text:
After writing so many columns on police issues, I suppose I should make the disclaimer that my dad was a cop. I'm morally certain he was a good man, and that — however much we might differ on politics were he still alive — he was scrupulously just by his standards.
But when I see a cop in my rearview mirror, I don't like having to hope it's a decent person. And there's good reason to assume any cop you see is a bad person.
The town where my dad worked as a cop topped out at under 20,000 people when he retired in the 1970s. The kinds of people who chose to work in small towns, policing their neighbors in communities where everyone knew everyone else, were a lot different from those who find police work appealing today.
Urban police forces are disproportionately attractive to people who get off on wearing black uniforms and making displays of force to terrorize the local population into submission (er, "compliance"). They appeal to people who enjoy stomping around in loud boots and kicking in doors at 3AM, terrorizing children and shooting pets.
They appeal, in short, to sociopaths.
Here's a quote from a Cato study on police militarization: "We send out two, two-to-four-men cars, we look for minor violations and do jump-outs. … After we jump-out the second car provides periphery cover with an ostentatious display of weaponry. We're sending a clear message: if the shootings don't stop, we'll shoot someone."
In 2009 Homer, Louisiana's police chief stated: "If I see three or four young black men walking down the street, I have to stop them and check their names. I want them to be afraid every time they see the police …"
In that context consider the recent arrest of Emily Good, in Rochester, NY — while standing in her own front yard — for filming cops making a bust. The arresting officer claimed she was "interfering" with the arrest and he "didn't feel safe" with her back there. He initially told her it wasn't legal to film him from the sidewalk, but he escalated matters after she stepped back onto the grass.
Now, in most jurisdictions, there is — as civil liberties advocates have made themselves hoarse repeating — no law against filming public servants in a public place performing their official duties. They have, in the phrase so dear to police statists, "no reasonable expectation of privacy." The police chief, after the fact, claimed the arrest wasn't about filming the officer as such. He was lying.
Ms. Good was arrested, quite simply, because she didn't properly cower and abase herself, didn't show proper deference and submission (er, "compliance") before an Alpha Male. So like a Rottweiler with his adrenaline up, Officer Friendly went off on her. You've got to expect that sort of thing — it's in the breed.
Frankly, it doesn't matter what the "law" is about recording cops. If you're spotted doing it, be prepared to have your face smashed into the concrete and your phone stomped to pieces.
What was the local police reaction to the controversy? Did they respect Ms. Good's legal right to challenge the arrest, to speak her mind on public policy? Did they agree, as public servants subject to civilian authority, to abide by the outcome of any official inquiry? Does the Pope in Rome run a madrasa?
During a public meeting in support of Ms. Good, police carefully used a ruler to determine which cars were parked more than a food away from the curb. Do you think they enforce deviations from the parking regulations so scrupulously when ticketing random cars downtown?
This was retaliation, pure and simple. One of the sheep defied a beast of prey, and his pack turned on her. Likewise, in other cases where cops are recorded in the commission of similar wrongdoing — like public drunkenness and urination, abusive behavior toward the public, etc., during Police Week celebrations — members of the Brotherhood react by leaving threatening messages on websites where the footage is posted.
On occasion, some cop's instincts toward decency cause him to violate the code of silence and report misconduct by another member of the Brotherhood. This is the unpardonable sin for which there is no forgiveness, either in this world or in the next.
So next time you interact with a cop, don't stand on your rights. If you film him, make sure it's as unobtrusive as possible. Say "yes, sir," smile an ingratiating smile, and act properly intimidated. By all means, make an example of him — memorize his badge number — but do it after the fact. Otherwise, you may wind up explaining your "legal rights" to Saint Peter.


