The bearings industry has been heavily dependent on imports as major players have global operations. Seeing the market potential in India, several multinationals have reigned supreme in this industry. The bearings industry is highly organized in India with small unorganized local bearings players catering to aftermarket or replacement segment of the industry.
With increased automobile production, automotive bearings demand is expected to grow rapidly in the next few years. Expanding middle class, rising disposable income leading to increased sale of vehicles and machines are positive for the bearings market. Deep grove ball bearing angular is the most preferred type of automotive bearings in India. Region-wise, north region is the largest demand generating region for automotive bearings in the country.
Amidst the positive growth trends, here is a look at the prospects of major listed players.
#NRB Bearings Ltd (BSE:530367, NSE: NRBEARING) Category:Small Cap
NRB Bearings was set up in 1965 and was the first company to manufacture needle roller bearings in India. Today it is recognized leader in needle roller bearings, conventional cylindrical roller bearings and has developed light weight drawn cup bearings. The company is led by the wonder woman Harshbeena Zaveri, Vice Chairman and MD who joined the company as a trainee in 1987. Now the company caters to global automotive majors such as Mercedes, Audi, Volvo, Daimler and Mazda.
The company has three subsidiaries-SNL Bearings, NRB Bearings (Thailand) Ltd and NRB Bearings Eurpoe GmbH. The company’s standalone net profit in the second quarter of FY18 rose to Rs 21.14 crore and in the third quarter registered an increase of over 170 per cent compared to the previous year.
The company’s revenues grew to Rs 727.59 cr in FY17 from Rs 674.93 cr the previous year while net profit rose to Rs 53.97 cr from Rs 41.99 cr. In Q4FY18, the net profits have risen 106.87% to Rs 26.79 cr while sales rose 24.72% to Rs 235.33 cr.
It has given a half-yearly return of 16.87%, 39.19% annual, return on equity of 17.02%, on assets 7.27%, net profit margin of 7.41%. It is trading at a Price Earnings Ratio (PE) of 19.09 and not expensively priced as industry PE stands at 36.14. On an annualized basis it has outperformed sensex by 25.885.
On technical charts, RSI of 44.80 indicates bearishness, ADX of 21 indicates range bound trade and MACD had witnessed a bearish crossover. Positive factors based on Q4 results are highest operating profit to interest-12.55%, net profit highest at Rs 26.79 cr.
Target: 175 Duration: 3 weeks
#SKF India Ltd (BSE: 500472, NSE: SKFINDIA) Category: Mid Cap
AB SKF was set up in 1907 while the Indian operations were started in 1923. It supplies products to 40 industries-bearings and units, seals, mechatronics, services and lubrication system. In India it has a 6 manufacturing facilities, 12 offices, a supplier network of over 300 distributors and an employee base of more than 2600 dedicated professionals. It has consolidated its operations in three companies namely, SKF India Ltd, SKF Technologies (India) Pvt Ltd and Lincoln Helios India Ltd.
Net sales in FY18 rose 4.5% (taking into account reclassification due to GST implementation) to
Rs 2804.8 cr as against Rs 2835.5 cr the pevious year. Net profit rose to Rs 295.9 cr as against Rs 243.9 cr the previous year.
Q4FY18 net profit rose 23.59% to Rs 71.56 cr while sales rose 7.63% to Rs 703.64 cr. Earnings per share has risen to 13.90. Half yearly returns are 3.88% and yearly 12.39%. Return on equity 13.46%, assets 111.50%, net profit margin 9.26%. Liquidity and cash flow ratios are also attractive. It is trading at a PE of 30.75, indicating higher valuation by market. Highest net sales and 27.97% growth in net profit, highest return on capital employed at 23.96% make it attractive.
On technical charts, MACD has witnessed a bullish crossover, RSI of 62 indicates bullishness and ADX of 23 indicates range bound trading.
Target: 1805 Duration: 4 weeks.
#Bimetal Bearings Ltd (BSE: 505681) Category: Small Cap
Bimetal Bearings Ltd belongs to the Amalgamations Group, one of India’s largest light engineering conglomerates. The company is a leading manufacturer of engine bearings, bushings, thrust washes, alloy powder and bimetallic strips. It was established in 1961 in collaboration with Clevite Inc, USA and Repco Ltd, Australia. It has seven manufacturing facilities spread out in Chennai, Coimbatore, Hosur, Chennai, Coimbatore and Hosur.
The company reported a net profit of Rs 1.74 cr in Q3FY18. Sales rose 51.78% to Rs 45.19 cr. It has given an annualized return of 34.03% to investors. It doesn’t fare well on financial ratios with return on equity of 2.49%, assets of 2.60%, net profit margin of 2.83%, while cash flow and liquidity present a mixed picture. It is trading at a PE of 18 indicating that it is moderately priced.
The net profit on a half yearly basis has grown 85.27% while return on capital employed was highest at 5.31%. With no interest cost, the company is nearly a zero-debt company. It has outperformed the Sensex on annualized basis by 20.63% and outperformed the bearings sector by 22.82%. With cash of Rs 8.17 cr, short term liquidity is growing and it reported the highest inventory turnover ratio on half yearly basis at 4.07 times. On the negative site with depreciation rising to Rs 1.19 cr in Q4, capital expenditure is climbing.
On technical charts, RSI of 67.54 indicates bullishness, while ADX of 33 denotes uptrend and MACD has witnessed a bullish crossover.
Target: 550 Duration : 2 weeks
The bearings industry in India had faced rough weather due to demonetization, GST implementation in the past two years but successfully overcome the crisis. Steady economic growth and increased in automobile demand have been the main drivers of bearings industry.
Over the past ten years, India has emerged as one of the most preferred locations in the world for manufacturing high quality auto components and vehicles of all kinds. The Industry has to be equally relentless in its pursuit of economies of scale and in scope of design and engineering of automobiles and components, while also pursuing low cost manufacturing destinations.
India Government has announced the Automotive Mission Plan (AMP) 2026 to help the Indian Automotive industry to focus on its strengths and improve its competitiveness in select segments and achieve the target of 12% contribution to National GDP. The leading players in this industry are all doing business on a global scale and investing in R&D to reduce costs for customer and their total cost of ownership.
Analysts expect the bearings market revenue to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.8% over FY15-19.
Investors can gain with a selective exposure to bearings market. Among the major players not covered in this analysis- Timken India and ABC Bearings are quite expensive at this point and several small caps don’t qualify for valuation.


