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Galveston Bay Spill Presents Grave Risks
With no end in sight to containing a spill that may have dumped 150,000 gallons of fuel oil into Galveston Bay on Saturday, the hit to Texas' economy and environment is already huge — and sure to grow.
The 50-mile Houston Ship Channel, one of the world's biggest waterways for the transport of petroleum products, chemicals and other materials, remains shut down. Cruise ships can't depart from key ports. Galveston Bay's multibillion-dollar recreational and commercial fishing industry is off limits during a peak tourist season. And the scores of vulnerable species in Galveston Bay, most notably birds that are soon to begin their northward migration along the upper Texas coast, are at grave risk.
The type of oil that spilled — a marine fuel oil known as RMG 380 — is black, sticky and particularly heavy. That means that instead of evaporating from the surface of the water like gasoline would, much of it will sink, persisting in the environment for months or even years. While this heavier oil is not acutely toxic, it can smother wildlife, to devastating effect.
"Fuel oil is not easy to clean off anything," said Jim Suydam, a spokesman for the General Land Office, the state agency that is leading the response and cleanup efforts in conjunction with the U.S. Coast Guard. "It sticks to things."
Coast Guard Lt. Kristopher Kidd said Sunday that it still isn't clear how much oil spilled into the bay when a 585-foot bulk carrier collided with an oil barge on Saturday. The barge was holding close to 1 million gallons of oil, but Kidd said only one tank with a capacity of 168,000 gallons was affected. That tank "didn't completely empty," he said, but a substantial portion of it probably did. The oil barge has been removed, but there is no easy way to contain the spill, and efforts have been further hampered by strong winds.
The most recent oil spill of a comparable size off the coast of Texas occurred in 2010, when close to a half-million gallons of oil ended up in the Port Arthur Ship Channel. The waterway was closed for several days, a big blow to oil refineries and other operations in the port. (The 2010 BP oil spill, while far larger in scope, had less effect on the bay, Suydam said — though Texas beaches took a bigger hit, and some are still recovering.)
Even though more oil was involved in the 2010 Port Arthur incident than Saturday's spill, experts say the current situation in Galveston Bay will create much bigger problems. The Port Arthur spill was confined to that ship channel; this one occurred in open water.
Scott Hickman, who has been chartering boats in Galveston Bay for decades, said slicks are clearly visible from shore, and the smell of oil is strong. His boat-chartering business is poised to lose thousands of dollars a day, he said — during spring break no less — because operations are shut down as containment efforts continue.
"This is really, really the worst stuff you can dump in the water," he said.
Suydam added that Galveston Bay is an ecologically sensitive area, which was far less true of the Sabine-Neches waterway where the Port Arthur spill occurred. Migratory birds such as the loon will begin their northward flight this month and are sure to be affected by the sticky oil slicks. In their case, Suydam said, even a few barrels of oil could have had a major impact.
Galveston Bay and its environs are also home to thousands of other species of shorebirds that will get coated when they dive for fish. Tom Harvey, a spokesman for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, said birds covered in sticky black oil have already been recovered in Galveston's East Beach area, which faces the ship channel.
The economic impact of this spill is also likely to exceed that of the 2010 spill. The Houston Ship Channel is a significant financial engine and a large reason Texas is the top exporting state in the nation; its exports now exceed New York City's. The state's ongoing oil and gas boom has boosted the channel's importance even more, with refineries along it working furiously to process crude oil so it can be shipped elsewhere.
Suydam said the spill has "already had an economic impact as far as industrial activities." But he expressed optimism about the cleanup operation, saying Texas is in a good position to respond to the spill.
"We've got the most robust response capacity in the United States," he said.
Disclosure: Texas Parks and Wildlife was a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune in 2011 and 2012, BP America was a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune in 2011 and 2012, and BP Corporation North America was a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune in 2010. (You can also review the full list of Tribune donors and sponsors below $1,000.)
Information about the authors
Learn about The Texas Tribune's policies, including our partnership with The Trust Project to increase transparency in news.


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Expecting More® DVD
Prenatal fitness guru and new mom, Sara Haley, designed Expecting More® to help fit and healthy moms-to-be stay motivated, inspired and fit throughout their pregnancy. Based on her own experience with pregnancy, as well as training other pre and post-natal women, Sara saw the need for a comprehensive prenatal DVD training program. Expecting More® provides six different workouts to give women a variety of cardio, strength and dynamic flexibility exercises.
Expecting More® Flowy Racer Back Tank
Show everyone at the gym that you're expecting more in this heather gray racer back tank with Sheering at the back seam.
Made from 52% polyester and 48% viscose.

subset: commoncrawl


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Possible hints of life spotted in Venus' clouds, astronomers say
Astronomers have found a potential sign of life high in the atmosphere of neighboring Venus: hints there may be bizarre microbes living in the sulfuric acid-laden clouds of the hothouse planet.
Two telescopes in Hawaii and Chile spotted in the thick Venusian clouds the chemical signature of phosphine, a noxious gas that on Earth is only associated with life, according to a study in Monday's journal Nature Astronomy.
Several outside experts — and the study authors themselves — agreed this is tantalizing but said it is far from the first proof of life on another planet. They said it doesn't satisfy the "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" standard established by the late Carl Sagan, who speculated about the possibility of life in the clouds of Venus in 1967.
"It's not a smoking gun," said study co-author David Clements, an Imperial College of London astrophysicist. "It's not even gunshot residue on the hands of your prime suspect, but there is a distinct whiff of cordite in the air which may be suggesting something."
As astronomers plan for searches for life on planets outside our solar system, a major method is to look for chemical signatures that can only be made by biological processes, called biosignatures. After three astronomers met in a bar in Hawaii, they decided to look that way at the closest planet to Earth: Venus. They searched for phosphine, which is three hydrogen atoms and a phosphorous atom.
Astronomers looking at the atmosphere in neighboring Venus see something that might just be a sign of life. (Source: NASA)
On Earth, there are only two ways phosphine can be formed, study authors said. One is in an industrial process. (The gas was produced for use as chemical warfare agent in World War I.) The other way is as part of some kind of poorly understood function in animals and microbes. Some scientists consider it a waste product, others don't.
Phosphine is found in "ooze at the bottom of ponds, the guts of some creatures like badgers and perhaps most unpleasantly associated with piles of penguin guano," Clements said.
Study co-author Sara Seager, an MIT planetary scientist, said researchers "exhaustively went through every possibility and ruled all of them out: volcanoes, lightning strikes, small meteorites falling into the atmosphere. ... Not a single process we looked at could produce phosphine in high enough quantities to explain our team's findings."
That leaves life.
The astronomers hypothesize a scenario for how life could exist on the inhospitable planet where temperatures on the surface are around 800 degrees (425 degrees Celsius) with no water.
"Venus is hell. Venus is kind of Earth's evil twin," Clements said. "Clearly something has gone wrong, very wrong, with Venus. It's the victim of a runaway greenhouse effect."
But that's on the surface.
Seager said all the action may be 30 miles (50 kilometers) above ground in the thick carbon-dioxide layer cloud deck, where it's about room temperature or slightly warmer. It contains droplets with tiny amounts of water but mostly sulfuric acid that is a billion times more acidic than what's found on Earth.
The phosphine could be coming from some kind of microbes, probably single-cell ones, inside those sulfuric acid droplets, living their entire lives in the 10-mile-deep (16-kilometer-deep) clouds, Seager and Clements said. When the droplets fall, the potential life probably dries out and could then get picked up in another drop and reanimate, they said.
Life is definitely a possibility, but more proof is needed, several outside scientists said.
Cornell University astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger said the idea of this being the signature of biology at work is exciting, but she said we don't know enough about Venus to say life is the only explanation for the phosphine.
"I'm not skeptical, I'm hesitant," said Justin Filiberto, a planetary geochemist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston who specializes in Venus and Mars and isn't part of the study team.
Filiberto said the levels of phosphine found might be explained away by volcanoes. He said recent studies that were not taken into account in this latest research suggest that Venus may have far more active volcanoes than originally thought. But Clements said that explanation would make sense only if Venus were at least 200 times as volcanically active as Earth.
David Grinspoon, a Washington-based astrobiologist at the Planetary Science Institute who wrote a 1997 book suggesting Venus could harbor life, said the finding "almost seems too good to be true."
"I'm excited, but I'm also cautious," Grinspoon said. "We found an encouraging sign that demands we follow up."
NASA hasn't sent anything to Venus since 1989, though Russia, Europe and Japan have dispatched probes. The U.S. space agency is considering two possible Venus missions. One of them, called DAVINCI+, would go into the Venusian atmosphere as early as 2026.
Clements said his head tells him "it's probably a 10% chance that it's life," but his heart "obviously wants it to be much bigger because it would be so exciting."
Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter: @borenbears
The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


