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Are Demi Lovato and Sam Smith Collaborating?
Sam Smith sparked Demi Lovato collaboration rumors after the pop star's name was spotted in one of their pop-up stores for the upcoming song "To Die For."
On Thursday (February 13), the "How Do You Sleep?" hitmaker announced their third studio album, To Die For, is coming out on May 1 — and now, fans are convinced the "Anyone" singer will be featured on a track after a mannequin labeled "Demi Lovato" was placed in the pop-up store promoting the new single.
Neither of them has confirmed or denied the speculation but fans are very excited about the possibility.
The collaboration rumors come after Smith praised Lovato's comeback at the 2020 Grammys. After delivered one of the most powerful performances of her career, they took to Instagram to reveal how blown away they were.
"I am in tears. That is singing. That is heart and that is truth," Smith wrote.
In November 2017, the 27-year-old singer also showed Lovato some love after she covered their hit song "Too Good at Goodbyes" at BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge in London. The cover caught Smith's attention and they could not help but tweet their praises, writing, "YES @ddlovato SAAAAAAANG IT."
Lovato returned the compliment, replying, "LOVE YOU and I LOVE your new music!!" before Smith answered back, "Ditto!! 'Only forever' has me deeply into my feelings xx congratulations beautiful xx"
During her BBC visit, Lovato called Smith "such a sweetheart" and said she's "dying to collaborate" with them.
It looks like her wish might have come true...

subset: commoncrawl


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Explore our classy range of customized, hand-crafted 100% natural beeswax candles. Designed with sophistication for your peace of mind, our beeswax candles will adorn your home and help you relax.
We use 100% natural beeswax which offers all the benefits that paraffin wax doesn't. There are no chemicals, no aroma enhancing or adding agents or any coloring agents used in our candles. Our 100% beeswax candles are made with pure and neat beeswax and pure cotton wicks.
What makes our handcrafted, handmade beeswax candles so beautiful and healthy is that let out no soot, no smoke. So, you can expect a sound environment with no excessive toxic smoke or drips. The candles will burn naturally and since we make sure that the beeswax is only lightly filtered, the candles are long burning too. They are practical especially if you have an asthma patient in the family. Our candles are great for illuminating your world even when you have an allergy as we use no irritating or other ingredients.
We are a Colorado Candle Company manufacturing and supplying some of the best sculpted Wholesale beeswax candles for numerous decades now. We have been doing this for long enough to say that we have become indeed experts. What sets us apart from all of our competitors is that we prioritize your health above all. We use zero additives, fragrants or any artificial colors in our candles and make sure that you get the most natural honey aroma. As a family run business, we are strong believers of nurturing relationships. Our focus is not just to thrive but grow as a community and help change the world through our work towards health with sootfree and natural beeswax candles.


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By Shasta Darlington, CNN
July 27, 2010 -- Updated 2022 GMT (0422 HKT)
Castro on Tuesday said he would publish a new book in August on the
fighting more than 50 years ago between his ragtag rebels and the
10,000-strong army under former dictator Fulgencio Batista.
In an essay published Tuesday on the state-run website,
www.cubadebate.cu, Castro said the book will be called "The Strategic
"I didn't know whether to call it 'Batista's Last Offensive' or 'How 300
Defeated 10,000,' which would sound like a science fiction story," he said.
Castro said the 25 chapters contain photos, maps and illustrations of
the weapons used during a series of battles that lasted 74 days in 1958
and paved the way for his bearded revolutionaries to declare victory on
January 1, 1959.
"The enemy suffered more than 1,000 losses, more than 300 of them deaths
and 443 taken prisoner," he wrote.
Castro went on to rule Cuba for 47 years until he was sidelined by
illness in 2006. He has spent most of the last four years in seclusion,
writing frequent essays called "Reflections of Comrade Fidel" for
state-run media.
In recent weeks, he has re-emerged on the public stage, making seven
public appearances.
On Monday, Cuba celebrated the 57th anniversary of the launching of
Castro's Revolution. He failed to appear at that event in central Cuba
despite high expectations, but he paid tribute at a small ceremony in
Havana to the rebels who were killed.
Castro also held lengthy talks with a group of artists. Both events were
later broadcast on state TV.
Castro said he would now start work on a book covering the second half
of the fighting, called "The Final Strategic Counteroffensive."


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Chris Young's 'Raised on Country' Is as Traditional as Ever, Teaser Proves
Chris Young's new single "Raised on Country" will be shared in full on Friday (Jan. 4), but he's giving fans an early listen with a generous 30-second snippet.
Young's country cred is as evident as ever on the song, with its traditional instrumentation and his familiar, booming vocals:
A mesmerizing guitar lick kicks off the song before Young comes in with:
"Got a little southern drawl in my talk / A little pickup truck on my highway / Got a little boot stomp in my walk / Little neon light in my Friday / Got some Tennessee in my whiskey / Raise a cup up if you're with me."
Young first teased fans with a snippet of "Raised on Country" late last year, posted online in November prior to the CMA Awards.
"I was raised on Merle, raised on Willie / Got my honky-tonk attitude from Joe Diffie / Daddy did too, it's family tradition / When someone cranks it up you can't help but listen / My upbringing sounds like George Strait singing / 'Cause if you know me, I was raised on country," he sings on the track.
Country Music's Sexiest Male Voices ... Ever:
In anticipation of his new music, Young has been covering the classics and allows fans to help decide the artist he covers. The Tennessee native has given fans an option of several classic country artists who have influenced him, including Alan Jackson, Merle Haggard, George Strait, Joe Diffie and Willie Nelson. So far he has covered Jackson's "Chattahoochee" as well as Strait's "The Fireman."
Best Albums of the 2000s? Chris Young Made the List but Who's No. 1?


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Pleasant View, UT, August 22, 2017 –(PR.com)– 10 year old Adria Johnson certainly believes that girls can do anything; the inventor of Rocket Knobs holds the future in her hands as she celebrates the solar eclipse with a new product, built out of a desire to have fun and make things that remind her of space and the future. She tsays her product is "not about fidgeting!" It happens to be somewhat inspired by solar eclipses and features two orbiting spheres. She and her father developed the small toy that allows for experimentation with the effects of angular and rotational momentum and newtonian physics. It's a very simple toy that holds some unique properties. Adria points out that Rocket Knobs® are the World's next super toy with many uses. She says the joy comes from tossing, spinning, flipping, rolling, and using them to massage your sore muscles.
The 10 year old Utah native is unshakable in her feeling that girls can do anything and should reach for the stars when it comes to their goals. She says the current target for her is to reach her funding goals on her Indiegogo® campaign so that she can invest in the manufacturing and distribution of Rocket Knobs®.
"I didn't realize there was so much that went into making a product, but now that I have started in the process, I totally think I can get this product to market. My artistic dad is helping me with the day to day marketing and project management to see it through to completion." -Adria Johnson
When asked where such an odd product name came from, she replied that "My dad and I had some brainstorming sessions where we tossed around some fun names. I knew the name should be something that recalls the launch of humans traveling to space, and beyond that, to walking on the moon, and seeking to go further out to Mars, or beyond. I really want people to think of the future and all the amazing things that have taken place in the past to break the bounds of gravity and put us in a position to see the cosmos from a different perspective than ground level. We can do amazing things and I want this new product to bring that into focus and be a reminder."
When it comes to the solar eclipse, Adria points out that the best way to re-live it is to "donate to my Indiegogo® campaign, and then buy some freeze dried ice-cream and listen to "Ticket to the Moon" by Electric Light Orchestra while you watch all the replays online."
YouTube Video:youtu.be/hHvwI8bZ8y0
Coming soon to Indiegogo: www.indiegogo.com/projects/rocket-knobs-the-original-fun-unique/coming_soon
Contact Information:
Rocket Knobs
Jared Johnson
Contact via Email
Read the full story here: http://www.pr.com/press-release/727417
Press Release Distributed by PR.com


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Here are a few exciting tidbits of news from the LR community to round out our last day of posts before hiatus (which takes effect tonight, along with the submissions deadline for Issue 4! Don't forget to send your work in—the system will be open until 11:59 pm EST).
Videopoem for Kenji C. Liu's "A Son Writes Back"
LR contributor Kenji C. Liu sent us a link to this awesome video he created for his poem "A Son Writes Back" (the most recent version of which appeared in Issue 2). The video combines an audio performance of Kenji's poem with musical accompaniment by Jason Jong. According to its caption on Vimeo, the visuals in the piece are footage from "a US Air Force propaganda film portraying aerial attacks on Imperial Japan during World War II." Watch the embedded version below, or follow the links beneath it to watch on Vimeo.
(A Son Writes Back – Poetry by Kenji C. Liu – Kou Xiang by Jason Jong from Kenji Liu on Vimeo).
W. Todd Kaneko Featured by the Los Angeles Review
Not only does Issue 3 contributor W. Todd Kaneko's work appear in the 10th issue of the Los Angeles Review, but the magazine recently featured his poem "Remembering Minidoka" online as one of the issue's "highlights"! To read the piece, click here. Many congrats to Todd on this honor.
Bao Phi's Sông I Sing Reviewed in the New York Times
The heading says it all: Bao Phi's collection, which Greg Choy reviewed for us last week, has been reviewed (and highly praised), by The New York Times. Our congratulations to Bao on these well-deserved accolades.
Melissa R. Sipin responds to Kimiko Hahn
Issue 3 contributor Melissa R. Sipin was inspired enough by Wendy's interview with Kimiko Hahn (and by the APR interview that Wendy references) that she wrote a poem in response! She's shared it on her blog. Thanks, Melissa, for your thoughtful engagement with Kimiko's words!


