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Discussion in 'Star Trek: Voyager' started by Kooz, Feb 23, 2012.
Nazis come up a lot because of season 6.
Sounds delicious. I think I'll read some spoilers during my break later today
You're absolutely right, Exodus! This has nothing to do with Kes because Kes and Star Trek is the opposite to what Communism stands for.
As for the avatar, in that case I hope that no one objects if I put a swastika or some Al Qaeda symbol in my avatar. But since I don't support mass murderers, I will settle for my current one.
Just a final comment regarding this matter before I go back to the original topic which, despite my misgivings with "Fury" and the way Kes was treated, is a rather harmless thing to debate compared to the diabolical thing called Communism.
Most of you people seem to have a very rosy-eyed view of Communism. You are talking about communism in theory when I talk about Communism in practice which is far from the fairy tales about the equal society which Communists fool people with. Or are you mixing up Communism with Social Democracy which is an entirely different thing?
I also get the impression that some of you have your only experience of Communism from Hollywood WWII movies where the "heroic" Red Army (pronounced Rape Army) helped the Western Allies to wipe out Adolf's army. The reality is very different from that.
Don't you know anything about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, how the Commies and the Nazis attacked and divided Poland? How Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were occupiedand the Communist terror in those countries? The Soviet attack on Finland when Adolf and Josef were the best buddies?
And I have to mention the ethnical cleansing which the Rape Army conducted in the east German provinces (which are now part of Poland) in the end of the war. That was worse than what happened in Bosnia (and yes, the Serb leader Milosevic was Communist too).
You do know of Auschwitz, Treblinka and other Nazi death factories. Do you know about Kolyma, Vorkuta, Virandozero, Butyrki or Ljubljanka prison? I suppose not.
Don't you know anything about Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia 1968? Mao's terror in China? Pol Pot in Cambodia? The KGB, The GULAG? The continuing genocide in Tibet? North Korea?
And there are people who think I live in a dream world with Kes and Voyager!
I have a book written by the Ukrainian refugee Viktor Kravchenko who was an important politruk in the Communist organization before fleeing to the US. He once visited a factory outside the town of Podolsk, a real terrible place located underground where political prisoners were held as slave workers, where the working conditions were terrible and where lots of prisoners died every day.
He could never forget that terrible place. And many years later when he heard people he met in the US talking about the wonders of Soviet Communism he always thought: "If I could send you idiots to that factory for two days, only for two days, then you would sing an entirely different song."
Now back to Kes and the Star Trek dreamworld!
The hippies in my area are currently holding free showings of some movie about the wonders of Castro's Cuba, how incredibly fabulously egalitarian it is. Of course most of them would be thrown in prison for their lifestyle choices and otherwise if they were in Cuba but the need to believe that there is a magical ideology that will make life fair is too great.
Part of the appeal of Star Trek.
Now we've reached Godwin.
Goodbye, cruel thread...
Godwin is like the galactic barrier, everyone is sure something you can never undo is at the other side of it. However I feel confident in the power of this thread to absorb Godwin like that absorba-zorb in Dr. Who and suffer little more than a page of indigestion.
Why was Kes written off the show? I didn't give a fig about her so I did not speak up when she was written off. And then TPTB came for Janeway
And I thought the female orgasm was a myth.
What a confession!
This thread has everything now.
For me, the "annihilation" of Janeway in the recent books is like the Kes tragedy all over again, this time with another favorite character.
Kes turned into a god a went home.
If that's a shitty way to treat someone what do you think of Neelix's final fate or Hogans?
Dinosaurs picked through giant snake skat to see if his bones were museum worthy.
That's an Opposite Day level sort of a clusterfuck.
I think I've clearly articulated why I think Kes was written off. The only thing I can think of to add is that everything I've read about Berman Trek backstage is that it is extremely hierarchical (reflected in their revival of military hierarchy, in ways the WWII veterans of Star Trek didn't choose to incorporate.) In terms of career experience, Lien was very much a junior. The guy with the least experience gets laid off.
As for the detour on the avatar: I forgot that the quote function automatically italicizes. So my effort to highlight the particularly offensive claim that the "system" murdered more people than the Nazis.
Proportionately, Stalin killed more members of the Communist Party than any other group. It is a notorious fact that the Old Guard, the members who joined before it would be personally profitable to do so were particularly targeted. This is especially true of Party leaders, central committee members in particular.
He created security organs (and their labor camps) that were outside Party control.
Indeed, they were essentially recreations in modern times of Ivan Grozny's oprichniki and their forced labor camps, which were then innocuously called estates. Concentration camps of course were used in Cuba by the Spanish and in South Africa by the British, so they are perfectly respectable. Obviously this type of thing has no connection with the Communist "system" as such.
Stalin of course found it necessary to kill even members of the security service and at least one camp administrator (sorry, forgot his name, but he was a Communist with peculiar ideas about rehabilitation, which are not very commonly accepted today.) Hitler's concentration camps first held Communists and Socialists, so the right-thinking people of the democracies loved and admired Hitler.
Stalin's pursuit of personal power also led him to attack the Communist Red Army leadership, decimating the "officer" corps.
Additionally, Stalin also reversed many of the socially progressive policies associated with Communism, reinstituting laws against homosexuality and so forth. And reinstituting the usual military hierarchy typical of democracies and dictatorships alike.
The Nazi/Soviet Non-Aggression pact is in fact the stellar example of Stalin's break with the Communist "system." Oh, it has its justifications in hard necessity. After all, after the democratic powers had assisted the Fascist victory in Spain, and helped Germany and Poland dismember Czechoslovakia, there is a powerful case to make that Communist ideals had to give way to reality. After Munich, war was inevitable and there was no reason to think England and France would turn on their Nazi friends. It is still true that the Pact was not the Communist ideal.
And the upshot of this brief lesson in history is that it is a Big Lie to assert that the "system" is responsible for the Yezhovshchina. Hitler didn't have to kill the Nazi Party leadership, Hitler didn't have to decimate the general officers, Hitler didn't have to reverse the Nazi Party policies of years to keep his personal power, Hitler didn't have to execute the rich in his system. If there is anyone who merely executed the "system's" directives, it's Hitler.
The other part, about the relative number of casualties, is not so short and clearcut. Also, it's perfectly obvious that the people who insist on screaming this stuff are never going to accept reason. But, briefly, Jews were not the only victims of Hitler. They are the commonly estimated six million. They were by far the largest single group of course, so well worth considering.
They way the Nazis murdered Jews, going into peaceful cities and villages, then dragging them into camps in wholesale lots, then simply murdering women and children, more or less at random. This kind of murder was not what happened under Stalin. This kind of murder was and remains unparalleled. Not even the Mongols did that kind of thing, they massacred population during military campaigns against enemies, not in lands under their control.