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Click here for larger version of the image. |
GD&T is difficult to get right even though it is very logical. What does "right" mean? Right means several things, but mainly that it imposes achievable, fully function based and only necessary permissible limits of imperfection using absolutely syntactically correct code. But right also means that controls are complete and logical. Many call-outs in the following drawing are syntactically correct but flawed in that they 1) fail to impose the necessary constraints, 2) utilize Datum Features in non-functional ways, or 3) misuse Geometry Control Tools and modifiers. Some are syntactically incorrect as well.
Take some time to study the call-outs below and make notes on each numbered item to log any problems you discover. Then put your notes away and only return to them for a second go at least one day later. When you feel you have a good handle on things, read through the numbered comments to compare your insights with ours. If you differ with our take, please email us your comments, and look for follow-up comments at www.qualitymag.com or in the forthcoming April issue. (This column will now appear quarterly.)
GD&T Code Commentary
- Legal and functionally correct. Although the Perpendicularity tool would state the requirement more clearly, the Angularity tool is perfectly legitimate, and properly implemented. In fact we don't need the Parallelism and Perpendicularity tools in the first place, since the Angularity tool can do everything.
- Illegal on one count. The Position tool may only be used to constrain the location of the form perfect symmetry components of features—mid-points, axes and mid-planes—never of a planar surface. Note: This is not the case in the ISO 1101 Standard, which most "foolishly" and unnecessarily allows application of the Position tool to planar surfaces.
- Legal. The Position tolerance zone is spherical, and is correctly identified by the modifier "SØ".
- Legal but functionally meaningless. The Datum Features in the second tier of a Composite Feature Control Frame may only constrain rotational degrees of freedom, but a stand-alone sphere has none! In the case of a pattern of two or more spheres, however, the second tier would impose refined mutual location constraints on them, and refined control over the orientation of the pattern.
- Illegal on two counts. The Circularity tool is the only permissible tool we have to impose Sphericity, even though the Y14.5 2009 Standard could be "interpreted" to permit using the Surface Profile tool to do so in conjunction with a toleranced nominal spherical diameter (see §8.4.2 p.165) but 1) the tolerance zone shape modifier "Ø" is inappropriate because the imposed tolerance zones are circular ribbon-like, and 2) the spherical diameter tolerance value of ±0.01 already imposes an upper limit on Sphericity of 0.02.
- Illegal on one count. The two indicated planar surfaces do not make up a feature of size—they are not opposed—making use of the width tool meaningless because it cannot define an envelope of perfect form at MMC and must by definition. The only two tools capable of imposing the indicated mutual location constraint are the Surface Profile and the Dimension Origin tools, both of which would also very appropriately differentiate between the controlled and the reference feature in order to encode the actual functional requirement, of which the width tool is also incapable.
- Illegal on one count. Surface Profile is the right tool; however, there should be no reference to Datum Feature C, since it has no influence on the Tolerance Zone.
- Illegal on two counts. 1) The indicated feature is nominally perpendicular to A but nominally parallel, not perpendicular, to B. The only functionally applicable tool is Angularity. 2) The Surface Profile tool has already imposed an orientation constraint of 0.3 millimeter (mm), making the addition of the Angularity tool meaningless without a tolerance smaller than 0.3.
- Non-functional on three counts. 1) The Tolerance Zone Size modifier (M) is totally non-functional in the case of a threaded feature which will always stably orient and locate the mating screw "regardless of its size" as soon as it is torqued down, and is even less representative of the functional impact of a threaded bore when accompanied by the Projection modifier (P), since there is no "material" surrounding its projected axis to create a functional Maximum Material Boundary. 2) Datum Features A and B suffice fully to define the necessary Datum Reference Frame in this case, making a reference to C inappropriate. 3) The intended offset of the Position tolerance zone from A is specified by a nominal dimension, which has no impact on a Position tolerance zone.
- Illegal on one count. The Tolerance Zone Size modifier (S) is illegal, because the controlled feature component is a surface, not a symmetry component.
- Illegal on two counts. 1) The lack of the Tolerance Zone Shape modifier "Ø" implies a "slab-like" tolerance zone, whose orientation has not been made clear, and even the proper definition of which would also leave the location of the feature uncontrolled in the orthogonal direction. 2) Although a Tolerance Zone Mobility modifier (S), (M) or (L) is required by default in the case of a location constrained planar Datum Feature, namely the implied relationship of Datum Feature B to D, B has not been controlled relative to D, making it impossible to define a Maximum Material Boundary for B relative to D, therefore outlawing the use of the modifier (M).
- Legal. Median Line Straightness can be controlled in the current instance. Furthermore the tolerance is smaller than the total tolerance on the size of the feature, therefore refining the constraint imposed by the Envelope Rule, is always associated with a Tolerance Zone Size modifier because the Median line is a symmetry component, and even allows an explicit (S), given that the date of the applicable Y14.5 Standard has not been specified.
- Illegal on three counts. 1) The Perpendicularity tool is unable to impose the necessary location constraints leaving the feature afloat in the imposed Datum Reference Frame. 2) The Tolerance Zone Shape modifier "Ø" is missing, which is required to fully constrain the feature's bounded axis. 3) The Tolerance Zone Mobility modifier (M) associated with Datum Feature B is illegal, because B is a location unconstrained planar Datum Feature.
- Illegal on one count. The Cylindricity tool imposes a "tube-like" tolerance zone, not a cylindrical zone as falsely imposed by the Tolerance Zone Shape modifier "Ø".
- Illegal on one count. The Flatness tool may never be associated with a Datum Feature label.
- Illegal on two counts. 1) The Tolerance Zone Size modifiers (S), (M) and (L) apply only when the controlled feature component is a symmetry component, namely a mid-point, an axis, a median line, a mid-plane or a median plane. In this case the controlled component is all the points on the surface of planar Datum Feature A. 2) The thickness control on the slab of ±0.1 already imposes a Parallelism tolerance of 0.2 on the indicated surface, making the additional Parallelism control useless.
- Non-functional on one count. The Parallelism tool defines a slab-like tolerance zone that can only be oriented by the implied Basic angle of 0 degrees, but not located by the applied Basic dimension of 41 mm, making it useless, therefore leaving the height of the pin uncontrolled.
- Illegal on one count: Failure to state the date of a particular version of the Y14.5 Standard makes all the indicated code meaningless from the get-go.
I'm certain that I will have overlooked or improperly analyzed several improprieties in the above drawing so I look forward to your comments.