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Privacy Policy
This website is operated by FC Bayern München AG. The protection of your personally identifiable data is very important to us. In this privacy policy, you will find information about the handling of your personally identifiable data when you visit the FC Bayern Munich website.
1. Controller and data protection officer
The party responsible for the processing of personally identifiable data on this website is:
FC Bayern München AG, Säbener Straße 51-57, D-81547 Munich, Germany
Phone: +49 89 699 31-0
Fax: +49 89 64 41 65
Email email@example.com
If you have any questions regarding data protection, you can also contact our data protection officer at firstname.lastname@example.com at any time.
2. Collection and use of non-personally identifiable data when using the site
If you use this website without transmitting data to us in any other way (e.g. by registration), we only collect technically necessary data that is automatically transmitted to our server by your browser (e.g. browser type/version, operating system used, referrer URL, pages accessed, length of visit, IP address, date and time of request) or that is required by technically necessary or functional cookies.
As far as personally identifiable data is concerned, we process this on the basis of our legitimate interest in providing you with a functioning, secure website (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). There is no merging of data with other data sources. We reserve the right to check this data retrospectively if we become aware of specific indications of illegal use of our website.
More information about cookies and website tracking can be found here.
3. Collection and use of personally identifiable data
a) Registration (myFCB)
When you register on myFCB, we process the following personally identifiable data relating to you: Place of residence, language of communication, email, password for your login and other information that you voluntarily provide to us, e.g. name, date of birth, information about your favourite player and newsletter preferences.
When you use myFCB, we also process the following information which you make available to us in the registered area at myFCB or which arises during your use. This includes, for example, information about your address, telephone numbers or account or credit card information, information about your membership with FC Bayern München eV, the Kids Club, the Fan Club, the purchase of tickets or products in the Fan Shop, subscriptions to FC Bayern.TV Plus as well as top-ups of your Arena Card. You can always view and change the specific data under myFCB.
We process this data in order to offer you the myFCB area, in particular to provide you with exclusive and personalised content, easy participation in competitions and easy access to offers and services.
We process your personally identifiable data until you have deleted your myFCB account and as long as it is necessary for the fulfilment of mutual obligations in connection with myFCB. In addition, we store your personally identifiable data only for the assertion of or defence against legal claims or as long as legal obligations to store exist.
For IT security purposes, we also process technical information regarding your use of myFCB, such as your IP address and the time you logged on to myFCB. We delete this information 18 months after the respective registration on myFCB.
b) Ticket/fan article purchase and other contractual relationships
We only process personally identifiable data (e.g. name, delivery and billing address, email, content of an order, price) if you have provided it to us in the context of a registration, order of products and services or enquiries, and only insofar as this is necessary for the establishment, execution or termination of the legal relationship.
To purchase certain tickets (e.g. arena tours) you will be redirected to the offers of our partners. Please also note the corresponding data protection information of our partners.
We process your personally identifiable data only as long as it is necessary for the fulfilment of the contract and for the fulfilment of mutual obligations. In addition, we store your personally identifiable data only for the assertion of or defence against legal claims or as long as legal obligations to store exist.
c) Website optimisation without cookies
In order to present the website and its functions to you in an optimal and user-friendly manner, we use various service providers who support us in delivering pictures, graphics and videos (please also note our additional information on videos under section 6) on the website, conducting surveys or finding hashtags about FC Bayern on the Internet ("Website Optimisation Services").
For this purpose, we process your IP address, your name, answers to surveys, your browser type and your social media posts, depending on the function and information you publish (e.g. on social media).
We provide these Website Optimisation Services on the basis of our legitimate interest in providing you with a functioning, secure and informative website (Art. 6 (1)(f) GDPR).
If your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR) is required, e.g. if we reproduce photos with personal images from social media on our website, we will obtain this separately from you in advance. You can revoke your consent at any time with effect for the future by sending us a message. The lawfulness of the data processing carried out by us before revocation remains unaffected.
Your personally identifiable data will only be processed as long as this is necessary to provide you with the respective website functions.
Newsletter service
If you wish, we can process your personally identifiable data to provide you with information on current events and attractive offers from FC Bayern München (FC Bayern München AG, FC Bayern München Fanshop AG & Co. KG, FC Bayern München Service AG & Co. KG, FC Bayern Munich LLC, FC Bayern Munich Shanghai Co. Ltd, FC Bayern Tours GmbH, Allianz Arena München Stadion GmbH, FC Bayern München eV, FC Bayern München Basketball GmbH) and its official partners, which you can find on the website. If you subscribe to the newsletter, we process your email address and information to send the newsletter to you.
Subscription to the newsletter is only possible with your consent. The legal basis for the processing is Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR (consent). You can unsubscribe from a newsletter at any time via the link at the end of the newsletter or directly via your user profile in myFCB.
We process your personally identifiable data for these purposes as long as you show an interest in our newsletters or until you revoke your consent. In addition, we store your personally identifiable data only for the assertion of or defence against legal claims or as long as legal obligations to store exist.
d) WhatsApp messenger service
We offer a WhatsApp messenger service to keep you up to date on your chosen topics. We will send messages via our WhatsApp account to the WhatsApp phone number you provided.
When you sign up for our WhatsApp messenger service, we process the following personal information about you to send messages as part of our WhatsApp messenger service: Surname and first name, telephone number (mobile), your and our messages sent in connection with the Service, and usage data for communication (date, time of messages). . Your consent is the legal basis for the processing (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). You declare your consent by sending a start message to our WhatsApp number. An existing messaging account with WhatsApp is required to use this service.
The WhatsApp messenger service is intended for users who are at least 16 years of age or whose legal guardians have consented. By registering, you confirm that you meet this requirement.
We will send you messages via the WhatsApp messenger service of WhatsApp Ireland Limited (for users in the EU) or WhatsApp, Inc. (for other users). For more information about WhatsApp's processing of your personal information, please see WhatsApp's privacy policy, available at https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/#privacy-policy. WhatsApp, Inc. is certified under the EU-USA Privacy Shield. Further information can be found here: https://www.privacyshield.gov/…0000TSnwAAG&status=Active. EU-US Privacy Shield is a mechanism accepted by the EU to transfer personally identifiable data from Europe to the USA.
To provide this service, we use the technical service provider Messenger People GmbH, Herzog-Heinrich-Str. 9, 80336 Munich, as the processor. This service allows us to send WhatsApp messages to multiple recipients without having to form a WhatsApp group. Users of our WhatsApp Messenger service will not see who the other participants of the WhatsApp Messenger service are.
You may revoke your subscription to our WhatsApp Messenger Service at any time with effect for the future, e.g. by sending us a WhatsApp message with the content "STOP". The lawfulness of messages sent by us via the WhatsApp messenger service before revocation remains unaffected.
In addition, to have any information we hold about your registration and use of our WhatsApp messenger service removed, please send us a WhatsApp message saying "ALLE DATEN LOESCHEN" ("DELETE ALL DATA") through WhatsApp. We will then only store your data if we are legally obliged to do so.
e) Product recommendations by email
As a customer of our online offer, you will regularly receive product recommendations from us by email. You will receive these product recommendations from us regardless of whether you have subscribed to a newsletter or not. We will use the email address you provide during the purchase process to promote our own goods and/or services similar to those you have purchased from us based on an order you have already placed.
The processing of your personally identifiable data for this purpose takes place on the basis of our legitimate interest in direct advertising to existing customers (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). You may object to this product recommendation at any time by writing to FC Bayern München AG, Säbener Str. 51-57, 81547 Munich, Germany, using the link at the end of this product recommendation or by writing to firstname.lastname@example.com.
We process your personally identifiable data for this purpose as long as you show an interest in our products or until you object to receiving product recommendations. In addition, we store your personally identifiable data only for the assertion of or defence against legal claims or as long as legal obligations to store exist.
f) Flyers, catalogues and all advertising delivered by post
We process your name, your address data and your interest in FC Bayern for marketing purposes if we are convinced that we have attractive offers ready for you.
The processing of your personally identifiable data for this purpose takes place on the basis of our legitimate interest in advertising by post (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). You can object to the receipt of such direct advertising at any time by sending a written message to FC Bayern München AG, Säbener Str. 51-57, 81547 Munich or by email to email@example.com. Upon receipt of your objection, we will immediately cease sending you marketing information and will not pass the data on to third parties for marketing purposes.
We process your personally identifiable data for this purpose as long as you show an interest in our products or until you object to receiving product recommendations. In addition, we store your personally identifiable data only for the assertion of or defence against legal claims or as long as legal obligations to store exist.
g) Contact form
On our website you can enter personally identifiable data via a contact form. If you use the contact form, we process the data you enter in the input mask (e.g. surname, first name, email address, message, time of request and server log data).
The legal basis for the processing is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (contract fulfilment).
We use the data exclusively in order to process and answer your enquiry.
We only process the personally identifiable data you provide us to contact you until we have conclusively answered your enquiry. In addition, we store your personally identifiable data only for the assertion of or defence against legal claims or as long as legal obligations to store exist.
h) Special campaigns with partners
From time to time, we conduct special campaigns together with certain business partners, during which you can also take advantage of attractive offers from our partners ("special campaigns"). In order to carry out these campaigns, it may be necessary for us to process your personal data and pass it on to our partners. We will inform you about the details, in particular the identity of the respective partner and the processed personal data (e.g. name, address, e-mail address), in each case in connection with your participation in the special campaign.
The processing of your personal data, including the transmission of your personal data to the respective partner, will only take place with your consent. The legal basis for the processing is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent). Our partners will then process your personal data on receipt under their own responsibility. Please therefore also note the corresponding data protection information of our partners.
We will only process the personal data you provide us to contact you as long as this is necessary to enable you to participate in the special campaign. In addition, we store personal data only to assert or defend against legal claims or as long as there are legal obligations to store.
4. Cookies and website tracking
a) What are cookies and website tracking?
Some of our online services require us to use cookies or other tracking technologies ("cookies"). In this way, information about your visit to our website can be stored. This data enables us to improve our website and to display advertising on the site that is specifically tailored to your interests.
b) Legal basis for the processing of personally identifiable data in connection with cookies
Only with your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR) do we process personally identifiable data, such as information on plug-ins used, browser, length of stay, language used, etc., for marketing, analysis and optimisation purposes and for the design of the website to meet our customers' needs. From this data, user profiles and target group segments can be created under a pseudonym (i.e. not associated with your real name, but with a number), which are used for targeted marketing or information campaigns. We receive your consent via your corresponding consent in the cookie banner on our website. Our cookie consent solution is also integrated in our cookie banner. There you can select separately for each individual cookie whether the cookie is to be enabled or remain deactivated.
We process personally identifiable data collected using other technologies, e.g. mandatory or functionality cookies, on the basis of our legitimate interest in providing you with a functioning, secure website (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).
A list of the cookies we use can be found here.
c) Possibilities of opposing the use of cookies
Below you will find information on the options for deactivating cookies.
Browser settings
Most browsers are set by default to accept cookies, but you can reconfigure your browser so that it rejects cookies or asks you to confirm them beforehand. The help function in the menu bar of most web browsers explains how you can prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how you can have your browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how you can delete all cookies that have already been received and block the browser for all further cookies.
However, if you refuse cookies, some of our services (and those of other websites) may not be available and so some functions cannot be used. Cookies must also be activated in order to be able to object to the use of programs/uses by setting an opt-out cookie.
Cookie consent solution via our cookie tool
You can also use our cookie consent solution below at any time to accept or reject individual cookies separately by placing a green tick next to the cookie or removing it and clicking on "Save settings".
Opt-out via http://www.youronlinechoices.com
You can also object to cookies via the respective links in the cookie list or centrally at http://www.youronlinechoices.com. The respective cookie will then no longer collect any data about your future visits to our and other websites. In addition, this prevents the respective cookie from being created again. Please note, however, that this objection sets an opt-out cookie on your device. You may not delete this. If you have deleted all your cookies in your browser, you must set the respective opt-out cookie again using the above link. The objection applies only to the device and web browser on which it was placed. Please repeat the procedure on all devices if necessary.
5. Integration of social plugins
On our website we provide social plugins of the social networks Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. These are offers from the US company Facebook Inc. (1601 S. California Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA), Twitter Inc. (1355 Market Street, Suite 900, San Francisco CA 94103) and WhatsApp Inc. (650 Castro Street, Suite 120-219, Mountain View, California 94041). You can recognise the plugins by the respective logos of the companies. You can use these plugins to like, share or otherwise be active directly on the respective network.
Before you click on the Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp buttons, only the server address is sent to Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp instead of your IP address using the data protection-friendly alternative used (Shariff button). As long as you do not click on the link to share content, it remains invisible to the operators of the respective social network.
We use this data protection-friendly alternative (Shariff button) to prevent social networks from tracking and storing Internet behaviour without the active contribution of the user. Further information on the solution used can be found under the following link: http://www.heise.de/ct/ausgabe…nform-nutzen-2463330.html
By using the social plugin, you agree to the transfer of your personally identifiable data to the respective network. Specifically, information about which of our Internet pages you have visited and your IP address are then transmitted to the social network, even if you do not have a profile with the respective network or are not logged in there at the time. If you are logged in as a member of the social networks, the network assigns the information to your personal user account.
For more information about Facebook's processing of your personally identifiable data, please refer to the Facebook privacy policy at: https://de-de.facebook.com/policy.php
For more information about the processing of your personally identifiable data by Twitter, please refer to the Twitter privacy policy at: https://twitter.com/de/privacy
For more information about the processing of your personally identifiable data by WhatsApp, please refer to WhatsApp's Privacy policy at: https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/?eea=1#privacy-policy
6. Videos
Some of the videos on our website are embedded on YouTube (part of Google Inc., based in San Bruno, California, USA) and Vimeo (Vimeo LLC, based in New York City, USA). This means that the video will be played directly on YouTube.com or on vimeo.com, but will be displayed on our site.
Vimeo: Cookies are set by Vimeo which are used to transmit your personally identifiable data to Vimeo when you log in to Vimeo via your PC. This is necessary to allow you to save the videos in your "Watch later" playlist in order to watch them at a later time. You can prevent such data transmission by logging out of Vimeo. The cookies are used on the basis of your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR).
For more information about the processing of your personally identifiable data by Vimeo, please refer to Vimeo's privacy policy at: https://vimeo.com/privacy.
YouTube: We have integrated the YouTube videos via the YouTube "nocookie" solution. This causes a connection to the YouTube servers to be established only when you click on a video. Only then will your personally identifiable data be transmitted to YouTube. You can prevent transmission to YouTube by logging out of your YouTube account.
For more information about the processing of your personally identifiable data by YouTube, please refer to YouTube's privacy policy at: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de&gl=de.
7. Data transfer
Insofar as we pass on your personal data specifically within the framework of the data processing described above, we have described this accordingly at the respective point in this data protection declaration. In addition, we pass on your personal data in general as follows:
a) Processors
All personally identifiable data that we process within the framework of this website is processed by us or our service providers. If necessary, we transmit your personally identifiable data to external service providers, such as IT and website optimisation service providers, advertising agencies or analysis providers, in order to be able to offer you our services. We have carefully selected these service providers and concluded order processing agreements with them.
b) Third parties (so-called transfer recipients)
Contractual partners
We pass on your personally identifiable data to other controllers who process the personally identifiable data for their own purposes, insofar as this is necessary for the execution of the contract or the provision of services, e.g. within the scope of the order to the forwarding agent or the parcel delivery service or in connection with your membership in FC Bayern München e.V. or in connection with ticket purchases for FC Bayern München Basketball GmbH. Our contractual partners may use the data transmitted in this way exclusively for the purpose for which we transmitted it.
The transmission of your personally identifiable data for these purposes takes place for the fulfilment of the contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR), or on the basis of our legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR) in making our business efficient.
Credit assessment
In justified cases (e.g. direct debit procedures), we exchange address and creditworthiness data with credit service companies for the purpose of a credit assessment. The service providers only receive access to such personally identifiable data as necessary for the performance of the respective activity. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest).
Legal obligation or enforcement of legal claims
Otherwise, we will only disclose your personal information to third parties if and to the extent required or permitted by law, to enforce legal rights, or to investigate or prevent suspected or actual illegal activity. In these cases, we will inform you separately about the respective transmission if and to the extent legally required.
Website service provider
Some functionalities on our website require the service providers to process your personally identifiable data on their own responsibility (e.g. for social media interactions; see also the information on social plug-ins under section 5 and for some website optimisation services under section 2). Our contractual partners may only use the data thus transmitted for the purpose for which we have transmitted it.
The transmission of your personally identifiable data for these purposes takes place on the basis of your consent or our legitimate interest in providing you with the respective functionality.
Transfer to third countries
If we transfer your personally identifiable data to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA) or commission processors in such countries (for example in the USA), we implement the standards and security mechanisms required by law. We achieve this, for example, by using service providers that are Privacy Shield-certified or by agreeing the so-called EU standard contracts. Please contact us as described in section 1 to learn more about the specific security mechanisms we use.
8. Secure data transfer
All personally identifiable data that you transmit to us during the surfing process in general and during the ordering process in particular are transmitted in encrypted form. We establish a so-called SSL connection for each transaction. SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is a procedure in which your data is encrypted in such a way that it cannot be read by unauthorised persons during transmission on the Internet.
You can recognise the SSL connection by the fact that the Internet address has changed from http:// to https://. In addition, the secure connection is usually indicated by a closed padlock in the status bar of your web browser.
9. Your rights
You have the following legal rights against FC Bayern München AG with regard to your personally identifiable data, provided that the respective requirements are met. You can find further information on your rights and the relevant requirements on the EU Commission's website at https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/…reform/rights-citizens_de.
a) Right to information
As a data subject, you have the right to request confirmation as to whether we process personally identifiable data that concerns you. If this is the case, you have the right to information about this personally identifiable data, as well as other information, e.g. the processing purposes, the recipients and the planned duration of storage or the criteria for determining the duration.
b) Right to rectification and completion
As a data subject, you have the right to demand the correction of incorrect personally identifiable data without delay. Taking into account the purposes of the processing, you have the right to request the completion of incomplete personally identifiable data.
c) Right to erasure ("right to be forgotten")
As the person concerned, you may have the right to the erasure your personally identifiable data. For example, if your personally identifiable data is no longer necessary for its original purpose, you have revoked your privacy statement, or the personally identifiable data has been improperly processed.
d) Right to restriction of processing
As a data subject, you have the right to restrict the processing in the cases prescribed by law.
e) Right to data portability
As a data subject, you have the right, in the cases prescribed by law, to receive the personally identifiable data concerning you in a structured, common and machine-readable format.
f) Right of objection
As a data subject, you have the right to object at any time to the processing of certain personal data concerning you for any reason relating to your particular situation.
In the case of direct marketing, as the data subject, you have the right to object at any time to the processing of personally identifiable data concerning you for the purpose of such advertising, including profiling insofar as it is linked to such direct marketing.
g) Right to revoke your consent under data protection law
You may revoke your consent to the processing of your personal data at any time with effect for the future. However, the lawfulness of the processing carried out before the revocation is not affected.
h) Right of appeal to a data protection authority
You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the Member State in which you reside, your place of work or the place where the alleged infringement was committed, if you believe that the processing of your personally identifiable data violates the GDPR.
The responsible supervisory authority for FC Bayern München AG is the Bayerische Landesaufsicht für Datenschutz ( https://www.lda.bayern.de/de/kontakt.html).
10. Changes
Our privacy policy may change from time to time. This also includes further developments due to changes in our business and adjustments due to a changed legal situation and/or due to the implementation of new web analysis and/or retargeting technology. Any updates to the privacy policy will be published by us on this page. In the event of significant changes, we will point this out accordingly. If you have any further questions that our privacy policy could not answer, please send an email to the following address: email@example.com
Version: May 2019

