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Subject: Re: Baudrillard Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 19:46:08 -0000 Hi, translated copy of the brilliant Baudrillard piece copied below (as recently posted to the Baulist). Apologies for cross posting, no apologies for soliciting your thoughts on a very stimulating article. . . Bests, Paul ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Armitage" <john.armitage-AT-unn.ac.uk> To: <baudrillard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>; <dromology-AT-lists.village.edu.virginia.edu> Cc: <deleuze-guattari-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu> Sent: 14 November 2001 08:01 Subject: BAUDRILLARD ON SEPT 11, ENGLISH TRANSLATION > > Hi all > See JB in English translation below. > > John > ===========================================================> [Hi folks, I am _very pleased indeed to be sending this message to CSL. I > must say that I think all members will appreciate Rachel's hard work on this > one. Rachel, thanks very much for this. I have a funny feeling your name is > about to go global within the next five minutes. John.] > ==================================================> John, > > Find my translation of Baudrillard's article attached. It is rather exact > (ie I have left in the stylistic repetitions and emphases, even though they > sound a bit funny in English). I do not have the time for further polishing > now. But if people are interested... > > Rachel > Rachel.Bloul-AT-anu.edu.au] > =========================> > The spirit of terrorism > Jean Baudrillard > Le Monde 2/11/01 > > Translated: Dr Rachel Bloul, School of Social sciences, Australian National > University. > > In footnotes: personal comments to remind me to think about these points > when later analyzing the piece. > In italics, details about not-quite-direct translations. > > We have had many global events from Diana's death to the World Cup, or even > violent and real events from wars to genocides. But not one global symbolic > event, that is an event not only with global repercussions, but one that > questions the very process of globalization. All through the stagnant 90s, > there has been "la greve des evenements" (literally "an events strike", > translated from a phrase of the Argentino writer Macedonio Fernandez). Well, > the strike is off. We are even facing, with the World Trade Center & New > York hits, the absolute event, the "mother" of events, the pure event which > is the essence of all the events that never happened. > > Not only are all history and power plays disrupted, but so are the > conditions of analysis. One must take one's time. For as long as events were > at a standstill, one had to anticipate and overcome them. But when they > speed up, one must slow down; without getting lost under a mass of > discourses and the shadow of war ("nuage de la guerre": literally clouds > announcing war), and while keeping undiminished the unforgettable flash of > images. > > All the speeches and commentaries betray a gigantic abreaction to the event > itself and to the fascination that it exerts. Moral condemnation and the > sacred union against terrorism are equal to the prodigious jubilation > engendered by witnessing this global superpower being destroyed; better, by > seeing it more or less self-destroying, even suiciding spectacularly. Though > it is (this superpower) that has, through its unbearable power, engendered > all that violence brewing around the world, and therefore this terrorist > imagination which -unknowingly- inhabits us all. > > That we have dreamed of this event, that everybody without exception has > dreamt of it, because everybody must dream of the destruction of any power > hegemonic to that degree, - this is unacceptable for Western moral > conscience, but it is still a fact, and one which is justly measured by the > pathetic violence of all those discourses which attempt to erase it. > > It is almost they who did it, but we who wanted it. If one does not take > that into account, the event lost all symbolic dimension to become a pure > accident, an act purely arbitrary, the murderous fantasy of a few fanatics, > who would need only to be suppressed. But we know very well that this is not > so. Thus all those delirious, counter-phobic exorcisms: because evil is > there, everywhere as an obscure object of desire. Without this deep > complicity, the event would not have had such repercussions, and without > doubt, terrorists know that in their symbolic strategy they can count on > this unavowable complicity. > > This goes much further than hatred for the dominant global power from the > disinherited and the exploited, those who fell on the wrong side of global > order. That malignant desire is in the very heart of those who share (this > order's) benefits. An allergy to all definitive order, to all definitive > power is happily universal, and the two towers of the World Trade Center > embodied perfectly, in their very double-ness (literally twin-ness), this > definitive order. > > No need for a death wish or desire for self-destruction, not even for > perverse effects. It is very logically, and inexorably, that the (literally: > "rise to power of power") exacerbates a will to destroy it. And power is > complicit with its own destruction. When the two towers collapsed, one could > feel that they answered the suicide of the kamikazes by their own suicide. > It has been said: "God cannot declare war on Itself". Well, It can. The > West, in its God-like position (of divine power, and absolute moral > legitimacy) becomes suicidal, and declares war on itself. > > Numerous disaster movies are witness to this phantasm, which they obviously > exorcise through images and submerge under special effects. But the > universal attraction these movies exert, as pornography does, shows how > (this phantasm's) realization is always close at hand - the impulse to deny > any system being all the stronger if such system is close to perfection or > absolute supremacy. > > It is even probable that the terrorists (like the experts!) did not > anticipate the collapse of the Twin Towers, which was, far more than (the > attack of) the Pentagon, the deepest symbolic shock. The symbolic collapse > of a whole system is due to an unforeseen complicity, as if, by collapsing > (themselves), by suiciding, the towers had entered the game to complete the > event. > > In a way, it is the entire system that, by its internal fragility, helps the > initial action. The more the system is globally concentrated to constitute > ultimately only one network, the more it becomes vulnerable at a single > point (already one little Filipino hacker has succeeded, with his laptop, to > launch the I love you virus that wrecked entire networks). Here, eighteen > (dix-huit in the text) kamikazes, through the absolute arm that is death > multiplied by technological efficiency, start a global catastrophic process. > > When the situation is thus monopolized by global power, when one deals with > this formidable condensation of all functions through technocratic machinery > and absolute ideological hegemony (pensee unique), what other way is there, > than a terrorist reversal of the situation (literally 'transfer of > situation': am I too influenced by early translation as 'reversal'?)? It is > the system itself that has created the objective conditions for this brutal > distortion. By taking all the cards to itself, it forces the Other to change > the rules of the game. And the new rules are ferocious, because the stakes > are ferocious. To a system whose excess of power creates an unsolvable > challenge, terrorists respond by a definitive act that is also unanswerable > (in the text: which cannot be part of the exchange circuit). Terrorism is an > act that reintroduces an irreducible singularity in a generalized exchange > system. Any singularity (whether species, individual or culture), which has > paid with its death for the setting up of a global circuit dominated by a > single power, is avenged today by this terrorist situational transfer. > > Terror against terror - there is no more ideology behind all that. We are > now far from ideology and politics. No ideology, no cause, not even an > Islamic cause, can account for the energy which feeds terror. It (energy) > does not aim anymore to change the world, it aims (as any heresy in its > time) to radicalize it through sacrifice, while the system aims to realize > (the world) through force. > > Terrorism, like virus, is everywhere. Immersed globally, terrorism, like the > shadow of any system of domination, is ready everywhere to emerge as a > double agent. There is no boundary to define it; it is in the very core of > this culture that fights it - and the visible schism (and hatred) that > opposes, on a global level, the exploited and the underdeveloped against the > Western world, is secretly linked to the internal fracture of the dominant > system. The latter can face any visible antagonism. But with terrorism - and > its viral structure -, as if every domination apparatus were creating its > own antibody, the chemistry of its own disappearance; against this almost > automatic reversal of its own puissance, the system is powerless. And > terrorism is the shockwave of this silent reversal. > > Thus, it is no shock of civilizations, of religions, and it goes much beyond > Islam and America, on which one attempts to focus the conflict to give the > illusion of a visible conflict and of an attainable solution (through > force). It certainly is a fundamental antagonism, but one which shows, > through the spectrum of America (which maybe by itself the epicentre but not > the embodiment of globalization) and through the spectrum of Islam (which is > conversely not the embodiment of terrorism), triumphant globalization > fighting with itself. In this way it is indeed a World War, not the third > one, but the fourth and only truly World War, as it has as stakes > globalization itself. The first two World Wars were classic wars. The first > ended European supremacy and the colonial era. The second ended Nazism. The > third, which did happen, as a dissuasive Cold War, ended communism. From one > war to the other, one went further each time toward a unique world order. > Today the latter, virtually accomplished, is confronted by antagonistic > forces, diffused in the very heart of the global, in all its actual > convulsions. Fractal war in which all cells, all singularities revolt as > antibodies do. It is a conflict so unfathomable that, from time to time, one > must preserve the idea of war through spectacular productions such as the > Gulf (production) and today Afghanistan's. But the fourth World War is > elsewhere. It is that which haunts every global order, every hegemonic > domination; -if Islam dominated the world, terrorism would fight against it. > For it is the world itself which resists domination. > > Terrorism is immoral. The event of the World Trade Center, this symbolic > challenge is immoral, and it answers a globalization that is immoral. Then > let us be immoral ourselves and, if we want to understand something, let us > go somewhat beyond Good and Evil. As we have, for once, an event that > challenges not only morals, but every interpretation, let us try to have the > intelligence of Evil. The crucial point is precisely there: in this total > counter-meaning to Good and Evil in Western philosophy, the philosophy of > Enlightenment. We naively believe that the progress of the Good, its rise in > all domains (sciences, techniques, democracy, human rights) correspond to a > defeat of Evil. Nobody seems to understand that Good and Evil rise > simultaneously, and in the same movement. The triumph of the One does not > produce the erasure of the Other. Metaphysically, one considers Evil as an > accident, but this axiom, embedded in all manichean fights of Good against > Evil, is illusory. Good does not reduce Evil, nor vice-versa: there are both > irreducible, and inextricable from each other. In fact, Good could defeat > Evil only by renouncing itself, as by appropriating a global power monopoly, > it creates a response of proportional violence. > > In the traditional universe, there was still a balance of Good and Evil, > according to a dialectical relation that more or less insured tension and > equilibrium in the moral universe; - a little as in the Cold War, the > face-to-face of the two powers insured an equilibrium of terror. Thus, there > was no supremacy of one on the other. This symmetry is broken as soon as > there is a total extrapolation of the Good (an hegemony of the positive over > any form of negativity, an