The official estimates of victims of Stalin's kangaroo courts numbers well over 600 000. Plus there must be some murders that were carried out like the kind democrats carry out in Colombia, where the victims more or less disappear, just killed out of hand by offduty cops or soldiers on night ops. These numbers are quite sufficient to condemn Stalin. I have no idea how people can deceive themselve into thinking that this is some sort of apologia for Stalin's crimes. That is a horrifying figure. Yet, as criminal as the frameups were, they were still not the same as going into a Jewish neighborhood, just grabbing everyone and then sending them off to be exterminated. Inflating the number of victims to millions is intended to get Hitler off the hook.
Many of the millions attributed to the "system" and dragged in to make Hitler not look so bad are victims of civil war and fighting in rebellions and victims of famine. There is another kind of responsibility for misgovernment that leads to this kind of death. But it's not the same thing as murder. These numbers are mostly made up and rely upon a double standard. There was a famine in India during WWII. Aren't those victims of the Raj? Of course we know that ranting about Churchill and the capitalist system murdering all those people is tendentious and ideological. The same for Stalin. The kind of "logic" and evidence that is used in these figures for Stalin's victims, applied to someone like Abraham Lincoln, would also give horrifying numbers. You would end up saying things like, the 600 000 dead in the Civil War were victims of Lincoln and the abolitionist system!
I'm really sorry that I have to break my promise about going back on topic but I just have to contradict some of the BS written above.
Stj wrote:
Haven't you read of the "destruction brigades" which were essential in the Soviet terror in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and eastern Poland? They did exactly what you describe above, going into peaceful villages, murdering and raping at random just to scare the population. I'm sure that you can find information about that on the Internet if you bother to look.
I have no intention at all to "make Hitler look good", I'm only pointing out the Communist crimes whic actually are worse than even what Hitler could come up with. Or aren't Poles, Ukrainians, Latvians or other people under Soviet opression worth as much as the Jews who Hitler murdered?
I wrote "[Look at] (T)he way the Nazis murdered Jews, going into peaceful cities and villages, then dragging them into camps in wholesale lots, then simply murdering women and children, more or less at random. This kind of murder was not what happened under Stalin. This kind of murder was and remains unparalleled. Not even the Mongols did that kind of thing, they massacred population during military campaigns against enemies, not in lands under their control."
Googling "destruction brigades" I really only came up with one Wikipedia entry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_battalions
This strongly suggests that this article was a contribution by an amateur wanting to grind an ideological axe. This is exactly the type of article which has won Wikipedia a reputation for unreliability.
Even so, this article tells us the term properly applies to paramilitary units organized to carry out scorched earth policies during the Soviet retreat in 1941. In other words, it was not just wartime but during an actively contested campaign. It cites some really nasty stories about what happened in 1941, but curiously none of them seem to have been done by Nazis. But these were no peaceful cities and villages, no lands under Soviet control. Just as I said, this is not a parallel to what the Nazi did, which is truly unparalleled.
This is what it says about the post-war situation:
I'm quite sure that there was a great deal that was perfectly awful but there's nothing like the Nazis going on here. There are not even inflammatory atrocity stories.
As for not being for Hitler, well if you say so. I must wonder however, because the Wikipedia article had a useful link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erna_long-range_reconnaissance_group
This one is about another paramilitary organization, this one Nazi organized, that engaged unspecified Soviets after the Kautla massacre (one of the best attested atrocity stories, Wikipedia even lists most of the twenty victims.) The postwar Forest Brothers movements was also a continuation of Nazi organized forces, including Baltic Waffen-SS units, etc. continued with the assistance of Swedish, English and US intelligence support. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Brothers This too, after the Nazis had slaughtered millions of Soviets of all nationalities (except, I gather, Balts and Poles, where apparently the relatives and friends extended a warm welcome that was happily reciprocated,)
was certain to be a bitter struggle.
But, again, what happened then was not the same as Nazis seeking out Jews as such, before suffering enormous losses and hardships that would embitter most people, and murdering them. As for indifference to human suffering, it is quite clear that the anti-Communists are quite happy to commit enormities. For example, the CIA assisted Suharto in his massacre of perhaps 500 000 people in 1965, contributing hit lists. Unlike the Baltics, there was no war, just killing. But those really were people whose lives were worth less than the Balts or Poles.
In anti-Communist eyes.
But then, the lives even of Balts don't count for much in the eyes of anti-Communists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps_in_the_Baltic We find there a lovely example of the lovely mind of the anti-Communist:
Incidentally, the expulsion/evacuation/flight of the German population of the Baltic states is conveniently overlooked in the jingo histories. Really, gullibly swallowing the self-serving recollections of criminal friends and relatives is not the same as studying history.
Fuirther reading about your heroes:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes
Communist crimes need to be understood globally, and they must be condemned the same way Nazi crimes were
Frakking hell DEAD is DEAD.
I had no idea about any of that, but then I've usually been rather too busy to 'dig' into the extra details, and just watch the show for it's incredible value. But knowing those things as outlined, might explain a few things for me.
I thoroughly enjoyed her chartacter, feel that if she had stayed , as you stated, that they could have explored her character traits amazingly well.
I'm normally never someone to critisize acting, but I felt some of Jen's acting in places was a tad either rushed, or simply again as stated, possibly not felt enough?
I didn't have all that many moments like that, but they were enough that I can see them wanting to replace her, but having said that, what she did while there I thought was enough to make Voyager better for it indeed.
I also think with the utmost certainty and emotion, that 7's addition to the show was a very smart move, for obvious reasons. Her acting was stunning and her entire character was so spot on, and the scripts absolutely genius.
I enjoyed all the series, but I think Voyager has managed to grab me even now, as I watch reruns fairly often, and lets face it everyone, the 'chemistry' between all the characters was amazing, no matter their salaries
New technologies afforded for the shows special effects etc., given its the last currently of the series notwithstanding, allowed everything to come together perfectly.
I hope the next one, if there is one will be just as good.
They were actors portraying characters, but still, given my love for space and wanting to ' go where no person has gone before' , when I watch this show its like hanging out with friends. I can't think of a better compliment
Thanks to all of them, and prior series as well for giving us all something to look forward to ,as our technology evolves, and we as a species grow into maturity.
Watching it as part of my dvd collection had me slightly missing the 'tv' show again and wishing I was on that ship with those amazing people exploring worlds together; so short of that, finding this list was as fulfilling as well.
I finally get to quote the illustrious Wadsworth:
"Communism was just a red herring."
And I believe the wrong clip is used the previous page. Given the epic derail this thread has had, the clip of mutant Paris taking Janeway to warp 10 so they can have cold, clammy amphibian sex should be used.
This thread did devolve after all.
and this thread is about as healthy as this:
and this for good measure when looking at the thread:
Her voice was the main reason I couldn't stand her. It irritated me so much, it was 1000 times worse than Keiko's whine. I din't want to slap her, I wanted to throttle her. The other reason i didn't like the character was because she was so sickly sweet.
Wow really...Kes's voice was so sexy and alluring and distinctive.
Separate names with a comma.