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Joan McCallen is keeping order within the pension plans of the city of Alexandria and other local governments.
Ms. McCallen, 51, has been promoted to lead the ICMA Retirement Corp., a Washington nonprofit corporation that administers pension plans for public workers.
She worked with the company for almost seven years, as chief operations officer and executive vice president, before being tapped in June to replace President and Chief Executive Officer Girard Miller.
“I was originally hired as a potential successor, and the day finally came,” Ms. McCallen said.
ICMA, with 529 employees and $110 million in annual sales, sets up pension plans for local and state governments. The company’s largest customer is the state of Washington with 110,000 public workers participating in a savings retirement plan.
While her responsibilities have increased, Ms. McCallen said, the goals remain the same.
“Our organization is striving to be more customer-oriented. We plan to focus on how to best meet the needs of our customers during these tougher economic times,” she said.
Ms. McCallen said her most pressing challenge is encouraging public workers, many of whom are in low income-tax brackets, to participate in savings plans during a sluggish economy.
Many of those workers are feeling pressure from state and local agencies that are slashing budgets and cutting jobs to offset deficits, she said.
Scandals in the financial world, including a hedge-fund fraud case in New York, also have made workers wary about investing.
“But we’re in a good position because we can differentiate ourselves from other companies in the retirement sector,” Ms. McCallen said.
ICMA does not allow any institutional investment from big companies or hedge funds, large investments made by a select group of accredited investors often to insure against downturns in the market.
Peter Braun, chairman of ICMA’s board of directors, said the board considered only Ms. McCallen as a serious replacement.
“She was the best-qualified because she understands the mission and goal of the organization,” Mr. Braun said.
Ms. McCallen’s business plan, which focused on improving customer service issues, “shows her commitment to reinforce our original goals and that takes us in the right direction,” he added.
Ms. McCallen lives in Alexandria with her two golden retrievers.

domain: finance


text:
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn agreed Tuesday to delay his sentencing hearing in order to extend his cooperation with federal investigators.
Flynn, who admitted last December to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia, is the highest-ranking former Trump official facing charges in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The former Army general was the also the first senior Trump official to cooperate in the probe.
The charge: In December 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI about his contact with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during Trump’s presidential transition period after the 2016 election. In his plea agreement, Flynn agreed to cooperate fully with federal prosecutors in the Russia probe and acknowledged that he could be sentenced to federal prison for up to five years.
Sentencing memos: The special counsel, Flynn’s attorneys and the probation office agreed in separate memos that Flynn should receive a lenient sentence. But Sullivan is not bound by these recommendations, and can impose a sentence of up to five years in federal prison.
- Mueller recommended Flynn receive little to no jail time in exchange for his “substantial assistance” in at least three investigations. Flynn sat for 19 interviews with federal investigators and provided information about contact between the Trump administration transition team and Russian officials.
- Flynn’s attorneys asked for a sentence of up to one year of probation and 200 hours of community service. They argued that Flynn’s long career in the military, acceptance of responsibility for his crime, and cooperation with the Mueller investigation merited leniency.
- Federal sentencing guidelines recommended a sentence of zero to six months in prison.
In court today: Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia told Flynn that he “arguably sold his country out” while working as an unregistered foreign lobbyist, and suggested that Flynn had not yet done enough to avoid prison time. But Sullivan offered Flynn a chance to delay the sentencing in exchange for cooperating further with federal investigators, and Flynn agreed.
Is it unusual to postpone a sentencing hearing? Halting a sentence hearing midway is unusual, but not unheard of, said Jessica Roth, a law professor at Cardozo School of Law and a former federal prosecutor. “Judge Sullivan is a very independent minded judge,” Roth said. “I’m not surprised he came to his own opinion about what would be an appropriate sentence in this case.”
Another chance to cooperate? On Monday, federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted two of Flynn’s former business associates for failing to register as foreign lobbyists on behalf of Turkey. Flynn may have already provided information in this case — Roth said this is likely listed in the redacted section of Mueller’s sentencing addendum — but the delay in his sentencing allows Flynn to provide more assistance to federal prosecutors. “Testifying is significant,” Roth said. “Merely providing information to get an indictment is one thing. It’s even more assistance to prosecutors [to be] a witness.”
What’s next? Sullivan ordered Flynn’s attorneys and federal prosecutors to submit status reports on March 13, 2019. At that point, Sullivan could schedule another court appearance or sentencing date.