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Taking your whole family to the Mediterranean can be an adventure of a lifetime, and it sounds like it was for Sarah Hirsch from West Bloomfield, Mich. She went on Friendly Planet Travel's Athens and 4-Day Greek Isles Cruise with her husband, Kevin, and son and daughter, Jacob and Elena.
The Hirsch family recently returned from their tour of Greece and sent me an e-mail recapping their trip. I thought I would share with you all the kind things Sarah had to say and her beautiful photos. Thanks Sarah!
Our family at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece |
It may be a small world after all, but it sure seems big when trying to narrow down vacation options. Luckily, Friendly Planet Travel makes planning a vacation easy with a variety of specific itineraries of the best destinations around the world.
I had always wanted to go to Greece and see the beautiful islands, and visit amazing historical sites like the Acropolis, Agora, Plaka, and Panathenaic Stadium.
The Athens and 4-day Greek Islands Cruise itinerary offered by Friendly Planet provided me the opportunity to do all of this and more. With help and guidance from our Friendly Planet Travel agent, Becca, it was easy to prepare for a once in a lifetime family vacation.
Our journey began with an overnight flight to Europe, and our layover in Germany gave us a morning to explore the lovely Frankfurt. We arrived in Athens in the late afternoon, and were met by a Friendly Planet representative who brought us to our hotel.
Our family on the Greek Isles |
It was so nice to eliminate the stress of handling ground transportation as that was all taken care of, since it is included on every vacation booked through Friendly Planet.
Our evening consisted of an informational meeting with Yanni, our Friendly Planet point person in Greece, who gave us all of the information we would need for our cruise and oriented us for the week.
We chose to have dinner at the hotel's rooftop restaurant, which featured a view of the Acropolis all lit up for the night like a beacon welcoming visitors to Athens.
The next morning we were taken by bus to the port, where we embarked on our cruise. The ship brought us to the ports of Mykonos, Kusadasi (Turkey), Patmos, Rhodes, Crete and Santorini in the span of four days and four nights.
We were at each destination only briefly, just long enough to taste each island's unique flavor. These ports of call are so fantastic that even to simply walk around town and spend a few moments dipping our feet into the Aegean Sea equalled an incredible experience.
Elena and I in Ephessus, Turkey |
Friendly Planet offers optional excursions for an additional fee in each of the ports. We mostly chose to explore on our own, though we did take an organized tour that we booked through Yanni to the ancient ruins in Ephessus in Turkey, which gave us a look back to the way of life experienced thousands of years ago.
Our final stop was Santorini, which is so unique a place on Earth that it kind of blows your mind a little!
After the cruise, we had two more nights in Athens. Our hotel was located just a couple of minutes walking distance to most of the best sites to see in Athens. Because we chose to go during the middle of summer, the temperature hovered around 100 degrees, so we broke up our days by spending the siesta hours at the hotel pool to keep us cool.
Kevin, Jacob, and Elena in front of Greece's famous windmills |
We began our days with the complimentary breakfasts at the hotel, and spent our mornings and evenings seeing Athens' great sites.
From the Parthenon and Acropolis, to Syntagma Square, where we used the free wifi to check in back home. The Parliament building where we caught the changing of the guards at the tomb of the unknown soldier, the Ancient Agora, the Temple of the Olympian Zeus, the Panathenaic Stadium, home of the first modern Olympics, the new Acropolis museum, the National Gardens, and the Plaka, the main streets of Athens, where we found many great shops and restaurants to enjoy.
We left early on our final morning, with a 3:30 a.m. wake-up call, but as tired as we were, Yanni was there with a friendly smile to help us arrive in the right place at the airport.
Overall our voyage was indeed incredible. It was everything that I had always imagined my desired trip to Greece would be, without any of the stress that can come along with trying to manage all the details of traveling abroad. I will always be grateful to Friendly Planet Travel for providing my family with this wonderful experience. Thank you!


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Cars for sale - Facel vega
Facel Vega history
The French company Facel (Forges et Ateliers de Construction due's et Loir) was first established in 1938 as a manufacturer of stainless steel products for the aircraft industry. After the second world war Facel began constructing automobile bodies for Simca, Ford France and Panhard.
In those days, the company was under the leadership of Jean Daninos.
Jean Daninos had always dreamt of manufacturing his own design of super car; the "Grand Routier" or in other words, a luxurious, comfortable and practical 4-person sports car. 1954 saw this dream become a reality with the introduction of the first ever Facel automobile onto the market, the Facel Vega FV1, equipped with a powerful and trustworthy American V8 Chrysler motor.
The addition of the Chrysler motor meant that Facel was one of the first manufacturers to combine European styled body work with a big reliable American V8...
The Facel Vega's were expensive and highly exclusive but they sold well, particularly amongst film stars and the rich and famous. With the passage of time the newer models became increasingly more expensive as extra improvements and features were introduced. At the end of the 1950's, Facel had a motor designed specifically for use in a smaller model, the Facellia.
Unfortunately, these motors had so many teething problems that the huge amount of warranty claims they caused led the company into serious financial difficulties. The last ever models of the Facel line were fitted with Volvo P1800 (Facel III) and Austin Healey 150 pk six cylinder motors ( Facel 6). In 1964 this proud automobile finally went out of production.
Facel Vegas are cherished by enthusiasts all over the world to this very day. This extremely unique class of vehicle can easily be placed alongside classic makes such as Rolls-Royce, Bentley en Lagonda. Even though Facel did not manufacture it's own motors, it is safe to say that the vehicle commonly known as the "Grand Routiers" of automobiles is of absolute top class and continues to leave a deep and lasting impression.
© Marc Vorgers


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Offer peace of mind for your attendees with FanShield ticket protection. When purchasers add optional Ticket Protection during checkout, they can get a refund for their order if they are unable to make it to the event for a covered reason. Ticket buyers get 100% of their money back, including all fees, taxes, and shipping charges. Event organizers keep 100% of their revenue while having the option to resell available inventory.
The live event experience is about creating lifelong memories. Unfortunately, some people are unable to attend due to unforeseen circumstances such as sickness, work travel, military service, jury duty, transportation issues, or other covered reasons that could keep them from making it to the event. Big Tickets partnership with Protecht FanShield ensures those attendees are protected when problems arise by allowing them to cover the cost of their experience, guaranteeing they have no hesitation purchasing future tickets, continuing to make those lasting and meaningful memories.
Catch ticket buyers who may be
on-the-fence or risk adverse purchasers. Provide peace-of-mind while knowing it won't affect your cash flow for the event.
Providing the option for purchase protection can help eliminate some of the reasons ticket buyers leave your purchase process before completing their order.
You are instantly updated on inventory, allowing you to release and resell tickets, leading to extra revenue for you.
Our team will walk you through our pricing, key features, and best practices for event regsitration. Get In Touch.


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Vaping is the fastest and tastiest way to get CBD into your system. Within seconds of the vapour hitting your lungs, the CBD circulates around your bloodstream and interacts with the CBD receptors. We have a number of delicious flavours in varying strengths. Simply vape and unwind.
E-liquid Mixer has no taste and can be added to your vape of choice.
The Zskittlez provides an explosion of tropical, fruity indie goodness!
The Blueberg offers a taste of cool, sweet blueberry on the inhale and mouthwatering aniseed on the exhale. This will go straight to your head
Ingredients: Vegetable Glycerin, Proplene Glycol, Flavourings, CBD
- 10ml
- 500mg