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Video Salute to Metropolitan Philip
The following video salute to Metropolitan Philip was presented at the 2011 Archdiocese Convention in Chicago, IL, to honor him for his 45 years of episcopal leadership and his 80th birthday. These introductory remarks were made by Fr. Anthony Gabriel:
Your Eminence Metropolitan Philip, Metropolitan Paul, Metropolitan Silouan, the hierarchs of this God protected Archdiocese, Reverend Clergy, esteemed members of the Board of Trustees, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen:
I have been honored by Economos Nicholas Dahdal with a request, for which I thank him from the bottom of my heart, as one who journeyed for 45 years with His Eminence Metropolitan Philip, to share a few reflections on the life of our Chief Shepherd and Father in Christ. With the business of this convention now completed, it is time to celebrate at this concluding banquet. This evening we joyously commemorate two milestones in the life of our beloved Primate: Saidna Philip's 45th anniversary to the Holy Episcopacy and his 80th birthday.
Nizar Qabbani once wrote:
I conquer the world with words,
I conquer the Mother Tongue,
Verbs, nouns, syntax.
I sweep away the beginnings of things
and with a new language
that has the music of water, the message of fire
I light the coming age
and stop time in your eyes
and wipe away the line
that separates
time from this single moment.
Dearest Saidna these poetic utterances are for you! For "you light the coming age with a new language that has the music of water, the message of fire".
Since the Metropolitan is allergic to windy speeches or lofty laudations to his life, a video has been prepared that is a kaleidoscope of the journey of Abdallah, which means, the servant of God, who rose to become Philip, A Servant of God, from his youth until his ascendancy to Metropolitan.
We can define the Saliba era into three important periods, as we shall soon see: Early beginnings. Organization and maturation. Dreams and visions fulfilled.
These wonderful pictures speak volumes of a charismatic life that touched the lives of thousands all through his energetic ministry. Throughout the valleys and the peaks of his eagle's climb to the mountain top, he maintained an equilibrium matched only by his determination to bring Antiochian Orthodoxy into the 21st Century, and in particular this God-protected Archdiocese.
Not only does he incarnate the Gospel of love for the church and the faithful, but his heart beats with the rhythm of poetry as exemplified by the opening quote from Qabbani.
In a moment the lights will be dimmed and let us let us sit back for a moment and view the life and action of the man who shaped the destiny of this Archdiocese from the "grapes from his father's vineyard", that he carried to his mentor Patriarch Alexandros, to the Vineyard of our Lord he has so diligently served.
In the words of Khalil Gibran: "Let us today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing".
So, Saidna, these are a few highlights of your life. May God keep you in the palm of his hands forever!
You can also view this video via the Vimeo service at this link.


text:
SAN JOSE, Calif. , Sept. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — NetSpeed Systems Inc. announced today that DENSO Corporation, a leading global automotive supplier of advanced technology, systems and components, has licensed NetSpeed's Orion on-chip network IP and Pegasus last-level cache for use in System-on-chip (SoCs) targeting Advanced Automotive Electronic Platforms including autonomous driving (ADAS, Autopilot) systems.
Automobiles are undergoing a dramatic transformation. Design efforts once focused almost exclusively on mechanical power trains and body styling are shifting toward advanced sensing and processing. As cars become autonomous, the SoCs inside that drive them need to be designed differently. SoC design must become much more efficient, error-free, and adaptable to meet next generation of challenges. Achieving the levels of performance, sensing, and functional safety required needs a whole new level of capability. Global leaders like DENSO are leading the charge by spearheading systems and solutions targeted towards the ADAS and autonomous driving systems. NetSpeed's interconnect technology, with its combination of IP and the Design Cockpit, brings together performance, sensing, and safety, and leverages automation for breakthroughs in automotive design.
"NetSpeed's interconnect IP offer the outstanding performance, flexibility and advanced functional safety features needed for our products," said Hideki Sugimoto, General Manager, Semiconductor IP Department, Basic Electronic Technology Unit, DENSO. "Furthermore, NetSpeed Pegasus offering is one of a kind IP that allows us to build scalable platform solutions delivering unprecedented performance, power results."
"We are excited to be working with DENSO, a company with world-class expertise, experience and an extensive technology portfolio," said Sundari Mitra, CEO and co-founder of NetSpeed. "DENSO is well positioned to deliver SoC products to drive tomorrow's automotive systems. With NetSpeed's IP and the advanced functional safety features it delivers – ISO 26262 ASIL D Compliance – DENSO will be able to utilize its IP more effectively to create richer and more powerful SoC solutions."
About DENSO Corporation
DENSO Corp., headquartered in Kariya, Aichi prefecture, Japan, is a leading global automotive supplier of advanced technology, systems and components in the areas of thermal, powertrain control, electronics and information and safety. Its customers include all the world's major carmakers. Worldwide, the company has more than 200 subsidiaries and affiliates in 38 countries and regions (including Japan) and employs more than 150,000 people. Consolidated global sales for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2016, totalled US$40.2 billion. Last fiscal year, DENSO spent 8.8 percent of its global consolidated sales on research and development. DENSO common stock is traded on the Tokyo and Nagoya stock exchanges. For more information, go to www.globaldenso.com.
About NetSpeed Systems
NetSpeed Systems provides scalable, coherent on-chip network IPs to SoC designers for a wide range of markets from automotive to high-performance computing and networking. NetSpeed's on-chip network platform delivers significant time-to-market advantages through a system-level approach, a high level of user-driven automation and state-of-the-art algorithms. NetSpeed Systems was founded in 2011 and is led by seasoned executives from the semiconductor and networking industries. The company is funded by top-tier investors from Silicon Valley. It is based in San Jose, California and has additional research and development facilities in Asia. For more information, visit www.netspeedsystems.com.
Press Contact:
Pauline Shulman
Source: NetSpeed Systems via GLOBE NEWSWIRE