exclusion of death, of any potential adversarial > force: the absolute triumph of the Good). From there, the equilibrium is > broken, and it is as if Evil regained an invisible autonomy, developing then > in exponential fashion. > > Keeping everything in proportion, it is more or less what happened in the > political order with the erasure of communism and the global triumph of > liberal power: a fantastical enemy appeared, diffused over the whole planet, > infiltrating everywhere as a virus, surging from every interstice of power. > Islam. But Islam is only the moving front of the crystallization of this > antagonism. This antagonism is everywhere and it is in each of us. Thus, > terror against terror... But asymmetrical terror... And this asymmetry > leaves the global superpower totally disarmed. Fighting itself, it can only > founder in its own logic of power relations, without being able to play in > the field of symbolic challenge and death, as it has eliminated the latter > from its own culture. > > Until now this integrating power had mostly succeeded to absorb every > crisis, every negativity, creating therefore a deeply hopeless situation > (not only for the damned of the earth, but for the rich and the privileged > too, in their radical comfort). The fundamental event is that terrorists > have finished with empty suicides; they now organize their own death in > offensive and efficient ways, according to a strategic intuition, that is > the intuition of the immense fragility of their adversary, this system > reaching its quasi perfection and thus vulnerable to the least spark. They > succeeded in making their own death the absolute arm against a system that > feeds off the exclusion of death, whose ideal is that of zero death. Any > system of zero death is a zero sum system. And all the means of dissuasion > and destruction are powerless against an enemy who has already made his > death a counter-offensive. "What of American bombings! Our men want to die > as much as Americans want to live!" This explains the asymmetry of 7, 000 > deaths in one blow against a system of zero death. > > Therefore, here, death is the key (to the game) not only the brutal > irruption of death in direct, in real time, but also the irruption of a > more-than-real death: symbolic and sacrificial death - the absolute, no > appeal event. > > This is the spirit of terrorism. > > Never is it to attack the system through power relations. This belongs to > the revolutionary imaginary imposed by the system itself, which survives by > ceaselessly bringing those who oppose it to fight in the domain of the real, > which is always its own. But (it) moves the fight into the symbolic domain, > where the rule is the rule of challenge, of reversal, of escalation. Thus, > death can be answered only though an equal or superior death. (Terrorism) > challenges the system by a gift that the latter can reciprocate only through > its own death and its own collapse. > > The terrorist hypothesis is that the system itself suicides in response to > the multiple challenges of death and suicide. Neither the system, nor power, > themselves escape symbolic obligation -and in this trap resides the only > chance of their demise (catastrophe). In this vertiginous cycle of the > impossible exchange of death, the terrorist death is an infinitesimal point > that provokes a gigantic aspiration, void and convection. Around this minute > point, the whole system of the real and power gains in density, freezes, > compresses, and sinks in its own super-efficacy. The tactics of terrorism > are to provoke an excess of reality and to make the system collapse under > the weight of this excess. The very derision of the situation, as well as > all the piled up violence of power, flips against it, for terrorist actions > are both the magnifying mirror of the system's violence, and the model of a > symbolic violence that it cannot access, the only violence it cannot exert: > that of its own death. > > This is why all this visible power cannot react against the minute, but > symbolic death of a few individuals. > > One must recognize the birth of a new terrorism, a new form of action that > enters the game and appropriate its rules, the better to confuse it. Not > only do these people not fight with equal arms, as they produce their own > deaths, to which there is no possible response ("they are cowards"), but > they appropriate all the arms of dominant power. Money and financial > speculation, information technologies and aeronautics, the production of > spectacle and media networks: they have assimilated all of modernity and > globalization, while maintaining their aim to destroy it. > > Most cunningly, they have even used the banality of American everyday life > as a mask and double game. Sleeping in their suburbs, reading and studying > within families, before waking up suddenly like delayed explosive devices. > The perfect mastery of this secretiveness is almost as terrorist as the > spectacular action of the 11 September. For it makes one suspect: any > inoffensive individual can be a potential terrorist! If those terrorists > could pass unnoticed, then anyone of us is an unnoticed criminal (each plane > is suspect too), and ultimately, it might even be true. This might well > correspond to an unconscious form of potential criminality, masked, > carefully repressed, but always liable, if not to surge, at least to > secretly vibrate with the spectacle of Evil. Thus, the event spreads out in > its minutiae, the source of an even more subtle psychological (mental) > terrorism. > > The radical difference is that terrorists, while having at their disposal > all the arms of the system, have also another fatal weapon: their own death. > If they limited themselves to fighting the system with its own weapons, they > would be immediately eliminated. If they did not oppose the system with > their own death, they would disappear as quickly as a useless sacrifice; > this has almost always been the fate of terrorism until now (thus the > Palestinian suicidal attacks) and the reason why it could not but fail. > > Everything changed as soon as they allied all available modern means to this > highly symbolic weapon. The latter infinitely multiplies their destructive > potential. It is the multiplication of these two factors (which seem to us > so irreconcilable) that gives them such superiority. Conversely, the > strategy of zero death, of a technological, 'clean' war, precisely misses > this transfiguration of 'real' power by symbolic power. > > The prodigious success of such an attack poses a problem, and to understand > it, one must tear oneself away from our Western perspective, to apprehend > what happens in terrorists' minds and organization. Such efficacy, for us, > would mean maximal calculation and rationality, something we have > difficulties imagining in others. And even then, with us, there would always > be, as in any rational organization or secret service, leaks and errors. > > Thus, the secret of such success is elsewhere. The difference, with them, is > that there is no work contract, but a pact and an obligation of sacrifice. > Such obligation is secure from defection and corruption. The miracle is the > adaptation to a global network, to technical protocols without any loss of > this complicity for life and to the death. Contrary to the contract, the > pact does not link individuals, -even their 'suicide' is not individual > heroism, it is a collective, sacrificial act, sealed by demanding ideals > (I'm a bit free here but I feel it corresponds better to what is meant by > 'exigence ideale'). And it is the conjunction of these two mechanisms, born > of an operational structure and of a symbolic pact, which makes possible > such an excessive action. > > We have no idea anymore of what is such a symbolic calculation, as in poker > or potlatch, with minimal stakes and maximal result. That is, exactly what > terrorists obtained in the attack on Manhattan, and which would be a good > metaphor for chaos theory: an initial shock, provoking incalculable > consequences, while American gigantic deployment ("Desert Storm") obtained > only derisory effects; - the storm ending so to speak in the flutter of > butterfly wings. > > Suicidal terrorism was the terrorism of the poor; this is the terrorism of > the rich. And that is what specially frighten us: they have become rich > (they have every means) without ceasing to want to eradicate us. Certainly, > according to our value system, they cheat: staking (gambling?) one's own > death is cheating. But they could not care less, and the new rules of the > game are not ours. > > We try everything to discredit their actions. Thus, we call them "suicidal" > and "martyrs". To add immediately that such martyrdom does not prove > anything, that it has nothing to do with truth and even (quoting Nietzsche) > that it is the enemy of truth. Certainly, their death does not prove > anything, but there is nothing to prove in a system where truth itself is > elusive --or are we pretending to own it? Besides, such a moral argument can > be reversed. If the voluntary martyrdom of the kamikazes proves nothing, > then the involuntary martyrdom of the victims cannot prove anything either, > and there is something obscene in making it a moral argument (the above is > not to negate their suffering and their death). > > Another bad faith argument: these terrorists exchange their death for a > place in Paradise. Their act is not gratuitous, thus it is not authentic. It > would be gratuitous only if they did not believe in God, if their death was > without hope, as is ours (yet Christian martyrs assumed just such sublime > exchange). Thus, again, they do not fight with equal weapons if they have > the right to a salvation we can no longer hope for. We have to lose > everything by our death while they can pledge it for the highest stakes. > > Ultimately, all that - causes, proofs, truth, rewards, means and ends- > belongs to typically Western calculation. We even put a value to death in > terms of interest rates, and quality/price ratio. Such economic calculations > are the calculation of those poor who no longer have even the courage to pay > (the price of death?). > > What can happen, - apart from war, which is no more than a conventional > protection screen? We talk of bio-terrorism, bacteriological war or nuclear > terrorism. But none of that belongs to the domain of symbolic challenge, > rather it belongs to an annihilation without speech, without glory, without > risk - that is, to the domain of the final solution. > > And to see in terrorist action a purely destructive logic is nonsense. It > seems to me that their own death is inseparable from their action ( it is > precisely what makes it a symbolic action), and not at all the impersonal > elimination of the Other. Everything resides in the challenge and the duel, > that is still in a personal, dual relation with the adversary. It is the > power of the adversary that has humbled you, it is this power which must be > humbled. And not simply exterminated... One must make (the adversary) lose > face. And this cannot be obtained by pure force and by the suppression of > the other. The latter must be aimed at, and hurt, as a personal adversary. > Apart from the pact that links terrorists to each other, there is something > like a dual pact with the adversary. It is then, exactly the opposite to the > cowardice of which they are accused, and it is exactly the opposite of what > Americans do, for example in the Gulf War (and which they are doing again in > Afghanistan): invisible target, operational elimination. > > Of all these vicissitudes, we particularly remember seeing images. And we > must keep this proliferation of images, and their fascination, for they > constitute, willy nilly, our primitive scene. And the New York events have > radicalized the relation of images to reality, in the same way as they have > radicalized the global situation. While before we dealt with an unbroken > abundance of banal images and an uninterrupted flow of spurious events, the > terrorist attack in New York has resurrected both the image and the event. > > Among the other weapons of the system which they have co-opted against it, > terrorists have exploited the real time of images (not clear here if it is > real duration, real time or images in real time), their instantaneous global > diffusion. They have appropriated it in the same way as they have > appropriated financial speculation, electronic information or air traffic. > The role of images is highly ambiguous. For they capture the event (take it > as hostage) at the same time as