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Apple's diversification into mobile phones, music retail and the consumer computer media experience led many to speculate that its professional software development would suffer, but this has been far from the case.
With new versions of Logic Studio and Final Cut Studio released last month, pro audio and video apps are clearly alive and kicking in Cupertino.
Logic Pro 9 is one part of the updated Logic Studio, along with other music-related tools such as MainStage 2, Soundtrack Pro 3 and WaveBurner 1.6. We'll be focusing on Logic Pro 9 here, but note that you can't buy the software on its own. There's a cheaper cutdown version, however, called Logic Express.
One caveat to be aware of is that Logic is now officially Intel Mac-only, although internet reports say that it does actually work on PowerPC machines.
In the new version, Logic's underlying capabilities remain similar, so you can enjoy a potential 255 audio tracks, 255 software instrument tracks and 99 external MIDI tracks. These are complemented by over 70 effects plug-ins, a bundle of soft synths (including those that are also found in GarageBand) and over 4500 presets.
The additional content includes all six Jam Packs (including the Voices package), 16GB of sound effects and 6GB of surround sound music beds. This translates to more than 20,000 royalty-free, tempo-clocked Apple Loops and 1700+ EXS24 sampler instruments. The specs are impressive and, out of the box, Logic Pro 9 has something for everyone.
There are plenty of other features that make Logic an attractive option. If you're after extra processing power, you can combine networked Macs to share the load. For interfacing, there's solid ReWire implementation, and if you plan to transfer songs to another platform, there's XML, OMF and AAF support. Recording, editing and mixing in surround is also fully supported.
The workspace system introduced in Logic Pro 8 now feels like second nature and, although there are subtle changes to a few graphical elements for LP9, for the most part, it looks just like its predecessor.
Guitar amps and effects
However, there is at least one visually impressive addition: the Amp Designer plug-in. Although Logic already had the basic Bass Amp and Guitar Amp Pro effects, Amp Designer is more like IK's AmpliTube or NI's Guitar Rig, offering 25 amps, 25 cabinets and three mics (condenser, dynamic or ribbon).
The elements can be mixed and matched, and the mic position adjusted, and over 200 presets categorised by amp type and style are included.
Stomp effects are implemented in a separate plug-in called Pedalboard. This features 30 pedals of various types (distortion, delay, modulation and filter) that you can chain together (up to ten at once), with splitter and mixer modules for creating more complex dual and panned setups.
Both Amp Designer and Pedalboard are graphic-rich designs, so although there are no endorsed emulations, the styling makes it clear that classics from Fender, Marshall, Vox and Mesa are among those that have been emulated.
Pedal sourcing is less obvious, but with five different flavours of fuzz and multiple modulation pedals on offer, there's a real 'sweet shop' aspect to this plug-in. There are other nice touches, too, such as tempo sync for the modulations and delay, and an adjustable split frequency option on the Splitter device.
Users of Apogee's new GiO controller also benefit from built-in support, including pedal assignments. The only downside is that Amp Designer doesn't enable you to design a stereo rig with two amps, cabs and so on.
Sonically, things compare well to bespoke packages such as AmpliTube. Piercing leads (the Brown Stack is particularly nice) and fat modern metal (the Modern American Stack) are complemented by more retro sounds (eg, Small Tweed Combo).
On the pedal front, there are a couple of sweet fuzz pedals (Happy Fuzz Face and Candy Fuzz), and we reckon the Robo Flanger is a winner too.
Flex time
Flex Time is Apple's name for a collection of tools that use its new Flex timestretching engine. There are various modes - Slicing, Rhythmic, Monophonic, Polyphonic, Tempophone and Speed - with all but the last designed to help you adjust the timing of audio without affecting the pitch. The options are available from the Inspector window and as a track view (a bit like automation), and there's a new Flex tool on the toolbar.
When you select a Flex mode for a track, Logic analyses the audio and creates a set of transient markers and Flex markers. By using the Flex tool, you then adjust the timing between the automatic markers.
Stretching on one side of the cursor compresses the audio on the other side, and the stretched section turns orange, while the compressed part goes green. The Flex tool is context-sensitive, so you can add additional Flex markers or groups of Flex markers where you choose. If you don't like the results, you can reset them to the 'neutral' position, delete them or simply deactivate Flex mode.
Using the Rhythmic mode on multitracked drums, combined with channel grouping and the new phase-locked audio setting, we found Flex Time to be extremely impressive. The Slicing mode uses exactly the same tools, but you're simply moving audio, not actually stretching it.
Audio Quantize is a new option that appears once you select a Flex mode. In addition to typical quantise options, you can also apply groove templates derived from other tracks.
The Flex Time system offers one more trick: a new varispeed feature on the transport. This enables you to change the speed/pitch or just the speed (timestretching) of the whole song.
More new features
Although you can still merge audio files using the Glue tool, the new Bounce-in-Place option is better. With this, you can choose whether to include inserts, volume and pan automation, and any effect tail, and whether to create a new track or not. There's a project-wide version that will Bounce-in-Place all tracks, and you can bounce Audio Instrument tracks.
The swipe comping system introduced in Logic 8 is slicker now, with the option to copy or move your existing comp to another track - great if you don't want to flatten your comp. Also handy is the Move option, which extracts the used bits, leaving the remainder behind.
Space Designer gets some new 'Warped Effects' impulse responses, including drone tones, moving spaces, textures, drum transformers, ghost rhythms and impulses captured from speakers and analogue circuits. And don't forget that Logic Studio includes the Impulse Response Utility for recording and generating your own spaces and effects.
One of the most novel new features is the speed fade. When applying a fade-in or fade-out, you can click on the labels in the inspector to reveal the speed-up or slow-down options. Select your fade time as normal and you'll instead get a turntable-style start/stop effect. On the subject of fades, the fade tool is now context-sensitive (Apple refer to this functionality as "click zones").
Combining different projects has never been easy in Logic, but the new selective track import feature resolves this - just use the media browser to find a project and hit Import. This will reveal a list of all tracks, busses, auxiliaries and so on in the project, and you can import the content, plug-ins, automation and I/O settings on a track-by-track basis.
Audio into MIDI
The new Drum Replacer and Convert To New Sampler Track features both analyse audio transients and produce a MIDI output.
Imagine you have a multi-channel drum performance and the snare sound doesn't cut it. Highlight the snare track and select the Drum Replacement/Doubler option from the Track menu - this will analyse the audio and open a small settings window.
Here, you select Snare from the available drum types and also the threshold for the triggering. The transient markers will appear on the region and a newly generated MIDI part complete with EXS24 instrument will open on a track below. It even opens the correct section of the library in the browser, so you can pick a sound.
Convert To New Sampler Track is a similar concept. If you have a loop that you want to split into slices, triggering each as a sample, highlight the audio region and select Convert To New Sampler Track from the right-click menu. Select Transient Markers and you'll get a fresh EXS24 and MIDI part on the track below, complete with your loop, split at transient points and mapped across multiple MIDI notes.
Other inclusions
Other software within Logic Studio that will be of prime interest to musicians includes MainStage and WaveBurner.
MainStage started out as Apple's attempt to provide all the processing and instrument content of Logic but in a performance-friendly interface for live use. Version 2 adds a couple of nice new plug-ins, namely Playback and Loopback.
The first lets you play audio files from within MainStage - import them and MainStage will make up a channel strip and Playback instrument for you. The plug-in reads file markers and loops playback between them, so if you just want to jam, you can load up an Apple Loop, which you can also sync to the prevailing patch tempo.
The companion Loopback device appears as a delay plug-in, and to get up and running, you simply insert it on an audio channel strip with your input correctly assigned. The recording process behaves much like a tape loop, so hitting Record and Stop dictates the start and finish. Again, like a tape loop, you can record in a 'sound on sound' fashion, adding audio on top of your original loop.
To make the most of both features, you'll probably want to assign foot controllers to playback duties - a simple matter in MainStage 2 - and if you're an Apogee GiO user, you should be able to do this and run in your guitar all from the one unit.
WaveBurner is a CD compilation, mastering and burning app, and v1.6 has parameter automation. You can apply this to region plug-ins on the main waveform lane and master plug-ins on the all-new mix lane. In this latter feature you can also render a full disc-length waveform that includes all the tracks, fades and processing.
It may not look that different to v8, but scratch the surface and you'll find that Logic Pro 9 boasts many tasty new features. Existing users will be impressed by the slickness of the audio features, especially Flex Time.
For new users, the real attraction is that Logic Pro 9 includes everything you need to make release-quality music. And for the record, Logic Pro 9 didn't crash once during our testing.
So, is this release faultless? Not entirely - there's no dedicated drum kit plug-in, for example - but when you sit it alongside all the other production packages, it really feels like the most complete, and for that reason it absolutely deserves top marks.
In the audio demo, you will hear:
1. A live drum kit with dodgy playing: first it's fixed with slicing mode, then rhythmic mode. Then, for fun, using pitch mode to show bits speeding up and down to correct the timing, then slowed down with slow-down fade, and sped up with speed-up fade.
2. A melody played on piano with dodgy timing: switching through the flex time modes monophonic, polyphonic, then polyphonic with the complex parameter selected. Next still in this mode, audio quantised to 8ths, then 16ths, then with a silly quantize for fun. All adjustments are made in real time to show the various processing kicking in.
3. A selection of warped effects from Sound Designer: added to a simple bongo, first with the bongo then without.
Liked this? Now read: The 11 best DAW software apps and The best music-making apps on the iPhone


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An important American neoclassicist between the World Wars, David Diamond (July 9, 1915 - June 13, 2005) studied with both Roger Sessions and Natalie Boulanger, among others. He came to prominence with his first four symphonies and his songs and kept winning important prizes for his work. He also mentored younger composers, notably Leonard Bernstein and Charles Strouse. However, for years he couldn't find a teaching job and actually made his living by playing violin in Broadway pit bands and by getting grants. After the war, due in part to the McCarthy persecutions, he moved to Europe for over a decade, returning to the United States in the Sixties.
The musical climate, however, was hostile to Diamond's music. The post-Webernian serialists and the avant-garde had gained a hegemony in the critical discussion over what was worthwhile contemporary music. Not only Diamond, but Aaron Copland, Walter Piston, Howard Hanson, Samuel Barber, and others found themselves on the outs. Diamond, however, continued to receive commissions as well as, at last, a teaching appointment in the Juilliard composition department. Incidentally, he once asked Arnold Schoenberg for lessons in the serial method. Schoenberg refused, supposedly replying, "Why do you want to do that? You're the next Bruckner. I never meant it for everybody." Eventually, he retired and devoted himself to his own music. He created an impressive symphonic cycle, a great deal of wonderful chamber music, and, again, a body of great songs.
His music comes from the broad American neoclassical tradition, although he allows more acute dissonance than somebody like Piston, perhaps due to his work with Sessions. He died in his home town of Rochester, New York, a few days short of his 90th birthday. ~ Steve Schwartz


