text:
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Shutter music
Ever since we started Keysound Recordings, I've strived to make the label art and music part of a whole. So when it came to illustrating Starkey's "Gutter Music" 12", the first release on the label not from London, I wanted something that both tied into the track and to Starkey's home town, Philadelphia.
On the wonder that is Flickr, I found this shot by Richard B Kohn, a US-based photographer and I reached out to him. As Starkey's "Gutter Music" 12" finally appears in shops, this is the story behind the striking images you see on the vinyl.
Blackdown: Can you tell me a bit about yourself as a photographer, when did you start?
Richard B Kohn: "As a person, I have been one who wanted to observe the world, especially the interaction of people in public settings as opposed let's say to sitting on a beach or exploring the ruins of Manchu Pichu. A natural extension is the photographic medium. At first the image becomes a souvenir, then refinements, technology, brings you to a level of sophistication as your technique matures in parallel to life experience.
I would now define my images as photo journalism concentrating on photo realism. Very few are genre based. My subject matter most often are urban street images, most involving live subjects interacting within their own comfort zone, really, I'm an observer of events. My concentration has been people at the margins of society, so many images reflect everyday situations within this strata.
The introduction of the digital image (over a decade now) significantly exploded the output possible for street photography. As long as I'm able and have the time, resources I will continue to wonder what interesting interaction I will have around the next corner."
B: Can you tell me a bit about this day's shoot...
RBK: "The two images illustrated on the Starkey 12" were taken in Kensington, Philadelphia , just North of downtown. Since the late 1970's the neighborhood has deteriorated into a working class ghetto when many industrial factories closed, leave unskilled laborers without means of support.
I chose to shoot the abandoned stolen car, 2001, to illustrate the surrounding structures with the usually bonus of the scattered but colorful toys all surrounded by some fresh snow.
I came across the boy, 2007, while observing a Puerto Rican Independence day parade. As an African American, he was just watching on the sidewalk. I was attracted to his self-assured cockiness, clothing, as good subject, the cheap fast food establishment, even the litter gave this image the urban ghetto id."
B: How did you come to find yourself in this part of Philadelphia?
RBK: "I actually found this part of Philadelphia by accident, when I was trying to drive to the city center on business. I became intrigued by the urban-ism, the overhead rail line, -the El-, the mix of people in the street - white, black, Hispanic - the overall dynamics and access to various characters, said, 'Shoot Me.'
Interestingly the neighborhood with its famous row houses, store front, old factory building's was on an economic comeback recently. The brick building behind the car in my photo now is a loft condo. The new realities of recent events might have slowed this comeback.
If you are interested in seeing Kensington illustrated during it's most depressed time, I recommend Eugene Richards's 'Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue'."
B: What did you enjoy and not enjoy about shooting there? What was it like?
RBK: "What do I enjoy, well, life. In most of American, the automobile rules, suburban shopping malls are everywhere. This atmosphere prevents casual interaction. The streets of NYC , a world capital are vibrant, Philly's main streets still have some of that urban edginess, but there is danger as well, drug dealings, shootings, prostitution, robberies...all the urban ills. One of my better shots highlights a well-known gruesome murder that made headlines nationwide a few years ago."
B: That shot is particularly striking. What have you been focusing on recently?
RBK: "I am lately meeting photographers from the East Coast that image UE or Urban Exploration. Most concentrate on structural ruins of the last century, such as hospitals, power stations, foundries, hospitals. I use these as props when I encounter subjects to shoot. Some fashion photography uses such locations as well."
"I have had feedback from a number of sources on my images including the NY Times, various UK sources including the Belfast media. I have documented the lives of street children in Moscow. This same group was featured in a prize winning, Oscar nominated short documentary, The Children of Leningradsky, 2004. I just got feedback from video images from my subjects from 2 different Belfast shoots from 5 years ago. I may want to revisit the subject and do a yesterday and today follow-up. Photography does have it's rewards.
· Richard B Kohn has lots more amazing images of Philadelphia on Flickr. He also has images on Picturepush. Starkey's Gutter Music ft Durrty Goodz is out now on Keysound Recordings.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Rinse March, WhyNot and FWD
Rinse FM this Thurs 11pm. You know what to do/get on the floor/do the do...
Then after that we're playing Why?Not on Saturday 28th @ Scala. On Sunday April 5th we're at the Roots of El-B launch party @ FWD>> alongside Kode9.
Dusk and I are kinda treating these two club sets as part of a whole and have been planning a strictly rollage set for FWD>>. The thinking is to play all the stuff from 2009 that comes from or is inspired by Ghost circa 2000.
As a consequence the Why?Not set should be built around the other elements of our usual set, namely grime, wonk and stripped back halfstep.
Dusk + Blackdown Rinse FM March 09
DOWNLOAD the set here
Shout to all the forum crew repping during the show...
Wiley "Ice Rink (Dizzee Rascal vocal)" (Eskibeat)
Wiley "Ice Rink (Kano vocal)" (Eskibeat)
More Fire Crew ft Dizzee Rasal "Still the Same" (Go! Beat)
Wookie "Battle (MJ Cole remix)" (Soul 2 Soul)
Bump & Flex "Long Time Coming" (Heat)
Durrty Goodz "Mr Street" (Ultrasound)
Starkey "Miracles (Jamie Vex'd remix)" (unreleased)
Zomby "Eskiwinter" (unreleased)
Ms Brat "Wheel ft Dizzee Rascal" (unreleased)
Gemmy "Rainbow Road" (unreleased)
Lava Unit ft Ms Brat, Badness, D.E.Velopment "What U Got Our Poket" (unreleased)
Noaipre "Hombre Bueno Pierde" (unreleased)
Ms Beats and Silkie "Purple Love" (unreleased Deep Medi)
Zomby "I Want You" (unreleased)
Tempa T "Next Hype (Starkey remix)" (unreleased No Hats No Hoods)
Vibzin "Digital Funk" (unreleased)
Trim "Titans ft Wiley" (Soulfood)
Desto "Disappearing Reappearing Ink" (unreleased)
Joker & Ginz "Re Up" (unreleased)
Blackdown "Beta" (unreleased)
Sbtrkt "Rekorder" (unreleased)
MRK1 "Magnetic Device" (unreleased Earwax)
Peverelist "Untitled" (unreleased)
VVV "Notice Luv" (unreleased)
Grievious Angel "Flu Virus (version)" (unreleased)
Kryptic Minds "Badman (aka Loefah v DMZ)" (unreleased)
Kryptic Minds "Dissolved" (unreleased)
Sbtrkt "Step in Shadows" (unreleased)
Kulture "Yes We Can" (unreleased)
Geiom "Eyl Booty" (unreleased)
Rapid "Report to the Dancefloor (Donae'o remix)" (unreleased)
Martyn "Electric Purring" (unreleased)
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Rinse:08 Alexander Nut
Nothing stings like a sucker punch. Swung from out of nowhere it connects and leaves you reeling, wondering what the hell hit you? Well mix CD Rinse:08 sees Alexander nut you fair and square between the eyeballs. And guess what: you never even saw it coming. I barely even saw it coming, and I've DJed after the man twice (at The End).
But Rinse:08 left me on the canvas seeing stars. It's a heavyweight, first round KO.
I go deeper into what's exceptional about this mix on the CD's sleevenotes, but stepping back I think one reason is a simple factor as "selection." Alexander has an ear for quality, much of which is unfamiliar yet grabs instantly. Flying Lotus, Hudson Mohawke, Morgan "Spacek" Zarate, Roots Manuva and Eric Lau all connect on a hip hop level. Then there's Joker, Rustie, Zomby and Pinch woven seamlessly together. Dancehall and r&b go into the blend too, but Bullion steals the show.
And yes, I know, no one likes the term "w*nky" right now, not the artists concerned especially since Simon Reynolds' K-clanger, but in many way this mix is the perfect encapsulation of what I saw when I first well-meaningly used the term: a seam of common innovation running through disparate multiple scenes: dubstep, grime, broken beat, hip hop and r&b.
In an era of access to unprecedented volumes of data, musical or otherwise, people complain the joy of discovery is being lost, that there are no more surprises anymore. Well all I'm saying is when you wake up with a purple bruise between your eyes don't come to me looking all surprised. You've just been Nutted.
· Download Alexander Nut's Rinse shows from their blog. He headlines his CD launch party this Sunday at FWD>> with support from Mark Pritchard/Harmonic 313, Joker and Youngsta. If that lineup doesn't somehow interest you, you're on the wrong blog. Move along, move along, nothing for you to see here...
Sunday, March 08, 2009
On the Origin of Scenes
Figure 1: Status quo
The musical scene is large and well established
Figure 2: Outbreak
Frustrated with the status quo, musicians migrate from the core
this could be any established genre
Figure 3: Shared values
Some of the musicians find common ground and create a new camp
this is the "what do u call it" moment, where the rate of change and posibilities are the greatest
Figure 4 & 5: Growth and influx
The new scene attracts an influx and grows
this is funky right now, dubstep three years ago, grime five years ago
Figure 6: Becoming the status quo
The scene becomes the status quo
And frankly, who wants to be Status Quo... only joking. ;)
The musical scene is large and well established
Figure 2: Outbreak
Frustrated with the status quo, musicians migrate from the core
this could be any established genre
Figure 3: Shared values
Some of the musicians find common ground and create a new camp
this is the "what do u call it" moment, where the rate of change and posibilities are the greatest
Figure 4 & 5: Growth and influx
The new scene attracts an influx and grows
this is funky right now, dubstep three years ago, grime five years ago
Figure 6: Becoming the status quo
The scene becomes the status quo
And frankly, who wants to be Status Quo... only joking. ;)
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Roots of El-B
Ammunition and Blackdown present... The Roots of El-B
1. Ghost "The Club"
2. Ghost "2000"
3. El-B "Express"
4. El-B "Show A Little Love feat. Simba & Juiceman"
5. Ghost "Lyrical Tempo"
6. El-B "Digital feat. Juiceman"
7. El-B "Buck n Bury (Original Mix) feat. Juiceman"
8. Zed Bias "Time Out (El-B Remix)"
9. Zed Bias "Neighbourhood (El-B Remix)"
10. Brasstooth "Celebrate Life (El-B Remix)"
11. El-B "Serious feat. Rolla"
12. El-B "Cuba"
13. El-B "Cruiser"
14. El-B "Amazon"
15. El-B "Among The Stars"
Nine years since it all began in Streatham, the king of new dark swing drops his longplayer. Tracklist and sleevenotes by me, design by Stu, hard graft by Soulja. Unfinished business duly finished.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)