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1984: Big Brother Is Watching You
Blackstone Audio presents a new recording of this immensely popular book. George Orwell depicts a gray, totalitarian world dominated by Big Brother and its vast network of agents, including the Thought Police, a world in which news is manufactured according to the authorities' will and people live tepid lives by rote. Winston Smith, the hero with no heroic qualities, longs only for truth and decency. But living in a social system in which privacy does not exist and where those with unorthodox ideas are brainwashed or put to death, he knows there is no hope for him. He knows even as he continues to pursue his forbidden love affair that eventually he will come to destruction. The year 1984 has come and gone, yet George Orwell's nightmare vision in 1949 of the world we were becoming is still the great modern classic of negative Utopia. It is a prophetic and haunting tale that exposes the worst crimes imaginable: the destruction of freedom and truth.
Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks
Publication Date: 05/01/2007 - 12:00am
On Sale: 05/01/2007 - 12:00am
Pages: 9
Language: English


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Regular price
Dhs. 295.00
Dhs. 149.00
Vegan sandals made of soft and strong rope, by Nomadic State of Mind.
Hand Crafted, with real hands
Very fashionable & stylish, worn by most of the celebrities
Original design and extreme quality
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Super Light and they float
Machine Washable & colorfast – they are bleach, chlorine, and salt water resistant
Comfortable and long lasting
Nearly all of our rope sandal scraps are recycled material


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I'm pleased to announce that after a break from offering my 2-day Intensives in Austin, Texas, I am now making those available again starting September 1, 2016 at the Austin Men's Center, thanks to Director Bill Bruzy.
As most of you know Austin is not only charming and beautiful, it is a convenient location for clients especially from the Midwest, Southwest, and West Coast.
I will continue to offer the Intensives at my Mentone Cottage in the mountains of Northeast Alabama.
I hope you will pass the word along to clients or friends who would like to engage in my nontraditional approach to coaching, counseling, and teaching.


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After a nearly disastrous year and facing an expected negative earnings report Friday, BlackBerry hopes to start 2014 on a more positive note with interim CEO John Chen. There's also a recent company commitment to helping developers more easily port Android apps to the BlackBerry World app store.
Chen, a former head of Sybase, was named Blackberry's interim CEO and executive chairman on Nov. 4, following a failed process to find a buyer to take the phone maker private.
Analysts, meanwhile, are expecting the recent earnings quarter, which ended Nov. 30, to close at a loss, the seventh quarterly loss in a row.
Chen's appointment followed the resignation of CEO Thorsten Heins and a fateful September announcement that BlackBerry was taking nearly $1 billion in charges for unsold smartphones, primarily the Z10 touchscreen device.
Chen noted in a blog shortly after his appointment that BlackBerry has "significant financial strength for the long haul" and would leverage its BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 mobility management platform and a new device strategy focused on enterprise users.
"We are also leveraging our tremendous assets, including BlackBerry Messenger, our network and QNX," the BlackBerry kernel behind the BlackBerry 10 OS used in the Z10 and other devices, he said.
In mid-November, BlackBerry also released the latest BlackBerry 10.2.1 operating system to developers to help them make Android apps as "compatible as possible" with BlackBerry devices. Blackberry hoped that developers would repackage their Android apps to submit to BlackBerry World for sales.
The new 10.2.1 release will be available to the public sometime in 2014, a spokeswoman told Computerworld.
A major criticism of the BlackBerry OS has been a shortage of apps that will run on BlackBerry devices, especially when compared to Android apps, which number more than 1 billion in the Google Play store. By comparison, BlackBerry World has more than 130,000 apps, a BlackBerry spokeswoman said Thursday, about the same amount reported by BlackBerry in late September.
Some IT managers believe Android support is critical to BlackBerry's future success. "BlackBerry should make a bigger push to accept Android apps, since right now you have to essentially sideload them and compatibility issues abound," said Andrew Shattuck, a senior technical support analyst at Rocky Mountain Human Services in Denver in an interview..
Blackberry "has to plan to compete in a two-sided market," comprised of Android and iOS, Shattuck said. "It's their only direction." As smartphones get faster processors, Shattuck said HTML 5 and Java Script developers will surely build more cross-platform apps that can work with BlackBerry and other operating systems.
BlackBerry, in the latter part of 2014, fell to fourth place in smartphone shipments, trailing behind third-place Windows Phone, each with less than 5% of the market, according to IDC and other analysts. Android dominates smartphone shipments globally, with Apple's iOS in second.
Rocky Mountain recently decided to deploy 300 Z10s to its work force by the end of January, and will support them with the BES 10 management platform. Shattuck said a major incentive to sticking with BlackBerry, despite recommendations to seek alternatives, is that BES 10 will also manage iOS and Android devices. Atop of BES 10, Rocky Mountain will use Citrix Receiver software to allow Z10 users to access sensitive patient records directly on their smartphones, with the data kept securely behind the corporate firewall.
Rocky Mountain serves 7,500 people with brain injuries and other cognitive impairments and is required to be HIPAA compliant, meaning users and IT managers must take a number of security steps, including frequent password refreshes. Shattuck said the BlackBerry Balance feature on the Z10 will allow workers to keep all their work-related data partitioned from personal data.
Because of the BES 10 support for Android and iOS, Shattuck said there's further inducement to stay with BlackBerry. "If BlackBerry were to go under or have financial difficulties and we couldn't use their handsets, we could still use the phone infrastructure to access other phone models," he said.
"That being said, people have really had negative predictions about BlackBerry for a long time, but when it comes to a corporate phone, there's more to it than getting the latest and greatest device. We're interested in a bug-free phone. Our organization has been long committed to BlackBerry," Shattuck said.
Despite a Gartner recommendation made to enterprises in September to consider alternatives to BlackBerry within six months, some analysts have been more moderate.
"We see little risk of BlackBerry simply closing its doors and leaving customers in the lurch," said Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates, in a report issued on Thursday. "We evaluate the overall risk of working with BlackBerry as low, and companies should feel comfortable in doing so."
This article, BlackBerry has high hopes for 2014, was originally published at Computerworld.com.
Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed. His email address is firstname.lastname@example.com.
See more by Matt Hamblen on Computerworld.com.
Read more about mobile apps in Computerworld's Mobile Apps Topic Center.


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CNG Components for Bus & Truck Dispensers
High flow rates – Faster filling timesSuperior quality and maximum reliability have made WEH CNG dispenser components so popular throughout the world. WEH fill nozzles, breakaways and filters for buses, trucks and heavy duty vehicles convince by their outstanding functionality.
Ideally suited for self-serve fast filling, fleet and time filling, the fueling nozzles feature:
- High flow rate – Short filling times
- Clear identification of pressure range (no mix-up)
- Colour coded impact protection - 200 bar (P30 – 3,000 psi / black) & 250 bar (P36 – 3,600 psi / yellow)
- Integrated swivel joint for comfortable handling
Breakaways for protection of dispenser in the event of a 'drive-off' and CNG filters for CNG free of impurities round off the portfolio.
All CNG Dispenser products have been extensively tested.
WEH® Breakaway Coupling TSA5 CNG for bus and truck fueling stations for direct installation, 200 bar / 250 bar - Product family
WEH® Inline Breakaway Coupling TSA6 CNG for bus and truck fueling stations (Inline-Installation), 200 bar / 250 bar - Product family
WEH® Emergency Fueling Set TZ22 CNG for refueling buses and trucks from service vehicle, hose 5 m, 200 barWEH® Fueling assembly TK26 CNG consisting of fueling nozzle, a hose set and a (inline) breakaway coupling
WEH® Fuelling Nozzle TK24 CNG for buses / trucks (NGV2), external 3-way valve, with gas recirculation, 200 barWEH® Fuelling Nozzle TK24 CNG for buses / trucks (NGV2), external 3-way valve, with gas recirculation, 250 barRead moreSafe & Easy Filling at CNG Stations for Heavy-Duty Vehicles
WEH offers a large variety of compressed natural gas fill nozzles tailored for refuelling of vans, shuttles, massive transit buses, school buses, waste disposal trucks, pickup trucks and other medium and heavy-duty vehicles running on compressed natural gas fuel; along with accessories, as nozzle storage racks, breakaways and filters.
Additional safety is provided when WEH breakaway couplings are used allowing the safe disconnection from the fuelling system without damage to the dispenser in the event of an accidental drive-off.
CNG filters for protection of the downstream CNG components round up the product line and reduce downtime for the end user. The filter inserts can be easily cleaned. WEH Filters feature: High particle removal efficiency, Excellent corrosion resistance, Multiple sizes


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SmokeMaster Black Forest Ham & Caramelized Apple Wrap
Pair our SmokeMaster Beechwood Smoked Black Forest Ham and Gouda Cheese with caramelized apples for a mouthwatering midday meal.
For the caramelized apples:
- Melt butter in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add the apples and sauté until they start to turn tender, approximately 6 to 8 minutes; stirring frequently.
- Remove the apples from heat and mix in the Brown Sugar & Spice Glaze. Set aside to cool.
For the wrap:
- In a small bowl, mix together the cranberry sauce and mayonnaise to make a cranberry mayonnaise sauce. Spread the cranberry mayonnaise on one side of the tortilla, cover completely.
- Next, layer the ingredients in the following order: ham, cheese, caramelized apples, greens.
- Starting at one end, tightly roll the tortilla, tucking ingredients as you roll. Slice in half diagonally and serve.