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You have great content. That's great but you shouldn't have to work twice as hard to get the pageviews you want. While Auto Load Next Post is not the only infinite scrolling plugin out there it is the first that is designed to work and match with your theme and track the content that is being viewed, NOT the excerpts from your post archives like other plugins out there. All of your posts content!
Auto Load Next Post templating experience is the best in class – by a long shot.
Don't just take my word for it. Read what Rich Tabor (Author of ThemeBeans) had to say in his review.
What is Auto Load Next Post?
Auto Load Next Post is a WordPress plugin developed to increase your pageviews by engaging the site viewers to keep reading your content rather than increasing your bounce rate.
It simply automatically loads the next post on your blog once the viewer has reached the bottom of the initial post they are reading and repeats the process as they read your content until there are no more posts to load.
✏ Note to New Users
Auto Load Next Post is a plugin designed for self-hosted WordPress sites. This means you will need to switch from WordPress.com to WordPress.org if you want to use this plugin on your WordPress site.
See for yourself
Want to see how it works? Go to the demo site, view any single post and scroll down to see the plugin in action.
Increase Your PageViews Today
Intrigued? I bet you are. Once you try Auto Load Next Post, your pageviews will increase 📈 and you will not want to go back. Guaranteed.
Built with developers in mind
Extendable and open source — Auto Load Next Post is created with theme and plugin developers in mind. If you're intersted to jump in the project, there are opportunities for developers at all levels to get involved. Contribute to Auto Load Next Post on GitHub and join the party. 🎉
Need to trigger something during each post load? See the JavaScript triggers available in the documentation for details.
Track Your PageViews
If you have Google Analytics added to your site then you can track your pageviews just as you would any single post. Simply ask Auto Load Next Post to Update Google Analytics via the settings page and all pageviews will be tracked.
Customizable Repeater Template
Auto Load Next Post is completly customizable to help match to your theme. Should you need to completly override the repeater template for your theme you can do just that. Follow the guide in the documentation for more details.
3rd Party Support
Auto Load Next Post has started to support 3rd Party plugins 🎉 starting with WP Rocket and more will be added over time.
Free Add-ons
WordPress.org is home to some great add-ons for Auto Load Next Post, including:
– Facebook Pixel Tracking
Keen to see them all? View all add-ons for Auto Load Next Post.
Have a free add-on for Auto Load Next Post? Let me know about it.
Auto Load Next Post Pro
Want more? I bet you do. A premium extension is currently in development with some of the most highly requested features.
- Page and Media Attachment Support
- Custom Post Type Support
- Paginated Posts Supported
- Exclude Post Formats
- Limit Posts per Session
- Query Posts by Category, Tag, Related or Custom Query
- Exclude User Roles and Specific Users
- Pre-Query Posts Ready to Load
- Toggle Comments to Hide or Show
- Multilingual Support for WPML and Polylang
On top of that you also get:
- Email Support
- and many more features and add-ons to follow.
Find out more | Sign up to be notified >>
More information
- Visit the Auto Load Next Post website.
- View the documentation for detailed guides and code snippets.
- Subscribe to updates
- Follow on Twitter
- Follow on Instagram
- Like us on Facebook
- GitHub
This plugin is created and maintained by Sébastien Dumont.
Automatic installation
Automatic installation is the easiest option as WordPress handles the file transfers itself and you don't need to leave your web browser. To do an automatic install of Auto Load Next Post, log in to your WordPress dashboard, navigate to the Plugins menu and click Add New.
In the search field type "Auto Load Next Post" and click Search Plugins. Once you've found the plugin you can view details about it such as the point release, rating and description. Most importantly, of course, you can install it by simply clicking "Install Now".
Manual installation
The manual installation method involves downloading the plugin and uploading it to your web server via your favourite FTP application. The WordPress codex contains instructions on how to do this here.
If the theme already supports Auto Load Next Post then you do not need to complete the remaining steps:
- Go to the plugin settings page by 'Settings > Auto Load Next Post'.
- Enter each of the selectors specified for the theme you are using and press "Save Changes".
Automatic updates should work like a charm; as always though, ensure you backup your site just in case.
- How does it work technically?
When a viewer reaches near the end of the article, the post navigation at the end of the post is used to identify and find the next post to load. It loads that post by inserting the content via a customizable repeater template and places the content underneath the parent post within the post container. This is done via Ajax.
It also detects what the viewer is reading and updates the browser URL address bar and page title to that post. Should the reader refresh the browser, the post they are currently reading would load as the new initial post.
All previous posts of the blog are still retained in the browser history and to top it off, each post read can be tracked as a pageview using Google Analytics.
- Is Auto Load Next Post free?
Yes! Auto Load Next Post's core features are and always will be free.
- Will Auto Load Next Post work with my theme?
Yes, Auto Load Next Post will work with any theme but may require some configuration for it to understand your theme. Please see the documentation for help or read further down to see if your question has already been answered.
- Is Auto Load Next Post translatable?
Yes! Auto Load Next Post is deployed with full translation and localization support via the 'auto-load-next-post' text-domain. How to translate?
- Where can I find the settings for this plugin?
Go to Settings -> Auto Load Next Post. There you will find the options to change any of the theme selectors, enable Google Analytics and remove comments.
- Is overriding the repeater template file required?
No. This was put in place to support themes that have coded their template files differently from WordPress theme code standards. For example, the Genesis Framework displays content via many action hooks instead so for this case overriding the template is a required.
- Can I use JetPack Social Links and Like Button?
Yes. No further configuration is needed if you already have JetPack setup with social icons and like button.
- Is it compatible with the JetPack's related posts module?
This is not possible but it would also drive away the purpose of this plugin if related posts where to be displayed.
- Can I load content before and after the next post has loaded?
Yes, you can. In the default repeater template, there are action hooks available that you can use.
- After the first post has loaded, all I get is the same post over and over again. Why is that?
If you have this issue and you have created a custom repeater template file to support the theme then you may have placed the post navigation outside of the post query.
You need to place it inside the loop. If that is not the case then you have not included the content of the post correctly according to the theme you are using.
- Does the plugin detect my theme and insert the theme selectors for me?
If the theme author has added support for Auto Load Next Post and has set the theme selectors then yes, it will set the theme selectors for you. If not supported then it does not. You may follow this guide to help you find your theme selectors.
- My theme does not work with the plugin, what do I do?
Check that you have a post navigation at the end of your post. If one does exists then you may need to copy and modify the repeater template file content-alnp.php in order to support your theme.
Not all themes are coded the same way so some alterations will be needed to match the theme. If you need help with this then I can provide theme support on request.
- What is the post order?
The post order is descending order from the initial post the visitor started reading from.
- How can I get the Google Analytics option to work?
You first need to have Google Analytics added to your site. Either by inserting the analytics into your theme yourself or by using the Google Analytics plugin by MonsterInsights.
Once you have Google Analytics applied to your site you can enable to track each post via the plugin settings.
- Can I track Facebook Pixels instead?
You can. All you have to do is simply install the Facebook Pixel Tracking add-on and activate. All that is required is that you have your Facebook Pixel tracker installed on the site first.
- Does Auto Load Next Post support WordPress Network / Multisite websites?
It does. Just make sure that you activate the plugin on the site you want it used on and then make sure the selectors match the theme that site is using.
Contributors & Developers
"WordPress Infinite Scroll by Auto Load Next Post" is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors"WordPress Infinite Scroll by Auto Load Next Post" has been translated into 2 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.
Translate "WordPress Infinite Scroll by Auto Load Next Post" into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
1.5.13 – 27th May 2019
- Tweaked: Upgrade warning notice in preparation for version 1.6.0 release.
1.5.12 – 23rd April 2019
- Tweaked: Repeater template now looks for
not exist before fallback tocontent.php
. - Tweaked: Help tab copy and links on the plugin settings page.
- Tweaked: Need help button now opens the help panel for the settings in view if one exists.
- Updated: Review link.
- Updated: POT file for translations.
1.5.11 – 11th April 2019
- NEW: Excluded JS files from defer for the WP Rocket plugin.
- Dev Feature: Reset button added to the Misc settings to allow users to remove all settings and re-initialize the plugin.
- Fixed: Incorrect function name used when applying filter for WP Rocket plugin.
- Tweaked: Admin notices to only appear on the Dashboard, the Plugins page, the Themes page and Auto Load Next Post settings page.
- Tweaked: Admin notices have been re-ordered to allow correct flow of display.
- Tweaked: Improved Admin JavaScript and added a confirmation for when the reset button is pressed.
- Tweaked: Code clean up to remove functions or inline documentation that is no longer needed or used.
- Updated: POT file for translations.
1.5.10 – 5th April 2019
- NEW: Added 3rd Party support for the WP Rocket plugin. Excludes Auto Load Next Post scripts from JS minification.
- Corrected: Added missing Poseidon theme options used to determin if post thumbnails should show in repeater template.
- Tweaked: Theme selectors admin notification should the active theme be supported via a plugin.
- Tweaked:
1.5.9 – 2nd April 2019
- NEW: Added support for Poseidon theme.
1.5.8 – 1st April 2019
- NEW: Added support for OceanWP theme.
- Corrected: Typo in Congratulations admin notification.
- Tweaked: Improved loading of Auto Load Next Post if set in the footer.
- Tweaked: Disqus comments is also removed if Remove Comments is enabled.
- Tweaked: The plugins JavaScript will stop running if user scrolls to quickly. Solves issue #156
- Updated: POT file for translations.


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This guide includes information that helps you to configure Novell Service Desk to seamlessly work with the Configuration Management tool, so that the Novell Service Desk users can manage incidents more efficiently.
The information in this guide is organized as follows:
This guide is intended for administrators.
We want to hear your comments and suggestions about this manual and the other documentation included with this product. Please use the User Comments feature at the bottom of each page of the online documentation.
Novell Service Desk is supported by other documentation that you can use to learn about and implement the product. For additional documentation, see the Novell Service Desk documentation Web site.


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What Should I Look for in a Real Estate Agent?
Buying or selling your home isn't always easy, but it usually is rewarding. And to take the worry out of the experience, you can have a Sales Professional guide every step of the way.
There are many things to look for in someone who will help you find a home or sell your home.
- You'll want a tech-savvy agent, someone who can use a sophisticated set of web-based tools that make communication fast and easy. For home sellers, tech-savvy agents will make sure your home is marketed online, where most buyers are. Tech-savvy agents also can help buyers expedite the search process by sharing property photos, details and information, all online.
- Moving to a new city? Work with an agent who is a Certified Relocation Specialist (CRS), trained to meet your unique needs. Or, ask your Sales Professional to put you in contact with our Relocation Services. We can find the right people to help you just about anywhere in the world.
- ¿Hable español? If English isn't your primary language, find an agent fluent in your primary language. The Local Realty offers translation assistance in various languages for non-English-speaking clients (and American Sign Language).
- Looking at building a new house? Work with a Sales Professional who specializes in new home construction and understands the ins and outs of the process.
Professional Real Estate Credentials
The Local Realty Sales Professionals who are REALTOR® members adhere to the National Association of Realtors (NAR) Code of Ethics. Those belonging to NAR receive continuing education and are up on the latest trends, making them well-prepared to offer you the most advanced real estate advice.
Your agent will provide you a variety of tools and assistance to streamline your buying and selling experience.
It's also good to pay attention to the initials on a Sales Professional's business card. They're important because they refer to various accredited designations that have been earned through a lot of hard work.
For example, the designation CRS – Certified Residential Specialist – is the highest designation available to sales associates in the residential real estate industry.
In fact, only four percent of all agents in the country can claim this designation. The award recognizes accomplishments in terms of education, experience and volume of transactions throughout a career.
Other designations include:
ABR: Accredited Buyer Representative
ALC: Accredited Land Consultant
CCIM: Certified Commercial Investment Member
CIPS: Certified International Property Specialist
CRB: Certified Real Estate Brokerage Manager
To learn more about how earning and maintaining these credentials helps an Agent to better serve you, please talk with your Sales Professional.