text:
With our work using the Crysis Sandbox Editor ongoing in preparation for a tutorial we have finally managed to embed the city into the game, as the movie below illustrates.
Working out a smooth work flow has been slightly more problematic than planned with crashes and reboots an added 'feature' to the development. With a bit of patience however it does work. The movie above is work in progress but the engine is coping well with extending the city to almost the horizon.
Below is the city imported into the Oblivion Engine for way of comparison:
See our Oblivion Tutorial for the above, we should be able to get the first Crysis tutorial online next week....

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The company is selling the device, known as Project Glass, for $1,500 to people attending its annual conference in San Francisco for computer programmers. It will ship early next year and won't be available for sale outside the three-day conference, Google I/O, which started Wednesday.
"This is new technology and we really want you to shape it," Google co-founder Sergey Brin told about 6,000 attendees. "We want to get it out into the hands of passionate people as soon as possible."
Brin told reporters that Google intends to sell the glasses for significantly less once the product is released to the mass market. He said Google hopes to start selling the device to consumers in early 2014.
"I think we are definitely pushing the limits," Brin said during a question-and-answer session with reporters. "That is our job: to push edges of technology into the future."
With the glasses, directions to your destination or a text message from a friend can appear literally before your eyes. You can converse with friends in a video chat, take a photo or even buy a few things online as you walk around.
In development for more than two years, the project is the brainchild of Google X, the online search leader's secret facility that spawned the self-driving car and could one day let people ride elevators into space.
Isabelle Olsson, an engineer on the Glass project, said the company created the glasses for people to interact with the virtual world without distracting them from the physical world. It's designed to interact closely with your senses, without blocking them.
She said Google had two broad goals in mind: communications through images and quick access to information. The device has a camera to capture fleeting moments and allow others to see the world through your eyes.
Google demonstrated the device by having parachutists jump out of a blimp hovering about 7,000 feet above San Francisco. The audience got live video feeds from their glasses as they descended to land on the roof of the Moscone Center, the location of the conference.
Google had given a glimpse of the technology in a video posted earlier this year.


text:
When you make inquiries any bride concerning their wedding dresses they would always want to have a ideal dress.
They may not care about the classic or modern, simple or full skirted kind of dress but their designer dresses for wedding they want for their big day has to be perfect. How approximately checking some of the plan concerning a perfect designer dress for wedding:
You could find quite a few designer dresses like the ones that is made for wedding and the others like the designer cocktail dresses and zimmermann online dresses to simply name a few.
A Perfect Wedding Dress From A Competent Designer
All these are wonderful for the lady as per their requirements. But when you talk approximately some designer wedding gown you just would need simply one good dress that is ideal for everything like fabrics, fitting, comfort, pattern, design, etc.However, most of the brides regularly feel that they can have their own ideal dress but this can only happen in the fairy tales or over the romantic comedies even though in real world you would have need of loads of emotions to find out a fine dress.
At times you may not find the dress shown over the hanger that attractive but as you try out the same on your own you may end up realizing the real potential of the dress. Hence make sure you do not get discouraged easily while wearing out dissimilar dresses from admired Australian designers. The only thing that should come in your mind while wearing out these dresses is the elements that make these dresses perfect.
These take account of comfort, style, design, pattern and fitting. Hence if you see the dresses with so many straps bugging you then consider the other one, which can add both style and comfort element. Comfort is the first element, which are supposed to find out while hunting for a perfect dress.
Comfort is not simply fixing out some straps or pulling down your dress sleeves but it is also about moving very much freely inside your dress.
There are so many dresses, which may appear wonderful over the mannequins; however, it may be next to impossible to sit trying this for long. How about wearing out a dress in quite a few ways to get the suitable one.
These comprise sitting down, exhilarating across and even trying out some dancing steps while you try out the dress. For buying these dresses the best way to find is to tread online shopping but to get a ideal dress you need a reputed online store called Designer Forum. There are loads of wedding dresses out there over the online stores, and your wonderful one is simply waiting to be discovered.


text:
Raising Hens at Home
You don't need to be a farmer to have chickens. Keeping chickens for eggs in an urban setting is fun and educational for kids (and adults), provides companionship and access to fresh, nutritious eggs, and can even be useful for gardening. So what are you waiting for?
Why do people do it?
It is now well-established that chickens allowed to free range and supplement their diets with grasses and bugs produce tastier and nutritionally superior eggs. For instance, a Mother Earth News study in 2007 revealed that, compared to commercial eggs, pastured eggs contain 2/3 more vitamin A, 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids, 3 times more vitamin E, and 7 times more beta carotene.
But besides the better quality eggs, there are other good reasons to keep chickens.
For instance, Jacob Komisar, a teacher in New Haven, CT, spent over a decade as a vegetarian. He and his wife started keeping chickens as a way to provide ethically-raised, nutrient-dense animal protein (eggs) for their family and to educate their son about the proverbial circle of life.
Jacob explains, "I just believe that we've become entirely too disconnected from our food as a society. There was a time when every family had a few chickens (for both eggs and meat). It's not a big investment, and when compared to similar quality eggs and meat it's actually not any more expensive."
Only two of Jacob's chickens are currently laying and they produce about 10-12 eggs per week. The flock consumes about one $12 bag of feed per month (which he buys in bulk—6-month quantities at a time to save money), which brings the cost of the eggs to about $0.72 per dozen (that was not a typo—but it does take into consideration that 3/5 of the feed goes to the non-laying hens).
Is it practical?
The flock of five chickens that lives in the Komisar yard, the size of which Jacob describes as "typical for the very urban New Haven area in which we live," reside in a 12'x12' chain link dog run and sleep in a re-purposed cedar dog house (which he snagged for $10 on Craigslist) to which Jacob added nesting boxes and a roosting pole.
He has received nary a complaint from the neighbors: "The vegan-anarchists in an apartment on the other side think it's cool. There's an older lady who lives behind us who said that she grew up on a farm and liked seeing the chickens running around my yard."
As far as legal issues, in some cities like Long Beach, CA and Port Saint Lucie, FL the laws regarding chickens are a bit archaic, but in many cities across the country it is perfectly legal to keep chickens. But it doesn't hurt to check your municipal code before you start.
Where do I buy chickens? A coop? And food?
The internet is a wonderful resource for finding local chicken keeping supplies. These days, there are more and more specialized urban homesteading stores like the Biofuel Oasis in Oakland, CA and the Urban Farm Store in Portland, OR which provide supplies for chicken keeping and offer classes and can direct you where to buy chicks.
There are many breeds of chickens and it is worth it to get the breed that is right for you. For instance, some breeds are better scavengers and can thrive on a mostly scavenged diet, while others will fail to thrive without a full grain regimen. Some breeds lay more eggs than others, etc. It might take a little research, but don't just buy the cheapest chicken you can find on Craigslist. You're likely to have problems and to be disappointed.
It's all fun and eggs until...
Keeping a backyard flock is not always as bucolic and Rockwellian as it might seem. It can be treacherous at times. "My wife heard bizarre noises from the coop at 1AM and made me go out to see what was going on," Jacob relates. "I found myself face-to-face with what I can only imagine was a 350-pound raccoon. I figured I'd try to kill it, but I was inside our 12'x12' chain link dog run with it, and thought it would probably get really angry some time before I managed to dispatch it."
How did the Mad Max in Thunderdome cage fight end? "I ended up just picking up a stick and poking it a lot until it left so I could figure out how it got in. But after many incarnations, my chicken run is now more secure than Fort Knox."
An excellent book on backyard chicken keeping is City Chicks by Patricia Foreman. "Chickens" magazine, produced by Hobby Farms, is another great resource for the chicken hobbyist. Jacob has found the Backyard Chickens website to have a lot of useful information.
Jordan Laio is a Hometalk - http://www.hometalk.com - writer. Get home & garden ideas like this - https://www.networx.com/article/raising-hens-at-home - on Hometalk.com.
Looking for a Pro? Call us(866) 441-6648