domain: law


text:
Studies have shown that our brains are resistant to change: we don’t like it, we don’t want it and—more often than not—will thwart it every chance we get. Who wants to trade routine and contentment for something different and uncomfortable? Well, that person just might be you. Whether life dictates that it is time for a significant swerve or you feel restless and ready for an about-face, here are five signs that your current situation may be ready for a redo.
Do you have trouble enjoying things you used to be passionate about? Do you remember the last time you laughed out loud or felt joyful? Feeling numb means we’ve lost the motivation and zeal for excitement and are not living our lives to the fullest. Rejuvenate your spirit by picking up a beloved hobby, learning a new one or grabbing a friend and making new memories.
It’s Brutal Out There
Feeling constantly criticized at work? Is the negativity of friends bringing you down? It might be time to invite change into your life. Your job should be a place where you excel and feel challenged. Your go-to-gals should always be supportive and want the best for you. Remaining positive when your surroundings aren’t is a complex and clear signal that something’s got to give. People and places that drain your energy mean your untapped potential is withering, and that’s not living a life that’s fulfilled.
If you find yourself daydreaming and reminiscing, it could be because you’re struggling to live in the present. Remembering events of long ago can be a clear picture of what was, while the present or future can be stressful and uncertain: who knows what will happen next? If today and tomorrow feel too overwhelming, fear creeps in where opportunity and excitement should be. You cannot go back, yet you can always restart and move forward.
Letting go of our history is complicated. Sometimes it feels more effortless with a New Year’s resolution or a major life change, not out of the blue on a Tuesday. Yet perhaps that is when the moment happens in your life for a reason. Our memories make up who we are. Honoring those times in your life for serving their purpose makes it easier to enter a place that’s ripe and ready for change. Being brave and taking risks is hard. You might fall; you might spread your wings and fly. You’ll never know if you don’t try.
Ready to Go
No more playing it safe. You’re ready to step out of your comfort zone because that’s how you know you’ll move ahead. Even if it means starting over, this new challenge is one you want to take on. You meet trepidation with an overcoming can-do attitude. You’re ready, sister. Go make it happen!
Sources: Psychology Today, Lifehack and Thrive Global
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domain: literature


I know I’m a little bit late to this, but about a week ago the writer Alexandra Rowland wrote a long twitter thread criticizing Beau Brummell. This thread was then adapted into an article for Esquire. The author raised some good points but I also think they missed some important aspects of Brummell’s legacy. Seeing as I’m a Brummell buff and I even sell the beautiful Fratelli Mocchia di Coggiola Brummell shirt depicted above in my shop, I wrote this response as a letter to the editor at Esquire.com. They never responded, so I’m publishing it here on my blog. I hope it adds a different and valuable perspective to the discussion.
My name is Nathaniel Adams and I’m the co-author - with the photographer Rose Callahan - of “I am Dandy: The Return of the Elegant Gentleman,” and “We Are Dandy: The Elegant Gentleman Around the World.” I don’t think it’s unfair of me to say that I’m one of the world’s experts on the subject of dandies and dandyism. I gave a TEDx talk on fashion and free speech a few years ago and I’ll be speaking at Disneyland in a few weeks on the subject of Style and Empowerment.
It is in the spirit of this last topic that I would like to respectfully respond to Alexandra Rowland’s vigorous takedown of Beau Brummell. I’m afraid that their characterization of him as a stuffy uptight conservative misses the point of why he matters and why his legacy can be seen as a radical and pro-experimental one, rather than the opposite, as they argue. Personally I’m a relatively flamboyant dresser who embraces lots of color and the other things Rowland claims Brummell tore out from the masculine sartorial vocabulary, and I - and many of the hundreds of dandies from all over the world from Tokyo to Johannesburg whom I’ve interviewed (who range from conservative to flamboyant in their personal tastes but all bespeak elegance and beauty in male style,) - see Brummell as a kind of mascot of sartorial liberation rather than a historical gatekeeper of conformity.
Beau Brummell was indeed a jackass by many standards - he was rude, he took great pleasure in cutting people down, he liked to start rumors about things like him polishing his boots with champagne, and he did set the style of his time and was fanatical in his fastidiousness. Whether you see value or vice in these things is a matter of degree and opinion. The dandies of the Regency were admittedly pretty frat-boyish - they spent most of their time gorging themselves on food and wine, gambling away fortunes, going to prizefights, and visiting prostitutes. But to say that men were expressing themselves more through their style before Beau Brummell is exactly backward. Before Brummell, men were mainly expressing wealth and social status through their jewels and fine threads, beautiful and glittering though they may have been. After Brummell the clothes, their cut, and their arrangement became the actual medium of expression, rather than a mere billboard for affluence. Brummell turned dressing itself into an art and intellectual exercise in its own right. And since then Brummell’s radical use of masculine elegance as a kind of power has been employed to great effect by all kinds of men - including and especially marginalized ones - from Oscar Wilde and Jack Johnson in the last two centuries to the Sapeurs of Brazzaville and the Mr. Erbil club of Iraqi Kurdistan today.
Rowland has most of their facts on Brummell straight - and I agree with their assessment that he was probably a big old jerk - but I think they've missed what the actual legacy of Brummell as an icon is and what his name and gift for innovation (even if it was an innovation of subtlety,) means to men like me and many others around the world who strive to proudly carry on the tradition of dandyism as a radical sartorial choice.
I'm glad to see so many different people debating the significance of someone like Brummell and the meaning of dandyism, but it can be tempting to make a 200 year-old historical figure into a caricature or easy target for blame because of his unlikeable personality or without reckoning with the broader implications of the legacy of his life's work. I remain hopeful that people like me and Rowland who clearly share a belief in and love of sartorial self-expression can continue to have meaningful discussions on who deserves what place in the historical pantheon of fashion while simultaneously uniting agains the Athlesiure Class that threatens to drown us all in drab spandex.
Nathaniel “Natty” Adams