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Cast your vote for the Texas Longhorns' all-time football team (ends July 8)
Just as we're doing with the all-time Big 12 football team, we want our readers to help us determine the greatest football players in the history of Texas Longhorns football. Only this time, players from all eras are fair game, so long as they're not on the current roster.
Click the link below to cast your votes for the greatest Longhorns at each position. Don't like your answer choices? Write in your favorite in the "Other" box below each question!

subset: commoncrawl


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Role of Astros' closer could go to Lopez
By Brian McTaggart / MLB.com
Prior to batting practice, manager Brad Mills said that Lopez deserved a chance to be the closer, though he said he isn't afraid to use him earlier if the situation warranted.
Lopez leads the bullpen with a 2.52 ERA in 40 games.
"I think the way things have gone, he deserves to be given that opportunity," Mills said. "I think we're really not going to name a particular closer as we go forward, but if there comes an opportunity to get some key outs in the seventh, eighth innings, we might use [Lopez] there."
Lopez, who experienced discomfort in his elbow in the past when used often, pitched three games in a row before Tuesday. Still, he was warming up in the bullpen and ready to go into the game.
"He wants the ball and wants in the game," Mills said. "We're still trying to monitor him a little bit, but we don't want to abuse him too much because of the arm problems he's had before."
Lopez missed 26 games in June and early July with a sprained elbow.
Cordero waiting to gain footing with Astros
MILWAUKEE -- Francisco Cordero is the first to admit that he's not getting it done. The veteran closer, who was acquired from the Blue Jays and took over as closer when Brett Myers was sent to the White Sox, is 0-3 with three blown saves in five games in a Houston uniform.
Cordero, who has 329 career saves, has been removed from the role, but for how long is anybody's guess.
"It's something I'm going through, but it's been like that the whole year," Cordero said. "The last month I pitched well was June, but other than that I've not been playing well. It's not like I haven't had the opportunities. They've been putting me in games."
Cordero blew ninth-inning leads in back-to-back games last week against Cincinnati, and after coming on in relief of Bud Norris in the seventh inning on Tuesday in Milwaukee, he proceeded to blow his third save.
"They brought me here because they thought it would work out, and it's not been that way," he said. "I think I can help the young guys here, but pitching the way I've been pitching is not what I want and not what they want."
Cordero, 37, hopes to get a few solid outings under his belt away from the pressures of the ninth inning with the idea of perhaps returning to the closer role.
"I just need to keep battling and trying to pitch and get right," he said.
After busy July, Astros quiet at Trade Deadline
MILWAUKEE -- The Astros were the busiest team in baseball in July, making five trades -- and acquiring 13 Minor Leaguers and two players to be named -- but general manager Jeff Luhnow let Tuesday's non-waiver Trade Deadline pass without making any additional moves.
Manager Brad Mills said that considering how much roster turnover the Astros saw in the last month, he was glad to see the Deadline expire and not have to say goodbye to any more players.
"I think there's a little bit of relief for everyone moving forward, because you know who's going to be on our ballclub, and these are the guys we're going with," Mills said. "Everybody was watching TV to see what's going on around baseball and in our division. There was a lot of interest there, but we can settle back and concentrate on what we do on the field."
Now that the Deadline has passed, deals involving players on the 40-man roster cannot be made unless the players have cleared waivers. In other words, a player must be offered to the other teams in reverse order of the standings, and if he is claimed by one of those teams, he cannot be traded. The club that placed the player on waivers can either withdraw the request and keep the player, or let the player go to the claiming team, which would then have the rights to him.
Brian McTaggart is reporter for MLB.com and writes an MLBlog, Tag's Lines. Follow @brianmctaggart on Twitter. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


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I'm making chili for football viewing later today. Although there are several recipes I use, I thought it might be fun for all of us to share chili recipes. What's your favorite "go to" recipe? THX :D
Here's the one I'm making today:
1 tablespoon butter
1 medium onion , chopped
1 garlic clove , finely chopped
1 lb ground beef
1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1 small bay leaf
1 (28 ounce) can peeled plum tomatoes, undrained
1 (10 ounce) can Ro-tel Tomatoes, undrained
1 (15 1/2 ounce) can kidney beans, undrained
1 Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat; add onions and garlic, cook5 minutes, stirring often.<o:p></o>
2 Add ground beef and cook until no longer pink.<o:p></o>
3 Add the next 7 ingredients (the seasonings) and cook 4 minutes.<o:p></o>
4 Add undrained plum tomatoes (crushing with the back of a
wooden spoon), and the undrained Rotel tomatoes<o:p></o>
5 Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered for about 1 hour or untilthickened, stirring occasionally.<o:p></o>
6 Add kidney beans and cook an additional 10 minutes.


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Design doc for web-world. We want to take advantage of web development interfaces. * We should be able to design and prototype web interfaces without touching a programming environment. * It should be easy to inject behavior separately from the static representation of a view. * This demands that the primary way to get a view is to use HTML files directly. Furthermore, we want to fix a particularly glaring issue with the previous attempt of jsworld: * The DOM nodes in jsworld were treated as values with implicit state, making it very difficult to write UI's that asked what the value was at a particular node. * The DOM tree represents external state! * Therefore, each world -> world function should take in, not just the internal state of the world, but the external state of the DOM tree. We want to take the design ideas of JQuery. * The view is a cursor into a DOM node. * Operations refocus the cursor onto particular elements of the dom. * Methods on the view apply functional update on those nodes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Example 0 "hello world" If we have an index.html as:
The current counter is: fill-me-inand then, in the programming language, add behavior: #lang planet dyoo/whalesong (require (planet dyoo/whalesong/web-world)) (define-resource index.html) ;; draw: world view -> view (define (draw w v) (view-text (view-focus v "#counter") w)) ;; tick: world view -> world (define (tick w v) (add1 w) (big-bang 0 (initial-view index.html) (to-draw draw) (on-tick tick)) to get a simple clock ticking application. Comments: view-text, when given a view and a string, is a functional update that replaces the text at the focus. We're trying deliberately to match JQuery. These should be functional updates, though. In contrast to plain vanilla world programs, the tick function of a web-world consumes both the world and the view. The draw function, too, takes both the world and the currently-displayed view. Event handlers, like on-tick, should be allowed to look at the state of the view, because they may want to do things like look up an element's value. The draw function does not reconstruct the entire DOM tree: rather, it is responsible to producing functional updates of the currently displayed view. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Example 2 "the ticker" We should be able to attach event handlers in the expected way to elements of the DOM. For example, let's count the number of times a user clicks on a particular DIV. Here, we need to adjust the view and attach a click event. If index.html contains:
The current counter is: fill-me-inwith some appropriate CSS to make the DIV look good, then the program will be: #lang planet dyoo/whalesong (require (planet dyoo/whalesong/web-world)) (define-resource index.html) ;; Declare style.css as a resource so it gets bundled. (define-resource style.css) ;; draw: world view -> view (define (draw w v) (view-text (view-focus v "#counter") w)) ;; world view -> world (define (on-click w v) (add1 w)) (define my-initial-view (view-bind (view-focus (resource->view index.html) "#my-button") "click" on-click)) (big-bang 0 (initial-view my-initial-view) (to-draw draw)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Example 3 "field" We want to make it easy to query from the view. That's why each handler takes, not only the world, but the current view.
Hello fill-me-in!#lang planet dyoo/whalesong (require (planet dyoo/whalesong/web-world)) (define-resource index.html) (define-resource style.css) ;; The world is a string which represents the name of the user. ;; on-click: world view -> world ;; When the user clicks on the button, grab at the text of the ;; text-field. (define (on-click w v) (view-text (view-focus v "#text-field"))) ;; on-draw: world view -> view ;; Take the view, and replace the template with the world value. (define (on-draw w v) (view-text (view-focus v "#template") w)) (define my-view (view-bind (view-focus (resource->view index.html) "#button") "click" on-click)) (big-bang "Jane Doe" (initial-view my-view) (to-draw draw)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Example 4 "dwarves!" We need to be able to generate elements of views dynamically. We should also be able to attach event handlers dynamically, too. The following should show an empty list, and on every clock tick, a new dwarf will show up in the list. If you click on a dwarf, it will hide.