text:
I've always felt that one of the great luxuries of staying in a hotel has nothing to do with how premium the furnishings are or how fancy the décor is. No, what really makes a hotel indulgent is the fact that I don't have to do things myself. The bed needs to be made in the morning? Not my problem! Towels need replacing? Good thing fresh ones are just a phone call away. Stomach rumbling in the middle of the night? Why step out of my pajamas when room service can bring me whatever my belly desires?
Well now, one of those luxuries is under threat with the New York Hilton Midtown announcing that it is going to stop offering room service at its 2,000-room establishment.The four-star hotel has been experiencing a drop in the number of people ordering room service – a trend seen across the board. In the past year, room service accounted for just 1.2 percent of total hotel revenue in the United States.
Experts attribute the fall in room service requests to greater competition from restaurants popping up near hotels. They say some hotels have tried to counter this by putting restaurants and cafes in their lobbies to attract guests.
Whether the Hilton's decision to dump room service will spread across the hotel industry is yet to be seen. However, the decision to kill off room service may come back to bite the hotel according to travel strategy firm Hudson Crossing. Analyst Henry Harteveldt told news.com.au that the Hilton's star rating might be downgraded because it would no longer officially be considered a full service hotel. "If room service is a requirement to earn a four star rating from independent organizations like AAA, Hilton's move may put (that) rating in jeopardy, unless the hotel can obtain an exemption."


text:
Work Manager: Response Time: Configuration
Configuration Options Related Tasks Related Topics
Use this page to configure properties for the selected response time request class.
A response time request class specifies a response time goal in milliseconds. Response time goals are not applied to individual requests. Instead, WebLogic Server computes a tolerable waiting time for requests with that class by subtracting the observed average thread use time from the response time goal, and schedules schedule requests so that the average wait for requests with the class is proportional to its tolerable waiting time.
Configuration Options
Name Description Name The user-specified name of this MBean instance.
This name is included as one of the key properties in the MBean's
MBean Attribute:
Changes take effect after you redeploy the module or restart the server.
Response time goal A response time goal in milliseconds.
You can either define a response time goal or keep the -1 default value, which acts as a placeholder for the response time goal. By doing so, you have not defined the response time goal at run time but can define one later.
MBean Attribute:


text:
Adalah-NY: Campaign for the Boycott of Israel is a local, grassroots, non-hierarchical volunteer-only group of concerned individuals that advocates for justice, equality, and human rights for the Palestinian people through educational activities and campaign-building. Adalah-NY organizes in support of the 2005 call by Palestinian civil society organizations to maintain non-violent means of protest -- including boycotts, divestment, and sanctions -- until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:
- Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
- Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
- Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.
In August 2006, Adalah-NY (formerly the Ad-Hoc Coalition for Justice in the Middle East) began organizing actions in response to the escalation of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip at the end of June and the subsequent Israeli war on Lebanon in July 2006. Adalah-NY has carried out numerous street protests and educational forums focusing on Israel's assault on Gaza and war against Lebanon, the US' threatened attack on Iran, the US and Israeli Apartheid Walls with Mexico and Palestine, and the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel. Adalah-NY has been participating with other groups in Israeli Apartheid Week in NYC, events against the Iraq war, events commemorating the Nakbah, and immigrant rights protests. Since November 2007, Adalah-NY has been conducting one of the most successful Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns in the United States in line with the call for BDS by Palestinian Civil Society. In addition, Adalah-NY has co-sponsored cultural events, political forums, and other political events. In 2010, the New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel (NYCBI) merged with Adalah-NY. Adalah means justice in Arabic.
Adalah-NY's most recent annual report is available here.
As Adalah-NY works to end the racist Israeli regime of military occupation, apartheid, and colonization, we commit to a principled stand against all forms of racism and other oppression. Adalah-NY strives to ensure that our actions and the actions of those within our organization promote an antiracist perspective and do not support or perpetuate bigotry. Just as in heeding the BDS call we take leadership from Palestinians, we recognize that oppressed communities everywhere are best positioned to determine how to end their oppression. In the US, we are deeply enmeshed in a society shaped by settler colonialism and slavery, so we must be active and deliberate in upholding these principles.
Black Lives Matter. Adalah-NY endorses the Vision for Black Lives platform created by the Movement for Black Lives Coalition. We aspire to integrate into our work the aims and principles it outlines, as well as its broader vision, and support in the building of a world without white supremacy and all the institutions that reinforce it.