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More than 150 Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians and friends of the Baltic states celebrated Lithuanian independence on March 11 at a cultural event hosted by Stanford University Libraries in the School of Education.
Stanford University Librarian Michael Keller and Lithuania's Honorary Consul Dennis Garrison welcomed the audience following an introduction from Liisi Esse, the library's assistant curator for Estonian and Baltic Studies. Keller spoke about Stanford's growing relationship with the Baltic countries. "Let us know how we might help you and your country stay free, and how we can help young people learn about your country," Keller told Lithuanians in the audience.
The evening featured a screening of "The Other Dream Team," a compelling documentary about the Lithuanian national basketball team that won the Bronze medal at the 1992 Olympics shortly after the country broke away from the Soviet Union. Produced by Lithuanian-American Marius Markevicius, who answered questions after the film, "The Other Dream Team" tells the story of how the national sport of basketball helped Lithuanians survive the 50-year Soviet occupation. "We were fighting the enemy not with guns and explosives but on the basketball court," former President Valdas Adamkus said in the film. Lithuania was an independent nation for 20 years until the outbreak of World War II.
Cultural historian Violeta Davoliute-Opgenorth from Vilnius University introduced the audience to the country's 20th-century history with a talk titled, "Fact, Fiction and Memory: Representations of the Postwar Fight for Lithuanian Independence From Soviet Times to the Present." Lithuania was the first Baltic republic to declare the restoration of independence on March 11, 1990. This act led to a crippling economic blockade from Moscow but also catalyzed the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Davoliute-Opgenorth said Lithuanians used different forms of resistance to fight Soviet rule after the end of World War II. An estimated 30,000 Lithuanian partisans, known as the Forest Brothers, actively fought Soviet forces from 1944 to 1952. "This is becoming more and more significant when one has a fully blown war right on the footsteps of Europe in Ukraine," she said, referring to the Russian invasion in Ukraine and annexation of the Crimea. "Lithuanians and people in the other Baltic states feel this threat very strongly."
All three Baltic states are members of NATO but Lithuania recently announced plans to introduce military conscription in response to growing Russian aggression in the region. In the first 10 months of 2014, for example, NATO's Baltic air policing mission was forced to perform 132 military scrambles to intercept Russian jets near Lithuania, up from only four in 2010. Lithuanians know from experience that appeasement brought disaster and occupation to their country in 1939. Today, they and their Baltic neighbors know that the only way to counter Russia's expansionist policies is to fight back.
See also the Baltic Studies Facebook page.