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Posted by Editoress on 11/22/12
The Enduro World Series will take place in 2013, thanks to the efforts of Chris Ball, formerly of the UCI, and the unified event organizing powers of the Enduro Series (Coupe de France), SuperEnduro and Crankworx. As a seven-stop tour taking place over the course of the entire 2013 mountain bike season, including the Enduro des Nations, the Enduro World Series aims to build a lasting event series for riders, teams and the mountain bike industry.
"I've heard the demand for this type of series for quite some time. Along with SuperEnduro, the Enduro Series and Crankworx, we want to develop the sport of Enduro mountain bike racing so it can grow as a sustainable worldwide discipline," says Chris Ball, managing director of the Enduro World Series.
"The execution of this tour for 2013 has been of the utmost importance to the organizing teams at Crankworx, the Enduro Series and SuperEnduro. We aim for its existence under our collective umbrella to cater to the needs of athletes, the mountain biking public and the bike industry."
While the racing calendar for 2013 will be released on Tuesday, December 4th, the Enduro World Series will be the official global race series of the newly formed Enduro Mountain Bike Association. Made up of a board of directors including Chris Ball, Fred Glo of the Enduro Series, Enrico Guala of the SuperEnduro Series and Darren Kinnaird of Crankworx Events Inc., the Enduro Mountain Bike Association will look to support from the riders, teams and industry.
More information regarding supporter and membership packages will be released soon, including the launch of the Enduro Mountain Bike Association website.
For more information or to join the conversation on Facebook, go to www.facebook.com/EnduroWorldSeries or email Chris Ball, Managing Director: email@example.com
|Return to Cycling 4 Women homepage | Return to Canadian Cyclist homepage | Back to Top


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Friday, 9 May 2014
Guest Post: Trying Morrisons Supermarket
16 comments:
- Coombe Mill (Fiona)12 May 2014 at 19:56
Great that you are all out and exercising together and having fun too! I'm sure with your guidance he will do brilliantly, thanks for linking up and sharing with Country Kids.ReplyDelete
- Coombe Mill (Fiona)12 May 2014 at 19:59
It does look very cosy in the tent - not sure there will be room for you though! Our children are always camping out - even in the garden they find it a bit adventure. Thanks for linking up and sharing with Country Kids.ReplyDelete
I fitted in OK this weekend! thanks for hostingReplyDelete
we will get there together!ReplyDelete
it wasn't all that expensive really this time - need to do more next week..ReplyDelete
well done on the smoking - good luck on the fizzy, I am off booze now until my cousin's wedding at the end of the month...ReplyDelete
it was all so yummy - need to go buy some more :-)ReplyDelete
ours now drying out in the car after our full weekend together! need some guaranteed sun to drape it in the garden..ReplyDelete
Sounds like you had a fantastic time too :-)ReplyDelete
we really did :-)ReplyDelete
- ♫ Alison M ♪14 May 2014 at 12:07
I must get out running again. Its great you all go togetherReplyDelete
- Merlinda Little14 May 2014 at 18:58
It is my dream for us to go on a camping! I want to sleep on a tent with my family but we cant afford a tent yet. This is so nice! They look really happy and cozy in there =) #countrykidsReplyDelete
this was £50 so not too expensive :-)ReplyDelete
- Baby Routes18 May 2014 at 19:03
I love that you can get out with the kids. When did they start joining you on runs? We are a long way off that I imagine but be good to know how you got them into it for when my two are older! Might motivate me a bit more when they start overtaking me!ReplyDelete
Slows me down!ReplyDelete
He just started! They scooted until they couldn't keep up. My daughter cycles though as she hates running...ReplyDelete


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Weekendbee 5 years!
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A warm and windproof 100% polyester (50% recycled) bonded sherpa fleece jacket for cool, blustery weather. The most popular Patagonia fleece at the moment!
We're in business to save our home planet
Patagonia was founded by Yvon Chouinard in 1973. Patagonia is an outdoor clothing manufacturer for silent sports: climbing, surfing, skiing, snowboarding and trail running.
Patagonia's mission statement is to build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis. Patagonia pledges at least one percent of the sales to environmental groups around the world. For over 40 years the folks at Patagonia have focused on making easygoing, high-performance gear that leaves the smallest footprint possible.
Patagonia is currently using 69% recycled or renewable materials and it's aiming to raise the portion up to 100% in the future. In an attempt to improve the lives of those who make Patagonia products, Patagonia offers 192 styles that are Fair Trade Certified for sewing. In 1994, Patagonia made the decision to take a stand against chemically intensive cotton and switch to organically grown cotton throughout the line. Part of the production is also Bluesign® certified. See product-specific responsibility on the product pages.
Patagonia offers a repair service for all the products. Let us know if your Patagonia garment needs to be repaired and we'll take care of it.
Weekendbee - sustainable online store offers fast global shipping with DHL & GLS.
You have a possibility to return or exchange your order within 14 days of receiving the order. The 14-day return period starts from the date you receive the package and you must notify us within 14 days about the return. After notification, the package must be returned to the carrier within the next 14 days.
We would kindly want to remind of the environmental impact caused by logistics thus we aim to avoid unnecessary returns. We are happy to help you to choose the suitable product for you.
Read more details on returns.
More than 70% of the materials used by Patagonia in their volume are environmentally preferred raw materials. Patagonia also aims to use only mostly preferred materials in the future - including organic and renewable cotton, recycled polyester and recycled nylon. Patagonia does not use Phthalates in their production and they also aim to become Perfluorinated Chemicals free in their production by 2025. Patagonia is committed to the quality and durability of its products and offers repair services to further extend the life of its products.
A large part of Patagonia's products are made in China and Vietnam. Patagonia holds its suppliers (and itself) to the highest environmental and social standards in the industry. To manage the process, they rely on industry tools and standards, and when sufficiently stringent standards do not exist, they create them themselves.Patagonia has aSupplier Workplace Code of Conduct which is based on International Labour Organization (ILO) core labor standards and requires compliance with all laws in each of the countries in which their factories operate. They are also a member of the Fair Labor Association® (FLA). The FLA is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization established to hold apparel companies accountable for responsible labor practices.
Patagoniahas disclosed their annual climate footprint since 2013 and they are working hard to reduce their emissions. Around 95% of Patagonia's carbon emissions come from the supply chain, which includes everything from the crops needed to make yarn to transporting finished garments to warehouses, stores and our customers' doors. Patagonia's goal is to become fully carbon neutral for the entire business and supply chain by 2025.
Read more about Patagonia's sustainability here.
Laadukas, hyvin tehty fleece joka varmasti toimii myös pakkasilla (todella lämmin eli ei ihan kesävaruste ainakaan etelässä).Koko pitää paikkansa ja materiaalit hyviä. Patis ei petä
Mukavan tuntuinen ja erittäin lämmin takki. Takki tulee kovaan käyttöön syksyn vaelluksiin kuoritakin alle. Erinomainen ostos!
Hyvin palvele keski-ikäisen miehen Patagonia -pakkomiellettä ja tuotteenakin toimii. Vaikuttaa laadukkaalta, tukevat vetoketjut, isot taskut, tosi lämmin ja pitää tuulen.
excellent. no issues at all-
Takki on yllättävän lämmin. Vuoren pinnoite blokkaa tuulen täysin. Pärjää lämpötilojen ollessa pakkasen puolellakin. Monipuoliset taskut mahdollistavat laukun kotiin jättämisen.