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On April 8 the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a resolution supporting traditional marriage and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of DOMA, which defines marriage as only between a man and a woman for the purposes of federal business, and the Oklahoma lawmakers want to be on record as endorsing only the traditional definition of marriage. It also wants the High Court to rule in favor of allowing individual states to continue determining their own definition of marriage.
The eight-paragraph resolution declares that "marriage is the building block upon which our society is based," and that " the power to regulate marriage is a power reserved to the states that lies within the domain of state legislatures and not with the judicial branch of government." The resolution also recalls that in 2004 Oklahoma voters passed a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, one of 30 states thus far to pass such amendments.
With those standards set, the resolution concludes: "Be it resolved by the House of Representatives … that the Oklahoma Legislature reaffirms its commitment to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman and urges the United States Supreme Court to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act and the right of states to regulate marriage."
The resolution, which will now be taken up by the State Senate asks that a copy "be distributed to the President and Vice President of the United States and to the Oklahoma Congressional Delegation."
While the vote was unanimous, Tulsa's NBC news affiliate noted that half the House Democrats, led by Democratic leader Scott Inman and openly homosexual Rep. Kay Floyd of Oklahoma City, walked out of the chamber instead of voting. The other half of the Democratic contingent joined all the Republican state representatives to vote to support traditional marriage.


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NYC Rats Get a Reality TV Show
Animal Planet is offering free pest control for anyone in the five boroughs with "severe pest infestations of any kind, from cockroaches and bedbugs to rats and raccoons. No infestation is too severe for their team."
Kelly Bensimon won't be the only pest with a reality show! (Groan.) Jill Zarin wants to know if she can exterminate Bethenny. (Groan x2.) [NYC the Blog via Runnin' Scared, image via Shutterstock]


text: Hey all, Figured I'd get your opinion here! Just sort of a funny situation I was talking about with some of my friends recently. What's your opinion on an opponent who plays with warm up clothes on the entire match? Do you get offended, or do you just leave it alone? We know a very good player who doesn't take off his warm ups for a match, regardless of it's indoors, hot or cold, etc. Always wears a hoodie/jacket and sweats to play. Would you be offended by this type of behaviour? Honestly, it doesn't bug me at all one bit, but we've noticed some people get quite upset when their opponents "don't even need to take off the sweater" to play. :razz: Curious to hear your guys thoughts on this! -Fuji