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The combination of incredible views, generous living spaces, outdoor hot tub and our Classic catered service have made Roc Soleil one of our most popular chalets.
Chalet Roc Soleil has a modern twist to a traditional timber and stone build. Tucked away in a secluded location, the property enjoys peace and privacy away from the bustling village, which is only a 10 minute walk away. Taking advantage of Roc Soleil’s south facing elevated position, the uninterrupted mountain views are breathtaking. These are maximised by the chalet’s floor to ceiling windows, terrace balconies and perhaps best of all, a concealed open air hot tub.
With 1 double, 2 family rooms and 1 triple bedroom available the chalet has flexibility to accommodate in comfort groups of friends and families of between 8 and 11 guests.
- Log Fire
- Outdoor Hot tub
- Games/DVD/hifi with iPod dock
- Sun terrace and garden
- Covered parking area
- 4 bedrooms – 1 x triple (en-suite), 1 x double (en-suite), 2 x double (shared bathroom)
- Spacious open plan living and dining room with spectacular panoramic views
- 500m from Super Morzine telecabine and town centre
We are passionate about the service we provide, we listen to our guests and take inspiration from all areas of hospitality to ensure that we are at the forefront of the industry. Every detail of your holiday is important to us and our whole team are motivated to impress and exceed your expectations.
Chalet Roc Soleil is part of our Classic Collection and benefits from a service that has been tailored to help you indulge in your holiday.
- Wake-up drinks brought to your bedside
- Selection of superior house wines
- Bottled beers, fizzy drinks and mixers*
- Selection of fine wines and champagnes available from our cellar*
- Canapés and kir royales served on your first and last evening
- Pre-dinner drinks and nibbles served each evening
- 3-course evening meal served with a selection of house wines
- Selection of local cheeses and port after dinner
- Selection of cooked breakfast options and continental buffet
- Daily Freshly baked afternoon tea
- Minibus service between the chalet and slopes operating from 8am to 10.30am and 3pm and 6pm
- We are able to organise airport transfers on your behalf half (additional cost applies) please enquire for pricing details*
- Personal booking service tailored to your groups requirements
- Daily house-keeping and hotel clean of bedrooms
- Helpful and attentive chalet staff responsive to your needs
- Soft Towels with mid-week towel change
- The White Company Toiletries
- In-house massage service*
- In-house ski and boot fitting in the comfort of your own chalet*
*Additional cost payable at the end of your stay