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Some time is likely to pass before the results of Saturday's National Assembly elections in Afghanistan become known, and are officially announced.
In the meantime, it is useful to reflect on the more fundamental issues facing the United States, NATO and other allied countries engaged in the effort to secure the country from the Taliban–or at least arrange a departure that does not lead to the rapid collapse of the Afghan government.
As we get caught up in the details provided to our reporters by U.S. military and civilian officials in Afghanistan and Washington, and also those of allied nations, we tend to forget several fundamental facts about the country.
First, Afghanistan is a narco-state, where drug money and drug lords hold inordinate sway.
Second, the country is the second most corrupt country in the world, according to Transparency International which ranks it 179th, with only the anarchic state of Somalia ranking lower at 180th.
Third, while the United States has supported the development of institutions necessary for good governance over the course of the nine-year war, as have the United Nations and other allied nations, its Central Intelligence Agency has at the same time been paying many high-ranking Afghan officials either as assets or to provide specific information and services, on a long-term and continuing basis. Many of these officials have been known to be corrupt.
Fourth, the United States has been unable to break free from its support of president Hamid Karzai, even when the presidential elections held in August 2009 gave it an opportunity to do so through adherence to the Afghan constitution and the electoral machinery that had been set up in accordance with Afghan legislation. Despite a massive vote against Karzai and for Abdullah that, even after a portion of the votes produced by corruption had been discounted, required that a second-round runoff election be held, the U.S. stood by Karzai.
The massive corruption of the electoral process, apparently orchestrated by Karzai, was corrected in part only by the Electoral Complaints Commission that at that time had a majority of three international members. Lost in the news reporting was the critical fact that the ECC had only examined the results of the voting stations where the most egregious fraud had occurred. The actual extent of the fraud was in all likelihood far greater than that examined and found by the ECC, and it is quite possible that Abdulllah Abdullah, who came in second, could have won a free and fair second round election.
The U.S., instead of facing down Karzai, turned to Pakistan and apparently struck a deal to gain the cooperation of the Pakistani military in negotiating with the Taliban, in exchange for ceasing its pressure on Karzai to either actually hold a second-round election or form a national unity government with Abdullah. In the face of Karzai's refusal to meet Abdullah's demand that the members of the Independent Electoral Commission who had orchestrated the fraud be replaced, the latter withdrew from the race.
As Thomas Friedman observed in the New York Times in his March 31 op-ed column,
When you can steal an election, you can steal anything. How will we get this guy to curb corruption when his whole election, and previous tour in office, were built on corruption? How can we be operating a clear, build-and-hold strategy that depends on us bringing good governance to Afghans when the head of the government is so duplicitous?
See also The Trenchant Observer, "Thomas L. Friedman on Karzai; Hard Options," March 31, 2010.
Fifth, when U.S. anti-corruption efforts collide with the pervasive corruption at the top of the Afghan government, which reportedly has many high-ranking officials on the CIA payroll, those efforts seem to always be sacrificed as the intelligence agencies weigh in to protect their assets.
See, e.g., Dexter Filkins and Mark Mazzetti, "Karzai Aide in Corruption Inquiry Is Tied to C.I.A.," New York Times, August 25, 2010
Recently, Karzai blocked the efforts of two U.S. supported Afghan anti-corruption bodies when they sought to arrest officials close to Karzai widely reputed to be corrupt. Karzai then fired Deputy Attorney General Fazel Ahmad Faqiryar, who had been in charge of these anti-corruption efforts. The New York Times, in an editorial on August 25, 2010, noted,
A report in Thursday's Times that the aide, Mohammed Zia Salehi, is a paid agent of the C.I.A. shows, once again, the seamy complications of this war.
In late July, Mr. Salehi, a top national security adviser to Mr. Karzai, was arrested after being accused of soliciting bribes to help block an investigation of the New Ansari Exchange. New Ansari, a financial firm based in Kabul, is suspected of helping move billions of dollars out of Afghanistan.
The two anticorruption agencies, the Major Crimes Task Force and the Sensitive Investigations Unit, were established by the Afghan government last year with encouragement from the United States. They are independent, with broad powers to arrest, detain and try suspects, and they receive technical and other help from the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
–Editorial, "Mr. Karzai's Promises," New York Times, August 25, 2010
The Central Dilemma Facing the U.S. in Afghanistan
The central dilemma facing the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan is that good governance is required for the Taliban to be checked, both according to U.S. counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine (as enunciated in the Army manual drafted by Petraeus), and under the specific conditions on the ground in Afghanistan. Yet good governance cannot be built, or governance strengthened, without law and the framework of law that such governance requires.
In a word, the U.S. and its allies are not likely to succeed in stabilizing Afghanistan, or in reducing the likelihood of destabilization of Pakistan as a result of failure in Afghanistan, without clearly setting out as its objective the establishment and consolidation of a constitutional or rule-of-law state.
That does not mean that the United States must maintain large military forces in Afghanistan until such a state is firmly in place, but it does mean that U.S. and allied efforts in the country must be oriented toward that goal, and not undermine it.
A long-term commitment from the U.S. and its allies on the civilian side, to assist in building and strengthening such a rule-of-law state, may be required. Such a commitment, however, would reassure Afghan partners dedicated to such an enterprise, and potential adherents, that the Umited States will not simply withdraw its troops and leave the country to warlords, drug lords, and the Taliban.
Two must-read articles lay out the depths of the pervasive corruption that exists in Afghanistan, and the inherent contradictions–as well as the strange if not delusional thinking–involved in current U.S. policymaking discussions on the subject of how to fight this corruption. See
Dexter Filkins, "Inside Corrupt-istan, a Loss of Faith in Leaders," The New York Times, September 4, 2010; and
Mark Mazzetti and Rod Norland, "U.S. Debates Karzai's Place in Fighting Corruption," New York Times, September 14, 2010
Filkins writes,
It's not as if the Americans and their NATO partners don't know who the corrupt Afghans are. American officers and anti-corruption teams have drawn up intricate charts outlining the criminal syndicates that entwine the Afghan business and political elites. They've even given the charts a name: "Malign Actor Networks." A k a MAN.
Looking at some of these charts—with their crisscrossed lines connecting politicians, drug traffickers and insurgents — it's easy to conclude that this country is ruled neither by the government, nor NATO, nor the Taliban, but by the MAN.
It turns out, of course, that some of the same "malign actors" the diplomats and officers are railing against are on the payroll of the C.I.A. At least until recently, American officials say, one of them was Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president's brother. Mr. Karzai has long been suspected of facilitating the country's booming drug trade.
President Obama's Response
How has president Obama reacted to Karzai's interventions to block anti-corruption efforts in Afghanistan and his firing of Deputy Attorney General Fazel Ahmad Faqiryar?
On Monday, September 14, Mazzetti and Norland report, the president met with his senior advisors to address the problem:
The Obama administration is debating whether to make Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, a more central player in efforts to root out corruption in his own government, including giving him more oversight of graft investigators and notifying him before any arrests, according to senior American officials.
The corruption issue was at the center of a two-hour White House meeting on Monday, with President Obama and senior aides agreeing that efforts to tackle corruption should be balanced against the need to maintain ties with the Afghan government.
"The discussion on corruption, in essence, is really a discussion about our relationship with Karzai," said one senior Obama administration official, who like several others interviewed for this article spoke only on condition of anonymity.
Officials cautioned that no firm decisions had been made about whether President Karzai should have any veto power over anticorruption efforts. They said that Mr. Obama told his advisers on Monday to come up with a more "sophisticated" policy toward Afghan corruption.
Mr. Obama, the officials said, directed government agencies — including the Pentagon, the State Department, the Justice Department and the C.I.A. — to develop guidelines that could isolate the corruption that fuels anger among Afghans and drives many into the ranks of the insurgency, as opposed to the more routine kickbacks and bribes that grease the Afghan political system.
"The corruption we need to combat is the corruption that undermines the fight against the Taliban," said a second American official. "That means going after officials who abuse ordinary Afghans and drive them to the other side — a plundering landlord or a brutal, thieving cop."
In other words, the idea is to pursue some corruption, but not the corruption at the top of the Afghan government. In the president's words, the challenge is to come up with a more "sophisticated" policy toward fighting Afghan corruption.
Perhaps more importantly, Obama's call for more "sophisticated" options for fighting corruption in Afghanistan reflects Karzai's continued ability to "roll" the president, who every time he hits a brick wall seems to call for more analysis.
There is room for some doubt as to whether these "sophisticated" intellectual distinctions and options, if found and implemented, will ever gain traction in the second most corrupt country in the world, Corrupt-istan.
To the Observer, the idea of trying to make Karzai a more central player in efforts to root out corruption in his own government sounds like giving Al Capone a more central role in cleaning up Chicago.
In the meantime, anti-corruption efforts in Afghanistan are "paused". See Rod Nordland and Alissa J. Rubin, "New Afghan Corruption Inquiries Frozen," New York Times, September 14, 2010.
The Trenchant Observer
Twitter: www.twitter.com/trenchantobserv
E-mail: email@example.com
Comments are invited.


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Preschooler's homemade lunch replaced with nuggets
Published February 14, 2012
| FoxNews.com
A Hoke County preschooler was fed chicken nuggets for lunch because a state worker felt that her homemade lunch did not have enough nutritional value, according to a report by the Carolina Journal.
The West Hoke Elementary School student was in her More at Four classroom when a state agent who was inspecting lunch boxes decided that her packed lunch — which consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips — "did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines," the Journal reports.
The decision was made under consideration of a regulation put in place by the the Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services, which requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs to meet USDA guidelines.
"When home-packed lunches do not include all of the required items, child care providers must supplement them with the missing ones," the Journal reports.
The student's mother told the Journal she received a note from the school about the incident and was charged $1.25 for the cafeteria tray, from which her daughter only ate three chicken nuggets.
The note explained how students who did not bring "healthy lunches" would be offered the missing portions and that parents could be charged for the cost of the cafeteria food, the Journal reports.
The mother, who was not identified in the report, expressed concern about school officials telling her daughter that she wasn't "packing her lunch box properly."
All Your Food Are Belong To Us!
To Us!
To Us!
All Your Food Are Belong To Us!
Collectivist bastards!!!!