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Nikon J1 Exposure
Nikon J1 Exposure Options
The Nikon J1 offers much the same exposure options you'd find in a traditional SLR camera, plus a few Nikon-specific options. Available exposure modes include Program AE, Manual, Aperture Priority, and Shutter Priority modes, and the J1's electronic shutter allows an unusually wide range of shutter speeds from 1/16,000 to 30 seconds, plus a Bulb setting for longer exposures. Unfortunately, that electronic shutter also means that the x-sync speed for flash photography is just 1/60 second. A fully automatic mode called Smart Photo Selector enables scene recognition, and places the camera in control of almost all functions, to try to deliver optimum results under a wide range of conditions. It then buffers up to 20 frames while the shutter button is half-pressed, then judges the results in terms of blur, composition, and subjects blinking, and saves what it judges to be the best five frames. Even basic options such as exposure compensation aren't available to the photographer in this mode. Unusually for a camera aimed at consumers, the Nikon J1 doesn't offer any directly-selected Scene modes, although it does provide a Scene Auto Selector function that can automatically choose one of five scene types. There's also an unusual Motion Snapshot mode which captures both a slow-motion silent movie and still image, then plays them sequentially with musical accompaniment in-camera. See the Operation page for more details.
Although it doesn't provide any histogram function in Record mode to help you judge exposures, the Nikon J1 does offer an exposure indicator along the right-hand side of the LCD when the camera is in Manual exposure mode. This shows the amount the camera thinks an image will be over- or underexposed within a range of +/-2.0EV, based on the settings you have selected, to help you find the best exposure for the subject. (Beyond the 2.0EV range, an arrow appears to emphasise that the metering system's limit has been reached.) The exposure indicator makes it reasonably easy to get suitable exposures, even though the camera doesn't attempt to simulate the exposure level on the LCD panel when in Manual mode.
Nikon J1 Face Detection
The Nikon J1 includes Face Detection capability, capable of locating the positions of your subjects within the image frame. This information is taken into account when determining several exposure variables -- focus, exposure, and white balance. Up to five faces can be located simultaneously and their locations accounted for, but the J1 doesn't go as far as some cameras that try to differentiate between adults and children, recognize specific individuals, nor can it trigger the shutter when your subject is smiling or identify if anybody blinked at the moment of exposure.
What it can do--and this is arguably a more useful time-saver--is to help you more quickly locate your subjects in playback mode, when reviewing zoomed images. If you set the playback zoom as desired first, simply turning the Multi-Selector dial will instantly jump between the locations of up to five detected faces within the image frame, while retaining the current zoom level. We found this a great way to quickly review photos to ensure that everybody was focused and exposed correctly, and that facial expressions were OK, although for larger group portraits it'd have been nice if the function could recognize more than five faces in each image.
Nikon J1 ISO Range
ISO sensitivity ranges from 100 to 3,200 equivalents plus a Hi-1 (ISO 6,400) position, and is adjusted through the Shooting menu in one-stop increments, in all except Smart Photo Selector and Scene Auto Selector modes, or when the drive mode is set to Electronic (Hi).
Three Auto ISO modes are also available, even when shooting with fully manual exposure. The three modes differ only in their maximum sensitivity limit, which can be capped at ISO 400, 800, or 3,200 equivalents. (In all cases, Auto ISO sensitivity will also range as low as the J1's base ISO 100 sensitivity limit.)
Nikon J1 Noise Reduction
The Nikon J1 gives you only two choices for High ISO noise reduction, neither of which allows the function to be completely disabled. The default is to leave High ISO NR entirely in the camera's control, but if the maximum image detail is desired (or you prefer to do your noise filtering in post processing), an "Off" option is also available. Despite the name, however, it doesn't switch the function off altogether, but merely disables it at lower sensitivities. At higher sensitivities--Nikon doesn't specify the cutoff point--the J1 will perform High ISO NR even when this option is set to "Off".
A separate Long Exposure noise reduction On/Off setting is available for dark frame subtraction when shooting exposures of one second or longer. If enabled, this increases the exposure time for each shot by 1.5-2x, allowing the second dark frame exposure to be captured with the shutter closed. Unlike the High ISO NR function, when Long Exposure NR is set to Off, it's completely disabled.
Nikon J1 Picture Control
Nikon has standardized its Picture Control system so that camera settings for sharpening, contrast, brightness, saturation, and hue can be finely adjusted and ported to other Nikon cameras that support the system. The D3 was the first camera compatible with the option, and all Nikon interchangeable-lens cameras since--including the J1--follow the standard. The Nikon J1 has six presets called Standard, Neutral, Vivid, Monochrome, Portrait, and Landscape, and up to nine custom presets can be made based on the existing presets. Sharpness can be adjusted in ten steps, along with an Auto setting; contrast and saturation can be adjusted in seven steps or determined automatically, while for hue there's a seven-step adjustment with no auto mode. Brightness is adjustable in three steps, and doesn't affect exposure. There is also a five-step "Quick Adjust" setting which exaggerates or mutes the combined effect without having to adjust each slider individually. When Monochrome Picture Control is selected, Hue and Saturation are replaced by Filter Effects and Toning respectively. Filter Effects offers Off, Yellow, Orange, Red, and Green settings, while Toning offers B&W, Sepia, Cyanotype, Red, Yellow, Green, Blue Green, Blue, Purple Blue and Red Purple settings, with each of the colored settings offering seven adjustment steps.
Of course, the Nikon J1 also offers sRGB and Adobe RGB settings, in a separate Color Space option located in the Shooting menu.
Nikon J1 White Balance Options
White balance modes on the Nikon J1 include Auto, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Direct Sunlight, Flash, Cloudy, and Shade. A Preset Manual white balance setting is also offered, for setting white balance from a white or grey card. The J1's proprietary external flash strobe can be used when determining a custom white balance, and the effect of changes in white balance settings are shown in real-time on the LCD monitor.
In all white balance modes except Preset Manual, you can fine-tune the color by pressing the right arrow key in the white balance menu. You're then presented with a menu that allows separate amber / blue and green / magenta adjustment within a range of -6 to +6 arbitrary units.
Preset Manual white balance is set by selecting Preset Manual from the white balance menu, then pointing the camera at a neutral white or grey card under the lighting you'll be shooting in, filling the frame with the reference target, then pressing the Shutter button.
Nikon J1 Metering Options
The Nikon J1 offers three metering modes, selected via the Metering option in the Shooting menu: Matrix, Center-Weighted, and Spot. All three modes operate on data from the camera's CMOS image sensor. The default Matrix metering mode divides the overall image into an unspecified number of segments, and compares these to determine exposure. Center-Weighted gives precedence to a 4.5mm circle at the center of the image while reading the whole frame. Spot metering is useful for high-contrast subjects, as it bases the exposure reading on a small 2mm circle at the very center of the image, letting you set the exposure based on a small portion of your subject.
By default, half-pressing the shutter button locks focus, but not exposure, while the AE-L/AF-L button (Up arrow on the Multi-selector) will lock both focus and exposure. Through an option in the Setup menu, you can customize this behavior so that the J1 will lock an exposure reading by half-pressing the Shutter button. You can also separately configure the AE-L / AF-L button to lock only exposure, or only focus.
Nikon J1 Exposure Compensation
The Nikon J1's Exposure Compensation adjustment is available only in Program and Priority shooting modes, and increases or reduces the overall exposure from -3 to +3 exposure values (EV) in one-third stop increments. Like White Balance, the effect of Exposure Compensation is simulated on the preview. In addition, the J1 offers -3 to +1 EV of flash exposure compensation, in 1/3 EV increments, through an option in the Shooting menu.
Nikon J1 Active D-Lighting
The J1 includes Nikon's Active D-Lighting function, which first appeared in the Nikon D3 and D300. When enabled, the camera exposes for the highlights, in an attempt to preserve more highlight detail, then adjusts the tone curve to bring the midtones and shadows back up to produce an image that doesn't look underexposed. Unlike recent Nikon SLRs, the J1 doesn't provide any control over the strength of the effect, however -- ADL can only be set On or Off, with the camera retaining full control over its results. When enabled, ADL prevents use of brightness and contrast adjustments under the Picture Control menu.
In addition to the pre-capture variant, the J1 also includes Nikon's post-capture (ie., non-Active) D-Lighting function, which can be used to restore shadow detail in images that have already been captured.
Nikon J1 Drive Modes
The Nikon J1 offers three drive modes, selected via the Feature ('F') button on the beveled area at the very top of the rear panel. Drive options are Single Frame, Continuous, and Electronic (Hi). Single-shot, as you'd expect, captures a single image with each press of the shutter button. Continuous Advance captures images at 5 frames per second while the shutter button is held down, adjusting focus and exposure between shots as necessary. At ISO 100, burst depth in Continuous mode is 19 raw or raw+JPEG frames, or 28 JPEG Fine frames at the maximum resolution. The Electronic (Hi) mode boosts the frame rate vastly, with options of 10, 30, or 60 frames per second, set through the Shooting menu. At the higher 30 fps and 60 fps rates, the J1 fixes exposure and focus from the first frame in the burst.
Separately, the J1 offers Self-timer and Remote release functions, configured via the Self-timer button (Left-arrow on the Multi Controller). The Self-timer mode offers a choice of two, five, or ten second timers, as well as two remote control modes. Both require the optional ML-L3 infrared remote control; Quick-response Remote fires the shutter immediately that the remote release is pressed, while Delayed Remote fires with a two-second delay.
Nikon J1 Interval Timer Mode
Another useful feature on the Nikon J1 that first appeared on more expensive models is Interval Timer mode, which facilitates time-lapse photography by taking a series of images at preset intervals. Interval shooting is a good way to capture a timeline of slower events, such as clouds passing across the sky, tidal changes, a flower opening, etc. You can set the time interval in hours, minutes, and seconds (from one second to 24 hours) between each shot, and the total number of intervals after which capture should cease (from one to 999). Once set, you select a menu option to start interval shooting immediately; the J1 doesn't offer a way to preset a starting time for the interval, so you'll need to be present for the first shot. Interval capture can't be paused and resumed, but can be interrupted by pressing the Menu button or powering the camera off, if needed.
Nikon J1 Image Editing
Finally, the Nikon J1 lacks the extensive Retouch menu of the company's SLR cameras, but it does offer a few basic retouching functions. As mentioned previously, there's a D-Lighting tool that restores shadow detail in images. There's also a resize function that allows images to be reduced to 1.1, 0.6, or 0.3 megapixel resolution, suitable for emailing or web use, plus a crop function that provides 3:2, 16:9, 1:1, and 4:3 aspect ratio options.
The images above were taken from our standardized test shots. For a collection of more pictorial photos, see our Nikon J1 Photo Gallery .
Not sure which camera to buy? Let your eyes be the ultimate judge! Visit our Comparometer(tm) to compare images from the Nikon J1 with those from other cameras you may be considering. The proof is in the pictures, so let your own eyes decide which you like best!
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text:
Oh, Fiona. How we've missed her! Her music, her proto-American Apparel videos, her predictably unpredictable nature.
In her absence, we've settled for the likes of Lana Del Rey and Paz de la Huerta, which has been whatever. But thankfully, Apple's back this year, and to celebrate, she's giving the world what she knows it wants: another alarmingly long album title.
It's 67 words shorter than than her last long-titled album, but the songstress' new one is still a 23-word-deep doozy. Here it is in all its randomly capitalized glory:
The Idler Wheel is wiser than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords will serve you more than Ropes will ever do.
The album, Apple's fourth — and first since 2005's Extraordinary Machine — doesn't have a firm release date yet, though June is reportedly in the running. But the even bigger mystery is: what do we call it?
The Idler Wheel is the obvious choice, but judging by the title's capitalization, there are more options, including: Driver of the Screw, Whipping Cords, and Ropes. Or you could go rogue and refer to it as Serve You More, or even Wiser Than.
Either way, we feel sorry for the intern at Epic Records who'll be spending her summer composing tweets with the hashtag #theidlerwheeeliswiserthanthedriverofthescrewandwhippingcordswillserveyoumorethanropeswilleverdo.
Readers, what's your favorite ever paragraph-as-album-title?
Read more:
Fiona Apple will play at least eight live shows this year — find the details here
Wilco and Billy Bragg to release 'Mermaid Avenue Volume III' in honor of Woody Guthrie's 100th birthday
In honor of Kurt Cobain's 45th birthday, let's listen to his other band