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Tesla, Inc. eyes an unprecedented opportunity in India's burgeoning electric vehicle market, as recent tax cuts pave the way for foreign manufacturers to enter the world's third-largest auto market. India's Ministry of Heavy Industries announced a rollback on tariffs for EVs, potentially opening doors for Tesla and its competitors. However, challenges remain as the government imposes limits on sales.
Historically, India has imposed steep tariffs on imported EVs, making it financially unfeasible for companies like Tesla to penetrate the market. The new policy offers tax relief to foreign manufacturers willing to invest in local production. This strategic shift could reshape the landscape of India's automotive industry, attracting major players seeking to capitalize on the country's massive potential.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's forward-looking policies aim to position India as a leading player in the global economy. By incentivizing foreign investment and fostering innovation, Modi's administration has propelled India onto the world stage as a superpower and a top destination for multinational corporations seeking growth opportunities.
Tesla's interest in establishing a manufacturing hub in India underscores the country's allure as a lucrative market for cutting-edge technology and sustainable solutions. Elon Musk's meeting with Prime Minister Modi signifies a mutual recognition of India's potential and Tesla's commitment to being part of its transformative journey towards a greener future.
While the relaxation of tariffs presents a significant opportunity for Tesla and its counterparts, challenges such as sales limitations and market dynamics pose hurdles to sustained growth. Nonetheless, with India's ambitious targets for EV adoption and its burgeoning consumer base, the stage is set for a paradigm shift in the global automotive industry.


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Today, we're taking a look at the theory and psychology behind the size, framing, and visual weight of different elements in your photographic composition. You'd be surprised how much there is to learn about this choice, and the impact your decision can have!
Photographs are our visions, created within the viewfinder, composed and registered with a click of a button. Sometimes this initial composition is the final composition, and sometimes it's not. Sometimes we compose our scene with the intent of creating our final vision right at that moment, whereas sometimes we compose a scene with the intent of later cropping or extending our vision.
Most 35mm format photos are taken tightly, composing for the final image. Large formats however, allow us to crop and recompose without jeopardizing the quality of our image. And finally, square formats are less convenient for final compositions and are often later cropped to more desirable ones.
Frame Dimensions and Direction
Unlike other forms of graphic art, a photograph has always been bound by spatial dimensions that are limited to the image frame. And more often than not, those dimensions guard and eventually influence the composition of our scenes.
Up until the whole evolution of digital photography, the most common image frame format was that of a 3:2 width to height ratio, which is the standard frame format of a 35mm film with dimensions of 36×24mm. With the advancement of digital photography, the more natural frame format of a 4:3 width to height ratio was soon adopted in low to medium level consumer cameras. This allowed for a more horizontally expanded, naturally viewed image frame especially on computer screens and standard size print paper.
The 35mm film format was subtly transferred into digital photography creating something of a gap between the professional/serious amateur photographer, and other photographers. And its long lived popularity is just a little evidence of how easily our sense of visceral composition adapts.
Horizontal or Vertical?
Our natural vision often suggests a horizontal view (because of the way we naturally observe with our eyes) which may be the most influential reason why photographs are often composed horizontally rather than vertically. Another, less fundamental, reason is the ease of hand holding a camera in a horizontal manner due to build and design.
When a subject is vertically elongated, it makes more sense and is more naturally perceived by human vision when framed vertically. If our scene or subject expands horizontally (or equally in both directions), it is more naturally perceived by human vision framed horizontally.
Positioning Within the Frame
Furthermore, when an object is framed horizontally, it is more convenient for the viewer's eye to be composed off-center, slightly leaning more to one side of the frame. And when an object is framed vertically, it is more convenient if the subject was placed off-center either to the top or the bottom of the frame, with the lower placement being more suitable and natural since it suggests and conveys stability rather than causing a feeling of somewhat downward looking, head lowered sensation.
If a vertical subject is horizontally framed, it is often composed towards either end of a horizontal frame so as to motivate the eye to move horizontally along the frame.
Within a square frame, however, this becomes more complicated because of the frame's lack of directional emphasis. Only few cameras actually offer a frame of 1:1 width to height ratio, and it is common for photographers of such a frame shape to compose their scene leaving loose or unused ends for vertical or horizontal cropping later on.
Since most subjects are not naturally square, a square frame offers a challenge for a successful composition. Since most landscape shapes are often conceived and framed horizontally, a square frame might impose a challenge for controlling an image's visual flow.
A square frame could, however, sometimes offer an interesting or even refreshing change from the more familiar vertically or horizontally elongated frame shapes. It can even be a more convenient format for symmetrical subjects (such as in the photo below by Elena Erda).
Subject Placement Within the Frame
With a Single Subject
When there's just a single subject to be framed, it might seem logical to place it dead centre – with equal empty space around it in all directions. Sometimes this actually works, but the problem with this kind of framing is predictability. It's always worth looking away from this option, and experimenting with positioning the subject at different sides of the composition to see which works best.
This becomes more important if the subject is relatively small in size compared to the full surrounding space. When the subject is off-center, it creates tension within your image. This tension can be described as a physiological force, which in photography gives an extra edge to your photos, conveying excitement and creating drama.
If your subject is off-center, it gives off the feeling that it's either striving towards the center to once again become balanced in a logical place, or that it is trying to move even further away from the center towards the edge of the photograph. Fairly high level theory, I agree, but worth considering!
With Multiple Subjects
If there are other subjects to be framed as well, your composition needs to balance these subjects within the frame. I want to show you an example illustrating what I'm talking about, and I really couldn't think of any better example than Trey Ratcliff's famous photo: The Lonely Trinity.
In this picture, you can clearly see how Trey brilliantly balanced his photo by arranging the three main elements of his image in a triangular way, having every two opposite subjects balance each other out, ending up with a pleasing composition:
Visual Weight
When viewing a photograph, you usually look first at what interests you the most. That said, there are a few undisputable facts that are known to govern what interests viewers the most and what grabs their attention (and in what sequence).
Of course, figuring out how people view a scene is a complex process, but there is a general consensus over what attracts the eye first- either because we tend to relate to these emotionally and personally, or because we unconsciously rely on them to get a feeling or reaction.
For example, faces are known to be the most attracting visual element – in particular the eyes and the mouth. After all, these are what we look at for guessing how people feel, what they think of a particular situation, or how they're going to react.
After that, writing tends to attract the eye the most. Writing conveys a high level of information about a specific situation. Even if written in a foreign language, writing still adds a great aesthetic quality to a work of art simply because of the fact that it represents an informational source or element.
Next comes other elements in the frame, determined by their prominence and the space given to them within the composition.
A visual work of art has always been, and always will be, subject to individual interpretation. Perhaps no artist will ever be able to perfectly direct their audience in the right direction.
What a photographer can do, to help viewers understand the sense of art in their work, is give them a little incentive or push in the right direction by observing and understanding the visual weights of different elements. Using these carefully can help a photo tell a story, engage an emotion, or draw all the readers attention to one particular point.