they glorify it. They can be infinitely > multiplied, and at the same time act as a diversion and a neutralization (as > happened for the events of May 68). One always forgets that when one speaks > of the "danger" of the media. The image consumes the event, that is, it > absorbs the latter and gives it back as consumer goods. Certainly the image > gives to the event an unprecedented impact, but as an image-event. > > What happens then to the real event, if everywhere the image, the fiction, > the virtual, infuses reality? In this present case, one might perceive > (maybe with a certain relief) a resurgence of the real, and of the violence > of the real, in a supposedly virtual universe. "This is the end of all your > virtual stories, - that is real!" Similarly, one could perceive a > resurrection of history after its proclaimed death. But does reality really > prevail over fiction? If it seems so, it is because reality has absorbed the > energy of fiction, and become fiction itself. One could almost say that > reality is jealous of fiction, that the real is jealous of the image... It > is as if they duel, to find which is the most unimaginable. > > The collapse of the towers of the World Trade Center is unimaginable, but > that is not enough to make it a real event. A surplus of violence is not > enough to open up reality. For reality is a principle, and this principle is > lost. Real and fiction are inextricable, and the fascination of the attack > is foremost the fascination by the image (the consequences, whether > catastrophic or leading to jubilation are themselves mostly imaginary). > > It is therefore a case where the real is added to the image as a terror > bonus, as yet another thrill. It is not only terrifying, it is even real. It > is not the violence of the real that is first there, with the added thrill > of the image; rather the image is there first, with the added thrill of the > real. It is something like a prize fiction, a fiction beyond fiction. > Ballard (after Borges) was thus speaking of reinventing the real as the > ultimate, and most redoubtable, fiction. > > This terrorist violence is not then reality backfiring, no more than it is > history backfiring. This terrorist violence is not "real". It is worse in a > way: it is symbolic. Violence in itself can be perfectly banal and > innocuous. Only symbolic violence generates singularity. And in this > singular event, in this disaster movie of Manhattan, the two elements that > fascinate 20th century masses are joined: the white magic of movies and the > black magic of terrorism. > > One tries after the event to assign to the latter any meaning, to find any > possible interpretation. But there is none possible, and it is only the > radicality of the spectacle, the brutality of the spectacle that is original > and irreducible. The spectacle of terrorism imposes the terrorism of the > spectacle. And against this immoral fascination (even if it engenders a > universal moral reaction) the political order can do nothing. This is our > theatre of cruelty, the only one left to us, -extraordinary because it > unites the most spectacular to the most provocative. It is both the sublime > micro-model of a nucleus of real violence with maximal resonance - thus the > purest form of the spectacular, and the sacrificial model that opposes to > historical and political order the purest symbolic form of challenge. > > Any slaughter would be forgiven them if it had a meaning, if it could be > interpreted as historical violence - this is the moral axiom of permissible > violence. Any violence would be forgiven them if it were not broadcast by > media ("Terrorism would be nothing without the media"). But all that is > illusory. There is no good usage of the media, the media are part of the > event, they are part of the terror and they are part of the game in one way > or another. > > Repressive actions travel the same unpredictable spiral as terrorist actions > - none can know where it may stop, and what reversals may follow. At the > level of the image and information, there are no possible distinctions > between the spectacular and the symbolic, between "crime" and repression. > And this uncontrollable unraveling of reversibility is the true victory of > terrorism. It is a victory visible in the underground and extensive > ramifications of the event - not only in direct, economic, political, market > and financial recessions for the whole system, and in the moral and > psychological regression that follows; but also in the regression of the > value system, of all the ideology of freedom and free movement etc... that > the Western world is so proud of, and that legitimates in its eyes its power > over the rest of the world. > > Already, the idea of freedom, a new and recent (sic) idea, is being erased > from everyday lives and consciousness, and liberal globalization is being > realized as its exact reverse: a 'Law and Order' globalization, a total > control, a policing terror. Deregulation ends in maximal constraints and > restrictions, equal to those in a fundamentalist society. > > Production, consumption, speculation and growth slowdowns (but not of course > corruption!): everything indicates a strategic retreat of the global system, > a heart-rending revision of its values, a regulation forced by absolute > disorder, but one the system imposes on itself, internalizing its own > defeat. It seems a defensive reaction to terrorism impact, but it might in > fact respond to secret injunctions. > > Another side to terrorist victory is that all other forms of violence and > destabilization of order favor it: Internet terrorism, biological terrorism, > anthrax terrorism and the terrorism of the rumor, all are assigned to Ben > Laden. He could even claim natural disasters. Every form of disorganization > and perverse exchange benefits him. The structure of generalized global > exchange itself favors impossible exchange. It is a form of terrorist > automatic writing, constantly fed by the involuntary terrorism of the news. > With all its consequent panics: if, in that anthrax story, intoxication > happens by itself, by instantaneous crystallization, like a chemical > solution reacting to the contact of a molecule, it is because the system has > reached the critical mass that makes it vulnerable to any aggression. > > There is no solution to this extreme situation, especially not war that > offers only an experience of deja-vu, with the same flooding of military > forces, fantastic news, useless propaganda, deceitful and pathetic > discourses and technological deployment. In other words, as in the Gulf War, > a non-event, an event that did not happen... > > There is its raison d'etre: to substitute to a real and formidable, unique > and unforeseeable event, a repetitive and deja-vu pseudo-event. The > terrorist attack corresponded to a primacy of the event over every model of > interpretation. Conversely, this stupidly military and technological war > corresponds to a primacy of the model over the event, that is to fictitious > stakes and to a non-sequitur. War extends/continues the absence at the heart > of politics through other means. > > Editions Galilee/"Le Monde" > > **************************************************************************** > ******** > Distributed through Cyber-Society-Live [CSL]: CSL is a moderated discussion > list made up of people who are interested in the interdisciplinary academic > study of Cyber Society in all its manifestations.To join the list please > visit: > http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/cyber-society-live.html > **************************************************************************** > ********* list. Apologies for cross posting, the piece is worth it though I think. . . ----- Original Message ----- From: "hbone" <hbone-AT-optonline.net> To: <lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu> Sent: 15 November 2001 02:28 Subject: Baudrillard > > > Dear All, > > > > Unable to find the Baudrillard translation at the link posted yesterday, I > > found the original (French) version at: > > > > http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3232--239354-,00.html > > > >
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text:
52-5 bingo is a relatively new version of the classic bingo game. Similar to 90-ball and 75-ball bingo, the game is played with tickets shown in a different visual way per game theme.
A ticket holds five placeholders which represent different numbers. Each number is presented as different objects matching each of the 52 numbers on the game.
Just like in classic bingo, each ticket should be daubed with the correct shape (number). Any ticket you have not purchased is covered and revealed once you buy it using the purchase panel.
You can keep track of the time left until the game starts by checking the buy time countdown, which appears on the top above the cards. When there are only 30 seconds left to the beginning of the game, the timer blinks.
The numbers are called randomly while the game plays, the first player to cover all five place holders on one of his tickets wins the game.
New bingo games begin every few minutes, so the wait is never long. Once the game begins, the caller will reveal the next number from the machine in sequence. You could always check which numbers were called in the 'Calling Board' tab.
Additional game information is available on the game info panel, including the number of players who have entered the game (purchased at least one ticket), the available jackpots and how to win them.
52-5 bingo variant offers only an "auto cover" option, which automatically places the shapes into their placeholders. The speed in which your tickets are being covered doesn't affect the outcome of the game, so even if your connection speed is slower than that of another player, and you have the winning ticket, the prize is yours no matter what!
If a player gets a full house on their bingo ticket, the game will end, and a winning message will appear including the names of the winners. Since it's possible for multiple winners to win a single game, the jackpot will be distributed evenly among the winners or by the proportion of winning tickets, depending on the particular game played.
If you weren't in the room in time to see the winning message, don't worry, you'll be awarded your wins, and you can see details of previous games in the "game history" section of the "my account" menu.
The game Return To Player (RTP) in Bingo 52-5 is affected by ticket price and some tickets purchased in each game.
Updated on 23/08/2017

subset: commoncrawl


text:
School Shootings Continue Despite Safety Emphasis
WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite increased security put in place after the rampage at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012, there's been no real reduction in the number of U.S. school shootings.
An Associated Press analysis finds there have been at least 11 school shootings this academic year alone, in addition to other cases of gun violence, in school parking lots and elsewhere on campus when classes were not in session. Experts say the rate of school shootings is statistically unchanged since the mid- to late-1990s, yet still remains troubling.
"Lockdown" is now part of the school vocabulary.
In Pennsylvania and New Mexico, Colorado and Tennessee, and elsewhere gunfire has echoed through school hallways, and killed students or their teachers.


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FUTVOYE, GEORGE, journalist, office holder, lawyer, civil servant, and militia officer; b. 13 May 1808 in London, England; m. Catherine Hedwige Lozeau; he had at least two sons; d. 29 Dec. 1891 in Saint-Jean (Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu), Que.
Shortly after his arrival in Lower Canada in 1837, George Futvoye began working on the editorial staff of the Montreal Morning Courier. Under the administration of Lord Durham [Lambton*], he was appointed inspector of Protestant schools in the province, a position he left in 1840 to serve as city clerk at Quebec for four years. He was interested in law and in 1845 became secretary of the commission inquiring into the Crown Lands Department. Subsequently he was in charge of drawing up the land register for Upper Canada. Futvoye was called to the bar in Lower Canada on 18 Aug. 1848 but continued his career in the public service. From 2 May 1852 until confederation he held the post of permanent clerk in the Crown Law Office. In this capacity he became well acquainted with the most powerful politicians in Lower and Upper Canada, since he had to ensure harmony and consistency in the laws.