domain: travel


text:
Japanese worker complaints fester at US bases during COVID-19 pandemic, union chief says
Stars and Stripes March 3, 2022
Stars and Stripes is making stories on the coronavirus pandemic available free of charge. See more stories here. Sign up for our daily coronavirus newsletter here. Please support our journalism with a subscription.
TOKYO — Workplace disputes involving Japanese employees at U.S. military bases in Japan are being drawn out due to staff shortages and people working from home during the coronavirus pandemic, a union representative recently told Stars and Stripes.
There have been several reports in recent months of Japanese workers alleging mistreatment at U.S. bases near Tokyo.
At Camp Zama, headquarters of U.S. Army Japan near Tokyo, a pair of clerical workers at an aviation battalion filed claims with the Atsugi Labor Standards Inspection Office in September and December, the Yomiuri newspaper reported Feb. 5.
They are accusing their supervisors of “power harassment,” a type of workplace bullying that often involves someone in a more senior position asking lower-ranking employees to do things outside their job description, causing emotional or physical harm.
In December, the Tokyo District Court ordered the Japanese government to pay $4,840 to a Japanese worker at Naval Air Facility Atsugi to settle her claim of “verbal abuse and other forms of harassment” by her American supervisor, The Mainichi newspaper reported Dec. 14.
The court ruled that Japan is responsible when the U.S. military violates its obligations to workers' safety, because the military is exempt from civil lawsuit jurisdiction under international customary law, according to the report.
The regular turnover of U.S. managers and a shortage of Japanese personnel officers with experience handling such cases slows the resolution of workplace complaints, All Japan Garrison Forces Labor Union president Satohiro Konya told Stars and Stripes during an online interview Feb. 9.
The union represents about 25,000 Japanese workers on U.S. bases and another 15,000 workers nationwide.
Most issues are solved at the local level, often simply by talking, and few reach the national union, Konya said.
The union hasn’t noted an increase in disputes involving base workers but there are issues related to the pandemic, Konya said.
Some complaints are exacerbated because many employees are teleworking, he said. For example, it may be tougher for workers to schedule in-person meetings to talk about problems since staff may not be in their offices.
The U.S. military’s Japanese employees are in a unique situation. They’re hired by the Japanese government but work for the U.S. forces. In the event of workplace disputes, the union negotiates with the Japanese government, which then negotiates with the U.S. military, Konya said.
That can lead to miscommunication, he said. Something that’s considered harassment in the United States may not be under Japanese regulations.
“There are some differences in perspective,” he said.
Talks involving all three parties would help, and even casual discussions and more interaction would also be helpful, especially in building trust, Konya said.
Unfortunately, too few Japanese government personnel officers have experience dealing with the U.S. military, Konya said.
“There have been some cases which could have been less complicated if counseling had been given at an earlier stage,” he said.
The transfer of administrative work related to the management of Japanese base workers from local governments to a national organization has meant fewer staff dealing with personnel issues, Konya said. Cuts of national government workers due to reforms has also caused staff shortages.
Likewise, limited tours, usually between three and five years, for some U.S. personnel overseas means less familiarity with Japanese rules for managing their Japanese employees.
An appropriate work environment is an important part of the U.S. forces’ mission in Japan, a spokeswoman for Japan’s Ministry of Defense said Feb. 16. Japanese government spokespeople typically speak to the media on condition of anonymity.
“Based on such thought, the Ministry of Defense has worked on solving issues appropriately as we have been holding plenty of talks between Japan and the U.S. in order to secure an appropriate labor environment and employment stability for the workers,” the spokeswoman said.
Building a relationship of mutual trust between U.S. forces, Japanese employees and the Japanese government is important so that issues can be solved early, and management can be streamlined, the spokeswoman said.
“We are currently coordinating to be able to hold talks between the three parties,” she said.
Japanese base workers enable daily operations necessary for the security of Japan, U.S. Forces Japan spokesman Air Force Maj. Thomas Barger said in a Feb. 23 email to Stars and Stripes.
“Japanese employees at US installations throughout Japan are vital to overall mission success and are often the first ‘ambassadors’ to Japan encountered by US servicemembers and their families stationed in Japan,” he said. “As vital and valued team members in the US-Japan Alliance, we remain committed to working together to ensure any concerns are heard and resolved appropriately.”

domain: news


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In addition to voting for Mayor and six Councillors in this October’s municipal election, Kimberley residents will also be asked to approve the City’s borrowing for the replacement of the waste water treatment plant.
A couple of weeks ago council approved the wording of the question to be put in front of Kimberley residents. It will read:
“Are you in favour of City Council adopting the City of Kimberley Wastewater Treatment Plant Loan Authorization Bylaw No. 2703, 2022, which authorizes the City of Kimberley to borrow up to thirty five million dollars ($35,000,000) to be repaid over a period not to exceed thirty years (30) in order to finance the costs of constructing a wastewater treatment facility and associated infrastructure?”
While the entire $35 million may not be needed, that borrowing will be authorized in case of unexpected costs.
The project has had plenty of unexpected costs since the city decided it couldn’t wait longer on replacing the aging treatment plant, which already requires certificates from ministries in order to keep operating. It has been deemed by the BC Ministry of Environment as “one of the highest risk sewer treatment plants in the East Kootenays due to its age, lack of redundancy and the risk of potential to recreational waters, downstream water uses and the discharge to trans boundary waters from upset conditions and equipment failure.”
It is expected that grant funding will cover 73.33 per cent of the total cost or $69,825,101. The city will cover the other 26.67 of costs as well as 26.67 of the offsite works.
A grant application was submitted to the ICIP Environmental Quality Program in February of 2022.
The ICIP Program Guide associated with the grant application indicates that the approval or denial of the application will not be announced until the Spring of 2023. Despite the deferred timing of the grant announcement, the City is required to go through the long-term borrowing process to be prepared for the eventuality that the grant may be approved which would allow the WWTP project to proceed, CAO Scott Sommerville told council in a report.
The referendum/assent voting will take place at the same time as the municipal election.
Advance Voting Opportunities:
• Wednesday, October 5, 2022 at Centennial Hall; and
• Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at Centennial Hall. General Voting Day:
• Saturday, October 15, 2022
Much more information on the WWTP replacement project is available at engagekimberley.ca