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The election is two weeks away, but the campaign trail reviews of Sarah Palin already are in, and they aren't pretty.
According to multiple Republican campaign sources, the former Alaska governor wreaks havoc on campaign logistics and planning. She offers little notice about her availability, refuses to do certain events, is obsessive about press coverage and sometimes backs out with as little lead time as she gave in the first place.
In short, her seat-of-the-pants operation can be a nightmare to deal with...
OK. What are we (that is, we the political observers -- in particular, those of us interested in 2012, and who believe that Palin is a legit contender, neither a shoe-in nor an impossibility for the GOP nomination) to make of stories like this? How should one read Politico?
The first order of business is to see if there's any meat to the story. I think it passes the test. There are quite a few anecdotes reported, and they do a good job of supporting the thesis that Palin's operation is still amateur hour. What I thought was pretty good was that Martin avoids gender stereotypes -- he doesn't portray Palin as a diva, but just as someone who needs a few more seasoned operatives.
There's also a believable (which doesn't mean it's true!) theory of why she runs things the way that she does: she's obsessed with loyalty, and would rather sacrifice efficiency in her camp than risk letting in someone who will sell her out. Given her experience with McCain-supplied campaign professionals, that's not all that surprising; given her experiences over the last couple years, it's easy to imagine that from her perspective everything seems to be running exceptionally well, reinforcing her impulse to trust her own judgment rather than that of Washingtonians who dismissed her in 2008 and since.
So at face value, it's an interesting and plausible story, reinforcing the idea that there's quite some question as to whether the Sage of Wasilla will be willing and able to do the sort of things that candidates for major party nominations have always had to do.
Now, take a step back. Why are Republican operatives feeding negative stories about Palin to Politico two weeks before the midterm elections? I certainly don't know, but that's my first reaction when I read the story. Are they trying to deflate her as a 2012 contender? If so, is it because other candidates have friends around the country? Could be. Is it because many GOP insiders read the polls, and think she's poison for the party? Could be. Is it because Republicans are at heart hierarchical and traditional, and just really can't stomach this crazy person...ahem, this crazy woman, from nowheresville, who just doesn't look like what they think a President of the United States should look? I don't know. I thought it was certainly very interesting that Chuck Grassley's campaign was identified by name; Grassley has an easy reelection bid right now and doesn't have to face a primary for six years, so he's pretty safe from retribution, and he may be reminding not just Palin but all prospective candidates to pay proper fealty to him as the caucuses approach. Don't forget the obvious possibility that perhaps it's just straightforward: she really does have an incompetent operation, which has repeatedly burned and angered so many people that it's produced a subset willing to talk to a good, aggressive, reporter. Again, could be.
The point is that when reading these stories, always think about why people talk to reporters, and why these particular sources talked to this reporter about this particular topic.
Another step back. Why is Politico doing the story, in the first place? Well, that's an easy one: Palin, we all know, sells. I don't really know why, but I do know it's true. So when reading Martin's story I want to ask myself again: is this really news? If Romney or Pawlenty's operations had similar logistics troubles, would I be hearing about it? Would I be hearing the same things about it?
As with questions about sources, I don't really have answers to the questions about the reporter or Politico itself, other than just to remind myself as I read it that there's a serious, heavy, media bias in favor of seeking out and running stories about Sarah Palin. Every gaffe, every mix-up, every good line, has a good chance of being reported. As observers, we need to remember that, and be aware of what it does to our perceptions of her compared to our perceptions of the other candidates.
As with questions about sources, I don't really have answers to the questions about the reporter or Politico itself, other than just to remind myself as I read it that there's a serious, heavy, media bias in favor of seeking out and running stories about Sarah Palin. Every gaffe, every mix-up, every good line, has a good chance of being reported. As observers, we need to remember that, and be aware of what it does to our perceptions of her compared to our perceptions of the other candidates.


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Since I have spent the week on this 'moral instinct' theory, I thought I would finish it up by stating my core objection to 'moral instinct' or 'moral sense' theories or any form of moral intuitionism.
I see it as being simply a replacement for religion.
One of the reasons that people have invented gods is to give legitimacy to their immoral impulses. Do you want to take over some piece of land that somebody else occupies? Claim that God has given you title until the end of time, and that this gives you the right to kick anybody and everybody else off of it, regardless of harm done.
Are there people in your own community who are not like you – who like things that you do not like? Then tell the world that God commands the death of such people, and you can then feel justified in rounding them up and killing them, or at least driving them into the closet.
Do you want to assert that you and your people have a right to rule and that all others have a duty to obey, then assert that God has personally selected you to be the person who rules, so that anybody who disobeys you disobeys God, and all of society will suffer his wrath if this is allowed to continue.
'Moral instinct', 'moral sense', and all other forms of intuitionist moral theories play the same role. We simply get rid of the idea of a God writing moral truths on our soul, and replace it with the idea of genes writing moral truths into our brain structure.
All a person in ante-bellum South needed to do was to recognize that the thought of owning slaves did nothing to tickle his conscience – that he actually found it somewhat pleasing to be 'master' to somebody else's 'slave' without a twinge of guilt. If he senses no wrongness in owning slaves, then there must not be any wrongness in owning slaves for him to sense.
The person who wants to rape a woman appeals to his moral sense. He then listens as his moral sense tells him that women actually enjoy rape (because it allows them to have sex without feeling guilty), or that they deserve to be raped. The act of rape, in this latter case, becomes an act of imposing justice – something his 'moral sense' tells him ought to be done.
Ultimately, intuitionist moral theories are the ultimate expression of the idea, "If it feels good, it must be right." Since moral claims are intimately linked to punishment or other forms of harm to others, they actually take the form, "If it feels right to do this harm to others, then it is right to do this harm to others."
I grew up among people who knew that interracial relationships were wrong. They knew this because they relied on their moral sense to tell them this. If they saw an interracial couple engaged in public displays of affection, then their moral sense went off to tell them, immediately, that they were in the presence of wrongness and something should be done to prevent this.
They were not faking or lying about their feelings of disgust. Those feelings were genuine. The problem is that they did not reflect any 'moral sense' or 'moral intuition'. What they reflected was the agent's own learned aversion to these types of relationships.
What difference would it make to discover that this aversion was universal, or that it might have had some evolutionary explanation? Evolution could very well have made us into people who tend to favor those who 'look like us' and to have an adverse reaction to those who 'look different'. This could have been an effective way of determining whether the 'other' has similar genes (and should be favored), or different genes (and should be disfavored).
In fact, when a set of mutations came along that made a significant contribution to what we are as human, it may well have included this type of favoritism. Since others with these new humanity-making genes would 'look like us', then such a trait may well have been responsible for our genetic success – the fact that our biological ancestors were busy helping those who 'looked like them' at the expense of members of other tribes where this mutation did not appear and whose members did not 'look like us'.
We can even imagine an evolutionary case in which these sentiments became universal. With a slight adjustment to our evolutionary history, we may have become a race that 'felt' perfectly justified in enslaving others who did not look like us and forcing them to work (without compensation) for those who did 'look like us'. People who claim that their study of our moral intuitions is a study of morality cannot rule out the possibility that they are assigning 'justification' to just this type of phenomenon. The claim that the universal nature of the desire to enslave those who do not look like us gives it legitimacy is absurd.
An innate disposition towards a racist morality that imposes slavery on those who do not look like us, no matter how well backed up by an evolutionary story, and no matter how universal, does not imply that slavery is, in fact, morally legitimate. It might explain racism and slavery, but in doing so it would be explaining a tendency to do evil. It would not be explaining the moral legitimacy of slavery.
All of this suggests that there is a moral goodness that is independent of our moral instinct – that to determine the difference between right and wrong we must appeal to something other than a 'moral intuition' or whether something 'feels right'.
Once we have made that appeal, once we know the real difference between right and wrong, then we can look at our intuitions and determine whether they are calibrated correctly. However, we cannot calibrate an instrument without having a standard that is independent of the instrument being calibrated. We cannot calibrate our moral sense without having a moral standard that exists independent of our moral sense. That is where we must go to discover the true difference between right and wrong.
In saying all of this, I recognize that there is a complication drawn from the fact that intrinsic value does not exist. The only reasons for action that exist are desires, and desires are mental states. We must investigate desires to investigate reasons for action. However, we must be careful never to give a mere desire the status of a 'moral intuition' no matter how it may feel to us. The inclination to enslave those who do not 'look like us' is a mere desire, not a moral intuition, regardless of how it feels. It is merely one of many desires.
And it is a bad desire at that, given that it is a desire that tends to thwart other desires. To the degree that this desire exists, then some desires must be thwarted. Either the desires of the slave owner are thwarted by a prohibition on slavery, or the desires of the slave are thwarted by allowing slavery. On the other hand, if this desire did not exist, then there would be nobody with a desire to own slaves, and no slaves whose desires are being thwarted.
Ancient civilization took these bad desires and assigned them to a God to give them legitimacy. They claim that God wrote these moral truths into their sole. So, when they talk about these attitudes they hold that they are not talking about mere desires. They are talking about something that is greater than a desire – something that justifies whatever violence may be necessary to fulfill those interests.
More 'enlightened' thinkers invent special legitimacy for those desires to act in ways harmful to others by inventing things like a 'moral instinct', 'moral intuitions', or a 'moral sense.' However, this is just another way of saying, "Moral truths written onto the human sole by
If there is no independent justification to measure our moral instinct against, then our moral instinct is simply an urge to do unjustified harm to others without feeling guilty about it. If there is an independent justification to measure our moral instinct against, then we do not need a moral instinct – we can just go with the independent justification.