Futvoye carried out other administrative duties as well. In 1854 he was secretary for the commission to investigate the causes of the fire that had burned down the parliament buildings in Montreal [see James Bruce*], and in 1862 he was inspector of registry offices in Lower Canada. In addition, he sat on several commissions of inquiry into the public administration and was a lifelong member, ex officio, of the Civil Service Board and the Board of Audit [see John Langton]. In 1867 he was appointed a qc, proof of a successful career both as a man of the law and as an official who had reached the upper echelons of the small public service of his time. George-Étienne Cartier*, who became minister of militia and defence in 1867, recognized Futvoye's talents, made him his secretary, and was ready to entrust him with important administrative responsibilities.
Throughout the 1860s Canada was faced with some thorny defence problems: the fear of an American invasion following the defeat of the southern states in 1865; the threat of Fenian raids [see John O'Neill*]; the possibility that Great Britain might withdraw her troops; and the first Métis rebellion under Louis Riel* in 1869–70. The British government strongly encouraged the formation of a Canadian military organization capable of mobilizing part of the population. As a result, in Lower and Upper Canada during the mid 1860s there was a large volunteer militia equipped with modern weapons, and the funds allocated at the time of confederation were adequate. The volunteer militias of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were also in good shape. In 1867, moreover, the British North America Act gave Canada the authority to maintain both permanent and volunteer armed forces. It was thought, therefore, that a department should be organized to deal with all defence matters; on 29 May 1868 Cartier appointed Futvoye as its deputy minister.
Evidently Futvoye, who was by then 60 years old, showed no particular interest in military concerns and had little experience in the art of war. The rank of major that he had held since 1865 was purely honorary; it had no standing in the volunteer or "true" militia, but only in the reserve militia, which included all men fit to bear arms and was rarely called out. However, he quickly discovered the advantages of his new post. On 3 July 1868 his son Isaac Booth was commissioned a first lieutenant in the artillery battery of the volunteer militia of Saint-Jean, Que.
During Futvoye's tenure, the situation in the volunteer militia deteriorated slowly but surely, despite Cartier's martial speeches to the battalions he inspected. The weapons of the 1860s were outdated when the powerful Martini-Henry rifle came into use in the British army in 1871; the artillery's antiquated equipment was even the subject of a pamphlet that won a prize from Governor General Lord Dufferin [Blackwood*] in 1877. The sums allocated to the Department of Militia and Defence were considerably reduced and the number of volunteer militiamen declined as a result. In October 1871 the government could raise only a tiny regular force of two artillery batteries to garrison the forts at Quebec and Kingston, Ont., and to be a school for training gunners as replacements for the British troops. At Winnipeg, too, there was only one scanty infantry battalion. These regular troops, called permanent militia, were as badly armed as the volunteers. The founding of the Royal Military College of Canada at Kingston, which was approved in May 1874 [see Edward Osborne Hewett], was without doubt the greatest achievement of Futvoye's term of office. Although, from a strictly military point of view, the usefulness of this establishment may be debatable, it was the first college in Canada to train engineers.
On 10 Jan. 1875 Futvoye retired and moved to Saint-Jean. He was later appointed lieutenant-colonel in the reserve militia. He died on 29 Dec. 1891 and his body was interred two days later in the cemetery of the Catholic parish of Saint-Jean-l'Évangéliste. As deputy minister, George Futvoye was not an innovator. Working in an unfamiliar field, he stayed behind the scenes and failed to tackle the important questions of national defence that adjutants-general Patrick Leonard MacDougall, Patrick Robertson-Ross*, and Edward Selby Smyth did. Moreover, it appears that these officers did not have the full support of the deputy minister and that this pattern continued until the turn of the century.
AC, Iberville (Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu), État civil, Catholiques, Saint-Jean-l'Évangéliste (Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu), 9 janv. 1879; 31 déc. 1891. NA, MG 26, A: 162488; MG 30, D1, 13: 653–55; RG 8, I (C ser.), 184: 34, 181; 604: 231. Can., Parl., Sessional papers, 1868–75 (annual reports of the Dept. of Militia and Defence). G. [-É.] Cartier, Discours de sir George Cartier . . . , Joseph Tassé, édit. (Montréal, 1893). L'Événement, 30 déc. 1891. Gazette (Montreal), 30 Dec. 1891. Volunteer Review and Military and Naval Gazette (Ottawa), 1867–74. F.-J. Audet, "Commissions d'avocats de la province de Québec, 1765 à 1849," BRH, 39 (1933): 594. Canada directory, 1857–58: 787, 1001. Cyclopædia of Canadian biog. (Rose and Charlesworth), 2: 782. Mariages du comté de Saint-Jean (1828–1950), Irénée Jetté et al., compil. (Sillery, Qué., 1974), 192. The militia list of the Dominion of Canada (Ottawa), 1868–75. Political appointments, 1841–65 (J.-O. Coté; 1866), 13. Political appointments and judicial bench (N.-O. Coté; 1896), 130. P.-G. Roy, Les avocats de la région de Québec, 179. The year book and almanac of Canada . . . (Montreal), 1868. John Boyd, Sir George Étienne Cartier, bart., his life and times; a political history of Canada from 1814 until 1873 . . . (Toronto, 1914), 291–95. E. J. Chambers, The Canada militia, a history of the origin and development of the force (Montreal, 1907). Chouinard et al., La ville de Québec, 3: 19. R. H. Davis, The Canadian militia! Its organization and present condition (Caledonia, Ont., 1873). C. E. Montizambert, Dominion Artillery Association: prize essay (Quebec, 1877); Prize essay, on the supply, care, and repair of artillery material, including small arms and ammunition for Canadian militia (Quebec, 1877).
© 1990–2023 University of Toronto/Université Laval
Cite This Article
René Chartrand, "FUTVOYE, GEORGE," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 12, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed September 22, 2023, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/futvoye_george_12E.html.
The citation above shows the format for footnotes and endnotes according to the Chicago manual of style (16th edition). Information to be used in other citation formats:
|Author of Article:
|René Chartrand
|Title of Article:
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|Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 12
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|Access Date:
|September 22, 2023


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Game Jam Boston June 2007 Games
(Redirected from GameJam BostonJune2007 Games)
The Games
Game developers - link to your wikipage if you have one.
Fully working games on the XO in Sugar
- 3D Pong (Wade Brainerd) -- line-drawn pong with gravity, impacts, and 5-line text config files for making new levels
- Sprayplay (The Jordan Brothers) -- Crossfire with a range of geometric shapes for pucks and a physics engine
- Kuku Anakula (Team Kuku) -- a mathmunchers variant + question dictionaries
- Reversi (Team Noname) -- Reversi with a few interface features
- Hungry Spacecat
- Typeblocker -- typing tutor in Flash
- Sort -- a timed shape/color/texture sorting game
not fully packaged for Sugar
- Rollin (Team Minuteman)- an incredible machine variant with gravity wells, rotatable platforms, trampolines, and many balls
- XO Easel - a shape/color/dressup game with different backgrounds. wins award for team with youngest artists.
- Poblano (Team VKL) - Abalone variant with colorful backgrounds.
not fully working on an XO
- Labyrinth -- puzzle solving : finding your friend[s] in an outdoor labyrinth
- Pythagoras -- a pygame framework for Go and no-AI board implementation
- flTron -- a simple tron implementation; early stages. part of the author teaching himself python
Also played, but not written this weekend: Etoys, Block Party, US Invaders (c/o Noah), Memosono
The Winners:
- OLPC Award (GDC passes) - SprayPlay (Brian, Eric, and Greg Jordan)
- XO Award (Developers' Program XO) - Pong3D (Wade Brainerd)
- Sugar Award (T-shirts, game books, and XKCD posters) - Kuku Anakula (Julius Lucks, Adrian DelMaestro, Sera Young)
Congratulations to all those who participated! If you haven't gotten your prizes yet, email us with your address or the best way to convey physical objects to you, and we'll send them over.
(Some Of) The Teams
Team Kuku
note the B3 with the colored XO


text: Organizing and Engagement Race and Racial Justice So, You Want to Collaborate in My Community? When I started Coastal Women for Change, it wasn't my vision to run a nonprofit. If it had been, I would have done my research and learned how to manage one. I was thrown into this work after a devastation. I was a cosmetologist before Hurricane Katrina. I started speaking up for my community and reaching out to my neighbors when I saw how my community of East Biloxi was being left out of the recovery process. Sharon Hanshaw Mar 12 2013 View Comments Tags: Mississippi poverty community organizing race and racial justice biloxi nonprofits funders


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If printed volumes are to survive the avalanche of e-books and other screen-based literary media, their rescuers may well be graphic novels. Visually rich, physically substantial, and tactilely satisfying, graphic novels and their nonfiction cousins deliver a powerful counterpunch to the tyranny of pixels. Subtleties of color, tone, line work, and the interplay of ink on high-quality paper offer a visual experience that gets lost in digital reproduction. Here is a small sampling of the diverse offerings from 2012 that might delight someone on your holiday list and help keep printing presses humming.
The standout work of the year is Chris Ware's breathtaking treasure chest, "Building Stories." It is a sumptuous box containing 14 beautiful books of varying sizes, formats, and lengths. They include small pamphlets, a newspaper-size broadsheet, a folding board suggestive of a Monopoly game, and several bound books, including one designed to pay homage to children's Little Golden Books. There is no suggested sequence, and the reader is enlisted in "building stories" by choosing where to start. The books share a setting (postwar Chicago), a main character (and her relationships or lack thereof over several decades), and a mood (intimate and introspective).