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Bill Binney worked at the National Security Agency nearly three decades as one of its leading crypto-mathematicians. He then became one of its leading whistleblowers.
Now 70 and on crutches, both legs lost to diabetes, Binney recalls the July morning seven years ago when a dozen gun-wielding FBI agents burst through the front door of his home, at the end of a cul-de-sac a 10-minute drive from NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Md.
"I first knew that they were in there when they were pointing a gun at me as I was coming out of the shower," Binney says.
When I ask him why the agents were there, he replies: "Well, it was to keep us quiet."
The NSA is overseen by Congress, the courts and other government departments. It's also supposed to be watched from the inside by its own workers.
But over the past dozen years, whistleblowers like Binney have had a rough track record.
Those who tried unsuccessfully to work within the system say Edward Snowden — the former National Security Agency contractor who shared top-secret documents with reporters — learned from their bitter experience.
For Binney, the decision to quit the NSA and become a whistleblower began a few weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when he says he discovered the spy agency had begun using software he'd created to scoop up information on Americans — all without a court order.
"I had to get out of there, because they were using the program I built to do domestic spying, and I didn't want any part of it, I didn't want to be associated with it," he says. "I look at it as basically treason. They were subverting the Constitution."
Binney says he and two other NSA colleagues who also quit tried sounding the alarm with congressional committees. But because they did not have documents to prove their charges, nobody believed them. Snowden, he says, did not repeat that mistake.
"He recognized right away, it was very clear to me, that if he wanted anybody to believe him, he'd have to take a lot of documentation with him — which is what he did," Binney says.
'Your Life Is Never The Same'
And that's why, he says, Snowden has had such an impact. Others have tried to work within the system. For example, computer expert Thomas Drake thought blowing the whistle on what he considered unconstitutional NSA programs would shake things up there. Instead, what got shaken up was his own life.
"The only person who was investigated, prosecuted, charged in secret, then was indicted, then ended up facing trial and 35 years in prison was myself," he says.
Drake had taken his case both to the NSA and to Congress. After concluding his complaints were going nowhere, he showed unclassified information from the NSA to a newspaper reporter. For that he was charged with violating the Espionage Act. The FBI raided his home, too — four months after Binney's.
"Your life's never the same. All your colleagues and people you used to work with all disappear. You're persona non grata, you're radioactive," he says.
"On top of that, you're spending tens of thousands of dollars defending yourself with a private attorney. So now you're practically bankrupt, you're declared indigent before the court, your family's questioning who you are and what you're up to and why you brought all this on us."
The case against Drake fell apart days before he was to go to trial in 2011; he got off with a misdemeanor plea bargain and these days works at an Apple store. Like Binney, Drake thinks what happened to him was a cautionary tale for Snowden.
"Snowden carefully saw what happened to me and others, and it was clear ... there was no other recourse," he says.
Not everyone agrees.
"Snowden could've come to me," says George Ellard, the NSA's inspector general. "In fact, he would have been given some protections."
Earlier this year, Ellard spoke at Georgetown University's Law School. He said he could not say what would have been the proper way for Snowden to raise his concerns, but the way it happened was very, very bad. Snowden says he did try to blow the whistle internally at the NSA, but Ellard said he'd never heard from him.
"Perhaps it's the case that we could've shown, we could've explained to Mr. Snowden his misperceptions, his lack of understanding of what we do," Ellard said.
New Protections For Whistleblowers
Since Snowden made off with the NSA's secrets, the rules for whistleblowers have changed. President Obama has issued a directive aimed at giving greater protections to whistleblowers working for intelligence agencies, since they did not have the protections covering other federal employees.
"Supervisors and managers need to understand that whistleblowing is a lawful mission in the national security interest," says Dan Meyer, a former federal whistleblower.
He now works for the inspector general at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. What's new is the job Meyer holds: executive director for intelligence community whistleblowing and source protection. He says he looks out for potential whistleblowers as much as the spy agencies that employ them.
"We need to get to that employee in the last cubicle, in the furthest-most office whose hoodie is about to go up, and let them know that if they need to get this information to somebody who can address the wrongdoing, we have a way of proceeding with that process," Meyer says.
Under the president's new directive, which Congress just codified into law, someone like Thomas Drake who tried blowing the whistle while still working at the NSA would have a chance to appeal to inspectors general at other intelligence agencies. Such a hearing, though, is by no means guaranteed. And the protections don't extend to everyone: Former employees such as Bill Binney would not be covered, nor would outside contractors like Edward Snowden.
"At the moment, they are absolutely hung out to dry," says Danielle Brian, whistleblower advocate and executive director of the Project on Government Oversight.
"And what's extraordinary is the intelligence community has been increasingly privatizing its activities," Brian says. "You're having more and more people who are private contractors with the highest level of clearances who find out about some of the most potentially troubling misconduct, but they are without any serious protections."
She's pleased that Meyer has been put in charge of implementing the new whistleblower guidelines. But she says there are other problems with the new rules — they still don't get whistleblowers' complaints out of the intelligence community and into the courts, where she says whistleblowers want them to be.
The only time they do get into the courts is when they're charged with a crime, including under the Espionage Act. Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project is a lawyer for both Edward Snowden and Thomas Drake.
"The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act says you can't retaliate against someone for blowing the whistle but provides no remedy when you are retaliated against," Radack says.
That retaliation can take the form of being stripped of your security clearance, making it impossible to do your job. When I asked whistleblower Bill Binney his advice for anyone thinking of doing what he did, he had a ready reply:
"The first thing is get a lawyer, get legal advice," he said.
The other thing, Binney added, is never compromise your character and integrity.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Current Articles | Archives
Although coastal aquaculture has long been seen as harmful to the environment, some are calling for a new look into operations that move the practice into deeper water.
by Virginia Gewin, TheFern.org
April 20, 2017 — Editor's note: This story was produced in collaboration with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, a non-profit investigative news organization.
Harlon Pearce walks muck-booted past processors gutting wild drum and red snapper to showcase a half-full new 5,000-square-foot (500-square-meter) freezer he hopes will someday house a fresh boom of marine fish. Harlon's LA Fish sits just across the railroad tracks from the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, perfectly positioned to ship fish out of Louisiana.
As president of the New Orleans–based Gulf Seafood Institute, seafood supplier Pearce is a big fish himself in these parts, connected to fishermen, federal agencies, restaurateurs and even the oil industry. He knows better than anyone that wild fisheries alone can't supply U.S. consumers' growing demand for fish. Which is why he's doing his best to bring everyone to the table to achieve one goal: farming the Gulf of Mexico.
There are currently no commercial finfish operations in U.S. federal waters, located between 3 and 200 miles (5 to 322 kilometers) offshore. Pearce and others are convinced that jumping into the rapidly growing open ocean aquaculture industry expanding into offshore waters globally is the future of sustainable seafood.
In 2015, per capita fish consumption in the United States was 15.5 pounds (7 kilograms), up from 12.5 pounds (5.7 kilograms) in 1980. Globally, however, the amount of all wild-caught fish has stayed relatively stagnant — at around 80–90 million metric tons (90–100 million tons) — for the past two decades.
Globally, in total, around 160 million metric tons (180 million tons) of fish — wild, farmed, marine and freshwater — are produced to satisfy annual demand.
The Gulf of Mexico annually yields a catch of about 29,000 metric tons (32,000 tons) of wild-caught finfish, which are bony fish such as snapper or grouper. Given regional demand, Pearce says, "our wild marine fish don't go too far." To his point, in New Orleans' French Quarter there is a seafood restaurant on practically every block.
The World Bank predicts that by 2030, two-thirds of fish being consumed will be farmed. Which is why Pearce and others believe the U.S. should be farming fish in its open waters.
Producing more of our seafood in the U.S. means that consumers will have local, safe, sustainable choices, explained Michael Rubino, director of the Washington, D.C.–based Office of Aquaculture at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Fisheries, when he announced a federally approved plan taking shape in the Gulf of Mexico. The gulf, by volume, is second only to Alaska in terms of U.S. wild-catch fisheries. In January 2016, NOAA authorized up to 20 open-ocean aquaculture permits for the gulf. In total, these could produce 29,000 metric tons (32,000 tons) of fish — effectively doubling the amount of finfish currently coming out of the area. (A draft environmental impact statement that would help guide offshore aquaculture development in Hawaii is expected later this year, and public hearings this summer will decide the fate of a proposed finfish farm to be located 8 miles off the coast of Hampton Bays, New York).
Open-ocean aquaculture could reduce some of the environmental concerns often associated with aquaculture based in coastal waters. Photo courtesy of NOAA Fisheries
Marine aquaculture, so far largely based in coastal waters, has long been anathema to environmentalists, its reputation blighted by everything from pollution and disease outbreaks to the destruction of mangroves and genetic contamination from escaped fish. Open-ocean aquaculture could reduce some of these environmental concerns, assuming it is sited in deep, swift waters, reducing the potential for pollution and disease without destroying habitat, and remaining challenges, such as fish escaping and forage fish being used as feed in huge quantities, have promising fixes.
As a result, some environmentalists are saying open-ocean aquaculture deserves a fresh look. Since all food we grow, on land or in the sea, has some environmental impact, isn't aquaculture worth exploring if it can satisfy rising demand for healthier protein with less impact than, say, beef or pigs?
Can It Really Be Sustainable?
Given the idealized small, local, low-input view of sustainable farming, offshore aquaculture presents something of a paradox. On one hand, U.S. fish farms would be local and more heavily regulated than some farms producing imports. On the other, to be economically viable, operations would need to be industrial-scale. "There will be costs to the wallet and environment. It's unavoidable. But if done correctly, environmental costs will be negligible," says Greg Lutz, an aquaculture specialist with the Louisiana State University Aquaculture Research Station, based in Baton Rouge. "As a society, we have to decide what impacts are acceptable. There's no free lunch."
Open Blue, the largest open ocean fish farm in the world, located 8 miles off the coast of Panama, is a good place to look when addressing the idea of scale and sustainability. Owner Brian O'Hanlon and his investors chose to stock cobia for three primary reasons: it would avoid direct competition with wild fishing, it would offer versatility to chefs and it would appeal to health-conscious consumers.
Tenney Flynn, co-owner and award-winning chef at GW Fins in New Orleans, prefers his cobia spearfished, but sees aquaculture as inevitable in the U.S. "There's too many people in the world and fish is too popular," he says. If he does buy farmed cobia, he prefers the quality out of Central America compared with Vietnam. A local option would offer an incentive, however. "The expense with aquaculture is the freight. If you can take freight out of the equation, it knocks off US$2 per pound," he says. Local fish are already Flynn's preference: His menu in February listed 12 finfish, of which roughly 70 percent were local and wild.
There are signs that operations like Open Blue can be sustainable. O'Hanlon gave then University of Miami Ph.D. student Aaron Welch, who was studying the environmental impacts of aquaculture, the run of the farm during 2012–13 to collect environmental data as long as he shared it with O'Hanlon. One concern with offshore farms is that concentrated waste from these operations, either in the water or underlying sediment, could adversely impact ecosystems — at worst, resulting in eutrophication or fish mortality. According to Welch, the open-ocean cage operation left no nutrient footprint in the water column, either from dissolved oxygen or nitrogen compounds. He did find a modest uptick of organic carbon and nitrogen compounds in the sediment around the cages.
To see the full infographic, click on the image. Infographic Courtesy of Food & Environmental Reporting Network, Ensia and SwitchYard Media
Extrapolating published data to calculate a maximum amount of fish poop [4,000 metric tons (4,400 tons) of nitrogen compounds for each 29,000 metric tons (32,000 tons) of fish produced] from the federally approved Gulf Coast operations would effectively be a drop in the bucket (and, Lutz says, a "worst-case scenario" given the methods used in the paper) compared with what already gets dumped into the gulf from Midwest farm chemicals via the Mississippi River. In May 2016, the gulf's estimated input of nitrites and nitrates was 150,000 metric tons (165,000 tons).
Another potential sustainability issue, antibiotic use — overuse can lead to bacteria resistant to antibiotics — has declined. Vaccines have largely supplanted antibiotic use, at least in Europe and the Americas, and antibiotics are more heavily regulated in aquaculture than in any other kind of animal production, says Neil Sims, co-founder of Kampachi Farms, a research facility in Kona, Hawaii, who is planning a commercial offshore operation, located 4 miles (6 kilometers) offshore from Bahia de La Paz, Mexico, to grow a sashimi-grade Almaco jack. He and colleagues have also experimented with untethered open ocean drifter pens and unmanned net-pen operations off the Hawaii coast. He laments the slow pace of the U.S. government actions to streamline the regulatory landscape.
"The logic of not doing [open-ocean aquaculture in the U.S.]escapes me," says Albert "Rusty" Gaudé, a fishery extension agent based in Jefferson, Louisiana, with the Louisiana Sea Grant program, one of 33 NOAA-funded state college research programs focused on long-term economic development and environmental stewardship. "I can't think of any large-scale animal-production scheme that has been looked at as much as this has been. Cattle feedlots certainly weren't."
Existing data indicate that marine fish farms are far more efficient and pollute less than cattle or pig farms. Based on Conservation International's 2011 "Blue Frontiers" report, says Jack Kittinger, senior director of Conservation International's global fisheries and aquaculture program, based in Honolulu, Hawaii, "offshore aquaculture looks a lot more sustainable than other animal production methods, which was eye-opening for us."
According to the Conservation International report, fish turn feed into flesh four and 13 times more efficiently than pigs or cows, respectively.
And they generate less nitrogen and phosphorus pollution — for example, half to two-thirds less nitrogen (per metric ton of protein produced) than pigs or cows, respectively. Fish-generated phosphorus is roughly 15 percent less than pigs and 55 percent less than cows (per metric ton of protein produced).
One strong argument in favor of ramping up open-ocean aquaculture in the U.S. is that the country imports 90 percent of its seafood, and half of that is farm-raised overseas in operations that can have dubious internal levels of food-safety and environmental oversight.
If we put all the options on the same table and compare everything in terms of nutritional value and environmental impacts, open ocean aquaculture looks very promising, says Ben Halpern, director of the University of California, Santa Barbara–based National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis.