text:
Microsoft needs a hit with Win 8
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Believe it or not, mighty Microsoft's future hinges on the success of its latest operating system.
Microsoft's subpar earnings announcement this weekthe company's profit dropped 22 percent compared to the year-ago periodunderscores what is at stake for the software giant with the launch of its latest operating system.
It seems strange to think that Microsoftnot long ago the world's biggest companycould be desperate for a hit. Previous Windows launches were an automatic boost for Microsoft and the PC market, whether users like the new OS or not. But the world has changed, and this time around it could be different.
[Get a 10% discount on ARM TechCon 2012 conference passes by using promo code EDIT. Click here to learn about the show and register.]
According to Allan Krans, a senior analyst at consulting firm Technology Business Research Inc. (TBR), Microsoft is in no danger of slipping into a revenue free-fall. But Microsoft's fiscal first quarter results point to the importance of Windows 8 for the firm's long-term health, Krans said.
Krans doesn't expect Microsoft to see high growth immediately after the Windows 8 launch, which is set for Oct. 26. The continued use of prior Windows operating systems will delay the initial adoption of Windows 8 in enterprises. Krans believes it could be two years before Windows 8 sees widespread adoption by enterprises.
Microsoft's best prospects for significant near-term growth will be in the consumer space, from mobile device like tablets, according to Krans. With improvements in cloud storage technology and the anticipated launch of Microsoft's Surface tablet next week, Microsoft will continue incorporating Windows 8 with mobile and cloud capabilities to drive its adoption in consumer mobile devices, he said in a report circulated this week.
But the success of Windows 8 in mobile deviceswhere it faces a formidable competitor in Androidis not assured. The new OS is a dramatic departure from previous version and the most dramatic update of the OS in nearly two decades, initial reviews have been lukewarm.
It's practically inevitable that Windows 8 will eventually enjoy major adoption by enterprises. But in the consumer space, the battle has yet to be fought. Meanwhile, the PC market is in a free fall, with shipments projected to decline this year for the first time since 2001 and talk that shipments of the PC as we know it have peaked.
With the winds of change swirling and competition emerging from unexpected areas, mighty Microsoft needs Windows 8 to be a hit if it wants to continue to be a dominant player in the post-PC era.


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Attorney General of the State of Baja California, Mexico Rommel Moreno Manjarrez
This event occurred in the past
Date and Time
- Tuesday, November 15, 2011 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Warren Hall Grace Coutroom
USD School of Law's International Human Rights Law Society (IHRLS) is proud to host Attorney General Rommel Moreno Manjarrez. He will address the progress made during the last five years in reducing the drug cartels' criminal activities and violence in Baja California, along with the features of the new criminal justice reforms. The overall efforts have resulted in considerable success by apprehending and prosecuting the major cartel figures. The criminal justice reforms include adversarial and transparent trials for criminal cases. He has zealously dedicated his efforts to achieving thes goals, which are also intended to improve trans-border security and to assure visitors to Baja California a new level of safety.


text:
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Space Shuttle Endeavour is ferried by NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) over San Jacinto Monument in Houston, Texas on September 19, 2012. NASA pilots Jeff Moultrie and Bill Rieke are at the controls of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. Photo taken by NASA photographer Sheri Locke in the backseat of a NASA T-38 chase plane with NASA pilot Thomas E. Parent at the controls.Photo Credit: NASA/ Sheri Locke


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CORVALLIS, Ore. – After serving for more than two years as the National Science Foundation's first program director for integrated Antarctic research, Kelly Falkner tried to get out of her own going-away party.
Now the Oregon State University oceanographer is glad she attended.
Her colleagues in Washington, D.C., presented her with a framed photo of a coastal glacier in Antarctica, which they had named after her in recognition of her efforts to coordinate and broaden Antarctic research. "Falkner Glacier" is an east-flowing valley glacier stretching four miles long through the Mountaineer Range in Victoria Land.
"I was stunned," she said. "One tradition for the Antarctic program appointments is to get a white boot signed by people in the office – just before they 'boot you' out. That's what I expected, a boot. Instead, I got a glacier."
The glacier officially was named by the United States Board on Geographic Names, following the recommendation of the advisory committee on Antarctic names in 2009.
A citation included in a framed photo of the glacier reads: "Dr. Falkner's leadership, working with the community and with NSF, was critical to developing and implementing plans for this new research program that has significantly broadened the scientific opportunities within the U.S. Antarctic Program."
In 2007, Falkner, who is a professor in OSU's College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, was appointed the first program director of the "Antarctic Integrated System Science Program" in the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs. The irony is that Falkner, who essentially was on a two-year "loan" from OSU to the agency, is an expert on the Arctic Ocean, not Antarctica.
"I considered directing in the Arctic program or the Antarctic, and there would have been more of a conflict of interest doing the Arctic because of all my connections and those of other OSU researchers," she pointed out. "Even though I had a steep learning curve with Antarctica, it brought a whole new realm to my understanding of polar science that I found fascinating."
Her job as first director of integrated research was essentially to look at the literally hundreds of different research projects involving Antarctica and see what was being done right – and what was missing. What she found was that although many of the projects had some interdisciplinary components, few went far enough – or were broad enough – to begin answering questions about large-scale issues such as climate change or the causes and mechanisms behind the melting of sea ice.
As part of her duties, she went to Antarctica for a familiarization visit at the beginning of her appointment, and then later spent six weeks at the McMurdo base coordinating the science programs. In her final year, she traveled to the United States station on the Palmer Peninsula to assist with science and gain first-hand experience with U.S. Antarctic ship operations.
"It was truly an international experience," she said. "I had to draw on every language skill I have."
During her appointment she briefed the National Science Board on the latest research involving levels of sea ice, which have retreated dramatically in the Arctic, yet are comparatively stable in Antarctica. The difference, Falkner said, seems to be in how the ozone hole and atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide are affecting atmosphere and ocean circulation in the southern hemisphere.
"For now, these factors are promoting a longer season and larger geographic area where a fresh layer in the ocean surface, from increased precipitation, insulates the ice from the heat below," Falkner said.
Now back at OSU, Falkner has returned her attention to the Arctic, where she has a five-year grant to continue studies at the North Pole Environmental Observatory. The focus of her research in that program is how various sources of water entering the Arctic contribute to ocean circulation – and how changing circulation patterns relate to the other major environmental changes in the north.
Falkner said she would like to return to Antarctica some day, knowing that a piece of it bears her name. Two years ago, en route to McMurdo from New Zealand, Falkner flew over the vast ice-covered expanse that is Antarctica. And though she didn't know it at the time, at one point she was directly over Falkner Glacier.
"It's not immediately accessible to anyone from land and, in fact, you'd have to mount quite an expedition to get to it," she said. "It is an amazing place and I am incredibly honored that it's named after me. But the odds are, I'll never get to go there."