The concept of "building stories" radiates further. Many of the tales take place in a three-story townhouse — a structure with consciousness, a memory and, like all the characters in the collected stories, a gnawing insecurity. Several detailed cutaways of the 1902 building, drawn in the architectural orthogonal perspective that Ware favors, enumerate things the house remembers over its life. They include 301 tenants, 5 wars, 231 drain clogs, 178 trysts, 21,779 toenail clippings, 6 suicide notes, and 4 prostheses.
One of the prostheses belongs to the main character, who lost her lower left leg in a childhood accident. The loss presages others as she lives and relives her search for love and purpose. Ware paints a portrait of contemporary middle-class anxiety and longing that is convincing and moving. The dialogue of misaligned relationships is as precise and evocative as Ware's rendering of place, form, and especially gesture. He explains in introductory notes on the box that these are stories that speak to a sense of disappointment "whether you're feeling alone by yourself or alone with someone else."
The interweaving existential struggles of the characters extend all the way to a bee that is attracted to the building's flowers. In two of the books, Ware plumbs the anguished thoughts of "Branford – The Best Bee in the World." Branford, a sensitive and self-critical worker bee, loves his wife and family but is tormented by feverish fantasies of fertilizing the hive's queen. It's very funny and poignant. The bee books have a more stylized look than the others, but all are visually rich, full color, and powerfully drawn. On the last page of one book, Ware uses 33 wordless panels to depict the townhouse's elderly landlady in her kitchen taking a bite of a sandwich and a sip of water. Cutting from her hands, to her plate, to the view out her window, it is spare, masterful, and cinematic, with the added pleasure that the reader can slow the movie down and give the character, the setting, and the commanding artwork their due. (A word of caution: Not for those with poor vision — some of the lettering is small and intricate.)
For the music lover or American history buff, try "The Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song.'' It's not a novel but reads like one. Written by Frank Young and drawn by David Lasky, it recounts the history of the famed country music family from their roots in Poor Valley, Va., to their national radio and recording fame. Young uses dialogue in the dialect of the time and region to recreate the rocky road to stardom the family traveled between the early 20th century and their disbanding as a group in 1943. Their legacy continued long after in the music of The Carter Sisters, in the collaboration of June Carter with her third husband, singer Johnny Cash, and in a host of country musicians who followed them.
The Carters faced hunger, tuberculosis, religious strictures, bigotry against black musicians they worked with, and interpersonal betrayals as they made their way out of sawmills and tobacco fields to recording studios and regular radio appearances. Lasky's carefully rendered, colored-ink drawings capture the feeling of both rural life and teeming cities of the 1920s and '30s. The book is handsomely designed and printed and comes with a CD featuring 11 songs culled from the family's radio recordings.
For the lefty on your list consider Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco's "Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt." Hedges is a former New York Times reporter, and Sacco is an on-the-scene cartoonist/reporter. Together they chronicle what they term the "sacrifice zones" of contemporary American capitalism. From the ravaged neighborhoods of Camden, N.J., to a Native American reservation in Pine Ridge, S.D., to the coal town of Welch, W.Va., they document the political and personal destruction of the free market's dark corners. Hedges writes; Sacco draws; and the combined picture is bleak and disturbing. They find some hope in the self-organizing efforts of farmworkers in Immokalee, Fla., and in the final chapter, Hedges points to the Occupy movement as a nascent force for a more just society. Sacco's powerful drawings from conflict zones overseas were also collected and published this year in a volume titled, "Journalism."
Looking for something more personal? Alison Bechdel documents her interior travels in her complex and rewarding graphic memoir, "Are You My Mother?" In a sequel to her remembrance of her closeted father, his suicide, and her own coming out as a lesbian in "Fun Home," the new work seeks to understand and revive the bond between herself and her emotionally distant mother. The memoir is both the record of her quest and a tool in her search, and it opens the reader to Bechdel's therapy, self-deprecating sense of humor, and sense of herself as an artist. She compulsively transcribes her interactions with her mother, exposes them to the bright light of psychoanalytic theory, and ultimately finds a path to accepting herself and her family. The drawings are appropriately personal, quirky, and engaging.
If you want to play against type and give a completely nonholiday gift for the holidays, wrap up a copy of Charles Burns's "The Hive." It's a creepy tour de force, weaving together layers of paranoid nightmares, and a sequel to Burns's "X'ed Out.'' It's as though the tenants of Ware's townhouse all dropped bad acid at the same time, and Burns's drawing delivers the horror in full-color, palm-sweating detail, complete with armies of maggots, sadistic lovers, and desolate underground factories patrolled by foul-mouthed alien overlords. Not a stocking stuffer for the little ones.
Can't decide on one book? Give a delicious Whitman sampler of American graphic offerings. "The Best American Comics 2012'' showcases the work of 29 artists, with a half dozen offerings especially for children. This year's editor is Françoise Mouly, art director of The New Yorker and the cofounder of RAW magazine with her cartoonist husband, Art Spiegelman. It's the seventh year of the series and the strongest to date. The series editors are cartoonists Jessica Abel and Matt Madden, who have a 2012 book of their own — "Mastering Comics: Drawing Words & Writing Pictures Continued.'' Give it to the aspiring comic artist on your list. It's a sequel to their 2008 "Drawing Words & Writing Pictures,'' which is a terrific, in-depth course on brainstorming and producing graphic, sequential art. The new volume contains a chapter worthy of one of Burns' tales of terror: "The Horror of the Blank Page."
Whether fiction or nonfiction, bound by covers or unbound in a box, all of these works create meaning through the dance of visual image and word. The rich intellectual and imaginative pleasures they offer can't be divorced from the physical experience of the book. This year, give someone a comic book. No batteries required, and you'll set a good example for the kids.
By Chris Ware
Pantheon, 260 pp., $50
THE CARTER FAMILY: Don't Forget This Song
By Frank M. Young and David Lasky
Abrams ComicArts, 192 pp., $24.95
By Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco
Nation, 320 pp., $28
By Joe Sacco
Metropolitan, 208 pp., $29
ARE YOU MY MOTHER?: A Comic Drama
By Alison Bechdel
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 304 pp., $22
By Charles Burns
Pantheon, 56 pp., $21.95
Edited by Françoise Mouly
Series edited by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 352 pp., $25
MASTERING COMICS: Drawing Words & Writing Pictures Continued
By Jessica Abel and Matt Madden
First Second, 336 pp., $34.99
Dan Wasserman is the Globe's editorial cartoonist. He can be reached at wasserman@ globe.com.


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Storage is now marching down the same path as computing, approaching a future when all of an organization's storage systems can be mixed and managed as virtual pools.
On Monday, IBM will take the wraps off a portfolio of products for so-called software-defined storage, an area where established vendors and startups alike are already claiming the future has arrived. IBM is using TV star power to push its entries, saying the products are based partly on technology the company used with its high-powered Watson system on the TV game show Jeopardy.
That technology, called "Elastic Storage," aims at some of the same goals as EMC's ViPR 2.0 software, which launched last week. The general idea is to be able to access any type of data across all of an enterprise's storage systems in multiple locations. Just as it did with servers, virtualization treats storage arrays as a collective resource that can be split into virtual systems to suit application requirements.
+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD Understanding software defined networking +
A key benefit of Elastic Storage is that it can automatically move less-used data from across that whole pool of capacity into less expensive commodity storage, leaving faster and more expensive resources such as flash for more urgently needed bits. That automatic reshuffling, guided by policies and real-time analytics, can cut storage costs by as much as 90 percent, IBM claims.
The technology also eases administration, speeds access to data, and lets enterprises expand their capacity quickly, the company says.
Like ViPR, Elastic Storage is designed to work with storage gear from third-party vendors. IBM says it will work with any company's products. It supports the OpenStack protocol, allowing users to access and manage data across private and public clouds, and can work with Hadoop and other open APIs (application programming interfaces), IBM said.
During Watson's Jeopardy appearance in 2011, in which the system defeated two human contestants, Elastic Storage was able to load 200 million pages (5TB) of data into Watson's memory within minutes, IBM said. The architecture of Elastic Storage allows it to work with thousands of yottabytes, each of which is equal to 1 billion petabytes.
In addition to being offered as software by itself, Elastic Storage will be available later this year as a cloud service through IBM's SoftLayer IaaS (infrastructure as a service) offering.
Stephen Lawson covers mobile, storage and networking technologies for The IDG News Service. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @sdlawsonmedia. Stephen's e-mail address is email@example.com


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Perfect scorer on the SAT & the ACT
Devorah is the founder of Advantage Point Test Prep and the author of the book "Boost Your Score" The Unofficial Guide to the Real ACT.
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Case Western Univ., summa cum laude
Perfect scorer on the SAT & the ACT
Devorah is the founder of Advantage Point Test Prep and the author of the book "Boost Your Score" The Unofficial Guide to the Real ACT.
Welcome to data representation passages. In this episode first we are going to talk about what to expect on a data representation passage then we are going to talk about some really fabulous strategies so you can nail this passage type on test day. And last we'll do an example together so you feel really really good about it. Let's get started.
Let's do a quick recap about data representation passages. First we are going to see three separate data representation passages on the ACT science section. You're also going to have five questions on each of those passages for a total of 15 questions. Okay and what are data rep? Well, what they are is just a little blurr and then usually a big chart or graph and then the five questions will be about what's on that chart or graph. Let's look at an example in case you don't remember.
So here we go, I have a little intro to a graph or chart. Next we've got this really big scary looking chart but don't worry we've got great strategies and we'll talk about what to look for.