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- Six NTSA officials were arrested after it emerged that they had been allegedly assisting criminals to erase details of genuine vehicle owners from the NTSA system
- In the first case, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations established that the suspects defrauded a lorry owner of about KSh 2.6 million
- In a second case two NTSA officials were taken in for questioning after detectives busted a cyber cafe in Nairobi and recovered over 450 logbooks
At least six staffers at the National Transports and Safety Authority (NTSA) have been arrested in an intensified crackdown on unscrupulous employees working in cahoots with criminals.
The six were separately arrested on Friday, December 17, after it emerged that they had been allegedly assisting criminals to erase details of genuine vehicle owners from the NTSA system.
In the first case involving four NTSA officers, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) established that the suspects defrauded a lorry owner of about KSh 2.6 million.
The lorry owner, Gideon Kiarie, died before completing making monthly instalments prompting his son to put the lorry on sale.
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He was approached by Frederick Kilonzo who expressed interest in buying the vehicle by writing him two bouncing cheques worth KSh 1.3 million.
By the time the owner realised the cheques could not be honoured, Kilonzo had tampered with the lorry’s tracking system and courted new buyers.
Kilonzo also allegedly erased ownership details Kiarie and Cooperative Bank which financed the purchase of the lorry, from the NTSA portal.
The new documentation instantly earned Kilonzo a loan of KSh2.8 million from MyCredit limited. The lorry was later auctioned by MyCredit limited at KSh4.5 million within 10 days.
In a second case two NTSA officials, Simon Musembi Sammy and Richard Otieno Ojwang were taken in for questioning as a manhunt for a number of suspects working at the NTSA intensified.
The two were busted at a city cyber cafe located in Ngara where over 450 genuine logbooks were also recovered.
Detectives established that the suspects illegally develop affidavits and commissions them before they are sent to contacts at NTSA for forced transfer of motor vehicles.
The thugs develop falsified importation documents from a renowned car dealer and ETR receipts to facilitate expeditious change of motor vehicle engines.
During the raid, a motorist who had come to collect his logbook was nabbed after police officers discovered that his vehicle chassis number had been tampered with.


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Welcome everyone! It’s time for the May release from Picket Fence Studios!
My first card features the new A Rose stamp set with this large floral image.
I heat embossed my image onto watercolor card stock and watercolored with a Karin Brush Pro Marker. I used the single color Cerise 375 and a paintbrush.
The background was created by dry embossing the Basket Weave stencil onto Arctic card stock.
I tied off with a sentiment heat embossed in Gold onto Black card stock. The sentiment comes from the Bird of Paradise Flower stamp set.
Grab your sunglasses because this next card has some serious shine! I’m featuring the gorgeous new Fleur Di Lis Stencil. I added this stencil to a white background by applying Thermoweb Transfer Gel Duo.
Once dry, I applied Glittering Green Foil and ran through my die cut machine. The new Duo formula allows me to attach foil without a laminator. The pressure from the die cut machine adheres the foil and I have a gorgeous sparkly card!
I finished off the card with a small sentiment from the stamp set My Man My Friend and added to a card base created with Key Lime card stock.
I always wanted to try stamping with a stencil and so that’s the technique I have with the new Spliced Heart Stencil.
I ink blended Picked Raspberry, Candied Apple, Abandoned Coral and Wild Honey Distress Oxide Inks. Next, I spritzed my stencil with water and laid it down on my background. I covered it with a paper towel to soak up an excess water and waited a couple minutes.
Once this was dry, I stamped a cute little sentiment from the stamp set Peach & Piper Checking the Post.
The last card I’m sharing with you today is perfect for Father’s Day! This is the new Dad’s Day stamp set featuring an oversized burger image (other then the tomato) looks oh-so-yummy!
Hope you enjoyed today’s inspiration! Be sure to check out the full release over at Picket Fence Studios!
Below you will find links to the products used. Click the icon to start shopping. Compensated Affiliate links are used at no additional cost to you. Your support helps me to keep bringing you new projects and videos. Thank you!
That rose is absolutely lovely. Great color.

domain: artistic


text: Today Rory ate her first bowl of real cereal! She dined on Rice Krispies, and loved them. She even had a refill! We knew she would be a cereal lover, and it gives us yet another thing she will eat for breakfast (the other items being yogurt of any flavor, waffles, and pancakes). I have yet to get her to eat eggs, but I am not giving up!