text:
Michael Gove on the moral purpose of school reform
Michael Gove's speech to the National College for School Leadership in Birmingham on 16 June 2011.
Thank you Tony for that kind introduction.
The last time we met was in New York when we were discussing school reform and, in particular, teacher performance.
I remember arguing that teachers had nothing to fear from lesson observation – not only was learning from other professionals the best way to improve, confident performers should relish the opportunity to show what they can do.
After all, I argued, other inspirational professionals are used to being watched while they work - great footballers, I said, like Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs, don't object to people paying them attention when they do their thing….
Perhaps, in hindsight, I could have chosen a happier parallel – but Tony you are one professional who always performs with effortless grace – thank you.
And thinking of outstanding performances which are a joy to watch, Steve, can I thank you for a brilliant and inspiring speech…
You incarnate the virtues of great leadership.
Clarity of vision.
Generosity of spirit.
Energy in action.
And, above all, clear moral purpose.
Together with Vanni, Toby and the rest of the leadership team at the National College you have responded to every challenge we've given you with the enthusiasm, optimism and ambition of great public servants.
I am in your debt.
I mentioned that you bring a clear sense of moral purpose to everything you do, Steve.
Throughout your career you have aspired to give children and young people new opportunities, richer futures, a sense of limitless possibility.
And it's about moral purpose that I want to speak today.
Knowledge is power
The moral purpose that animates the work we all do. Ministers, officials, school leaders, teachers.
What unites us is a belief that lives can be transformed by what goes on in schools. The precious moments spent in the classroom, the interactions between professionals and students, the process of teaching and learning – can shape futures like nothing else.
Just last week I was talking to one young man at the secondary school nearest to my home, Burlington Danes in London's White City Estate. A teenager who had been persistently in trouble, going in the wrong direction and who saw in the environment around him no incentive to work hard, no penalty for indiscipline, no encouragement to learn. Until that school was taken in a new direction by a new leader, the amazing Sally Coates.
She made sure every moment every child spent in her school was worthwhile – focussed on learning – with a clear expectation that every child could surpass their family's expectations. That young man is now on course to study engineering at Cambridge and his life has been transformed immeasurably for the better.
And what Sally has done in Burlington Danes, so many of you are doing across the country. Changing schools for the better, spreading opportunity more widely.
I am uniquely fortunate to be Secretary of State at a time when we have the best generation of teachers ever in our schools and the best generation of heads leading them.
People like Dana Ross-Wawrzynski at Altrincham Grammar Schools for Girls, who not only runs one of the most impressive schools in the country, but is also creating a trust in East Manchester that is already rapidly boosting the performance of a number of other local schools.
Or Ray Ruszczynski at Chellaston Academy, a superb National Leader of Education, working in a collaborative group with Landau Forte Academy and West Park School, as well as providing a wide range of support to Sinfin School.
Or Dame Sue John who has turned Lampton Academy into an inspiring example of how a school can succeed in a tough area, while also spearheading the London Challenge initiative which has so helped improve education in our capital.
Heroes and heroines whose vocation is teaching – the noblest calling I know.
All of us in this hall share something, I suspect. All of us, I am sure, were inspired by a teacher or teachers who kindled a love of knowledge, a restless curiosity, and a passion for our subject when we were young.
And all of us, I believe, want to excite the next generation – as we were excited – by the adventure of learning.
Introducing the next generation to the best that has been thought and written is a moral enterprise of which we can all be proud. Giving every child an equal share in the inheritance of achievement which great minds have passed on to us is a great progressive cause. Shakespeare's dramas, Milton's verse, Newton's breakthroughs, Curie's discoveries, Leibniz's genius, Turing's innovation, Beethoven's music, Turner's painting, Macmillan's choreography, Zuckerberg's brilliance – all the rich achievements of human ingenuity belong to every child – and it should be our enduring mission to spread that inheritance as widely as possible.
Because it is only through learning – the acquisition of intellectual capital – that individuals have the power to shape their own lives. In a world which globalisation is flattening, in which unskilled jobs are disappearing from our shores, in which education determines income and good qualifications are the best form of unemployment insurance, we have to ensure every child has a stock of intellectual capital which enables them to flourish.
Making opportunity more equal
But there is one area where the sense of moral purpose which guides us as leaders in education must impel us to do more.
As a nation, we still do not do enough to extend the liberating power of a great education to the poorest.
As Barack Obama has persuasively argued, education reform is the civil rights battle of our time.
In Britain, as in the USA, access to a quality education has never mattered more but access to a quality education is rationed for the poor, the vulnerable and those from minority communities.
Each year there are 600,000 students passing through our state schools. 80,000 of them - the poorest - are those eligible for free school meals.
Of those 80,000, in the last year for which we have figures, just 40 made it to Oxford or Cambridge. Fewer from the whole of the population on benefits than made it from Eton. Or Westminster. Or St Paul's School for Girls.
We know that we are not playing fair by all when, in the last year for which we have figures, just one child from all the state schools in the whole London Borough of Greenwich makes it to Oxford.
My moral purpose in Government is to break the lock which prevents children from our poorest families making it into our best universities and walking into the best jobs.
That is why this Government is spending two and a half billion pounds on a pupil premium to ensure that every child eligible for free school meals has two thousand pounds more spent on their education every year.
That is why this Government is investing in more hours of free nursery education for all three and four year olds and 15 hours of free nursery education for all disadvantaged two-year-olds.
And that is why this Government is investing in an Education Endowment Fund which will, like Barack Obama's Race to the Top Fund, provide additional money for those teachers who develop innovative approaches to tackling disadvantage.
Because the scandal which haunts my conscience is the plight of those students from the poorest backgrounds, in the poorest neighbourhoods, in our poorest-performing schools who need us to act if their right to a decent future is to be guaranteed.
We still have one of the most segregated schools systems in the world, with the gap between the best and the worst wider than in almost any other developed nation.
In the highest-performing education nations, such as Singapore, around 80% of students taking O-levels get at least an equivalent of a C pass in their maths and English.
And we should remember that Singapore has only been independent for around fifty years, it has no natural resources, is surrounded by more powerful nations, is a multi-ethnic society and its students sit exams in English – even though their first language will be Malay, Tamil or Chinese.
Here just over half of students get a C pass in GCSE maths and English. And the half which fail are drawn overwhelmingly from poorer backgrounds and are educated in poorer-performing schools.
So, at the heart of our comprehensive reform programme for education is a determination to learn from, and emulate, those countries which are both high performers and succeed in generating a much higher level of equity across the school system.
Thanks to the pioneering work of thinkers such as Michael Fullan, Michael Barber and Fenton Whelan, and the data gathered by the OECD through its regular surveys of educational performance, we can identify the common features of high-performing systems.
The best people need to be recruited into the classroom.
They then need to be liberated in schools set free from bureaucratic control.
Given structures which encourage collaboration and the sharing of the benefits innovation brings.
Held to account in an intelligent fashion so we can all identify the best practice we can draw on.
And led in a way which encourages us all to hold fast to the moral purpose of making opportunity more equal.
I want to say a little about each.
We're getting more superb teachers
We've moved quickly to get more high-performing graduates into teaching by funding the doubling of Teach First over the course of this parliament and expanding the fantastic Future Leaders and Teaching Leaders programmes which, with the support of the National College, provide superb professional development for the future leaders of some of our toughest schools.
Shortly we'll be publishing our strategy for Initial Teacher Training. This will further emphasise our commitment to boosting the status of the profession by toughening up the recruitment process and ensuring that all new teachers have a real depth of knowledge in their subject.
We'll be making sure this covers the whole spectrum by, for example, providing additional funding for more placements in special schools, so as to give more teachers specialist knowledge in teaching children with special needs.
We will also explore how excellent schools can be more involved in both initial training and the provision of professional development. Contrary to what some have said this is not about excluding higher education from teacher training. There are many excellent centres of ITT and losing their experience is not on my agenda.
But I am keen that we make better use of headteachers' and teachers' experience. That's why I, like Steve, am so excited about the development of Teaching Schools.
I believe Teaching Schools have the potential to generate higher standards than ever before. Over 1,000 expressions of interest and 300 applications is a very positive sign of your enthusiasm. The first 100 Teaching Schools will be designated next month but the partnerships being developed between schools and with higher education are already having a powerful and positive impact on the system.
We're empowering school leaders to innovate
Putting our best schools in charge of professional development is, though, just one way in which we're handing you control of the education system.
We've reduced central Government prescription for all schools to make your lives easier and give you the space to focus on what really matters.
The hundreds of pages of forms you had to fill in to complete the FMSIS process. Gone.
The vast Ofsted self-evaluation form that took weeks to fill in. Gone.
Performance Management guidance has been cut by three quarters and capability procedures simplified so you can deal with inadequate staff quickly and effectively.
Behaviour and bullying guidance has been cut from 600 pages to 50 so as to give you complete clarity over your powers and duties.
Over the next few months we will be publishing shortened guidance in a whole host of other areas. In total, departmental guidance will be more than halved.
And, I hope you've noticed we've stopped the endless stream of emails that use to emanate from the Department.
Beyond these changes we've implemented for the benefit of all schools, we've also given every school the opportunity to take complete control of its budget, curriculum and staffing by applying for academy status.
When I spoke to you last year there were 203 academies. Now there are 704 and a further 814 schools have applied. By the end of the year more than a third of secondaries will be academies. This is a much faster rate of conversion than I, or I think anyone else, had anticipated and testament, I believe, to school leaders' desire for genuine autonomy.
Many of you who have converted in the past year have already used your freedoms to great effect. For example:
Premier Academy in Milton Keynes has extended payscales – so that good teachers can choose to remain in the classroom rather than move into management to increase their salaries.
And, like other schools such as Wakefield City Academy, they have used resources previously held by their Local Authority to employ a dedicated pastoral support worker on-site to ensure that children with social and educational needs get complete continuity of care.
Others are following some of the larger sponsor groups like ARK and Haberdashers in extending their school day and the academic year.
Yet others like the Kunskapsskolan schools in Richmond are developing exciting new curriculum models.
And many converter academies have found they are able to buy services for a significantly lower cost than those provided by their local authority.
For instance Broadclyst Academy Primary School has cut the costs of their payroll system in half and has ploughed the money back into teaching. Watford Grammar School for Girls and Hartismere Academy have found procuring small improvements to be significantly cheaper and quicker.
This is creating a new relationship between schools and Local Authorities. As we know, in some areas LAs have been genuine drivers of innovation and improvement: they have seen their role as champions of excellence; identifying struggling heads and governors; brokering peer-to-peer support; and forging partnerships with local universities or major employers to drive up standards.
But in other areas this has not been the case. And this is now beginning to change, as LAs react to schools' new powers by improving the quality of their offer to ensure academies buy back services and engage with local initiatives. As one academy head explained recently to the Guardian:
Under the old regime, nothing had ever been done about some things that weren't good enough, whereas now, there's an awful lot of activity at our Local Authority to make sure services are good enough so that we will buy them in.
And some healthy competition isn't just improving Local Authorities. A study just published by academics at the London School of Economics, looking at academies opened by the last government, shows not only that they have improved significantly faster than other schools, but also that other schools in their locality have seen results improve.
We're embedding a culture of collaboration
But competition isn't the main driver of improvement in the system. What we're seeing, as Steve put it, is collaboration driving improvement but with a competitive edge. Indeed I would go as far to argue that genuine collaboration is harder without that competitive edge to inspire the need to improve.
So I'm hugely encouraged by the renewed focus on partnership between schools I'm seeing at the moment. I've already mentioned how impressed I am with some of the alliances put together by aspirant Teaching Schools. But that's just one area of activity.
For instance, all of the new converter academies have, between them, agreed to support over 700 other schools and we've begun the doubling of the National and Local Leader of Education programmes to support fellow heads.
I am particularly pleased to see that a number of these softer collaborative relationships are evolving into hard federations.
I have always thought that many of the best academy chains are those that have grown out of a single outstanding school with a visionary leadership team. Just look at what Dan Moynihan has done at Harris; or Sir Kevin Satchwell at Thomas Telford; or Sir Peter Simpson at Brooke Weston; or our new Schools' Commissioner Elizabeth Sidwell at Haberdashers.
What these leaders share is that were given a rare opportunity as headteachers of CTCs to use their longstanding autonomy to develop a powerful educational model that could then be readily applied to new schools when the last Government launched their academy programme.
Now, with our offer of academy freedoms to all outstanding schools and leaders we have created the opportunity on a much larger scale for great leaders to expand their vision across a group of schools.
The process of allowing outstanding schools to convert has created a new generation of academy sponsors dedicated to turning round under-performing schools.
For example, Morley High School, led by NLE John Townsley, converted in January and will start sponsoring Farnley Park School in Leeds next year. And Sandy Hill Academy in Cornwall – one of the very first converters – is now in the process of taking on Trevebyn Primary.
I hope many more of you will take advantage of this opportunity over the coming years.
A proper national framework of accountability
Of course in this new educational landscape – where far more schools have significant autonomy and improvement is driven not by Government but by great schools working with others – proper accountability becomes even more important than ever.
That's why we're currently overhauling the Ofsted framework to focus on the four core responsibilities of schools – teaching and learning; leadership; attainment; behaviour and safety – as opposed to the twenty-seven different categories in the existing framework.
I am particularly keen that under the new framework Ofsted inspectors are able engage properly with schools, as opposed to focusing too strongly on data alone. I want them to be able to view more lessons; talk to more teachers and hear what students and parents have to say. And I want inspectors to engage not just during inspections but subsequently so that schools feel they have some guidance as well as a judgement.
We also need to change the way we use data in our pursuit of accountability. As Professor Alison Wolf's review on vocational education has made clear, the introduction of large numbers of vocational equivalents to the GCSE performance tables in 2004 has led to widespread gaming of qualifications. The 4,000 per cent rise in the number of such qualifications taken in just six years is testament to this.
She has proposed measures to combat this issue which we are now implementing – including much tighter criteria for courses that wish to be considered equivalent to GCSE. But this particular problem is symptomatic of a wider issue. As long as most data is hidden from the public and the profession governments can manipulate what they do choose to release so as to mislead.
That is why we've already begun a major transparency revolution. We've started the process of publishing all the information the Department collects – including an additional 14 million lines of exam data this year. In future this will include more data on how schools are improving the results of the disadvantaged – both those in receipt of the pupil premium and those with low prior attainment.
I don't expect, of course, that many parents will personally search through all this new material, but we are already seeing third parties finding new ways to present this data. Moreover educational researchers will have an unprecedented opportunity to investigate what's really going on in the system.
It also means that any new performance measures Government does seek to highlight – such as the English Baccalaureate – will only have an impact insofar as they resonate with parents. Initial surveys suggest this measure does have real resonance. Which is unsurprising as it simply seeks to replicate the sort of academic core that is expected in almost every developed country in the world: for children on both academic and vocational routes post-16.
A moral commitment to helping those most in need
Crucial to a proper framework of accountability is a set of clear expectations for schools. As the OECD say: "PISA results suggest that the countries that improved the most, or that are among the top performers, are those that establish clear, ambitious policy goals."
In last year's White Paper we took a tougher line on underperformance than ever before by raising the floor standard for secondary schools to 35 per cent of pupils achieving five GCSEs at A*-C including English and maths. We wanted these standards to be as fair as possible, so schools which show pupils making superb progress from a low basis are exempted.
But that still left 216 secondary schools below this floor. We have taken action, in partnership with many of you in this room, to ensure their performance is turned round.
In the next school year at least 88 schools, and counting, will be placed in the hands of new academy sponsors with a mission to end a culture of poor performance. That is more under-performing schools converted to academies than the last Government ever managed in a single year and more than they managed in their first eight years combined.
So I'm hugely encouraged by our progress. But I don't believe, and I hope you don't either, that 35 per cent of kids getting five decent GCSEs should be the limit of our ambition.
To compete with the best in the world, we have to raise our expectations not just once but continuously. In Poland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand more and more students are graduating from school and going on to university. In Singapore more than 80 per cent of young people taking O-levels now achieve 5 passes – the equivalent of C grades in GCSE. In South Korea an incredible 97 per cent of students graduate from high school.
So if we are to aspire to a world-class education system then we need to raise our sights beyond 35 per cent. And in doing so we cannot allow ourselves to have lower expectations for more disadvantaged parts of country. Of course I accept that schools in such communities face harder challenges but I also know that these challenges can be met. Deprivation need not be destiny.
Look at Perry Beeches in Birmingham. 25 per cent of children are on Free School Meals and 41 per cent have special needs. Yet in three years they have moved from 21 per cent five A*-C GCSEs including English and Maths to 74 per cent.
Or Paddington Academy – which jumped from 34 per cent to 63 per cent five A*-C with English and maths in just one year. At Paddington 51 per cent of children are on Free School Meals and 65 per cent are identified has having some kind of special need.
Or Woodside High School in Haringey, a school Steve spoke eloquently about in his speech, where almost no children at all achieved 5 A* to C with English and maths 5 years ago and where over 50% will hit that benchmark this year. Again this is a school where 55% of children are on free school meals and 38% have identified special needs.
Now that we know this level of achievement is possible in schools like these, and in many others similar to them, we must surely make it our expectation for all schools. To do any less, I believe, would be a betrayal of our young people.
So next year the floor will rise to 40 per cent and my aspiration is that by 2015 we will be able to raise it to 50 per cent. There is no reason – if we work together – that by the end of this parliament every young person in the country can't be educated in a school where at least half of students reach this basic academic standard.
I realise that in stating this aspiration some will criticise too strong a focus on testing. Let me be clear: I do not think the only responsibility a school has is to help students pass exams. An outstanding school will look after the pastoral needs of its pupils; will provide a wide range of extra-curricular activities, and play a role as a broader part of its community. But it must also endow each child with the basic entitlement of intellectual capital any citizen needs to make their way in the world. A GCSE floor standard is about providing a basic minimum expectation to young people that their school will equip them for further education and employment.
And we must also have a similar level of expectation for primary schools. The last Government's academies programme was never extended to primaries, even though it was Andrew Adonis's clear ambition.
And after an initial focus on primary schools in its first five years, the last Government lost momentum. So in the White Paper I also introduced a meaningful floor standard for primaries for the first time: that 60 per cent of pupils should achieve Level 4 in English and maths at Key Stage 2 or make an average level of progress.
Of course primary test scores are more volatile than those in secondaries due to the smaller size of schools, so one has to treat data with additional care. However, analysis of this new floor standard reveals that there are more than 200 schools that have been under the floor for five years or more. Indeed more than half of these have been under the floor for at least ten years.
A further 500 or so schools have been under the floor for three of the past four years.
These schools have let down repeated cohorts of children. Again I appreciate that it is harder to reach this standard in some parts of the country than others. But again we know that it is possible:
Look at Berrymede Junior School in Acton where 58 per cent of children are on Free School Meals and 31 per cent have a special need. Here over 80 per cent of pupils have achieved Level 4 in English and maths in each of the last three years.
Or Woodberry Down in Hackney with 51 per cent on Free School Meals and 34 per cent with special needs where 80 per cent reached Level 4 in English and maths last year.
Or Cuckoo Hall Academy in Edmonton with 37 per cent on Free School Meals and 34 per cent with special needs where an incredible 95 per cent of pupils achieved the Level 4 benchmark last year.
Or dozens of others in similar circumstances. Given that we know it can be done and it is done, we surely must make it our minimum expectation for all primary schools that they will not consistently fall below a 60 per cent floor.
So, as an urgent priority, we will start work on turning around the 200 schools that have most consistently underperformed by finding new academy sponsors for them so that most can reopen from September 2012. We want to work closely with the schools involved and their local authorities to make this happen.
The Education Bill currently working its way through Parliament will give the Department the power to intervene to turn around underperforming schools where authorities are recalcitrant or try to stand in the way of improvement. But wherever possible we want to find solutions that everyone can agree on - as we have done with the vast majority of the secondary schools that will become academies next year.
Beyond this we want to support Local Authorities in turning round the 500 schools who have fallen below the floor in at least three of the past four years. Several months ago I asked Local Authorities to draw up plans showing how they intended to improve their weaker schools. These have now been submitted and some of them are very impressive showing clear leadership and engagement with the problems of long-term underperformance.
In his speech Steve mentioned Wigan's plans to commission groups of schools to run improvement activity across the authority and he underlined how schools across Manchester are working together to embed the success of the Greater Manchester Challenge. In Devon and Suffolk the Local Authorities have worked to help schools become academies while maintaining a strong network between the schools.
But there will be other local authorities that need some support – financial and logistic - from the centre. So, over the coming months, we will identify areas – either whole authorities or parts of larger authorities – that have a significant number of underperforming schools. We will help these communities dramatically transform primary education in their area.
And there is an urgent need for us all to act.
We have just suffered the worst financial crisis since 1929.
Our economy is weighed down by a huge debt burden.
Europe has major problems with debt and the euro.
Meanwhile there is a rapid and historic shift of political and economic power to Asia and a series of scientific and technological changes that are transforming our culture, economy and global politics.
If we do not have a school system that is adapting to and preparing for these challenges then we will betray a generation.
Our school system needs to have innovation embedded in its way of working. That is what our reforms provide – the opportunity for our school system to adapt rapidly to technological change such as the amazing revolution of iTunesU, whereby Harvard and Oxbridge publish their most valuable content free, extending the scope of knowledge available to all children.
Only by learning from other nations, and by giving school leaders the freedom to shape their own futures, liberated from outdated bureaucratic structures, can we ensure we benefit from the other, increasingly rapid changes technological innovation will bring.
And while globalisation brings many benefits to our citizens, it also bears particularly heavily on the poor and the young.
Across the Western world countries are struggling with youth unemployment at the moment.
And for all those of us who feel that the moral purpose of our work is to find a fulfilling outlet for the talents of our young people, there is a special tragedy in seeing young lives unfulfilled.
There are things Government can do to ameliorate this in the short term. And we are acting, not least through my colleague Iain Duncan Smith's work programme.
But if we are to grasp this issue properly then we must deal with the root causes of the problem.
And that is our shared responsibility.
For those root causes can be found in the first years of a child's life.
We know that a child who struggles at Key Stage One will struggle to do well in their Key Stage Two tests. And we know those children with the greatest difficulties are drawn overwhelmingly from our poorest neighbourhoods.
And we know that those same children who don't have Level 4 English and maths when they leave primary school are much less likely to achieve five good GCSEs than their more fortunate peers.
And we know that the same young person who doesn't get the equivalent of five good GCSEs is much more likely to be NEET at 16 or 17 and much less likely to be in secure employment thereafter.
We are fortunate to be in the most fulfilling employment anyone can have. To be engaged in the education of the next generation is to be given a chance to liberate thousands from the narrow horizons which have limited mankind's vision for centuries.
But if we are to make good that promise then we need to recognise that we will all have to work harder than ever before - work to attract even better people into teaching, work to innovate more determinedly, work to identify talent more zealously, work to collaborate more intensively, work to raise aspirations, standards, hopes…
But in this work lies the promise of a reward greater than is given to any other profession - the knowledge that we have guaranteed the life of the next generation will be better than our own.