Strategies for the data representation section. Let's take a look. First, this is very exciting. The harder the diagram chart or tables look, the easier the questions are going to be. It's such a great feeling so if you're flipping through and you're looking oh my God, this is a data rep, this passage looks awful and by passage I mean really the table, the chart or the graph because that's mostly what's going to make up a data representation passage. And it looks terrible and maybe there's some really weird relationship portrayed you're not sure, don't worry, and actually the harder it is or the harder it looks the more excited you should be about answering the questions because the questions will usually be really straight forward and just have just you read straight off that table and chart so remember the harder it looks, the easier it will actually be to answer the questions on the data rep passage.
Next, don't read the paragraphs or look at the diagrams. We talked about that for research summary. You'll have an intro before your big chart or graph, sometimes it's huge sometimes it's short, either way you can save time by knowing you don't have to read it all. The questions are all going to be about things you can pick up straight off of the tables or the chart.
Last, really analyze the charts and the graphs. Exactly because that's what the questions are going to be about. So let's talk about what are you going to look for when you analyze the charts and the graphs. First, what are they measuring? So take a look at it and say if it's a line graph, what's the X axis? What's the Y axis? What are the labels here? Just basically what's going on?
Next, are there significant trends? Are there patterns that really stand out to you? As one thing increases, does the other thing decrease? Do they both increase? Do they both decrease? I'm sure my hand motions are so helpful in portraying this relationship but really, think about, what's the relationship here? because they'll always ask about that on the ACT.
Last, how do the tables and charts relate? Sometimes it's just one big chart or graph, sometimes it's two next to each other for a data representation and then you'll have to ask yourself, how does the first one relate to the second one because they are always about the same thing so there'll always be a relationship between them and there'll always be a question about that relationship. So those are all the strategies that you need to tackle the data representation passages. You're going to do a great job. Let's keep going, we'll look at a real example and we'll see how these strategies apply.
Here's our data representation passage. So you see, we've got our intro here, kind of a long paragraph describing what we are going to see in the table. Remember, we don't need it, let's skip it. What we need is this table and we are going to look for things that we talked about before, things like the labels and things like the trends. Here, there isn't another table along with this question so we don't care about how they relate to each other, how different tables relate because we only have one table. So we are just looking for labels and we are looking for trends. Labels, what do we have happening here? Well concentrations in sediment. Concentration of stuff happening in sediment. Concentrations of what? SO four two, S two. It doesn't matter if you have no idea what these are, they are not going to ask that. They'll just ask you, just for these little titles here and you'll just have to relate information off the table. So we have a bunch of different elements or chemicals or something, we don't even care, we just have different titles along the top and we are tracking the concentration of those particles. Then here we've got depth and remember to look for trends. It looks like the depth is increasing from zero to 20 centimeters. And then we've got temperature, the temperature seems to be increasing too so by the way we have our first real relationship between different factors as the depth increases the temperature appears to increase as well. What about pH? We've got pH here too and it appears to decrease. Okay that's another relationship, so as the depth and as the temperature increase; your pH is actually decreasing.
Now let's look at these particles that we talked about. So we've got them over here, any relationships going on here? Any trends that look important? Let's look at the first one. It seems to just be decreasing as you go deeper and as you get hotter. This one seems to be increasing, CO two appears to be increasing and then decreasing. that might be important, it might not, it's good just to note it. FE three plus, whatever that is appears to be decreasing as you get deeper and hotter, FE two plus just increasing the whole time and then you have O two which decreases to zero and then stays at zero, that might be important. Great so we looked at the trends that are happening in this table and we looked at the labels. Let's tackle the questions.
Question one: 'the concentration of which of the following ions and dissolved gases is constant for sediment depths of ten centimeters or more?' Okay so which of these ions is constant, is staying the same for all depths past ten centimeters? Let's look, past ten what's staying the same? O two, we talked about this, so O two is the only one that's not changing, it's staying constant after ten centimeters, perfect. So D, oxygen, O two would be the correct answer here.
Let's keep going, next. 'As the temperature of the sediment increases, the pH level of the sediment does what?' This was a trend we noticed as well, what happened to the pH as the temperature increased? Let's look, so as the temperature increased, we said the pH decreases. That's easy again straight off this table so let's answer this question. So as the temperature of the sediment increased, the pH level of the sediment decreased. Great let's keep going.
Next: 'When the concentration of sulfide in the sediment is zero parts per meter'. Okay we don't really care what this means, it's zero or whatever is being measured. What do we know about the sediment? And here we've got to kind of pick out the answer choices to see what are they looking for here? Well they are asking us the sediment is acidic, the sediment is near the top; the sediment has no dissolved oxygen or has a temperature of five degrees Celsius. So what's happening to the sediment with regard to how acidic it is, with regard to its depth, with regards to its temperature when your sulfide is zero, your S two minus, let's take a look. So when we have S two minus, what's happening? Our depth is zero and our temperature is four and our pH is about seven. Let's see if any of that helps us. Is the sediment acidic? We don't know, we are not sure and we don't really talk about that. The sediment is near the top, hold on, depth. We said that depth was zero at that point and remember depth at zero, that's going to be at the top because as you go deeper you're getting towards the bottom so in this case B would be the correct answer.
Great, let's keep going. Next: 'Measuring sediments from five centimeters to 20 centimeters decreases the levels of Ferric Iron, FE three plus by what?' So now we care about amounts so we are looking from five centimeters to 20 centimeters. We want to know how is the FE three plus decreasing by what amount. Let's go back and look. So here we go, we are looking for FE three plus and what did we say we said from five to twenty? What's happening here? From five to 20 of our FE three plus, it looks like it's decreasing from three to point five. Okay so that's a difference of two point five. And here we go, not by one, not by one point five, or by two but by two point five ppm.
Finally, last question: 'A certain type of bottom dwelling microorganism thrives under the following environmental conditions: low concentrations of FE two plus, high concentrations of O two and a neutral pH'. Based on the table, at which of the following sediment depths would one most likely find this microorganism. This is a lot but we'll pick it apart quickly. If a microorganism lives best when you've got low FE two but high O two and a neutral pH, where would it be living? Now we didn't really talk about what a neutral pH is and that probably is something you would have gotten from reading. But you'll see actually you don't need that piece of information here; you don't need to know about gases and bases, which is what pH is about. We are going to have enough information just by looking at the low concentrations of FE two plus and the high concentrations of O two. So where do we have low FE two, high O two, at what depth? So we are looking for low FE two but high O two. Probably here because this is the place where your FE two is the lowest, we talked about that trend, it just keeps going up after this and the O two is the highest here, we talked about that trend too. After that it's just going to decrease. Great, so if we go back to this question, it will be at zero, at that surface, that it's going to be where this bottom drawing microorganism is most likely to live. That's it for a real data representation passage so hopefully you feel really good about this passage type now. We practiced using all those strategies we talked about on a real passage and now you'll know exactly what to expect on test day.
We talked about how to focus on the charts and the graphs because that's what's important, that's what the questions are going to ask you about. We talked about what to look for in a chart or graph, all the things that you need to be paying attention to and last we did a practice data representation passage and that's why you needed to keep practicing and the more you practice the more you're going to feel really great about data representation passages on test day.


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How to Edit Text Configuration Files on OS X Server
Managing OS X Server, quite often requires one to manually edit text based configuration files. As do many of our tutorials and FAQs.
There are many ways of doing this. You can use a Terminal based editor or one with a fancy GUI. What is paramount though, is that you use a Plain Text Editor like TextWrangler, Textastic or BBEdit. Rich Text Editors like Microsoft Word or Pages can severely damage your configuration files. Keeping above in mind, the rest comes down to personal preference.
On OS X I prefer to either use PICO, a Terminal based editor or TextWrangler which has a simple but powerful GUI and good syntax highlighting.
On iOS, PICO – accessed through an SSH session with Prompt – or TextWrangler with its built in SFTP client are my tools of choice.
Whether I use a Terminal based editor or one with a GUI mainly depends on the task at hand. For quick edits of a few lines, PICO works well and is the fastest way to go. If I need to make lots of changes or need a good overview of the file I am editing, a GUI editor is way more comfortable.
Let's have a quick look at how these work.
Assuming we want to modify Postfix'
main.cf, we would issue:
sudo pico /Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/main.cf
And be presented with a view like this:
Now we can use our cursor keys to move around, the backspace key to delete characters or simply type what we need. When we are done editing, we need to save and exit. The commands for this are at the bottom of the window.
In order to save and exit, we would hit
CTRL-O (to write the file) and
CTRL-X to exit PICO. Alternatively we can just hit
CTRL-X and enter
y when asked to save.
Have a good look at the available commands as there are more options like cutting text and page scrolling.
While it may need a bit of time to get adjusted to, mastering a Terminal based text editor can be a very useful item in your tool chest.
Using the GUI instead of Terminal
If you don't like using Terminal, you can always use a Plain Text Editor like TextWrangler which would look something like this
and behave like any other GUI Plain Text Editor.
The choice is yours, just make sure you avoid Rich Text Editors like Microsoft Word or Pages. There are plenty to choose from, like TextWrangler, Textastic, BBEdit, SubEthaEdit, SublimeText and many more. The choice on iOS is equally large.
For this tutorial, let's look at TextWrangler which is a powerful (yet free) plain text editor
TextWrangler allows you to navigate hidden directories (/etc /Library etc) and edit files even when they are owned by root.
IMPORTANT: Don't use the App Store version
Due to app store rules, the version from the app store is not able to unlock/edit files.
Download the application directly from the publisher: http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/
These steps walk you through editing a hidden/privileged (root) file. We'll use
/etc/php.ini as our example.
In TextWrangler, use the Open File by Name option in the File menu.
This allows you to simply paste the path/name:
Another way to open
/etc/php.ini is with the more familiar Open Dialog from TextWrangler.