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PASADENA, Calif., Oct. 10 (UPI) -- A mysterious object photographed by NASA's Mars Curiosity rover is a "shred of plastic material, likely benign," probably shed by the rover, engineers say.
The bright object showed up on photos sent to Earth by the rover as it began operations to scoop up some martian soil for analysis, scientists said.
"Yeah, so last night was crazy. When we spotted the object near the rover, we had to quickly come up with a totally new plan," Keri Bean, a meteorologist on the rover team, tweeted Monday.
The rover's scooping operations were temporarily suspended while engineers determined if the fallen object would interfere with sampling activities, Wired magazine reported.
A close-up photo taken with one of the rover's many cameras showed the object was likely a piece of plastic, though it has still not been definitively identified, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said.
Previous Mars missions including the Mars Phoenix Lander and the Opportunity rover have shed small bits and pieces including loose screws, NASA said.


text: On Tue, Jun 26, 2001 at 06:03:40PM -0500, Jarrod Smith wrote: > I don't want to use the master as a compute node for MPI runs (by design, > it has slower processors than the rest of the cluster). I've read some > things in the archive which hint at the fact that it is possible, but > nothing I've tried works. There doesn't appear to be a -nolocal > option (despite posts from Scyld that it is in the mpirun > man page), and using bpsh to spawn the job doesn't work, because > there is no /var on the slaves, and the root process seems to want > to want to write some temp files there. > > So...can it be done? If so, exactly how? Thanks to Keith Underwood, I now can run jobs off of the head node using the following command. NO_INLINE_MPIRUN=true bpsh n application -p4pg file The p4p4 switch indicates that you will use a p4pg file to indicate which nodes you will use for the calculation. I attach, below, a sample p4pg file. application is the executable. n is the node on which the p4pg file resides. I am making this post because I have stated before that I was unable to open files on slave nodes unless the head node was part of the run. It turns out that, at 4:30 in the morning, I had made a dumb mistake in the call above so that I couldn't open the files. I have since been successful in opening files in the /tmp directory of the slave nodes. Here is the sample file: 0 0 /home/edwardsa/QUEST/lcao2p46a/lcao_nebgga.x 1 1 /home/edwardsa/QUEST/lcao2p46a/lcao_nebgga.x 2 1 /home/edwardsa/QUEST/lcao2p46a/lcao_nebgga.x 3 1 /home/edwardsa/QUEST/lcao2p46a/lcao_nebgga.x 4 1 /home/edwardsa/QUEST/lcao2p46a/lcao_nebgga.x Note that the application here has been the same as the application in the call above. I hope this helps. Art Edwards > > TIA > > -- > Jarrod A. Smith > Research Asst. Professor, Biochemistry > Asst. Director, Center for Structural Biology > Computation and Molecular Graphics > Vanderbilt University > > jsmith at structbio.vanderbilt.edu > > > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf


text:
I am very annoyed by the way ZA treats its bug reporting center. I have reported numerous bugs through the zonealarm.com/beta website in the submit a bug for, and, none have been addressed in the latest version that is 9.0.068.000. More so, the freakin zonealarm.com/beta website DOES NOT inform the user when newer versions of the software are available, except for the rare case in which the user submits a bug, and he is forced to select a version for the software he using. (or, the fixed issues section which is irrelevant from this point of view, as it does not display version numbers......)
DONT flame me, thats the only way I found out about the second ZA Antivirus Beta version, and, I am a long time ZA user with licenses for 6 pcs.
I have submitted a bug report regarding ZA Antivirus Beta exceedingly annoying iTunes problem over a month ago, and, it has not been fixed in the latest version. Yes, I am running Windows 7 RC 32-bit all updates installed, no other things interfeering.
If I uninstall ZA Antivirus Beta, iTunes 184.108.40.206 works perfectly. If I have it installed (like right now) I can't buy stuff on it, I can't log into my account, it freezez when I close it, and so on so forth.
There a couple of other issues I will be writing about here, but, I as a long-time customer am having a very poor experience regarding ZA beta bug reporting........