text:
As the years go by, the original torch bearers of the legendary Norwegian black metal scene travel further down their own unique music journeys. While the spirit, soul, and creativity will always remain intact, the darkness, extremity, and sheer sonic force has often been left in the past. However, THE WRETCHED END continue to redefine and progress not just what extreme metal is but also what Norwegian black metal is in 2016. The Scandinavian super group, featuring Samoth (EMPEROR, ZYKLON, SCUM), Cosmo (MINDGRINDER, SCUM), and Nils Fjellström (DARK FUNERAL, IN BATTLE) have released an ambitious and progressive work that considerably widens the scope of their music.
In These Woods, From These Mountains is arguably the band's best album to date. The brutal thrash dimension from debut, Ominous, is minimal, and the death metal dimension found through the first two albums are largely secondary. It is decidedly their blackest and most atmospheric to date. There is an emphasis on using just as much clean guitar tone-riffs to create eerie, desolate atmospheres as there are on distorted ones. Many of the clean guitar-tone riffs could easily fit into a SLOWDIVE or MY BLOODY VALENTINE album. Samoth and Cosmo have also focused on creating melancholic melodies that come in at the perfect junctions. In contrast to Ominous and Inroads, the riffing and song structures have more breathing room. It's less of a barrage of eighth and sixteenth notes and more about longer notes. As a result, Dominator's drumming becomes more crucial in providing the backbone, which he does to brilliant effect. Few extreme metal drummers have totally mastered the art of the ride cymbal like he has.
Other interesting aspects of In These Woods, From These Mountains that should not be overlooked are the use of keyboards, samples, and Cosmo's clean vocals. He has done fantastic work with WINDIR contributing clean vocals. And while his clean vocals here aren't as prominent, it's a welcome new dimension.
Every song provides a different look and highlights can be found all over. And within each song is a full range of dynamics and dimension in play. The nuances in artistry can fully be appreciated after successive listens. So much ground is covered. Comparisons to EMPEROR's IX Equilibrium come to mind.
Opener, "Dead Icons," begins with a cold drum march before bursting into a speeding fireball with unique, eerie guitar riffs. The lyrics easily apply to current events affecting the world today. "Primordial Freedom" starts out ominous and doomy before taking flight with blast beats. "Old Norwegian Soul" may be the "purest" black metal song, complete with the haunting, low end groans of Attila Csihar (MAYHEM, TORMENTOR), keyboards, melodies, and juxtaposed tempos. "Atheos" is an absolute high point in the band's career with its galloping, invincible momentum. The riff that comes in at the 3:27 mark lays everything to waste. Devastating. THE WRETCHED END closes In These Woods, From These Mountains with a glacier-sized cover of BEL CANTO's "Dewy Fields." Helping out is Einar Solberg (LEPROUS) on lead vocals and the criminally underrated LRZ (RED HARVEST) providing the epic synth and programming.
With In These Woods, From These Mountains, THE WRETCHED END only seek to create an immediate classic album. There is so much greatness to behold. Hail. (Indie Recordings)