Be sure to choose the Show Hidden Files option.
ALWAYS backup a file before you make changes
Save a backup to your Desktop using the Save a Copy option from the File menu.
Because the file is owned by root, you'll need to authenticate.
We need to be careful editing this file, one out of place character could effect your system.
You did backup first, right ?
Let's make a safe change.
In the
php.ini file, comments start with a semi-colon.
Simply add a space at the end of one of the commented lines:
; About php.ini ; <<--- add a space at the end of this line
When you attempt to edit the file, you'll be asked to authenticate again.
Once you authenticate, you can edit, then save the file.
That is all there is. Happy editing!


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Cincinnati Nature Center
What can we say about this place except that we are extremely lucky to have the Cincinnati Nature Center in our city! Over and over again, CNC has led not just our region but the entire country in standards for trails, kids programs, play areas, and events.
This has been our stomping ground for trail hikes, nature photography, and conditioning before trips for years now. We LOVE the Cincinnati Nature Center! When inspired by such a place, we feel the calling to give back. Beyond our personal memberships, we have been corporate members of the CNC since 2011 and part of their membership perks program since it began in 2014. This program offers a 10% discount at participating sponsors, including RRT, when you buy a yearly membership. We have been proud sponsors of Hoots and Hops since its inception in 2013, Back to Nature Fundraising donors and attendees since 2012, and Trail Building Volunteer organizers since 2013.
While being members and corporate members, we assure that we are doing our part to help the nature center thrive, while ensuring that we have access to pristine trails and invites to super creative and fun events. Back to Nature is one of these events. This is the premier fundraising event for the CNC, which is why we both attend and donate to the silent auction, offering anything from kayak expeditions to hiking gear packages.
Lending our time to make other CNC events like Hoots and Hops special is what makes RRT unique. This is an amazing event with local food and craft brews. What goes better with that combo than a lounge area amongst the trees? RRT brings hammocks and hanging lounge chairs to let guests just "hang out" between activities. Claiming that hanging out with nature lovers and drinking beer with them is stewardship is kind of cutting it close, though. We've started to organize backpacking workshops along with group hikes at the nature center to raise awareness, membership, and education for the outdoors. The goal is to make this great organization the best that it can be! Join us for a hike and complete your "Hike For Your Health Passport" with RRT and CNC co-led hikes.
RRT is most proud of their leadership in hosting trail building and maintenance volunteer events multiple times each year. We've helped cut honeysuckle, correct drainage patterns, fix trail erosion, and strengthen worn trails all while learning proper techniques from a naturalist. The work seems more like play, the people that come out are amazing, and everyone is filled with the satisfaction of volunteering for a cause. If you can make one of our trail building days, I strongly encourage it!
For more information on the Cincinnati Nature Center please visit the link below:


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Cook's Old Mill
Cook's Old Mill is a mid-1800's gristmill on route 122, just ¼
mile west of Greenville, West Virginia. It is a privately owned
park-like venue for tourists, history buffs, Cook descendants and
mill enthusiasts. The mill is an anchor point on the
Farm Heritage
Road, one of Monroe County's Scenic Byways. The National Registry
of Historic Places describes the mill as follows:—
Cook's Mill was built in 1857 on the original foundation and site of an earlier mill constructed in approximately 1796. The property surrounding this mill includes dam, mill pond, tail race and stream, and consists of 3 ½ acres. The mill was an important part of the community, serving as a gathering place. Construction elements include massive hand-hewn, mortise and tenon posts and beams.
Travelers and neighbors alike are invited to wander around the grounds, take pictures, have a picnic, do some fishing in the millpond or just soak up some history. The mill is open when we are working there, and can be opened on request if we are available. General information is provided on bulletin boards as well as on this website. Cook descendants are urged to contact us to share information on the three generations of Cooks that settled here in 1773, built Cook's Fort nearby, and then built and ran the mill until 1877. Members of S.P.O.O.M. (Society for the Preservation of Old Mills) should also feel free to request a special tour of the mill. Finally, artists and artisans interested in working space in the blacksmith's forge or the mill should make their wishes known.
The owners, Fred and Barbara Ziegler, live in the Miller's House, a yellow building on the north side of the road, just across from the mill. You can call us at 304-832-6060 or email us at firstname.lastname@example.com. Remember, this is private property, so be sure not to leave trash or create a commotion. Also, restoration of the mill and other buildings is ongoing, so check back from time-to-time for updates!


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The party that Rob Astorino helped found in 2014 is endorsing his Democratic opponent in this year's race for Westchester county executive.
Curtis Sliwa, the chairman of the state Reform Party, said his party is endorsing State Sen. George Latimer in the race.
Astorino, who is running for a third term, founded the party in 2014 as the Stop Common Core Party when he unsuccessfully ran for governor, later changing its name. Sliwa took control of the party in 2016 in a move that has been challenged in court.
Sliwa, who founded the Guardian Angels told The Daily News that Astorino had drifted away from the Reform Party Platform and the party will no longer be a rubber stamp for the Republican Party.
Bill O'Reilly, a spokesman for Astorino's campaign, said Astorino is the true champion for government reform.
"He's never once raised taxes," O'Reilly said. "County government spends less than it did when he first came into office; Westchester now has its own term limits, and Astorino is now finding ways to produce revenue for key infrastructure improvements so that taxpayers don't get stuck with the bill going forward."
Latimer said he was honored to receive the Reform Party's endorsement.
"I've long advanced true reform of government," Latimer said. "It's clear that Rob Astorino simply does not represent the values of civic participation, transparency, and oversight that the Reform Party is committed to defending in our elections."
Latimer faces Legislator Ken Jenkins in a September primary.
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Product: Liquid Authoring
Liquid Authoring, a new rapid content authoring tool from Landmark ASP, tries to bring together easy to use functionality with advanced capabilities. The problem though lies in the execution.
- Easy to use home dashboard, cleverly laid out
- Click on the button feature in the dashboard
- Click and move buttons on the sidebar to the screen
- Instant Preview mode while creating course
- Instant Preview mode by chapter-slides when creating course
- Flash card option, within the course
- Media Library upload is fast, but I'm running at 20Mbps for upload, the only time it was somewhat slow was when uploading a PDF file
- Can create root folders in the media library
- Publish options were easy, simple and made sense
- Robust advanced functionality, when used with the properties area – which is necessary in creating courses
- User Interface when creating a course, and layout in general..BUT
- Placement of some selection options, seem strange
- SCORM 2004, 1.2 compliant
- Accepts image files (.jpg, .gif, .png), audio file (.mp3), video file (.wmv)
- Question options include hotspot, fill in the blank, single and multiple choice
- Import courses, prior to Publish
- Requirement to use Properties when using individual objects, you don't have to change any of the properties, but trust me, you will want to – due to some of the defaults, and functionality – The properties window has so many options, it can be daunting for some end users
- In test version, product did not work in FireFox, had problems in Safari, but worked well in Internet Explorer
- PDF capability to integrate into the course, loaded fine, but froze my screen – thus "task manager" had to come to the rescue
- Unless you are a mind reader, you have no idea that you need to select one of the button options and then drag it onto the screen to start to work on the course. I'm sure this can be resolved with training, but if you are not around and someone else is doing it, their interest will last about 60 seconds, before they scream and walk away
- Can only use .wmv media files, not mp4 or .avi
- Limits audio files to .mp3
- When looking for files on your computer, the window screen defaults to image files, so you can easily forget that you need to select another option, say "PDF" to see PDF files
- When selecting a file within the library, you have to double click it to have it go into the course, even though you click once to choose it and it will identify what type – image, audio/video depending on the option button you select
- Took an extensive period of time to create a course, frustration set in – see "huh"
The course is in beta stage, and as such it was hard to tell if X was supposed to work that way, or not. That said,
- At times when you selected and moved the text button to the screen, and wanted to start entering text, you had to double click on the text box, which pulled up a WYSWYG, but you could not type in any text – zero. Occurred in FF and Safari, but interestingly enough, in Safari, the issue did not occur, when you wanted to add questions in the Quiz area; rather the text box worked fine
- Something called Liquid Coach, located on the dashboard, when clicked opened up a browser within the system. You could search in the browser, but that was it
- Email, and Live Chat Help did not work
- Liquid Authoring has a "collaboration" feature, but I have no idea what is in it, because access was denied
- Same issue with the "settings" option
Main Dashboard
After logging into Liquid Authoring you go immediately to your home screen. The layout is refreshing and buttons – i.e. options to select from are crisp and clear.
Home Options
- Courses – Can view courses already created, can create a new course, edit or delete
- Library – location of files, files are viewable by icons, along with the file name and type
- Collaboration – No idea, it was not working or maybe it was, but I was denied access
- Liquid Coach – When clicked it opened a browser window within the system, and I could search. I was hoping that I could capture screens or record them, but alas this was not to be. I surmise it maybe a mentor option, but who knows
- Admin – No idea what you can do, denied access to see anything
- Publish – You can publish as a standalone, to SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004; you can also export courses or import courses
Clicking the "Course" button, you go to the course screen. Here you can view courses already created, edit those course or delete them. You can also create a new course.
Course listings include
- Name of course
- One line description
- Created with time and date stamp
- Created by whom
- Updated (if applicable), identifying whom, date and time stamp
- View
- Edit
- Delete
Create a New Course
Click "Create New Course" and you will go to the course window page.
The page is quite extensive with a top bar, left side bar (which you scroll down to see more options), preview tab, the default course build window, and on the right side once you start to create the course and depending on the objects you selected, the properties option.
Left sidebar
This is the key to building your courses, since the objects identify what you can do. The problem though is that it isn't as simple as clicking the object button and having it appear on your course window. Rather, you have to click it, hold it down and move your mouse onto the course screen and then the object changes to the actual object.