domain: food


BENTONVILLE -- The City Council on Tuesday night voted to set a bond election for capital projects.
The special election will be April 13. Residents will be asked to approve up to $266 million in bonds by extending a 1% city sales tax.
Capital projects voters will be asked to approve include $160 million for streets, $30 million for parks and recreation, $18 million to address drainage issues, $6 million for radio communications, $4.5 million for library expansion, $3.5 million for a fire training facility and $1.4 million for a police training facility, according to the city.
Eighty percent of the revenue raised by the city's 1% city sales tax goes to repay bonds and 20% goes to ongoing capital needs. The city would maintain the same ratio if the sales tax is extended, according to Jake Harper, city director of finance and administration.
The city would use part of the $266 million in new bonds to refinance about $23 million in current bonds. Refinancing the debt allows the city to issue the new bonds using the 1% sales tax, Harper said.
City voters in 2007 passed a $117.9 million bond issue. The city issued four series related to that bond issue in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2017, Harper said. The debt is from the last three series, he said.
The 1% sales tax would expire in 2046. The tax brings in about $15 million a year.
The ballot would include nine questions for voters -- one question to authorize the sales tax extension, one to authorize the bond refunding and seven for individual projects.
A city website dedicated to the bond issue will go live today. Information can be found at www.BentonvilleBond.com .
Mayor Stephanie Orman gave her state of the city address at the end of the meeting.
Orman said city staff faced many challenges in 2020. "Adjusting to a pandemic was and continues to be challenging, but our employees have gone above and beyond. Most notable, we created and executed a pandemic plan," she said.
Orman mentioned the launch of Bentonville Together with listen, learn and lead steps to help make the city more welcoming and bring a greater awareness of mutual respect among our staff and community members.
Bentonville also continues to be recognized as a top destination for regional, national and worldwide travelers, Orman said.
"Bentonville has become the cultural hot spot in the heartland," she said. "We are very appreciative of private entities that have invested in our city and offer such amazing amenities as the world-renowned Crystal Bridges Museum, Museum of Native American History, newly opened in 2020 contemporary art space in The Momentary, the Scott Family Amazeum children's museum and, of course, the Walmart Museum. We are also thankful for the city's partnership with Visit Bentonville in promoting our city."
Bentonville's 2020 sales tax receipts increased 9.3% compared to 2019 collection, she said. The city's 1-cent sales tax eclipsed $16 million for the first time in 2020, Orman said.
A main focus for the city's transportation team in 2020 was the revision of the Street Plan passed by City Council on Jan. 12, Orman said. The Transportation Department completed the widening of Southwest I Street last year, according to Orman's speech.
The Street Department repaired over 300 street cuts, cleaned 2 miles of drainage ditches, completed 2.6 miles of street crack sealing, added two new traffic signals and one set of pedestrian crosswalk signals. The Street Department also maintains 600 traffic lane miles of roads, 200 miles of sidewalks, 77 miles of open ditches and 123 miles of enclosed storm drains throughout the city, Orman said.
The Police Department dispatch center in 2020 received 69,239 dispatch calls for police service and handled 76,464 calls with police and fire service calls combined. The Police Department initiated and implemented a body worn camera program and policy.
"Overall, 2020 was consistent with previous years as there were no trends in criminal activity that should be cause for concern or impact the very safe community in which we live," Orman said.
There were 12,698 Fire Department service calls -- a 5% increase over 2019, Orman said.
The Building and Fire Safety Division saw a 2.6% increase in building permits, an 11% increase in permit fees and a 14% increase in permit value at over $529 million, Orman said.
The city Legal Department handled 2,733 new criminal and traffic cases in District Court in 2020, Orman said.
The covid-19 pandemic brought more people outdoors in 2020. The city trail system saw a 73% increase in users over the course of the year, which resulted in more than 3.5 million people walking, running or cycling on a public trail in 2020, according to the address.
In 2020, the library responded to the covid-19 pandemic in various ways to protect staff and patrons. The library closed to the public March 16 and essential staff worked from home and onsite as conditions allowed during the closing. Librarians developed and implemented a plan for phased services with specific protocols for staff workflows and patron use. On June 9, the library opened to the public in a phased capacity with established protocols, Orman said.
The Planning Department processed 365 projects, up 46% from 250 in 2019 -- the highest number of items coming through the department in 10 years, Orman said.
City staff use certificate of occupancy data to estimate the population. Bentonville's population estimate is 54,819 residents, an increase of 3.7% from 2019, Orman said.
"We, all of us together, are a city of hope, compassion, innovation and opportunity because of all of you who make a difference in a truly wonderful city we are fortunate to call our home," Orman said.
The Bentonville City Council on Tuesday night also:
• Repealed ordinance No. 2003-119 establishing a Criminal Nuisance Abatement Board. The board hasn’t met in several years, and issues are being resolved through District Court.
• Approved buying equipment for 14 budgeted Police Department vehicles. The vehicles will be provided by Superior Fleet and Commercial Sales in Siloam Springs.
• Declared 17 no longer in-service Police Department vehicles as surplus.
• Purchased a replacement pump from Jack Tyler Manufacturing for the McKissic lift station.
• Approved an agreement with the Centerton Waterworks and Sewer Commission. The agreement will allow certain subdivisions within Bentonville, but in Centerton’s water service area, to receive service from Centerton without requiring additional easements on the properties.
• Approved an agreement with Carroll Electric Co-op to purchase its infrastructure and accounts on Morningstar Road for $317,917.
• Approved a $466,500 contract amendment with Ecological Design Group to include the street design of Southwest Bright Road to Southwest 28th Street as part of the 28th Street Park project.


Bowie’s Elli Tsukano, setting the ball during the the varsity volleyball game between the Round Rock Westwood Warriors and the Bowie Bulldogs earlier this season, has helped Bowie to a perfect record in District 14-6A. JOHN GUTIERREZ / FOR AMERICAN STATESMAN
- Class 6A.
- Stony Point (34-6): Tigers have now lost two straight district matches, including a four-set loss to Round Rock Tuesday.
- Vandegrift (37-6): Vipers had bye, face Vista Ridge Friday.
- Westlake (26-15): Casey Campbell, younger sister of star middle Holly Campbell, had nine kills and two blocks in sweep of Lehman.
- Westwood (28-14): Now in sole possession of first in 13-6A, Warriors had a bye.
- Bowie (20-19): Dawgs stayed unbeaten in 14-6A with four-set win over Anderson.
- Class 5A
- Rouse (42-3): Winners of 26 straight matches, top-ranked Raiders had bye.
- Dripping Springs (31-12): Graceyn Tippens had 16 kills and Darby Stowers had seven blocks in sweep of Kerrville Tivy.
- Austin High (21-13): Callie Pate had seven aces in win over Reagan that clinched 25-5A title for Maroons.
- Cedar Park (26-17): Stayed tied with Cedar Creek for second in 19-5A with win over East View.
- Cedar Creek (30-12): Brooke Townsend fired 26 kills in four-set win over Bastrop.
- Class 4A and below
- St. Michael’s (21-2): TAPPS District 4-5A champs did not play, face St. Stephen’s Thursday.
- Liberty Hill (28-13): Panthers clinched 19-4A title with win over Salado.
- St. Stephen’s (19-9): Did not play.
- Round Rock Christian (25-6): claimed TAPPS District 4-3A championship by sweeping Central Texas Christian 25-22, 25-18, 25-17.
- Brentwood Christian (21-16): Stretched win streak to 11 as Jaclyn Wishard, Caroline Griffith each had 11 kills in win over Concordia.