text:
Maximian of Ravenna
Our father among the saints Maximian of Ravenna, also Maximianus, was a sixth century Bishop of Ravenna. He is remembered principally for his association with the completion of the Church of St. Vitale and his ivory throne. His feast day is February 22.
Little is known of his early life. Maximian is believed to have been born about 499 in the Istrian city of Pola, in what is now Croatia. He became a deacon and, in 546, Pope Vigilius of Rome consecrated him in Patras, Greece as bishop of Ravenna. He was apparently selected by emperor Justinian. According to the priest Andreas Agnellus of Ravenna, Maximian's congregation at first did not accept his leadership, objecting to his appointment by the emperor, as he was not their first choice as a candidate.
Bishop Maximian was active in building churches in Ravenna. In addition to completing the octagonall shaped Church of San Vitale, on May 9, 549, he consecrated the new basilica, St. Apollinare en Classe. His likeness appears in the famous mosaic of the procession of emperor Justinian and his retinue in the left apse wall of the Church of St. Vitale.
He also involved himself in the furnishing for the temples. His most remarkable piece was the Throne of Maximian, the cathedra for a bishop that was made completely out of ivory panels. The panels were probably carved in Constantinople and then shipped to Ravenna.
Maximian died on February 22, 556.


text:
0/ Vehicles Selected
Prices do not include additional fees and costs of closing, including government fees and taxes, any finance charges, any dealer documentation fees, any emissions testing fees or other fees. All prices, specifications and availability subject to change without notice. Contact us for most current information.
Fuel consumption ratings and estimates based on GM testing in accordance with Government of Canada approved test methods. Refer to vehicles.nrcan.gc.ca for details.Your actual fuel consumption may vary.
The features and options listed are for the New 2023 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and may not apply to this specific vehicle.