From here, you can expand the object, and change the properties.
Object Options
- Image – insert your image – .jpg,.png., .gif
- Button – create a button for your course, you can change the text, color and other options
- Text – Your Text Editor, to type in text
In order to see the "text editor", you have to double click on the text box, located on your main course build window
One strange output is that the default is a light grey and not white.
- Flash Card, Hot Spot, Hidden Area, Click and Share
- Media Player – creates a media player on the course build window, you have a robust set of options here
In order to select your media, you have to locate "source" on your properties window. Again, very robust for those advanced users, but can be difficult for someone who wants just the basics. Additionally, locating "source" isn't easy to do.
- Photo Slider, Flip Book
- PDF Viewer – insert a PDF into your course. Can expand the box
- Quiz – create your quiz
- Fill in the blanks
On the top toolbar, you are provided a vast set of options, one of which is the course properties option.
Above that toolbar, is where you can see your chapters slides, follow by slides to enter into the course. Again, this is WBT, and it should be listed on the toolbar as pages, not "new slide", for example.
On a side note, to return to your home dashboard screen, you need to click on the "Liquid authoring" button. Again, how would you know to do that?
I did like that the course title, chapters, author info and additional info was in plain site. And yes, you can move the slides around.
On the right side of the course build window is where you are going to see the properties. The properties only appear when you move an object onto the build window and click the object. I found that some objects only required a single click, others required a double click.
For example, if you select the "Quiz" object and move it onto the screen, then click it, you will pull up this window
Lots of options, but can you guess where you type and enter in the questions? If you said "Answers" collection you would be right. But, honestly, how long did it take you to figure out that "collection" was meant to be clicked to do so?
Oh, if you are looking for "font" and changing of the colors, you have to scroll past "dimensions" to do so. My recommendation is to list it higher, before background color.
Answer type can be single or multiple. It would make sense to include true or false, or matching too, rather than just "single" or "multiple". If you want other types of quiz types, for example, fill in the blanks or hot spot, then you do not use the "quiz" object, but rather the Hot Spot object or Fill in the Blanks object.
You can change numerous properties including the background colors. You can also pick a behavior if you so choose to, but the default does not activate it.
To create a quiz question within the quiz object, you click the Answers "collection property, which pulls up the following
You can add new questions or delete them. You type in the Answer and can identify the possible score, if you so choose.
Click "OK" and your quiz questions now appear. You can move them around anywhere on the course build screen, expand or decrease.
I will say this about Liquid Authoring, it does not auto group objects on the screen, which is wonderful. Too many authoring tools do this, and it is irritating. Trust me, not everyone wants to group their image with text.
Bottom Line
Liquid Authoring has a lot of promise, but it can't seem to decide what it wants to be. On one hand, its home dashboard layout is easy with identifiable buttons, on the other side, the use of properties for each object can be overwhelming.
It is as though, the product itself wants to be two things to two groups of end users. Those who are e-learning developers and instructional designers, and those folks who are not.
Perhaps a simple adding of a tab in the Properties window, with the default being a simplified version, and a tab with "advanced" would make sense. Thus, each group can be satisfied.
Sure, this is a beta, but right now it has a long way to go.
There is nothing wrong with offering advanced options, and actually, it is a nice compliment, but execution and intangibles, are giving an appearance that this solution will be collecting dust in the rapid content authoring world.
E-Learning 24/7


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How can you find the courage and resilience to triumph over daily stressors?
Anne Grady knows what it's like overcome unbelievable odds. After being told repeatedly, "You're so strong, how do you do it?" She realized this... you don't have to be "so strong," you just have to be strong enough.
Humans hate being uncomfortable. We intrinsically resist change. Part of growing resilience and strength is navigating the difficult times.
If you're not happy with results in your life, you have to make a change. Are you willing to make the decision to shift your story and reframe your thoughts? Excuses can be real, but are they serving you? Look at each decision you make and ask, "Will this get me closer to or further away from my goal?"
Anne also says that you have to recognize your relationship with stress. Are you making daily decisions that exacerbate it? Social media is an instigator. How much time are you spending on your device or in wait for that "ping" alerting you of a like or retweet? Proactively manage your struggles. You CAN log out of Facebook.
It's not about getting rid of the stress completely; it's always going to be there. Take the steps to mitigate it. What works for others might not work for you. Just because your friend can chill out with kale smoothies and yoga, doesn't mean that will have any impact on you.
Finally, enlist the help of a therapist or life coach who can give you objective feedback. If not one of those options, turn to a spouse, significant other or best friend who will tell you what you might not want to hear. Allowing negative thoughts and emotions to fester will only bring you further down the rabbit hole.
Listen as Anne joins Dr. Friedman to share how she found courage, strength and triumph (and still works towards it), as well as some practical steps you can take to start reducing stress in your own life.


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Ansel Herz
This story is part of a special series, Cancer's New Battleground -- the Developing World.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Having breast cancer here often means no care at all, or care that's too costly for any common person to afford, or a lot of initial missteps.
"I felt something in my breast that hurt," says a woman who asked to be identified only by her first name – Merlyn.
She's a big woman in tight braids, with a tough look on her face and a forceful way of speaking. But, she admits, she was scared.
"It hurt," she says. "It formed a mass. I didn't know what it was."
Merlyn says the lump grew so large that it broke through her skin. Her clothes couldn't cover it. Local doctors were no help.
Merlyn eventually got referred a clinic run by Haitians and Americans from Partners in Health, a medical charity that has launched a new push to fight cancer.
"The reason we're taking it on is similar to the reasons we've taken on other illnesses," says Dr. Sara Stulac, who heads the group's oncology program. "People are suffering in the countries where we work, and there's something we can do about it."
Preparing for the Fight
In the little Haitian town of Cange, Partners in Health's sister organization -- known in the local language (Kreyol) as Zanmi Lasante -- runs a clinic.
The clinic has been setting up cancer treatment rooms, lining up supplies, and training workers on cancer issues. They are focusing on breast and cervical cancers – the most common cancers among Haitian women.
Dealing with breast cancer in a place like Haiti takes effort and compromise.
The effort starts with the patients. When Merlyn showed up at the clinic with advanced breast cancer, she got a mastectomy. Now every two weeks she takes a 12-hour trip on one of Haiti's creaky and overcrowded buses to get to the clinic for chemotherapy.
Merlyn says she is bucking what her neighbors say.
"If you get cancer, people say you're going to die because there's no treatment for it," she explains. "They say even if you see a doctor, you won't find a solution. That's the talk."
The breast cancer statistics for women like Merlyn are grim.
Ansel Herz
Damuse says the biggest problem is women coming in late, long after they've noticed the initial lump. And a lot of women don't come in at all. So Damuse takes every opportunity to preach early diagnosis.
Reaching Out
On International Women's Day, Damuse traveled a few towns over from her clinic to attend a rally and teach-in. Several hundred women sat in the large lobby of a new hospital that was under construction.
Damuse took the podium and asked the crowd a question: "Which cancer most affects women?"
The crowd murmured. No one knew the answer.
"We're going to talk about breast cancer," Damuse continued.
On two screens flanking the podium, Damuse showed pictures of breast cancer patients like Merlyn, with tumors coming out of their chests. She told the women how to check themselves for suspicious lumps. She said treatment makes a difference.
The women sitting next to me said it was all new to them.
Cancer care is a new thing in many developing countries. With all the other health problems facing the poor, there has been little interest in cancer treatment among local and international health experts.
Sara Stulac of Partners In Health says for a medical charity like hers, focusing on cancer means getting organized. "You do have to make sure that you have access to advice, to diagnoses, to medications."
And patients need some sort of social support system to help them get to the hospital. That is no small order in countries with bad roads – or no roads.
With patients coming in so late, diagnosis and treatment often fail, so last year the Haiti medical workers received training in how to use painkillers and provide other comfort care for people dying of cancer.
Help from Abroad
For medical advice, the clinic in Haiti relies on experts at the renowned Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
The doctors and nurses in Haiti check in once a week with Dana Farber. They gather around a speakerphone in a simple stucco house near the hospital.
Joanne Silberner
Dr. Lawrence Shulman, head of Dana Farber, joined the call from Boston. He had been sent the patients' medical histories, lab results, and what X-rays were available.
One woman had had a mastectomy last fall, but the cancer returned. Shulman suggested a different kind of chemotherapy.
Another young woman had a breast lump removed. In the US, lumpectomies generally require weeks of daily radiation treatments after the surgery, but Zanmi Lasante doesn't have any way to administer radiation. So Shulman suggested a full breast removal.
"She needs to go back and have a mastectomy," Shulman said over the phone. "Then she needs five years of tamoxifen."
The tamoxifen costs just pennies a day, affordable even in Haiti. And there are other opportunities to keep costs down. In Haiti – for unknown reasons – breast cancer mostly hits women in their 20s and 30s, and mammography does not work well in women this age, so Zanmi Lasante doesn't offer it.
Cancer surgery, chemotherapy, and after-care can be costly, however. Partners in Health provides all of this for free and relies on donors to finance it.
Making Cancer a Priority
Sara Stulac, the head of Partners In Health's cancer program, admits that her team is taking on a big challenge in a country with many other problems.
"I think some people would say we shouldn't [tackle cancer], but the fact is people are suffering and dying," she says. "We can't save all of them, and we can't save the same group of patients with the same group of diagnoses that we can in the US, but there is so much suffering that we can avoid, and there are so many cancers that we can treat."
People used to say that AIDS drugs were too costly and too difficult to deliver in developing countries, yet millions of people with HIV in places like Africa and Haiti are now being saved. Stulac says there's no reason that can't happen with cancer.
This story was reported with assistance from Ansel Herz. The series was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
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