Marine ecologist Steve Gaines, dean of the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UCSB, was stunned by what he and colleagues found while comparing available data on the greenhouse-gas footprint of different animal production methods. Finfish and shellfish aquaculture had a much lower GHG footprint than anything land-based (and shellfish aquaculture could even reduce nutrient pollution, something that could be useful in the Gulf of Mexico). "Producing all of our future animal protein needs via beef adds [the equivalent of emissions from] another United States, whereas if we produced the same amount of shellfish protein, we would only add another Texas," he says. The main reason is that shellfish, filter feeders, do not require a food supply; they thrive on the copious nutrients already in the water. Aquaculture — specifically operations that use best practices, Gaines clarifies — offers great opportunities to meet future food demands.
A Changing Tide?
One strong argument in favor of ramping up open-ocean aquaculture in the U.S. is that the country imports 90 percent of its seafood, and half of that is farm-raised overseas in operations that can have dubious internal levels of food-safety and environmental oversight. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the top seven countries that export aquaculture-raised seafood to the U.S. are Canada, Chile, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and China, which led global aquaculture production with 69 million metric tons (76 million tons) produced in 2016. Since the FDA can't physically screen all seafood imports, it monitors whether foreign suppliers comply with U.S. food-safety laws and uses a program called PREDICT to identify higher-risk shipments for physical examination.
Intensive operations in Asia, the region with the fastest growth in aquaculture and the most lax environmental oversight, are ripe for the spread of disease. In 2010, a devastating disease, hepatopancreatic necrosis syndrome, rippled through shrimp farms throughout China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. The FDA has issued two countrywide alerts requiring mandatory testing for antimicrobials for aquaculture-raised seafood before entry into the U.S. — one in 2007 for seafood from China, and another in shrimp from the Malaysian peninsula in April 2016.
Increasingly, global operations are moving into open ocean waters — except in the U.S., where stiff regulatory hurdles have so far made it difficult for investors in, for example, southern California to get approval for operations.
NOAA's gulf ruling was not without controversy. The day it went into effect, 11 groups — from associations of commercial and recreational fishers to local and national environmental organizations — filed a joint lawsuit challenging NOAA's authority to permit industrial aquaculture offshore. The lawsuit alleges that NOAA's authority under the 2007 Magnuson-Stevens Act, the primary law governing marine fisheries management in federal waters, is to regulate wild fisheries catches only, not industrial aquaculture operations. In essence, the plaintiffs' legal argument is that this is farming, not fishing.
"Fishermen are concerned about keeping the gulf safe and productive in light of the scale of aquaculture being proposed," says Will Ward, the attorney representing fisheries plaintiffs in the lawsuit and a former fisherman. "They are the ambassadors for wild fish stocks."
One concern is the threat of escaped fish, but improved netting reduces the likelihood this will happen. In the gulf, only native fish can be farmed under NOAA's new permitting rules. Yet several studies have shown that hatchery rearing, even a single generation, can alter fish genetics — specifically, survival and reproductive success. While a few escapees would likely live long enough to mate and spread their genes, most would likely end up as prey, says Patrick Banks, assistant secretary of the Office of Fisheries at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
Still, says Ward, "[commercial and recreational fishing] is a multibillion-dollar industry we're talking about. If something goes wrong, the citizens of the Gulf Coast are the ones left holding the bag."
So far, no one has submitted an application for an aquaculture permit in the Gulf. The reason, according to industry insiders, is that investors are loath to invite the ire of environmentalists or fishermen without a smooth regulatory pathway — and that includes resolution of the pending lawsuit.
Location, Location, Location
But all of this may be putting the cart before the horse. The most pressing question may be whether the Gulf of Mexico is even the best place for U.S. offshore farming.
There is one often-cited advantage to the oil-rich gulf over other potential regions in the U.S.: infrastructure. "The Gulf of Mexico is a natural place for aquaculture to start [in the U.S.]," says Gulf Seafood Institute's Pearce. "Everything is here shoreside. We've got vessels, processing facilities, and we shouldn't waste these oil platforms." He's referring to the 2,110 oil platforms currently spread throughout gulf waters; over 600 are waiting to be decommissioned. Oil platforms could serve as aquatic barns, storing fish feed and pen equipment, which would reduce start-up costs.
But the gulf also presents formidable challenges. The region is still recovering from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The oil rigs share the waters with heavy marine traffic. A large portion of the gulf suffers from an annual hypoxic or "dead" zone resulting from the agrochemicals draining into it from the Mississippi River. And the region is vulnerable to increasingly severe hurricanes, although submersible pens exist that can be lowered to avoid a storm's destructive wave energy.
Perhaps not surprisingly, fishermen, who have faced strict catch limits imposed to rebuild wild stocks in recent years, are among the most concerned about the potential negative impacts of allowing industrial aquaculture in these sensitive waters.
That concern was on display at the recent Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council meeting in New Orleans in late January. Schools of commercial and recreational fishermen congregated outside the Astor Crowne Plaza hotel meeting room as the 17-member oversight body reviewed stock assessments, catch limits and catch-report requirements.
Buddy Guindon is executive director of the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance, a non-profit that represents commercial fishermen interests. He fishes the waters near Galveston, Texas, where the organization is based. These waters are shallow and so won't likely be directly affected by offshore aquaculture operations, which is ideally located in deep, swift-moving water. Still, he explains that the gulf is essentially a semi-closed body of water dominated by a northward-flowing loop current of warm water from the Caribbean. "We're concerned about the [fish farm] effluent, the waste," he says.
Gulf menhaden — a small, oily forage fish — is turned into fishmeal for aquaculture, but new sources of fishmeal from things such as soy and seaweed could reduce demand for forage fish. Photo courtesy of Louisiana Sea Grant
Regional fishermen aren't just concerned about what goes into the water, though. What comes out is raising questions, too. Currently, 20 million tons (18 million metric tons) of wild fish — one-quarter of the world's commercial catch — is turned into fishmeal. Greater regional demand for fishmeal production, they worry, could leave fewer forage fish for the wild species, given that a sizable chunk of gulf menhaden — a small, oily forage fish — is already turned into fishmeal for aquaculture elsewhere. In May 2015, Empire, Louisiana-based Daybrook Fisheries, the second biggest U.S. processor of menhaden, was sold for US$380 million to Oceana, a South African fishing business that supplies fishmeal around the world.
But new sources of fishmeal — from soy to insect larvae to seaweed — promise to alleviate the demand for forage fish. "The frontier [on aquaculture feeds] is lowering the environmental footprint entirely," says Conservation International's Kittinger. He says this will include converting vegetable matter and even food waste streams into feed.
Still, the debate over aquaculture simmered in the hallways outside the fishery council meeting in January, where fishermen's organizations discussed whether they should remain part of the lawsuit against NOAA's new permitting proposal. In the end, Guindon says, the Shareholders Alliance and the Charter Fishermen's Association grew leery of appearing anti-aquaculture, and opted to leave the lawsuit in February. Guindon says fishermen would favor a "slow ramping up of aquaculture if there were heavy requirements for third-party monitoring of any harm that might be occurring and the regulatory authority to cease actions."
But trust in that regulatory authority is a big issue in the Gulf of Mexico. Just blocks away from the meeting, Cynthia Sarthou sighs and shakes her head. It may be cynical, says the executive director of the Gulf Restoration Network, an oil-industry watchdog in the region and a remaining participant in the lawsuit, but she has little confidence that federal agencies, especially promoters of an industry, will fully enforce regulations. NOAA, for example, is housed in the U.S. Department of Commerce. "I have never seen a situation where regulatory agencies in the gulf are fully able to implement regulations and safeguard the environment, especially when economic interests are involved." She blames a lack of funding and political pressure. "Agencies are subject to political pressure, politicians answer to people who invest in campaigns, and industry invests in campaigns," she says. And while NOAA may mean well, she says, it is one of the weakest regulatory bodies in the region. She points to countries like Norway as admirable regulators of industry. "If we had the environmental ethic of Norway, I would be much more comfortable with this," she adds.
It's unclear how offshore aquaculture will be perceived by the Trump administration. Wilbur Ross, the new head of the U.S. Department of Commerce, said in his January 2017 Congressional confirmation hearing that he would like to see the U.S. become a net exporter of fish. Yet the administration's newly proposed budget includes drastic cuts to federal agencies, including NOAA and the Coast Guard. It's too early to tell what that will mean for regulatory oversight.
Supporters of offshore aquaculture argue that current U.S. regulations are unnecessarily cumbersome. A new memorandum of understanding details the seven government agencies that will be involved in permitting offshore aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico. NOAA Fisheries Southeast Regional Office, the lead agency, will issue permits to deploy operations offshore and sell the harvest. A pollution discharge permit will need to be secured from the Environmental Protection Agency, while the Army Corps of Engineers will regulate the placement of structures or modification of navigable waterways. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Bureau of Safety and Environment Enforcement, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Coast Guard will also review operations.
The Economics of Aquaculture
Advocates like Gulf Seafood Institute's Pearce believe aquaculture will bring economic benefits to coastal communities, at least between southern Louisiana and the Florida panhandle, which are closest to the deep, rapid-moving waters where offshore fish farms would need to be placed. These communities have been hard hit in recent years from human-caused and natural disasters. For example, Hurricane Isaac struck Venice, Louisiana, in 2012, two years after the fishing community was devastated by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that occurred only 50 miles to the southeast.
The commercial fishing industry lost millions of dollars in sales and thousands of jobs in the first eight months after the oil spill, according to one study. But many in these coastal communities don't expect aquaculture to bring them anything but headaches. With this much risk and money at stake, aquaculture investors have little incentive to employ local fishermen, processors or dock handlers, predicts Margaret Curole, Gulf Coast native and a founding member of the Commercial Fishermen of America, an advocacy group. Rather, aquaculture fish could be transported up the Mississippi River directly to New Orleans suppliers, bypassing fishing communities all together.
Members of the coastal Venice, Louisiana, community are concerned aquaculture will bring only headaches and competition, yet few jobs. Photo courtesy of Virginia Gewin
Catch shares, allotted fish quotas allowed given total catch limits, which can be sold among fishermen, already proved unprofitable for a number of the smaller fishing operations, forcing them out of business. And Venice-based shrimpers, who struggle to compete with massive farmed imports from overseas, offer an example of how farmed seafood affects global markets. Now fin fishermen are nervous about competition, too.
Pearce hears such economic concerns often, but is convinced the opposite is more likely. "Aquaculture creates markets," he insists. He says farmed Atlantic salmon is the perfect example. It makes seafood affordable for the masses, while wild-caught salmon garners a premium price for people willing to pay.
Cobia is one of only a few native species that would make economic sense to farm in the Gulf of Mexico. Photo courtesy of NOAA Fisheries
In the gulf, offshore aquaculture operations would likely focus on high-value species that don't make up much of current catches. There are only a few high-value native species that would make economic sense — fewer still that have developed successful hatchery production, such as cobia, pompano and red drum, says Rex Caffey, a natural resource economist based in Baton Rouge with the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center and Louisiana Sea Grant.
Cobia is an aquaculture favorite because of its remarkable growth rate, but that might bring problems of its own. "A tsunami of cobia is coming at us" from around the world, which could flood the market and cause prices to plummet, says Louisiana Sea Grant's Gaudé.
The biggest unknown, says Caffey, is whether offshore fish farms could survive economically in the gulf given the daunting infrastructure costs, labor, transport, liability concerns and environmental constraints.
One argument for open-ocean aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico is that oil platforms waiting to be decommissioned could serve as aquatic barns, storing fish feed and pen equipment, but costs to take over the platforms could prove to be prohibitive. Photo courtesy of NOAA
Investors may eye existing oil platforms, but their use is not without significant costs. Matt McCarroll, president and CEO of Fieldwood Energy, LLC, in Houston, says his company is the largest owner of offshore platforms in the U.S. and has been actively decommissioning them in recent years. He says he's been contacted five or six times in the past 10 years by potential aquaculture investors interested in using the platforms. But the conversations end, he says, as soon as he explains that it will cost US$2 million to US$10 million, depending on size and water depth, to take over maintenance, liability and responsibility for decommissioning the platforms.
Perhaps the biggest limitation in the gulf is that, under the NOAA provisions, no single operation would be allowed to produce more than 5,800 metric tons [6,400 tons, or 20 percent of the gulf maximum limit of 29,000 metric tons (32,000 tons)]. "That's laughable — the size of a modest Norwegian fish farm," says Kampachi Farms' Sims. "Especially when you look at the moral imperative to grow more of our own seafood."
The economics of aquaculture have always been risky — with significant up-front cost and a lengthy time to recoup investment. Louisiana State University's Lutz tells an old joke among fish farmers: "If you want to make a small fortune in aquaculture, start with a large fortune."
"These operations only get efficient with scale; they require a large investment and a viable permit pathway in U.S. waters. That's why people aren't running" to apply for permits in the gulf, says Sims. And, he adds, that's why operations that could have been in the U.S. end up in places like Panama, where Open Blue is located, and others such as Mexico and Costa Rica, where open-ocean aquaculture is already up and running.
Testing the Waters
Offshore aquaculture offers a glimpse of the kind of difficult food-security decisions societies will grapple with going forward — knowingly facing and mitigating the unavoidable consequences of producing the food we eat. "As populations continue to grow, we won't be fighting over oil and gas, but over freshwater and food," says Robert Orr, managing director of Cuna del Mar, a private equity fund that invests in sustainable aquaculture companies, including Open Blue.
Conservation International soft-launched a program in January 2017 called Blue Production with the aim of shaping and spreading best practices throughout the aquaculture industry. "Aquaculture is only going to grow, so how can we steer it in the right direction?" asks Conservation International's Kittinger.
Any kind of farming can be done sustainably — or not. Offshore aquaculture could contribute to a future where food demand is met in a way that does not contribute to environmental degradation so often associated with farming. In the U.S., it remains to be seen whether strict regulations and a robust, sustainable form of fish production can go hand in hand. But supporters say it's time to test the waters.
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The New Yorker
Founded in 1925, The New Yorker publishes the best writers of its time and has received more National Magazine Awards than any other magazine, for its groundbreaking reporting, authoritative analysis, and creative inspiration. The New Yorker takes readers beyond the weekly print magazine with the web, mobile, tablet, social media, and signature events. The New Yorker is at once a classic and at the leading edge.