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Eating Habits During Pregnancy will Change
When you are pregnant, you are eating for two which means your eating habits change. Make sure the change is a healthy one. Here are 10 reasons why your eating habits during pregnancy will change:
1. Nutritional Needs and Intestinal Function Change.
Your body needs more nutrients to feed your growing baby.
2. Body Cravings Change
Remember that you must match all of your cravings with your knowledge of good nutrition.
3. Portion Sizes Change
Eating lighter, smaller portions more slowly, and more frequently is one of the eating habits during pregnancy that will most likely agree with your upset stomach. There will be days when you graze like a toddler, snacking all day long. Sometimes you'll satisfy the "always hungry" feeling by eating all the time.
4. Calorie Needs Change
You will need to eat an extra 300-500 calories per day to ensure adequate nutrition for both of you.
5. Eating Habits during Pregnancy Need to Include Specific Nutrients
Your pregnant body needs specific nutrients: proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals (mainly calcium and iron), and water. "Balancing" your nutrition during pregnancy means trying to get the right mix of these nutrients: 15% of your calories from proteins, 50-60% from carbohydrates, and 20-30% from fats, plus the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of vitamins and minerals.
6. Your Need for Fats Changes
Your eating habits during pregnancy need to include fats. Besides being a valuable source of energy, certain fats (called essential fatty acids) are necessary building blocks of vital tissues, especially the brain and nervous system. However, all fats are not created equal. The best nutrition is found in the fats of fish, nuts, avocados and all vegetable oils. Less healthy, but still necessary, fats are found in dairy products. Least healthy and least necessary fats are those that come from meat.
7. Your Need for Cholesterol Changes
Your pregnant body and your developing baby need extra cholesterol. Growing little brains need cholesterol. Cholesterol is also a building block for pregnancy hormones. Pregnancy hormones make and metabolize cholesterol anyway, so it's natural for cholesterol levels to increase during pregnancy.
8. Your Protein Needs Change
Proteins are the structural element of your body and the body of your growing baby. Your baby's tissues and organs grow by piling up millions of proteins on top of each other until each organ has reached full growth. Your eating habits during pregnancy must include protein. Try these food combinations to get complete proteins:
- Cheese sandwich (whole grain and dairy)
- Cereal and milk (grain and dairy)
- Whole wheat pasta and cheese (whole grain and dairy)
- Peanut-butter sandwich (whole grain and legume)
- Granola and yogurt (grain and dairy)
- Bean or lentil soup with whole wheat or rice crackers (legume and whole grain)
- Rice pudding (grain and dairy)
- Beans and rice (legume and grain)
- Pasta with meat sauce (grain and meat)
- Broccoli in cheese sauce (grain and dairy with some veggie protein mixed in)
9. Your Carbohydrate Needs Change
Best sources of complex carbohydrates are: pasta, potatoes, grains, legumes, nut butters and seeds. The time-released complex carbohydrates along with fructose and lactose provide slow, steady energy and give the feeling of fullness longer, resulting in steadier blood sugar levels and a greater overall feeling of well being.
10. Your Iron Needs Change
Iron is necessary to make the extra blood you need to nourish your baby and to make the billions of red blood cells the baby needs. Insufficient iron (anemia) or "tired blood" makes for a tired mom. Most women's eating habits during pregnancy needs to include double the amount of iron they usually eat, taking in at least 60 milligrams of elemental iron each day, more if anemic or carrying multiples. It is nearly impossible to consume enough dietary iron while pregnant without eating excess calories. If iron upsets your already upset stomach, ask your doctor if you can safely delay taking iron supplements until after your morning sickness subsides, since the greatest demand for iron is in the second half of your pregnancy.


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When a friend or loved one suffers from anxiety, it can be intimidating or frustrating trying to help them cope. Panic and anxiety attacks can leave the anxiety sufferer feeling any number of symptoms, and you may feel helpless and unable to support them. Here are some tips to help you manage a loved one's anxiety.
Let your loved one know that you're there to listen. Hold back judgment or unwanted advice, and simply be an ear. It will help them to know that they can speak to you openly, and that it's okay to be repetitive with fears or thoughts. Let them know that they can call or text you any time to talk.
Don't Bring It Up Too Often
It might seem counter-intuitive to avoid the topic of anxiety with your loved one, but simply talking about anxiety or panic attacks may trigger an episode for someone who suffers with this disorder. It's fine to ask how they're doing or discuss their anxiety if they want to, but make sure that they bring the topic up to you.
Spend Time
Spending time with a close friend or loved one can be very beneficial for the anxiety sufferer. Exercise and outdoor activities are especially helpful; sunlight and exercise are well-documented mood boosters. If you're both being entertained, are out having fun, or just hanging out talking over coffee, this meaningful distraction keeps their mind off of their anxiety and on the activity.
Be Patient
You may struggle to empathize with your friend or loved one, or you may have difficulty comprehending what it means to suffer with anxiety. Anxiety disorders are not just psychological, they're also chemical. Your loved one may understand that it's not logical for them to feel fear or anxiety about something, but you can't expect them to control their anxiety with that same knowledge. It will take time and a concerted effort on their part, but anxiety is a treatable condition.
Recognize Accomplishments
Make an effort to express pride in your loved one when you notice improvements. Acknowledgement of positive change after they have put in some hard work will be both beneficial and encouraging to their recovery.
If you or a loved one is suffering with anxiety or panic disorder and needs professional guidance from a licensed therapist, please contact my office today so we can set up an appointment.