text:
I would have preferred to do some kind of letter to the editor, but it won't work. The need to react precisely precludes writing in Spanish, the need to write quickly precludes finding a translator, and the need to explain a great deal precludes the writing of a short letter. This article concerns the recent articles in el Tiempo, Colombia's national newspaper, on the FARC in Canada.
For the record these are: "Las Farc en el Canada" (24/08/08) and "Rastrean giros de sindicatos de Canadá a la ONG Fensuagro que habrían terminado en las Farc" (29/08/08).
I would have preferred to do some kind of letter to the editor, but it won't work. The need to react precisely precludes writing in Spanish, the need to write quickly precludes finding a translator, and the need to explain a great deal precludes the writing of a short letter. This article concerns the recent articles in el Tiempo, Colombia's national newspaper, on the FARC in Canada.
For the record these are: "Las Farc en el Canada" (24/08/08) and "Rastrean giros de sindicatos de Canadá a la ONG Fensuagro que habrían terminado en las Farc" (29/08/08).
So now the computer of an assassinated guerrilla leader, a computer that survived a missile attack and 48 hours of tampering by Colombian authorities according to INTERPOL, supposedly yields email evidence linking the decimated guerrillas to a peace activist and economist. We are supposed to believe that this laptop provides credible information that Hector Mondragon, a highly respected and principled economist, was corresponding with FARC, and helping link FARC with Canada.
El Tiempo printed a a previous round of vague accusations by a military man named Colonel Villamarin "linking" FARC to Canadian groups. It had logical leaps and evidentiary gaps that would be laughable, if such accusations in Colombia weren't deadly serious.
In this case, I know that they are lying about Hector Mondragon. I know Hector, and he's already said that the claims against him are false. More on that below.
These articles, and the accusations to come from "evidence" from Raul Reyes's laptop, are not the exposures of evidence by investigators of crimes.
They are the desperate appeals of a criminal regime to divert attention from its own crimes by inventing crimes of others.
The media, and el Tiempo, as they often do, are doing their bit to help the regime.
Colombia's regime is currently being studied by the International Criminal Court (ICC) because the key witnesses in cases of crimes against humanity (mostly massacres of peasants and activists) are being extradited to the United States to face drug charges. The ICC got involved because Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe Velez, rather than help the country's Supreme Court probe paramilitarism and its links with politicians in his party (and from his family), attacked the court publicly and institutionally. The testimony of paramilitary killers who surrendered to the authorities, the computer files they handed over, and a document from the United States DIA courtesy of the National Security Archive all point to Uribe himself as a suspect in paramilitarism and narcotrafficking. A few days ago I collected the public evidence and presented it (with Dawn Paley and Manuel Rozental), partly hoping that those pursuing prosecution of the regime might find the collected public evidence of use. And hoping that the case against the regime might restrain it from further attacks on peoples, lands, and social forces opposed to displacement and exploitation.
As I pointed out in that article, the legality of Uribe's second term in office is itself in question, since there are accusations that bribery was involved in the vote in Congress when it passed the constitutional change to allow Uribe's re-election. The evidence that his party was heavily involved with the death squads is available in spades. He is isolated from his neighbours, in the region, and in the world – except for the US. And recent events in Pakistan show, as did the fate of US clients from Manuel Noriega in Panama to Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada in Bolivia that while authoritarian regimes are useful to the United States, any individual head of a regime is expendable if the costs of supporting him are too high.
But against all this, Uribe has a weapon that has served him well: tremendous popularity in Colombia as expressed in the polls. This has to do with various economic gimmicks that have been used to keep Colombia afloat (even as the underlying economic basis is being eroded) and Uribe's ability to polarize the country between his regime and the guerrillas of FARC and to capitalize on the unpopularity of the latter, in recent months by pulling off spectacular operations against them, from the assassination of their most visible commander Raul Reyes to the rescue of their most visible hostage Ingrid Betancourt.
I am an internationalist, but I am Canadian-born, a citizen here, a part of this community, and concerned about the things this government and its corporations do in the world. Canada's involvement in Colombia through free-trade agreements, corporate investments, and three-way interactions involving the United States, mostly act to bolster, and profit from, a regime of armed plunder. Indeed, in my view the principal beneficiaries of the plunder and the consequent massacres (of thousands a year) and displacement (of millions, now) are in North America (and to a lesser extent Europe). That puts a massive responsibility on people in Canada and the US to try to stop their own regimes from organizing and motivating these acts. I make these arguments regularly, in any forum that I can.
Trying to understand any political situation or country is always easier to do with help, especially the help of people with more experience (or insight or knowledge or all of the above). Sometimes, though it isn't necessary, these people also have tremendous courage and integrity. My own understanding of Colombia has come from several people, but among them is someone who is truly a hero to me, the Colombian economist Hector Mondragon. I have been the translator on a lot of his extremely insightful articles (see the translations section of my writings archive for examples. I have interviewed him several times. Whenever I have been to Colombia and had questions he was able to help me make sense of the situation.
We have a few differences. Part of what makes him extraordinary is a story he tells. As a much younger activist in a more intense phase of Colombia's decades-long counterinsurgency war, Hector was caught and tortured by the regime before being released. He wrote about it when the Abu Ghraib photos came out. He knows who his torturer is. Many who join the guerrillas or worked with them are motivated by a need for revenge for atrocities like these, but to Hector this would be contributing to more violence, and so he has kept silent in the decades since about who it was. This even though Hector would never equate the violence of oppressed and brutalized people, or the violence of self-defence with the violence of a system of power and wealth. He is the best kind of pacifist, one who practices it himself even though it is incredibly difficult, but seeks always to understand why people do violence and change it through politics and organization. I share his analysis, but personally, while I don't know for sure because I have luckily never been put to such tests, I don't think I have that kind of courage.
According to the El Tiempo article, Raul Reyes wrote to Hector to introduce him to codename 'Sara', who is in the custody of Colombian authorities, and who was in charge of raising funds for FARC abroad, especially in Canada. Here is the relevant paragraph:
Y en un correo del 2 de abril del 2006, 'Reyes' le escribe a un hombre identificado como Héctor Mondragón: "Quiero presentarle a la camarada Liliany (…) ella trabaja conmigo y al mismo tiempo presta asesoría a Fensuagro (Federación Nacional Sindical Unitaria Agropecuaria) en su trabajo de relaciones internacionales. Naturalmente se trata de una camarada de absoluta confianza".
Let's translate it before proceeding:
'In an email of April 2 2006, Reyes wrote to a man identified as Hector Mondragon: "I want to introduce you to Comrade Liliany, she works with me and at the same time advises Fensuagro (National Agrarian Workers' Union) in international relations. Naturally she is a Comrade that can be completely trusted." '
The key sentence there is "a man identified as Hector Mondragon". Note the passive voice. Who identified him? Not el Tiempo, obviously. Had Raul Reyes been writing to Hector's publicly known email account, we can safely assume that El Tiempo would have said so. So, presumably, the Colombian authorities used some subjective method to 'identify' that the email was going to Hector. How? Perhaps Hector has a secret identity that even Hector doesn't know about? The opportunities for fabrication and false accusation abound, and the Colombian authorities and el Tiempo have clearly taken advantage of some of them.
I have been involved in Colombia solidarity in Canada since 2001. I helped raise money for social movement groups in Colombia, and made donations to them, through the Canada-Colombia Solidarity Campaign (2001-2003) and then through Pueblos en Camino. Mainly we raised money for the NASA indigenous and their organization, the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca. But we also have supported (mostly just through information and media efforts but on rare occasions financially) various unions, afro-Colombian groups, women's groups, peasant groups, and the Polo Democratico Alternativo. Part of what appealed to me about these groups was that they had all the courage that the guerrillas had in facing a deadly system, but their political analysis was different and they argued that the war was serving the system and the only way out was political. They suffered, sometimes at the hands of the guerrillas, for saying so, but they never succumbed to the temptation to support the state in repressing the guerrillas (knowing that they were as much a target as the guerrillas of such repression) or to support the guerrillas, despite all the attacks by the regime. I don't know everyone involved in Colombia solidarity but in all these years I never met 'Comrade Liliany'.
If the regime is going after Hector Mondragon, then it is not about FARC's fundraising networks but about the same thing it's always been about: destroying any social forces and organizations, including – or perhaps especially – the political and unarmed ones that oppose the plunder of the country. If the fabrications keep coming I can only hope that Hector is not alone and that at least something is made up about me. It would of course be better if el Tiempo would apologize for this character assassination (which also puts Hector in greater physical danger) and admit that it should not be publishing the fabricated claims of a desperate regime.
Justin Podur is a Toronto-based writer and activist with Pueblos en Camino (www.en-camino.org). He is Hector Mondragon's translator and has been involved in Canada-Colombia solidarity efforts since 2001.


text:
Editor's note: Glenn Kelman is the CEO of Redfin, a technology-powered real estate broker backed by Madrona Venture Group and Greylock Partners. His last post for TechCrunch was The Maximum, Beautiful Product. Follow him on Twitter @glennkelman.
Silicon Valley home buyers, I wish we had better news. Prices keep rising, with no end in sight.
Across the 20 markets Redfin serves, only Phoenix saw more rapid price increases than the Bay Area. Over the last 12 months, San Francisco prices rose 20 percent; San Jose prices jumped 23 percent. When the market moves this fast, the appraisals required by a lender reflect last year's prices, and sellers just take all-cash deals instead — even when another bidder with a mortgage offers more money. Across California, we are starting to see conventional sales handled more like the sale of foreclosures once were, with the home sold as-is.
What's going on? Well by December of 2012, the number of homes for sale across the Bay Area had declined 68 percent from the previous year. Once foreclosures stopped flooding the market, there weren't enough conventional sellers to take their place. Goaded by very low interest rates, buyers turned out in force. High demand and low supply were why we were so bullish in our September TechCrunch assessment of Silicon Valley home prices.
This swing to a seller's market happened first in California and Arizona, then spread to other parts of the country. Now, the inventory crunch is self-perpetuating, as some homeowners we talk to hesitate to sell for fear they won't be able to find a place to buy, and even more consider renting out their place instead.
So that's the recent history of Bay Area real estate. But what's happening in the market right now, and how is it changing? We've noticed four trends:
1. Silent spring: 2013 was the first year in the past six to begin with a broad consensus that home prices were again rising, so we expected the year to start with plenty of new listings.
But in the first two weeks of January, the inventory problem somehow got worse rather than better, with new listings in the Bay Area falling more than 45 percent compared to the same period last year; much of the drop is due to a whopping 72 percent decline in short sales, where the owner sells for less than she owes on the mortgage. When foreclosures first became scarce in 2012, short sales became the preferred way for banks to clear out troubled loans, but with rising prices and more loan modifications, even short sales are now rapidly disappearing.
What this means is that Bay Area real estate is again becoming a free market, where the only people selling are the ones who want to sell. As any East German will tell you, this transition is hard. It's almost as if homeowners have forgotten how to sell. We expect the supply of homes for sale to increase by the Super Bowl, but if it doesn't increase a lot, we're going to have a silent spring, with meager sales gains.
2. Local monopolies: 88 percent of the December offers written by Redfin agents for our Bay Area clients faced competition. Inventory is now so scarce that sellers sometimes enjoy a virtual monopoly, as was the case just last week with a listing that had no competition for half a mile in any direction. Every Redfin agent in the San Francisco office represented a different home-buyer on that property. As Redfin agent Landon Nash likes to say, there's an enormous difference between competition of any kind and no competition whatsoever; it's like the difference when raising venture capital between having one term sheet or two.
3. Flash real estate sales: Mobile real estate applications are increasing the pace at which the market moves. After getting listing alerts instantly delivered to their mobile devices, several Redfin clients have been able to get those listings under contract hours later. With so many home-buyers across the Bay Area now getting alerts instantly rather than nightly, the whole home-buying cycle here is becoming more like a flash sale, with properties lasting a day rather than a week.
4. Wild-card offers: As frustration builds among would-be home-buyers, we increasingly see wild-card offers, higher than any competing offer by hundreds of thousands of dollars. According to Brad Le, the leader of Redfin's Silicon Valley business, "People just get tired of losing, and say, 'Screw it.'" In just the past few days, a $1.8-million listing in Silicon Valley attracted six offers clustered around a price of $1.95 million, which was at the high end of what recent comparable sales could justify. This kind of competition was familiar to us. But the seventh offer came in half a million dollars higher, at $2.45 million, with no contingencies for an inspection or an appraisal. The seller's agent was flabbergasted. These are the kinds of shots that send a shiver down the market's spine.
5. Cash-out buyers: As the U.S. government approached a fiscal cliff, plenty of folks in Silicon Valley with stock in their own companies became worried that capital gains would be taxed at a higher rate, and so rushed to sell their shares by December 31. Redfin saw a spike in the number of high-end customers making an offer on a home in December, and still Redfin agents are representing a handful of clients who cashed out their equity positions with an eye toward using that money to pay for a home. Even as investors become more cautious in the face of increased competition, more cash buyers than ever are entering the market, loaded for bear.
Where will it all end? The truth is, alone among the 20 markets Redfin serves, the Bay Area market is the one I dread getting asked about. Everywhere else follows rational economic laws. But here it just gets crazier and crazier.
[Image via Redfin]