text:
Colin Todhunter
(RINF) – Who will be the winners and the losers in the coming U.S. presidential election? Trump or Clinton, Clinton or Trump? The mainstream media is consumed with personality politics. Who could hold their nerve in a time of crisis? Whose integrity is purer (or less damaged)? If you were forced to choose, who would you trust your house keys with? It's entertainment for the masses.
There will only be one group of winners: the interlocking oligarchy of financial, oil, military, agribusiness and pharmaceuticals interests than run the U.S. Whether it's Trump or Clinton, policy nuances aside, Washington's empire will stumble on. And it will do so not because of its inherent dynamism but because of its lies, manipulations, militarism and ability to crush any tendencies that exist towards a multi-polar world.
The U.S. as a nation is bankrupt. It was in dire straits in the 1960s as a result of the Vietnam war and the emergence of economic rivals, such as France and Germany. Shifting off the gold standard and moving towards petrodollar recycling and treasury bond imperialism allowed the empire to remain on course and the dollar to remain as the world's reserve currency. Oil, not gold, became the mainstay of the empire. As long as the (oil-backed) dollar remains the global currency, the U.S. can continue to secure a free lunch courtesy of the rest of the world.
Today, more than 60 per cent of all foreign currency reserves in the world are in U.S. dollars, and the U.S. will attempt to prevent countries moving off the dollar by any means possible, not least military.
Washington's economic infrastructure is too weak to mount an economic recovery of note and U.S. corporate cartels will do anything to prevent policies that eat into their profits. They serve their own interests, not any notional 'national interest', and offshoring large parts of the US economy has served them well.
Indeed, Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary to the U.S. Treasury, notes that much of the most productive part of the economy has been moved offshore to increase corporate profits. By doing so, the U.S. has lost critical supply chains, industrial infrastructure and the knowledge of skilled workers. The U.S. could bring its corporations back home by taxing their profits abroad and could also resort to protective tariffs, but such moves would be contrary to the material interests of the ruling oligarchy of private interests, which hold sway over U.S. politics.
Void of a suitable industrial manufacturing base or the will to invest in productive infrastructure, the U.S. continues with its speculative finance-related bubbles, its non-productive rentier economy and its predatory hold over the institutions of global capitalism (WTO, IMF, World Bank), while its drags its European vassal states into imperialist wars to help maintain global hegemony and ensure allegiance to the U.S. dollar. And this is exactly what we are seeing today as the strategy for global supremacy is played out.
Over the past two decades, the U.S. has extended its influence throughout Eastern Europe and, among other places, in the Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria and Pakistan (with Washington's presence in neighbouring Afghanistan to all intents and purposes being a proxy war against Pakistan and Chinese influence there). With each passing year and each new conflict, the US has been drawing closer to direct confrontation with Russia and China.
Russia is holding firm over Syria, which is vital to wider U.S. geopolitical goals that involve the weakening of the Russian energy-dependent economy and ousting Russia from its only naval base outside of the former USSR. A global US strategy is already in force to undermine China's growth and influence, part of which was the main reason for setting up AFRICOM: US Africa Command with responsibility for military operations and relations across Africa. But China is not without influence, and its actions are serving to weaken the hegemony of the U.S. dollar, thereby striking at a key nerve of U.S. power.
China has been implementing bilateral trade agreements with a number of countries, whereby trade is no longer conducted in dollars but in local currencies. Over the past few years, China and other powers such as Russia have been making agreements to move away from the U.S. dollar in international trade. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) also plan to start using their own currencies when trading with each other. Russia and China have been using their own national currencies when trading with each other for more two years.
A report from Africa's largest bank, Standard Bank, stated a few years back:
"We expect at least $100 billion in Sino-African trade – more than the total bilateral trade between China and Africa in 2010 – to be settled in the renminbi by 2015."
Under Saddam, Iraq was not using the dollar as the base currency for oil transactions, neither is Iran. Libya's Muammar Gadhaffi was talking about using a gold-backed dinar as the reserve currency for parts of Africa. U.S.-backed destabilisation and war followed. In 2000, Iraq converted all its oil transactions to euros. When U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, it returned oil sales from the euro to the dollar. Little surprise then that we have over the years seen on on-going saga by the U.S. to remove the Iranian regime via sanctions, destabilization, intimidation or the threat of all-out war.
Iran has looked east to China, Pakistan and central Asia to counteract the effects of U.S. sanctions and develop its economy and boost trade. To sustain its empire, the US has effectively pushed the world into different camps and a new cold war: one not based on competing/alternative political or economic systems but a simmering conflict based on competing capitalist elites or ruling oligarchies who require control over their regional spheres of influence.
Imperialism still reigns and neither side – whether the U.S., Russia or China – is particularly appealing, not least to those who believe that democratic (green) socialism is the best hope for humanity. In the absence of such a solution, a world not hurtling towards nuclear conflict would serve us well for the time being.
The U.S. economy appears to be in terminal decline. The only way to prop it up is by corrupt, secretive, lop-sided trade agreements or by waging war to plunder resources and to ensure the print-as-you-go dollar remains the world reserve currency. An empire in decline armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons and trapped in a cycle of endless war to stave off ruin is a frightening scenario. Even more alarming is the talk of pre-emptive nuclear strikes against other nuclear powers such as Russia and China.
This is the reality that faces the world. This is the reality that the corporate media will not inform the U.S. electorate about. The empire demands a sufficiently ignorant, misinformed public courtesy of a Fox News/CNN made-for-TV election stupor. An electorate that is sufficiently convinced to believe that millionaire-billionaire politicians who climb into bed with Wall Street banks and the rest of the ruling oligarchy have their interests at heart.
A public for whom the term 'class consciousness' or 'class interest' figures little if anywhere in their political lexicon. The class that appears to be highly conscious of its interests is the one in control: the one that does its level best in ensuring that any such consciousness emerging within the ruled over is shut down at birth – or suffocated within the mind-manipulating control mechanism that is the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
They sold your jobs to the lowest bidder abroad under the lie of 'efficiency' to make every greater profit, and they get you to blame your plight on immigrants. They use your taxes to kill and destroy countries under the lie of 'humanitarianism/fighting terror' to secure ever more mineral riches, and they get you to fear the latest bogeyman. And they sell you a vision of democracy that much of the rest of the world regards as shambolic. America, it's time to wake up.
Colin Todhunter is an independent writer