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By Victoria Harper, Truthout | Interview
Discussing his new book, Henry A. Giroux argues that what unites racist killings, loss of privacy, the surveillance state's rise, the increasing corporatization of US institutions and growing poverty and inequality "is a growing threat of authoritarianism - or what might be otherwise called totalitarianism with elections."
Victoria Harper: Your new book has a very provocative and suggestive title: The Violence of Organized Forgetting. How does the title work as an organizing idea for the book?
Henry A. Giroux: We live in a historical moment when memory, if not critical thought itself, is either under attack or is being devalued and undermined by a number of forces in American society. Historical memory has become dangerous today because it offers the promise of lost legacies of resistance, moments in history when the social contract was taken seriously (however impaired), and when a variety of social movements emerged that called for a rethinking of what democracy meant and how it might be defined in the interest of economic and social justice.
Fear, privatization and depoliticization are the organizing principles of American society at the current moment.
Including violence and organized forgetting in the title was meant to signal how mainstream politics devalues reason, dissent and critique, and the formative culture and institutions that support these crucial moments of thinking, agency and collective struggle necessary for a democracy. It also registers how dominant regimes of power have resorted to a culture of fear, state repression and the militarization of large parts of the society in order to enforce a state of terror, conformity and privatization. Violence signals the state's complicity in creating a culture that is utterly commodified and privatized, one in which the obligations of citizenship are reduced to pursuing narrow individual interests and the demands of consumerism. How we define ourselves as Americans has a deeply historical character and to the degree that this history is impoverished, any viable notion of agency, justice, education and democracy is devalued.
To read more articles by Henry A. Giroux and other authors in the Public Intellectual Project, click here.
Fear, privatization and depoliticization are the organizing principles of American society at the current moment and as such the defunding of critical public spheres such as schools is matched by forms of state repression that link education to purely instrumental interests, at least for most young people. The social and political cleansing of history, memory and thought itself is in essence a part of a larger attack on dissent, critical thinking, engaged agency and collective struggles. Purging dissent and public memory not only promotes among young people a retreat from the public realm, it also empties out politics. As the public collapses into the private, injustices are viewed as a nuisance that interfere with private interests. Believing in a cause gives way to the quest to get ahead, while matters of social and civic responsibility disappear in a self-absorbed culture of narcissism, narrow individualism and privatization.
What we are discovering and what the book attempts to map out in a number of chapters is how the attack on history, witnessing and critique breeds anti-democratic horrors including what my colleague, David L. Clark, terms "the wars against thought, and the flirtations with irrationality that lie at the heart of the triumph of every-day aggression, the withering of political life, and the withdrawal into private obsessions." This may be one reason why we are seeing such an upsurge of violence against black youth, college protesters, and those who have been part of the now quiet Occupy movement. Young people have become the chief object of oppression and punitive social policies because they represent the most promising group for reclaiming memory as a central political issue and using elements of the past to rethink a future very different from the one we now occupy. This may be one reason the state is attempting to depoliticize young people through the onslaught of a consumer culture, the burden of extreme debt, and other social policies and survivalist pedagogies that lower their expectations while keeping them too busy to be able to address the political and social issues that underlie what it means to be young in a suspect society.
What do you mean by "Thinking Beyond America's Disimagination Machine," the subtitle of your book?
Borrowing from and modifying Georges Didi-Huberman's use of the term, "disimagination machine," I argue that the politics of disimagination refers to images, institutions, discourses and other modes of representation, that undermine the capacity of individuals to bear witness to a different and critical sense of remembering, agency, ethics and collective resistance. The "disimagination machine" is both a set of cultural apparatuses extending from schools and mainstream media to the new sites of screen culture and a public pedagogy that functions primarily to weaken the ability of individuals to think critically, imagine the unimaginable, and engage in thoughtful and critical dialogue. Put simply, for them to become critically informed citizens of the world.
At the same time, the cultural apparatuses of the mainstream media disavow critical issues by producing news and modes of popular culture that constitute an echo chamber for dominant class and financial interests along with the production of a celebrity culture and spectacles of violence that trivialize everything they touch.
The concept of the disimagination machine signals a new and powerful moment in how authority depoliticizes, privatizes and infantilizes Americans. It narrows the expanding circle of moral conscience, undercuts the radical imagination and imposes on society the regressive morality of neoliberalism. The machinery of disimagination does not constitute a new form of social control that relies on colonizing subjectivity through the use of education in various sites to shape the identities, desires, values, modes of identification and subjectivities of Americans in the interest of social control as much as it suggests more intensive and reconfigured attempts, aided by the new digital technologies, to generate a culture of mass forgetfulness, obedience and conformity.
As all aspects of American life are transformed into a war zone, the state employs the mechanics and practices of a disimagination machine coupled with state terrorism. For instance, public schools are being privatized and militarized while higher education is being turned into a training ground for all but the elite in order to service corporate interests and power.
At the same time, the cultural apparatuses of the mainstream media disavow critical issues by producing news and modes of popular culture that constitute an echo chamber for dominant class and financial interests along with the production of a celebrity culture and spectacles of violence that trivialize everything they touch.
Moreover, these structural and symbolic mechanisms function increasingly in a digital world in which communication exhibits little respect for contemplation, critical dialogue or informed judgment. Speed and an overabundance of information replace the time to think, just as being alone in privatized orbits of digitized technospheres constitutes a derailed notion of community.
The collective sense of ethical imagination and social responsibility towards those who are vulnerable or in need of care has been increasingly viewed as a scourge or pathology.
In the broader society, entertainment is the new mode of education with its delivery of instant stimulation, excitement, gratification, and escape from the world of social and political responsibility while broader notions of education harness peoples' subjectivities to the narrow values of a market-driven society. In school, pedagogies of repression wage war on the critical and imaginative capacities of students. Under such circumstances, the disimagination machine represents a constellation of symbolic and institutional forces that attempts to shut down the possibility of critical thought and social agency.
The disimagination machine combines Orwell's notion of state terror through a culture of fear, violence and surveillance with, as Bill Moyers put it, Huxley's notion of"people genetically designed to be regimented into total social conformity and subservient to the group think of the one percent [who] could easily have walked right out of Huxley and straight into Roger Ailes' Fox News playbook or Rush Limbaugh's studio." There is more at stake here than limited political horizons, as David Graeber has suggested. What is also put up for grabs is the notion of subjectivity in a neoliberal age along with its deracinated view of agency and struggle.
The concept of disposability plays a central role in your book. Can you explain what it means, why it is new, and how it tends to manifest itself?
Since the late 1970s, American society has been transformed in ways that point to the abandonment of liberal democracy and the welfare state while social policies have been promulgated that egregiously serve the interest of global markets. Within this period during which the liberal market gave way to a punitive form of casino capitalism or, as some call it, neoliberalism, the collective sense of ethical imagination and social responsibility towards those who are vulnerable or in need of care has been increasingly viewed as a scourge or pathology. One consequence is that within this new historical conjuncture, the practice of disposability expands to include more and more individuals and groups who have been considered redundant, consigned to zones of abandonment, surveillance and mass incarceration.
The discourse of disposability points to and makes visible expanding zones of exclusion and invisibility incorporating more and more individuals and groups that were once seen as crucial to sustaining public life.
Disposability is no longer the exception but the norm. As the reach of disposability has broadened to include a range of groups extending from college youth and poor minorities to the unemployed and members of the middle class who have lost their homes in the financial crisis of 2007, a shift in the radicalness and reach of the machinery of disposability constitutes, as I argue in the book, not only a new mode of authoritarian politics, but also demands a new political vocabulary for understanding how the social contract has virtually disappeared while the mechanisms of expulsion, disposability and state violence have become more integrated and menacing.
We live in a new era of neoliberal savagery. Life has become cheap, emptied of its integrity and worth and reduced to the metrics of profit and a ruthless form of market fundamentalism. America occupies a historical moment characterized by market genocide - a time in which entire populations are considered disposable, left on their own to barely survive or die. Refusing Medicaid expansion by right-wing politicians such as Rick Perry is only one example of the death march at the heart of the politics of disposability and the culture of cruelty.
Citizens are now reduced to data, potential terrorists, consumers and commodities and as such inhabit identities in which they become increasingly, as I say in the book, drawing on João Biehl words, "unknowables, with no human rights and with no one accountable for their condition." Within this machinery of social death, not only does moral blindness prevail on the part of the financial elite, but the inner worlds of the oppressed are constantly being remade under the force of economic pressures and a culture of fear, while their lives resemble the walking dead - discarded individuals who remain invisible and unaccounted for in the dominant discourse of politics, rights and civic morality. The discourse of disposability points to and makes visible expanding zones of exclusion and invisibility incorporating more and more individuals and groups that were once seen as crucial to sustaining public life.
What we are witnessing in the United States is the legacy of slavery and the criminalization of people of color reasserting itself in a society in which justice has been willingly and aggressively replaced by racial injustice.
As we have seen with the brutalizing racist killing of black youth, including the most recent death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, disposability targets specific individuals and social spaces as sites of danger, violence, humiliation and terror. This is most evident in the rise of a brutal punishing-incarceration state that imposes its racial and class-based power on the dispossessed, the emergence of a surveillance state that spies on and suppresses dissenters, the emergence of vast cultural apparatuses that colonize subjectivity in the interests of the market, and a political class that is uninterested in political concessions and appears immune from control by nation-states.
The politics of disposability is central to my book because it makes clear the mechanisms of a more brutal form of authoritarianism driven by what psychologist Robert Jay Lifton rightly calls a "death-saturated age" in which matters of violence, survival and trauma infuse everyday life. Discarded by the corporate state, dispossessed of social provisions, and deprived of the economic, political and social conditions that enable viable and critical modes of agency, expanding populations of Americans now find themselves inhabiting zones of abandonment. These zones of hardship and terminal exclusion constitute a hallmark signature and intensification of a neoliberal politics of disposability that is relentless in the material and symbolic violence it wages against the 99 percent for the benefit of the new financial elite. What has become clear is that capitalist expropriation, dispossession and disinvestment have reached a point where life has become completely unbearable for over half of the American public living in or near poverty. As I have said on the pages of Truthout, evidence of such zones can be seen in the war against immigrants, poor minorities, the homeless, young people living in debt, the long term unemployed, workers, the declining middle class, all of whom have been pushed into invisible communities of control, harassment, security, and the governing through punishment complex.
The drift toward authoritarianism is a central theme in your book. How would you describe the authoritarianism?
In my book, I focus on the ways in which the commanding institutions in the United States have been taken over by powerful corporate interests, the financial elite, and right-wing extremists whose strangulating control over politics renders democracy corrupt and dysfunctional - producing what might be called a neoliberal spectacle of misery and a culture of cruelty. Social Darwinism is the value system that drives casino capitalism in the United States. It is an ethic dominated by a war against all ethos which celebrates a radical individualism, extreme forms of competitiveness, engages in a culture of cruelty, and separates actions from moral considerations. It is a poisonous system of power, control and fear that views politics as an extension of war. In essence America has devolved into a society that not only violates civil liberties, wages a war against unions, school teachers, women, youth and social activists, but has inhabited a sphere of militarism that increasingly resembles a form of domestic terrorism. Again, this is amplified in the presence of a giant and wasteful war machine and in the ongoing militarization of local police forces who now assume the mantle of robo-SWAT teams, more willing to reduce policing to forms of high-powered assaults rather than dialogue, negotiation and thoughtful investigations. Not only has society become more militarized, but everyone is now treated as a criminal or potential terrorist. As I point out throughout the book, the contours of the authoritarian state become highly visible in the way in which, as Chase Madar observes, a wide range of behaviors are now criminalized and the way in which "police power has entered the DNA of social policy, turning just about every sphere of American life into a police matter."
The United States has dethroned any viable notion of politics committed to the promise of a sustainable democracy. We have given up on the notion of the common good, social justice and equality that has been replaced by the crude discourses of commerce and militarization.
The militarization of local police forces combined with the larger intensified barbaric expressions of racism, especially the rise of the mass incarceration state and the racist comments so freely uttered by right-wing politicians and right-wing media, fuel a deadly mix for black youth that normalizes the wanton killing of African-Americans and reinforces the impunity with which it is done. Nurtured by what Karen Garcia calls a "lifetime of consumption of violence-as-entertainment," images of expanding war zones come to life vividly in cities such as Ferguson, Missouri where surplus military weaponry is now used by the police against African-American youth and others marginalized by race and class in ways that make visible how the wars abroad have come home and how weapons of war when combined with a hyper-masculinity of brooding, resentful and confused white men leads to violence in the streets. It is hard to disagree with a growing consensus that what we are witnessing in the United States is the legacy of slavery and the criminalization of people of color reasserting itself in a society in which justice has been willingly and aggressively replaced by racial injustice. And it is precisely this militarization that informs my book about the growing dangers of authoritarianism in America. Racist killings, the loss of privacy, the rise of the surveillance state, the growing poverty and inequality, and the increasing corporatization of the commanding institutions of the United States point to something more than civil unrest, spying, racism and other specific anti-democratic issues. What is truly at work here and unites all of these disparate issues is a growing threat of authoritarianism - or what might be otherwise called totalitarianism with elections.
This new mode of authoritarianism mimics a form of terrorism because it abstracts economics from ethics and social costs, makes a mockery of democracy, works to dismantle the welfare state, thrives on violence, undermines any public sphere not governed by market values and transforms people into commodities. American society's rigid emphasis on unfettered individualism, competitiveness and flexibility displaces compassion, sharing and a concern for the welfare of others. In doing so, it dissolves crucial social bonds, weakens public trust and undermines the profound nature of social responsibility and its ensuing concern for others. In removing individuals from broader social obligations, it not only tears up social solidarities, it also promotes a kind of individual and collective psychosis that is pathological in its disdain for public goods, community, social provisions and public values. As Hannah Arendt argued, we live in a time of absolute meaninglessness, which is the foundation of absolute evil, all of which produces a monstrous form of politics. Of course, this monstrous politics is revealed not only in savage social policies and attacks on the poor, public servants, women and young people, but also in the inability of American society to react to the suffering of others. Put differently, the United States has dethroned any viable notion of politics committed to the promise of a sustainable democracy. We have given up on the notion of the common good, social justice and equality that has been replaced by the crude discourses of commerce and militarization.
The new authoritarianism represents a mix of a widespread culture of fear, privatization and consumer fantasies, along with a systemic effort to dismantle the welfare state and increase the power of the corporate and financial elite. Ideologically, the new authoritarianism works hard to instrumentalize knowledge, disparage reason, thoughtfulness, complexity and critical dialogue - and in doing so, contributes to a culture of stupidity and cruelty in which the dominant ethic is organized around the discourse of war and a survival of the fittest mentality. Market sovereignty has replaced political sovereignty as the state is almost entirely corporatized - representing the antithesis of democracy. The consequences of anti-democratic tendencies are everywhere in American society. Deregulation, privatization, atomization and commodification now rule American institutions turning over the commanding heights of power to mega corporations, the defense industry and ideological fundamentalists. America is a hugely rich country marked by massive poverty, inequality in wealth and income, and a political system controlled by big money. Its cultural apparatuses are controlled by mega corporations and its political system is now largely controlled by the apostles of finance and militarism. One consequence is the coupling of a market-induced form of depoliticization with a deep-rooted cynicism. In this instance, the seeds of authoritarianism can be found in the disappearance of politics, that is, in the elimination of the conditions that create civic agents who are thoughtful, critical, ethically responsible and imbued with a spirit of civic courage. The latter are not conditions that are valued in a society in which a war is waged on women's reproductive rights, civil liberties, immigrants, voting rights and health care, along with the gleeful promotion of widening inequalities in wealth and income. As Slavoj Zizek points out, the link between capitalism and democracy is broken and in its place is the emergence of an America that is on the brink of a very dark historical period in which the winds of authoritarianism are poised to destroy all remnants of a claim to equality, justice and democracy.
The last chapter of your book deals with hope. Why is hope so central to your writings and the book itself?
Hope gets a bad rap across diverse ideological lines. This is especially true in an age of crippling cynicism, precarity, uncertainty and mass-produced fear. Yet, educated hope matters because it points to the possibility of rethinking not only politics, but matters of agency, struggle and the future itself. Hope is a crucial element for energizing the radical imagination, one that allows people to repudiate and see through the manufactured cynicism that so well serves the new authoritarianism with its myriad of political, religious and cultural fundamentalisms. Yet, hope must be tempered by the complex reality of the times and viewed as a project and condition for providing a sense of collective agency, opposition, political imagination and engaged participation. It must be rooted in acknowledging the reality and the power of the ideological and structural forces that provide the foundation for authoritarian regimes. Hope, in this instance, breaks through the normalization of common sense as well as those educative dimensions of dominant culture that are used to legitimate an oppressive society and the oppressive forces that shape everyday life.
Power is never completely on the side of domination and resistance is not a luxury, but a necessity.
Without hope, even in the most dire of times, there is no possibility for resistance, dissent and struggle. Furthermore, agency is the condition of struggle, and hope is the prerequisite of all modes of critically engaged agency. Hope expands the space of the possible, and becomes a way of recognizing and naming the incomplete nature of the present while providing the foundation for informed action. Throughout The Violence of Organized Forgetting, I connect the issue of educated hope to the need to imagine the public as a site of possibility, one that harbors a trace of what it means to both defend those public spaces where dissent can be produced, public values asserted, dialogue made meaningful, and opposition can be developed against the view that critical thought is an act of stupidity or irrelevant.As I have argued in my book and in Truthout, one cannot be on the side of democratic ideas, causes and movements and at the same time surrender to the normalization of a dystopian vision. Authoritarianism does not just breed conformity and cynicism; it relies on the death of hope to reproduce its dominant ideologies and practices while depoliticizing young people and others who should care about the fate of democracy. There is no room for romanticizing hope in Disney-like fashion. One has to demand the impossible in order to recognize the limits of what we are told is only possible. Hope as a form of anti-hope is connected not simply to inventing the future as a repeat of the present, but also normalizing the machineries of violence and oppression. This means that there is no room for a kind of romanticized utopianism. Instead, one has to be motivated by a faith in the willingness of young people principally and others to fight for a future in which dignity, equality and justice matter and at the same time recognize the forces that are preventing such a struggle from taking place. More specifically, hope has to be fed by the need for education and collective action.
As I have argued in the book, power is never completely on the side of domination and resistance is not a luxury, but a necessity. In the present historical moment, hope needs to be tied to a politics that takes education seriously - that is, a politics for which matters of consciousness and agency mutually inform each other as part of a broader struggle for justice, freedom and equality. This means that hope moves from an abstraction to creating the foundation for moving people to address the issue of economic inequality, the racist system and mass incarceration state, the sordid gap in equality of wealth and income and the politics of disposability - while building social movements that address the totality of power and oppression. This means taking seriously what it means to change the way people think while developing a comprehensive notion of politics, vision and struggle to match.