text:
listen up people - my long silences are now a thing of the past. people have been begging me to get back into the blogosphere and i've been moping around about the state of things and done nothing. sure, i've been whining on facebook and twitter, but those aren't public posts and they're not in-depth examinations of thoughts, facts or opinions.
in all actuality, i have been languishing in my "...tranquility of servitude..." rather than fighting for my country. so, until i am silenced by force, which - depending on the outcome of this next election - may not be long, i'm going to be here and be loud and be a proud engager in "...the animating contest of freedom..."
that quoted bit is from samuel adams - seems, he didn't just make beer, but also helped to found this great expirement that has become the united states of america. he also, wisely, said:
The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have receiv'd them as a fair Inheritance from our worthy Ancestors: They purchas'd them for us with toil and danger and expence of treasure and blood; and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle; or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. Of the latter we are in most danger at present: Let us therefore be aware of it. Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity; and resolve to maintain the rights bequeath'd to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. — Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom." It is a very serious consideration, which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.
i believe this quote - more than at any time since he published it under the name of "candidus" in the boston gazette on 14 october 1771 - is appropriate for the assaults we are facing times we now live in. we owe our forefathers and our posterity better than to hand them over as sheeps to slaughter to the people currently in power - in washington, in austin, in albany, in sacramento - in every town, in every state in this once-great country. we must NOT let barack hussein obama legally lay claim to the white house for a second term.
for better or worse – at least for this 2012 election (as with all other elections in this country prior to now) we have a two-party system. there is no way, at this moment in time, to elect someone other than either mitt romney or barack obama. if you want to change the u.s. from a two-party system to a multiple party system, that change will have to start at the local level.
find alt-party candidates you like for LOCAL elections and work to place them into office. simultaneously work to do the same at your state level. only after a plurality of states and local races have elected officials who don't have an "r" or a "d" after their names will it become even the least bit possible to start electing people outside of one party or the other to the u.s. congress.
and don't tell me about "independents" being elected already. you and i both know that none of the so-called independents in congress - state or federal - are truly independent. they have all aligned with the democrats and except for an ideal here or there, vote the straight d line.
until we have a good showing of other than "r" or "d" in the state & u.s. congresses, it will not be possible to elect a non-"r" or "d" president. sorry, but that's the long and the short of it.
so go on with your noble intentions and "follow your conscience" and vote against mitt romney. but make no mistake, in voting for someone other than the gop nominee, you are making a vote to hand obama a second term. do you honestly think g-d will bless us as a nation by voting to remove our religious freedoms and g-d given rights and subjugate ourselves to a man worse than any of the pharaohs? cripes, this man makes herod look reasonable and trusting.
i, for one, believe those who would vote against the removal of bho – and in turn all of his cronies, policies and agendas – from our government, are cowards who are more comfortable with the "…tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom… May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!"
will the gop figure out that you lodged a vote of contempt for who/what it's become when bho settles down for the long-haul in our white house? yeah, maybe. but, probably not. they'll blame it on fraud, or not enough kowtowing to the liberal, progressive line or – pretty much anything but a sanction against themselves. but at that point, it won't matter.
is mitt romney the perfect candidate? no. of course not. the perfect candidate doesn't exist - neither does the perfect person (excluding christ of course). i am not a perfect patriot. g-d knows i'm not a perfect mother, sister, daughter, wife, etc... but i love my family, i love my country and i love g-d. and there are so many of you out there JUST. LIKE. ME. i believe mitt does, too. i do not believe the same of obama.
wake up people. remember: "It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless, minority keen to set brushfires of freedom in people's minds." if we do not remove barack obama in this election, at this time, now – we will never again get the opportunity.


text:
We go all in and bring the joy, the spontaneity, the sense that anything can happen back to Christmas.
Propaganda is complexity in the form of simplicity, if you know how to read it.
Three teenage girls explain why they are constantly telling their friends they are beautiful on Instagram. Plus more stories about status updates that interrupt our daily life.
A prisoner who hasn't talked to anyone in years comes up with a bold plan to re-introduce himself to the world.
Emily Dickinson said "The heart wants what it wants." This week, stories from people who take that notion to extremes and are unapologetic about it.
Conspiracy theories about the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin continue to shape Israel's politics and future.
Meet the people who pitch ideas for new foods and then decide which ones they're actually going to make.
A Japanese reality show contestant has to enter sweepstakes from magazines to win enough sustenance to survive.
Getting inside a situation and finding out just how interesting it is.
A father constructs an elaborate fantasy to occupy his 12 children.
We go to the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans to talk to residents about what matters most to them ten years after the hurricane.
Stories about a fallen man trying to kickstart his career with a reality show, and an awkward moment between a mom and a daughter.
A city goes all out to integrate its schools.
There's one thing that has been proven to cut the achievement gap between black and white students by half: integration.
A car plant in Fremont California that might have saved the U.S. car industry.
A story about someone who's desperately trying – against long odds – to make it to the United States and become an American.
The story of a concentration camp in China that housed groups of Girl Scouts.
Stories of people facing very difficult situations who put their game face on and muscle through.
Stories about the vague and not-so-vague ways we teach children about race, death, and sex.
A movie star and her ex-husband plot against Kim Jong-Il, plus more stories of people who are tied together but imagine radically different futures.
Stories of those very infrequent instances where people's opinions flip on fundamental things that they believe.
A mysterious world of heroin addiction treatment centers where no one seems to be taking responsibility for the people they're treating.
People caught in limbo, using ingenuity and guile to try to get themselves out.
The story of a guy who learned to lie for the first time in his life at age 29.
Stories of valiant men attempting to do good: in department stores, public buses, and at the bottom of a cave.
What happens when of a group of public school students in the Bronx goes to visit an elite private school three miles away.
A tough group of soldiers attempts to save lives through the power of show tunes.
We look at one city where relations between police and black residents are terrible, and another city where they seem to be improving remarkably.
There's a division between people who distrust the police and people who see cops as a force for good.
Ira Glass was never into William Burroughs. Then he heard this radio story that changed that.
What happens when the internet turns on you?
Can people's expectations change whether a blind man can see?


text:
Meet Johnny Football
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) – Johnny Manziel threw for 372 yards and three touchdowns and ran for two more scores as No. 9 Texas A&M beat Missouri 59-29 on Saturday night.The Aggies (10-2, 6-2 SEC) scored touchdowns on their first six drives to build a 42-7 halftime lead and coast to their first 10-win season since 1998.About the only drama in this one came when Manziel, the Heisman Trophy hopeful, was shaken up on a tackle at the end of a run in the first quarter.But Johnny Football missed just four plays before returning with a brace on his left knee. And it didn't seem to slow him down one bit.The Aggies were up 21-0 when he returned, and he threw touchdown passes on three straight possessions to end the first half.Missouri (5-7, 2-6) won't make a bowl game in its first SEC season.