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The LG True Steam washer dryer pair is the prize available to contestants who enter to win through the LG or Benjamin Moore Paints websites.
From what we can find, the washer includes these Key Features:
* TrueSteam™ Technology
* Ultra Capacity (4.5 cu.ft.)
* TrueBalance™ Anti-Vibration System
* Wash/Rinse Optimizer™
* Trilingual LCD Display
* 1300 RPM Spin Speed
* 9 Washing Programs
Hey, it's a chance for a free washer and dryer – Go ahead, give it a try.


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On this Saturday morning, Aperture Academy instructor Scott Davis gathered together with our intrepid workshop group for a fun, informative and productive day at the San Francisco zoo. Morning conditions were typical summer in the city by the bay — ah, a lovely thick marine layer but luckily for us, this makes for great portrait taking conditions because of the soft diffused light.
We always start with introductions, so it was exciting to hear that some of our students were taking the workshop in preparation for a big trip that involved a lot of wildlife photography. Two lucky students were heading off to Africa in a few weeks for a two-week photo safari, and took this class to put some final touches on their wildlife photo skills. Can one say, green with envy however this gets Aperture staff all giddy with excitement as we put the final touches on our own no holds barred African photo safari in 2012?
From experience, we knew there was an early Grizzly feeding. So with this in mind, we briefly warmed up our trigger fingers and camera settings on a variety of animals en route to the Grizzly enclosure. The chimpanzees in particular were up and active and provided fantastic animal portraits. Due to their dark complexions coupled with a bright sky background, we were really able to see the benefits of working in manual mode. Normally, these kind of lighting conditions would wreak havoc on the metering systems of cameras in their ability to determine proper exposure. With a few test shots, histogram evaluation and highlight settings, tricky lighting was no longer a problem. Time flew watching the chimps so onward to the Grizzlies
To get a view of the actual feeding spot for the Grizzlies, you have to crowd behind big windows with the other interested humans. However, we knew from experience that a wonderful time to get into position for grizzly shots is the time just before feeding, and not behind the windows.
The bears have an internal clock, coupled with food smells and behavioral cues associated with the keepers, so they know when feeding time is imminent. At this point, the bears get anxious and start pacing and running back and forth in their enclosure. The advantage of having an experienced location instructor is that we know the best places to get the best shots, so our photographers were able to put themselves in great positions (without windows or crowds) and capture fantastic portraits of Grizzly bears running directly toward the camera. For the students with bigger telephoto lenses, by zooming in tight, one would be hard pressed figuring if the bear was on the Alaskan tundra or in a zoo in San Francisco. Good stuff!
After leaving the bears, we continued around the zoo focusing on opportune moments and animals as they presented themselves to us. Meerkats with their big eyes and curious nature are always a favorite although today there was a bit of a chill in the air so they mostly evaded us by getting all snugly in thier dens. Not to worry though, there's always something to see at the zoo.
Of course, gorillas, with their close resemblance to everyone's Uncle Harry and Aunt Florence, never fail to produce superb images. And, the birds of prey area allows our photographers to get uber-tight portraits of magnificent birds like Golden Eagles and Peregrine Falcons, various owl species, that in the wild would be exceptionally difficult to acquire.
By the end of the workshop, with a little coaxing, instruction and encouragement, most everyone had embraced shooting in full manual mode. The mysteries of proper exposure, shutter speed, f-stop settings, ISO, white balance, and raw images were no longer a mystery. Checking their screens, I could see some amazing images being captured. Well done everybody!
It's always great fun spending a day watching and photographing animals. Add to the mix an enthusiastic and energetic group of people and you've got the makings for a good time. To quote once again Simon and Garfunkle, "It's all happening at the Zoo" and we agree.
Until next time,
Scott and the rest of the team at Aperture Academy!
If you'd like to join us at one of our workshops, you can find the schedule/sign up here. Leave & read comments below...
Other Cool Stuff→ Past Workshop Photos → 72dpi.com → How-To Articles → Photographer of the Month |
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What you're looking at is no toy. It weighs 33,000 pounds. It's a SWINGMASTER. I found it on a walk I took down the railroad tracks. The windows were shattered and the keys were in the ignition.
I climbed on the back part and opened the door, but I didn't sit on the springy seat because I got a little worried when an Austin patrol car started driving towards me.
Its tires crunched on the gravel.
This was my first time walking railroad tracks. Although I didn't see any signs warning me to keep off this area, I wasn't really looking for any signs. My idea was to walk down the tracks and take photos.
Even if there were warning signs, I would've ignored them and claimed ignorance.
But this patrol car got me a little worried.
I jumped off the SWINGMASTER and considered running away into the forest. I've run from the cops before. In fact, I wrote about my most recent run from the fuzz right here on TOE, in a long-winded post called:
To Google, Reddit, and TOE, Which Stands For The Open End.
Except, technically, I didn't run from the cops then but jumped into Biscayne Bay and swam for my life.
This time I would definitely have to run. There was no water anywhere. But I didn't want to look more suspicious than I already looked, so I walked straight towards the patrol car and nodded into the mysterious darkness of tinted windows.
A voice got on a PA system and said, "You know that trains roll down this way quite often."
The voice boomed across the desolate tracks. I thought it was a little excessive. Couldn't he just roll down his window and talk to me?
I looked at the spot where his mug would normally be, adjusted my white baseball cap, and shouted, "Really? I wasn't sure about that. I was just on my way home."
Although the cop approved of my plan, for good measure he menacingly turned his patrol car around and watched me walk all the way to Oltorf St, which was the nearest thoroughfare.


text:
Where are you reading this? By the kitchen table with a cup of coffee? At the health club, on a treadmill?
Wherever you are, you need to imagine a different world now. You need to picture a dark, dead night in a swampy peasant village. You need to be 25 years old. Imagine gunfire. Imagine screaming.
Imagine a weapon on your shoulder, a helmet on your head, and the choking fear that you might die at any moment. Can you do that? Really? Can anyone on a normal, American morning really imagine that feeling?
If not, then it is hard to say what we would do if we were in Bob Kerrey's boots back in February 1969.
Kerrey, the former U.S. senator and governor from Nebraska, is under fire for his role in an attack on Than Phong, a Vietnamese village. The raid has long been considered one that killed enemy forces, but a more brutal account is given in today's New York Times magazine.
Actually, several brutal accounts.
Kerrey's account is that he and his group of commandos were fired upon. They returned fire, and only after the smoke cleared did they see they had killed 13 to 20 women and children.
Another squad member recalls the raid differently. Gerhard Klann said the group, led by Kerrey, thought its safe escape was threatened. So squad members rounded up the women and children and executed them.
"We did not go on a mission with the intent of killing innocent people," Kerrey insisted last week.
Years of silence
Nobody argues that war is bloody. Nobody denies innocent people get killed. What seems to upset people as much as Kerrey's wartime actions are the silent years that followed.
Kerrey did a lot in those silent years. He was awarded the Bronze Star for his role at Than Phong — in a hospital after his leg was blown to bits in another mission.
"The medal meant nothing to me," he said.
But he still accepted it. He also accepted the Congressional Medal of Honor. He accepted other good things that came his way, at least partly because of his combat record.
He was elected governor. He was elected senator. Although Kerrey has said, "I never asserted I was a hero of war," he didn't exactly deny it, either. He made two passes at the Democratic nomination for president. Both times, his military record was cited as perhaps his most appealing attribute. During campaign speeches, he talked with inspiration of his Vietnam days.
He never mentioned shooting women and children.
The question is: Did he have to?
The memory that haunts
It is easy for us to judge Kerrey, to say, "He should have come clean right away." But this is not about sneaking a cookie from a cookie jar. We are talking about inhumane behavior under inhumane conditions, shame, horror, guilt. We are also talking about a guy in his 20s who had to learn to live without part of his leg.
Many soldiers came back from Vietnam eerily silent, rendered mute over the horror they had seen. Some took their own lives.
Is it that hard to understand why Kerrey, crippled and guilt-stricken, wouldn't exactly blurt out his story the first chance he got? Sure, he could have refused the medals. But is he really the first military man to get hardware for something that wasn't earned? And why weren't the battle reports more closely scrutinized?
Kerrey admits he might never resolve the discrepancy between his account and Klann's. But in either version, this wasn't killing for the sick thrill of it. It was done in the belief that American lives would be saved. When you are a U.S. soldier, you are trained to make that your priority.
This doesn't excuse murdering innocent people. Kerrey knows that.
"I once thought dying for your country was the worst thing that could happen to you," he said. "I don't think it is. I think killing for your county can be a lot worse. Because that's the memory that haunts."
And unless you, too, are haunted by such ghosts, it is hard to say what you'd do in such a horrific moment, not before, during or after.
Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or email@example.com.