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4' x 4' Nain Design Octagon Rug
4' x 4' Nain Design Octagon Rug
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Size FT: 4' 0" x 4' 0"
125cm x 125cm
Primary color is Blue.
Colors in this rug include: Blue, Burgundy, Cream, Ivory, Light Blue, Light Green, Navy Blue, Puce.
Pile Material: 85% polypropylene, 15% polyester with 100% cotton backing
Pile Height: 1/3" | Currently in stock
Made in: Turkey | Collection: Nain Design
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The intricate, hand-crafted designs of the Rabia Collection are sure to take your breath away! The designs include traditional and modern motifs that come together perfectly with balance and harmony. Light colors blend in perfect contrast with bolder accents to create stunning masterpieces that will be conversation pieces for any home. Their vibrant hues and richness help brighten any room while providing a luxurious Persian vibe you'll want to show off. Whether it's used as a focal point or an accent piece, these elegant rugs bring beauty to the space along with warmth and comfort – creating a timeless design perfect for your floors no matter what type of décor you have!


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No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good deal rather not sleep with your own brother. I dont know how it is, but people like to be private when they are sleeping. And when it comes to sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange town, and that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections indefinitely multiply.
Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a sailor should sleep two in a bed, more than anybody else; for sailors no more sleep two in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do ashore. To be sure they all sleep together in one apartment, but you have your own hammock, and cover yourself with your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin.
For with the charts of all four oceans before him, Ahab was threading a maze of currents and eddies, with a view to the more certain accomplishment of that monomaniac thought of his soul.
The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of the tidiest.


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When a man is ready to ejaculate his body will undergo a series of events.
He will see an increase in the size of the head of the penis and the head may also change to a purplish color. His Cowper's gland will secrete 'pre-cum' fluid which dribbles out of his urethra. His testes will move in towards his body, and increase in size. As well, he may experience a body flush, muscle tension, increase in heart rate and rising blood pressure.
Just before ejaculation he will feel contractions in his vas deferens, seminal vesicles, and the prostate, causing seminal fluid (ejaculate) to collect in a pool at the base of his penis. He will feel a 'tickling' type sensation. When ready to ejaculate, he will feel a "throbbing" around his urethra.
Ejaculate will leave his penis at roughly the same rate of travel as a city bus, about 28 miles per hour. But can reach speeds of 43 miles per hour depending how long since the last time he came. (It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye!!)
Once he has ejaculated, his scrotum and testes will return to normal their size. He will have a general feeling of relaxation and experience a refractory period (where a he is physically incapable of getting another erection). This period may be from a few minutes to much longer depending on his age.
Sex Tip: Unless he is at the point of no return, you can stop him from ejaculating by firmly (yet very gently) squeezing on the tip of the penis.
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Source by Trina Read