text:
People who know a lot about a lot have long been an exclusive club, but now they are an endangered species. Edward Carr tracks some down ...
From INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, Autumn 2009
can remember the moment when he became a writer. It was 1993, he was a
professor of chemistry at Stanford University in California and he had
already written books about science and about his life as one of the
inventors of the Pill. Now he wanted to write a literary novel about
writers' insecurities, with a central character loosely modelled on
Norman Mailer, Philip Roth and Gore Vidal.
His wife, Diane Middlebrook, thought it was a ridiculous idea. She was also a professor—of literature. "She admired the fact that I was a scientist who also wrote," Djerassi says. He remembers her telling him, "'You've been writing about a world that writers know little about. You're writing the real truth inside of almost a closed tribe. But there are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who know more about writing than you do. I advise you not to do this.' "
Even at 85, slight and snowy-haired, Djerassi is a determined man. You sense his need to prove that he can, he will prevail. Sitting in his London flat, he leans forward to fix me with his hazel eyes. "I said, 'ok. I'm not going to show it to you till I finish. And if I find a publisher then I'll give it to you.' "
Eventually Djerassi got the bound galleys of his book. "We were leaving San Francisco for London for our usual summer and I said 'Look, would you read this now?' She said, 'Sure, on the plane.' So my wife sits next to me and of course I sit and look over. And I still remember, I had a Trollope, 700 pages long, and I couldn't read anything because I wanted to see her expression."
Diane Middlebrook died of cancer in 2007 and, as Djerassi speaks, her presence grows stronger. By the end it is as if there are three of us in the room. "She was always a fantastic reader," he says. "She read fast and continuously. And suddenly you hear the snap of the book closing, like a thunder clap. And I looked at her, and she then looked at me. She always used to call me, not 'Carl' or 'Darling', she used to call me 'Chemist' in a dear, affectionate sort of way. It was always 'Chemist'. And she said, 'Chemist, this is good'."
Carl Djerassi is a polymath. Strictly speaking that means he is someone who knows a lot about a lot. But Djerassi also passes a sterner test: he can do a lot, too. As a chemist (synthesising cortisone and helping invent the Pill); an art collector (he assembled one of the world's largest collections of works by Paul Klee); and an author (19 books and plays), he has accomplished more than enough for one lifetime.
His latest book, "Four Jews on Parnassus", is an imagined series of debates between Theodor Adorno, Arnold Schönberg, Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, which touches on art, music, philosophy and Jewish identity. In itself, the book is an exercise in polymathy. At a reading in the Austrian Cultural Forum in London this summer, complete with Schönberg's songs and four actors, including Djerassi himself, it drew a good crowd and bewitched them for an hour and a half. Sitting down with the book the next day, I found it sharp, funny, mannered and dazzlingly erudite—sometimes, like a bumptious student, too erudite for its own good. I enjoy Djerassi's writing, though not everyone will. But even his critics would admit that he really is more than "a scientist who writes".
The word "polymath" teeters somewhere between Leonardo
da Vinci and Stephen Fry. Embracing both one of history's great
intellects and a brainy actor, writer, director and TV personality, it
is at once presumptuous and banal. Djerassi doesn't want much to do
with it. "Nowadays people that are called polymaths are dabblers—are
dabblers in many different areas," he says. "I aspire to be an
intellectual polygamist. And I deliberately use that metaphor to
provoke with its sexual allusion and to point out the real difference
to me between polygamy and promiscuity."
"To me, promiscuity is a way of flitting around. Polygamy, serious polygamy, is where you have various marriages and each of them is important. And in the ideal polygamy I suspect there's no number one wife and no number six wife. You have a deep connection with each person."
Djerassi is right to be suspicious of flitting. We all know a gifted person who cannot stick at anything. In his book "Casanova: A Study in Self-Portraiture" Stefan Zweig describes an extreme case:
[Casanova] excelled in mathematics no less than in philosophy. He was a competent theologian, preaching his first sermon in a Venetian church when he was not yet 16 years old. As a violinist, he earned his daily bread for a whole year in the San Samuele theatre. When he was 18 he became doctor of laws at the University of Padua—though down to the present day the Casanovists are still disputing whether the degree was genuine or spurious...He was well informed in chemistry, medicine, history, philosophy, literature, and, above all, in the more lucrative (because perplexing) sciences of astrology and alchemy...As universal dilettante, indeed, he was perfect, knowing an incredible amount of all the arts and all the sciences; but he lacked one thing, and this lack made it impossible for him to become truly productive. He lacked will, resolution, patience.
Mindful of that sort of
promiscuity, I asked my colleagues to suggest living polymaths of the
polygamous sort—doers, not dabblers. One test I imposed was breadth. A
scientist who composes operas and writes novels is more of a polymath
than a novelist who can turn out a play or a painter who can sculpt.
For Djerassi, influence is essential too. "It means that your polymath
activities have passed a certain quality control that is exerted within
each field by the competition. If they accept you at their level, then
I think you have reached that state rather than just dabbling." They
mentioned a score of names—Djerassi was prominent among them. Others
included Jared Diamond, Noam Chomsky, Umberto Eco, Brian Eno, Michael
Frayn and Oliver Sacks.
It is an impressive list, by anyone's standards. You can find scientists, writers, actors, artists—the whole range of human creativity. Even so, what struck me most strongly was how poorly today's polymaths compare with the polymaths of the past.
In the first half of 1802 a physician and scientist called Thomas Young
gave a series of 50 lectures at London's new Royal Institution,
arranged into subjects like "Mechanics" and "Hydrodynamics". By the
end, says Young's biographer Andrew Robinson, he had pretty much laid
out the sum of scientific knowledge. Robinson called his book "The Last Man Who Knew Everything".
Young's achievements are staggering. He smashed Newtonian orthodoxy by showing that light is a wave, not just a particle; he described how the eye can vary its focus; and he proposed the three-colour theory of vision. In materials science, engineers dealing with elasticity still talk about Young's modulus; in linguistics, Young studied the grammar and vocabulary of 400 or so languages and coined the term "Indo-European"; in Egyptology, Jean-François Champollion drew on his work to decode the Rosetta stone. Young even tinkered around with life insurance.
When Young was alive the world contained about a billion people. Few of them were literate and fewer still had the chance to experiment on the nature of light or to examine the Rosetta stone. Today the planet teems with 6.7 billion minds. Never have so many been taught to read and write and think, and then been free to choose what they would do with their lives. The electronic age has broken the shackles of knowledge. Never has it been easier to find something out, or to get someone to explain it to you.
Yet as human learning has flowered, the man or woman who does great things in many fields has become a rare species. Young was hardly Aristotle, but his capacity to do important work in such a range of fields startled his contemporaries and today seems quite bewildering. The dead cast a large shadow but, even allowing for that, the 21st century has no one to match Michelangelo, who was a poet as well as a sculptor, an architect and a painter. It has no Alexander von Humboldt, who towered over early-19th-century geography and science. And no Leibniz, who invented calculus at the same time as Newton and also wrote on technology, philosophy, biology, politics and just about everything else.
Although you may be able to think of a few living polymaths who rival the breadth of Young's knowledge, not one of them begins to rival the breadth of his achievements. Over the past 200 years the nature of intellectual endeavour has changed profoundly. The polymaths of old were one-brain universities. These days you count as a polymath if you excel at one thing and go on to write a decent book about another.
Young was just 29 when he gave his lectures at the Royal Institution. Back in the early 19th century you could grasp a field with a little reading and a ready wit. But the distinction between the dabbling and doing is more demanding these days, because breaking new ground is so much harder. There is so much further to trek through other researchers' territory before you can find a patch of unploughed earth of your own.
Even the best scientists have to
make that journey. Benjamin Jones, of the Kellogg School of Management
near Chicago, looked at the careers of Nobel laureates. Slightly under
half of them did their path-breaking work in their 30s, a smattering in
their 20s—Einstein, at 26, was unusually precocious. Yet when the
laureates of 1998 did their seminal research, they were typically six
years older than the laureates of 1873 had been. It was the same with
great inventors.
Once you have reached the vanguard, you have to work harder to stay there, especially in the sciences. So many scientists are publishing research in each specialism that merely to keep up with the reading is a full-time job. "The frontier of knowledge is getting longer," says Professor Martin Rees, the president of the Royal Society, where Young was a leading light for over three decades. "It is impossible now for anyone to focus on more than one part at a time."
Specialisation is hard on polymaths. Every moment devoted
to one area is a moment less to give over to something else.
Researchers are focused on narrower areas of work. In the sciences this
means that you often need to put together a team to do anything useful.
Most scientific papers have more than one author; papers in some
disciplines have 20 or 30. Only a fool sets out to cure cancer, Rees
says. You need to concentrate on some detail—while remembering the big
question you are ultimately trying to answer. "These days", he says,
"no scientist makes a unique contribution."
It is not only the explosion of knowledge that puts polymaths at a disadvantage, but also the vast increase in the number of specialists and experts in every field. This is because the learning that creates would-be polymaths creates monomaths too and in overwhelming numbers. If you have a multitude who give their lives to a specialism, their combined knowledge will drown out even a gifted generalist. And while the polymath tries to take possession of a second expertise in some distant discipline, his or her first expertise is being colonised by someone else.
The arts are more forgiving than the sciences. Rees is reminded of a remark by Peter Medawar, the zoologist, who pointed out that, after finishing a draft of "Siegfried" in 1857, Wagner was able to put the opera aside for 12 years before setting out to complete his Ring Cycle with "Götterdämmerung". A scientist would have had to worry about a rival stealing his thunder. But nobody else was about to compose the destruction of Valhalla.
Perhaps that explains why would-be polymaths these days so often turn to writing books. Yet, as Richard Posner has discovered, even that is often enemy territory.
Unlike France, America and Britain don't tend to encourage public intellectuals. But if they did, Richard Posner would be their standard-bearer. Posner's day job is as an appeals-court judge in Chicago—a career founded upon his reputation as America's pre-eminent thinker on anti-trust law. But Posner is not just a lawyer. In his spare time he has written on sex, security, politics, Hegel, Homeric society, medieval Iceland and a whole lot more. The Wall Street Journal once called him a "one-man think-tank".
Posner thinks like a polymath. "I'm impatient and I'm restless," he says, in a matter-of-fact way. "After I graduated from law school, I worked first in government for six years. I enjoyed it but I didn't really want to make a career of that. I went into teaching without any great sense of commitment, but I couldn't think of anything else. But gradually I lost interest, as the 1970s wore on, I became involved in consulting. So when the judgeship came along in 1981—quite out of the blue—I was happy to take that. I just kind of slid into law. It is sort of the default career choice in the United States."
Posner first made his name as a monomath. "I had a very big intellectual commitment for many years to anti-trust law. I wrote a lot about that." Eventually, though, the polymath rose to the surface and he put anti-trust behind him. "I just got bored with it, I think the field slowed down—it happens with fields," he says. These days most people cling to their expertise; Posner talks about it as if he were trading in an old car.