ST. PETE BEACH – City commissioners voted unanimously April 8 to approve spending $22,279 for a pair of community workshops in Pass-A-Grille for input regarding design and development standards.
The workshops will be the first step toward setting guidelines to protect the architectural and historic heritage of the community.
The workshops will be conducted by Tampa-based Tindale-Oliver and Associates. Tentative dates are May 7 and May 21 at a site to be determined.
The workshops will be under the direction of Ginger Corless, a certified planner for Tindale-Oliver who has a lengthy background in such projects.
“Last year and earlier this year the commission decided to put aside some money to bring in some outside professional assistance in this area,” said St. Pete Beach City Manager Mike Bonfield. “I look at this as a first step to try to work with the community to really define and hone in what specifically what we’re trying to accomplish with this exercise.”
Bonfield said the focus would be on the structures, preserving old buildings and how new structures will be built.
Corless said she would like to develop an action plan that would start with a walk-through of the community later this month by herself and city leaders.
“Then we go to public forums where we would find out what people like and don’t like and build momentum very quickly,” Corless said. “And then in the second meeting, we’ll come back and explain what we heard (and ask) if we were correct.”
From those two meetings, Corless hopes to develop some steps and recommendations.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am for this item to be on our agenda,” said Commissioner Melinda Pletcher, who represents Pass-A-Grille. “Thank you so much.”
Pletcher said she initially questioned the $22,279 cost for a pair of meetings before she read further.
“That’s when I discovered it includes 187 hours of principal project planners, designers, graphic designers and integrating with our city staff, the historical board and most importantly the people of Pass-A-Grille,” Pletcher said. “We have a tremendous group of people who really care about where Pass-A-Grille is going.”
Commissioner Greg Premer agreed.
“I too balked at that $22,000 figure when I first looked at it,” he said. “But hats off to the city staff for finding someone of these qualifications to do something like this that’s so important to the city. I’m all for it.”
Commissioner Terri Finnerty also agreed it was money well spent.
“When I heard the project description, I realized it’s not a one-hour or two-hour deal,” Finnerty said.
“This is a nice step,” said Mayor Maria Lowe. “Spending $22,000 in my opinion is pennies compared to what we just invested for a small area study (of Corey Avenue).”
She added that the city needs a better comprehensive plan that includes all areas of the city. She said Pass-A-Grille wasn’t part of the current comprehensive plan.
“I could not be more disappointed than when I entered the historic board and recognized the comprehensive plan did not include a whole section of our city,” Lowe said. “It’s not comprehensive if it’s not the whole city.”
In other action, commissioners:
• Approved entering into an agreement with organizers of the Walgreen’s St. Pete Beach Classic road race events to allocate $12,000 for law enforcement and other services related to managing the racecourse. The races will be held Jan. 16-18, 2015.
• Named Pletcher vice mayor.
• Named Pletcher the city’s representative on the Pinellas County Flood Insurance Coalition.
• Named Lowe the city’s rep on the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council.
• Voted to allocate $25,000 to Pyrotecnico for Fourth of July fireworks and directed city staff to try to locate a barge for launching the fireworks, as opposed to launching them from Upham Beach.
• Approved $13,315 to Rowland Inc., to install reclaimed water taps to three landscape medians on Blind Pass Road.
• Approved spending $32,224 with Duke Energy for upgraded electrical lines at Lift Station 12. The original cost of the project was just over $47,000 but the city was able to negotiate the price down $15,000 by agreeing to trench and install the power line conduit. The expense is considered an emergency repair because Lift Station 12 is currently on bypass pumping.
• Approved a 1-year contract extension with Ashbritt Inc., for disaster debris removal following a hurricane.


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March 13, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – President Trump's offer to continue Planned Parenthood's federal funding if it stops committing abortions is “obscene and insulting,” the organization's president said in an email to supporters on Saturday.
“Planned Parenthood doesn't respond to bullying,” Cecile Richards wrote. “President Trump's offer to not 'defund' Planned Parenthood health centers if we turn our backs on people seeking abortion is obscene and insulting. It's also a sign that he knows just how unpopular it would be to block millions of people” from using Medicaid at Planned Parenthood instead of non-abortion health centers.
Richards wrote that Planned Parenthood is “doing everything we can to stop” the Republican Obamacare replacement bill.
“It blocks people on Medicaid from using their insurance at Planned Parenthood health centers, threatening access to care for millions of people,” she wrote.
“I've said this is the fight of our lives … and I mean it,” Richards' nervous email continuned. “At no time in Planned Parenthood's 100-year history have our patients' access to care been so threatened. At no time have lawmakers tried to divide us and turn us against each other as much as they are right now.”
“Make an emergency gift to protect Planned Parenthood patients' access to life-changing care,” the email suggested. Yes, the “care” Planned Parenthood provides is “life-changing,” all right – and life-ending for its preborn human patients.

domain: sociology