After he became immersed in the intellectual life of the University of Chicago, Posner started to apply insights from economics to a broad range of subjects. In his book "Sex and Reason", written in 1990, he used economics to explain a part of life that specialist lawyers and economists had tended to think was beyond their reach. To take a simple example, the AIDS epidemic made gay sex unavoidably more costly, either because of the risk of disease or of switching to safe sex. It therefore reduced the amount of gay sex—and, by the same mechanism, cut the number of illegitimate births and increased the number of legitimate ones.
The book was a success because Posner had the field pretty much to himself. "Sometimes one goes into a new area and there hasn't been much done in it and then you are a little ahead of the curve," he says. Even then, the monomaths were in hot pursuit. "After a while there is so much in it that you don't know what you're going to do. Since 1990 the field has become extremely crowded because of specialisation and not very attractive." Time to move on.
The monomaths do not only swarm over a specialism, they also play dirty. In each new area that Posner picks—policy or science—the experts start to erect barricades. "Even in relatively soft fields, specialists tend to develop a specialised vocabulary which creates barriers to entry," Posner says with his economic hat pulled down over his head. "Specialists want to fend off the generalists. They may also want to convince themselves that what they are doing is really very difficult and challenging. One of the ways they do that is to develop what they regard a rigorous methodology—often mathematical.
"The specialist will always be able to nail the generalists by pointing out that they don't use the vocabulary quite right and they make mistakes that an insider would never make. It's a defence mechanism. They don't like people invading their turf, especially outsiders criticising insiders. So if I make mistakes about this economic situation, it doesn't really bother me tremendously. It's not my field. I can make mistakes. On the other hand for me to be criticising someone whose whole career is committed to a particular outlook and method and so on, that is very painful."
For a polymath, the charge of dabbling never lies far below the surface. "With the amount of information that's around, if you really want to understand your topic thoroughly then, yes, you have to specialise," says Chris Leek, the chairman of British Mensa, a club for people who score well on IQ tests. "And if you want to speak with authority, then it's important to be seen to specialise."
That is why modern institutions tend to exclude polymaths, he says. "It's very hard to show yourself as a polymath in the current academic climate. If you've got someone interested in going across departments, spending part of the time in physics and part of the time elsewhere, their colleagues are going to kick them out. They're not contributing fully to any single department. OK, every so often you're going to get a huge benefit, but from day to day, where the universities are making appointments, they want the focus in one field."
Britain goes out of its way to create monomaths, by asking students aged 15 to choose just three or four subjects to study at A-level. Djerassi thinks this is a mistake. "There'll be students here at age 16 or 17 who are much better than many Americans at French or maths or something, but abysmally ignorant in another area," he says. "We really preach intellectual monogamy more and more in this day and age. That's by necessity, but we're overdoing it. And what we really ought to do is start with intellectual polygamy."
Djerassi has also suffered in his own work because of monomaths' hostility, especially as a playwright. "They always keep crying out 'the co-inventor, father, the mother of the Pill'," he growls. "Without having any knowledge about the play, they start with it. As if it's got anything to do with it." Djerassi thinks that this means he has to work harder to promote his work. "No agent has ever been interested in me. They want 29-year-old Irish playwrights, not 86-year-old expatriates." A trace of bitterness creeps into his voice, but he concedes: "If I were an agent I'd feel the same way."
Overwhelmed by specialists and attacked by experts as dilettantes, it is amazing that there are any polymaths at all. How do they manage?
Alexander McCall Smith is a natural writer. "I just have to do it," he says. "I suppose I write four novels a year now, which I don't have to do. In one sense, that is breaking all the rules in publishing: you're only meant to write one, but I write four, sometimes five. But I just feel that I have got to do it and I enjoy it greatly. I suppose I am very fortunate. The way I work is I go into a trance and write. I don't have to sit there and think: it happens. It just comes, so I am very, very lucky."
These days McCall Smith is best-known as the man behind "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency". But his first career, as a university professor, was eminent in its own right. "My interest was medical law. That, I suppose, was cross-disciplinary. You had to be able to understand the scientific issues and the medical issues, but you just had to have a sound lay understanding of them. So, for example, I worked as a member of the Human Genetics Commission for a while. And that meant I had to go off and make sure that I understood what the issues in genetics were."
He is also musical—though in a dabbling way. "I play wind instruments, but I don't play them very well," he says. "My wife and I set up an orchestra, which is called the Really Terrible Orchestra, and indeed that is absolutely accurate. Virtually everybody I know is better at music than I am."
McCall Smith is a polymath by necessity. He wrote while he was an academic, producing fiction, about 30 children's books, short stories and plays for radio. He paid a price. "I probably would have made more of my academic career had I not had another interest, I think, yes. Academia requires a lot of commitment, so I suppose I could have done more." But, speaking to him, I don't think he had a choice.
Circumstance also played its part. McCall Smith was able to write because university life allowed it. "It would have been different had I been somebody who practised commercial law in a law firm, for instance. That wouldn't be compatible with doing anything else. If you were a futures trader or something like that—there are some jobs where the pressure is so intense that it must be very difficult to have any energy by the time you come home at night."
Posner could become a polymath because he has a unifying set of ideas. "A lot of this work is economic theory in new areas. So applying a method to a new field is not the same thing as mastering multiple fields. To achieve mastery in unrelated areas in an age of specialisation is exceedingly difficult. On the other hand, to take a technique that can be applied to a variety of substantive fields is not as difficult. So if I write about the economics of old age and the economics of sex and the economics of the national security and intelligence services, I am not mastering the field. I am not becoming a sociologist, or a psychiatrist or what have you."
Djerassi could become a polymath because he has had two careers, one after the other—he did his science and, having made a fortune, he concentrated on his writing. He was helped by his wife. "She was a very sophisticated writer and an extremely tough critic and she managed to divorce affection from criticism. She thought 'this is terrible' or 'this is clichéd'." He also has ambition and the willpower of someone on borrowed time. At 62 he was diagnosed with cancer. "Suddenly, from one day to another, I didn't even know what my life expectancy would be before I got the pathology back after the operation. And I remember being very depressed and afterwards I didn't want to talk to anyone." He said to himself, "'Gee, now if I'd known five years earlier it would come out that I'd have cancer and be told I'd live for another few years, would I live a different life?' And I said, 'Absolutely'."
Not all polymaths find their way. Andrew Robinson, Young's biographer, gives the example of Michael Ventris, who died aged 34, having tried to satisfy both his urge to be an architect and also his fascination with codes. Ventris was the first to make sense of Linear B, an early Greek script, but he could not apply himself as successfully to architecture.
"With Michael Ventris, the polymathy gradually destroyed him," Robinson says. "He was famous for cracking Linear B, but I believe he was depressed. Architecture was not enough. He was a logician. Linear B took him over. He couldn't reach the standard he had set in another field, he couldn't do justice to his own gifts, he couldn't let it all go and give it up."
thinks that Young also ran up against his limits. "Young understood
after 1814 that he couldn't carry on with serious medicine. He could
have pursued it but even then it was clear that he wouldn't be taken
seriously. People love a sole genius with tunnel vision—a focus,"
Robinson says. Darwin spent several years thinking about barnacles. But
because Young's work was in so many different fields, he was accused of
being a dilettante. "Polymaths are disconcerting," Robinson says.
"People feel they are trespassing."
Even Leonardo warned against being spread thin. The other day Robinson came across one of his late notebooks, in which he had written, "Like a kingdom divided, which rushes to its doom, the mind that engages in subjects of too great variety becomes confused and weakened."
In an age of specialists, does it matter that generalists no longer thrive? The world is hardly short of knowledge. Countless books are written, canvases painted and songs recorded. A torrent of research is pouring out. A new orthodoxy, popularised by Malcolm Gladwell, sees obsessive focus as the key that unlocks genius.
Just knowing about a lot of things has never been easier. Never before have dabblers been so free to paddle along the shore and dip into the first rock pool that catches the eye. If you have an urge to take off your shoes and test the water, countless specialists are ready to hold your hand.
And yet you will never get very deep. Depth is for monomaths—which is why experts so often seem to miss what really matters. Specialisation has made the study of English so sterile that students lose much of the joy in reading great literature for its own sake. A generation of mathematically inclined economists neglected many of Keynes's insights about the Depression because he put them into words. For decades economists sweated over fiendish mathematical equations, only to be brought down to earth by the credit crunch: Keynes's well-turned phrases had come back to life.
Part of my regret at the scarcity
of polymaths is sentimental. Polymaths were the product of a particular
time, when great learning was a mark of distinction and few people had
money and leisure. Their moment has passed, like great houses or the
horse-drawn carriage. The world may well be a better place for the
specialisation that has come along instead. The pity is that progress
has to come at a price. Civilisation has put up fences that people can
no longer leap across; a certain type of mind is worth less. The
choices modern life imposes are duller, more cramped.
The question is whether their loss has affected the course of human thought. Polymaths possess something that monomaths do not. Time and again, innovations come from a fresh eye or from another discipline. Most scientists devote their careers to solving the everyday problems in their specialism. Everyone knows what they are and it takes ingenuity and perseverance to crack them. But breakthroughs—the sort of idea that opens up whole sets of new problems—often come from other fields. The work in the early 20th century that showed how nerves work and, later, how DNA is structured originally came from a marriage of physics and biology. Today, Einstein's old employer, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, is laid out especially so that different disciplines rub shoulders. I suspect that it is a poor substitute.
Isaiah Berlin once divided thinkers into two types. Foxes, he wrote, know many things; whereas hedgehogs know one big thing. The foxes used to roam free across the hills. Today the hedgehogs rule.
Picture Credit: MASA/Breed London
(Edward Carr is our editorial director and former editor. He is also foreign editor of The Economist.)


text:
During the past decades, Plathelminthes have no longer been in the focus of soil zoological research. They may play a minor role due to their lower abundances and biomass compared to other soil animal groups (Acari, Collembola, Lumbricidae / mites, springtails and earthworms). On the other hand, they predate on Nematoda, Thecamoeba, Rotatoria, etc. and thus are an important element within soil food webs. Their ecological relevance is still poorly investigated. The Plathelminthes section in the Soil Zoology Division investigates this group of soil animals, especially their systematics, distribution and ecology, and develops methods to extract them quantitatively from various substrates. In addition, our research interest focuses on micromorphology, functional biology and phylogeny of Plathelminthes.
Our work is associated with the field of research Long-term Ecosystem Dynamics and Biodiversity Conservation