text:
Read the rest at MTV.
The director also told the audience that there is a lot more CGI and intense action in "New Moon" than there was in the first movie.
"And Taylor did every single stunt that he could possibly get his hands on. Every stunt except the ones that the insurance company said he wasn't allowed to do," Weitz said. "Really, if Jacob is doing something impressive in the film, it's pretty much Taylor doing it.
"And Rob just kind of stood there looking good, basically," the director joked to another round of screams from fans.
July 24, 2009
MTV's Hall H Run-down: Weitz Jokes that RPattz Stood Around Looking Good :-)
MTV offers more details on what transpired in Hall H today, including what Chris Weitz had to say about New Moon stunt work:
7 comments:
- thparkleJuly 24, 2009 at 3:31 AM
Yup and that's pretty much all he NEEDS to do :DReplyDelete
That's what were looking for Rob to be standing looking like a greek god!! Taylor in all his hottness- action packs!! schwingggg!!ReplyDelete
- thparkleJuly 24, 2009 at 7:35 AM
Heidi ho, 'schwinggg?' haha u funny!ReplyDelete
in case someone hasn't found them yet: I have!!ReplyDelete
(the clips I mean, of course)ReplyDelete
I love that boy! He's so sexy and sweet and driven. YUM!ReplyDelete
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
CEC is starting a new Specialty Group on Agro-security and Biofuels.
Sarah Stokes Alexander has accepted the invitation of CEC Chair Keith Wheeler to serve as Specialty Group Leader for the new group on agro-security and biofuels for members of the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication.
CEC will provide expertise in knowledge management, communications and capacity development in issues related to this new CEC Specialty Group. We will especially look at the relationship between the expanding global need for protein and the impacts on biodiversity and sustainability. Agro-security is about protecting food and agriculture systems and infrastructure. It looks ahead for options to address the challenges of food insecurity, climate change and natural resource degradation. It can also encompass national responses to agro-terrorism or to natural and man-made disasters, which can be particularly devastating in developing countries.
Sarah Stokes Alexander serves as Director of Environment and Sustainability Programs for The Keystone Center and has over 15 years of experience as a facilitator on collaborative, multi-stakeholder efforts where science and policy intersect. She has facilitated numerous efforts in the areas of sustainability, agriculture, transportation, environmental cleanup, and forestry at local, national, and international levels. She has provided facilitation of industry-led sustainability initiatives, interagency coordination efforts, regulatory negotiations, strategic planning, and national and regional dialogues. She provides training in collaborative leadership, stakeholder engagement, and sustainability strategies. She graduated from Middlebury College with a bachelor's degree in environmental studies and holds a Masters of Public Administration from Harvard University.
To join the new group, CEC members may contact:
Sarah Alexander
CEC Specialty Group Leader for Agro-Security


text:
2011 was a huge year for rock music but, like many before it, a lot of people were left asking 'What is rock?' With Ke$ha claiming that she's going to bring rock back from the dead this year and the Glee Cast bringing rock classics back to masses, it looks like that's going to continue well into 2012.
But who was really the most popular rock act of 2011? Last.fm's Best of 2011 has the answer.
Yesterday, Last.fm announced their Best of 2011, a run down of the world's most popular artists according to the service's listeners. The results are taken from more than eleven billion track plays taken from more than 600 different music players and services, including Spotify, iTunes and even iPods and Xbox 360's.
The US top five rock artists saw a surprisingly poor performance from Radiohead this year, as The King of Limbs debuted to a muted reception from fans and critics alike. Foo Fighters too will be disappointed that their album Wasting Light only made it to the fourth spot.
The Strokes fared better, taking Angles to third place on the chart and holding the top tracks spot occasionally last summer. They were beaten by a surprisingly strong showing from Incubus, whose If Not Now, When? saw a return to form from the group. They made it to number two on the US rock chart.
But – controversially – Avril Lavigne took the number one spot. Hugely popular, her album Goodbye Lullaby was certainly more a pop set than a rock collection, but she still saw a strong enough following from young rockers to take the top spot.
Surprisingly though, none of them made it as far as the US top five or the global top five. Find out how those charts shape up over at Last.fm's Best of 2011.


text: {-# LANGUAGE CPP, GeneralizedNewtypeDeriving, GADTs #-} ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- | -- Module : Data.Acid.Common -- Copyright : PublicDomain -- -- Maintainer : email@example.com -- Portability : non-portable (uses GHC extensions) -- -- Common structures used by the various backends (local, memory). -- module Data.Acid.Common where import Data.Acid.Core import Control.Monad.State import Control.Monad.Reader import Data.SafeCopy import Data.Serialize (runGet, runGetLazy) import Control.Applicative import qualified Data.ByteString as Strict -- Silly fix for bug in cereal-0.3.3.0's version of runGetLazy. runGetLazyFix getter inp = case runGet getter Strict.empty of Left msg -> runGetLazy getter inp Right val -> Right val class (SafeCopy st) => IsAcidic st where acidEvents :: [Event st] -- ^ List of events capable of updating or querying the state. -- | Context monad for Update events. newtype Update st a = Update { unUpdate :: State st a } #if MIN_VERSION_mtl(2,0,0) deriving (Monad, Functor, Applicative, MonadState st) #else deriving (Monad, Functor, MonadState st) #endif -- | Context monad for Query events. newtype Query st a = Query { unQuery :: Reader st a } #if MIN_VERSION_mtl(2,0,0) deriving (Monad, Functor, Applicative, MonadReader st) #else deriving (Monad, Functor, MonadReader st) #endif -- | Run a query in the Update Monad. runQuery :: Query st a -> Update st a runQuery query = do st <- get return (runReader (unQuery query) st) -- | Events return the same thing as Methods. The exact type of 'EventResult' -- depends on the event. type EventResult ev = MethodResult ev type EventState ev = MethodState ev -- | We distinguish between events that modify the state and those that do not. -- -- UpdateEvents are executed in a MonadState context and have to be serialized -- to disk before they are considered durable. -- -- QueryEvents are executed in a MonadReader context and obviously do not have -- to be serialized to disk. data Event st where UpdateEvent :: UpdateEvent ev => (ev -> Update (EventState ev) (EventResult ev)) -> Event (EventState ev) QueryEvent :: QueryEvent ev => (ev -> Query (EventState ev) (EventResult ev)) -> Event (EventState ev) -- | All UpdateEvents are also Methods. class Method ev => UpdateEvent ev -- | All QueryEvents are also Methods. class Method ev => QueryEvent ev eventsToMethods :: [Event st] -> [MethodContainer st] eventsToMethods = map worker where worker :: Event st -> MethodContainer st worker (UpdateEvent fn) = Method (unUpdate . fn) worker (QueryEvent fn) = Method (\ev -> do st <- get return (runReader (unQuery $ fn ev) st) )


text:
A Best Practices Exhibition also paralleled the Conference, and showcased examples of human settlements development from around the world. The Best Practices Initiative is an interactive, computerized tool developed by the Together Foundation. Users can access information on over 500 case studies in the realization of Habitats objectives shelter provision for all and sustainable human settlements development.
On Tuesday, 4 June, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali opened the Best Practices Awards ceremony, which honored 12 initiatives designed to provide positive solutions to the worlds most pressing human settlement problems. He highlighted their efforts to build partnerships between civil society and private enterprise and offered them as proof that sustainable human development is indeed possible. The awards were given to projects involving a wide range of practices, including technology, information, poverty alleviation and improved access to land.
Awards were presented to the following 12 Best Practices: Project on Sites and Services for Family Groups with Low Income Living in the North of Gran, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Integration Council in the Favelas Rehabilitation Process, Fortaleza, Brazil; Metro Torontos Changing Communities: Innovative Responses, Metro Toronto, Canada; Post-calamity Reconstruction of Anhui Provinces Rural Areas, China; Successful Institutionalization of Community-based Development in the Commune of Adjam�, Abidjan, C�te dIvoire; A Womens Self-help Organization for Poverty Alleviation in India: The SEWA Bank, India; Shelter Upgrading, Agadir, Morocco; City Management in Tilburg, the Netherlands; Local Initiative Programme: Community Planning Process and City/Neighborhood Partnership, Lublin, Poland; Community Information Resource Centre (CIRC), Alexandra, South Africa; Dont Move, Improve, Community-owned and - governed Urban Revitalization Project, South Bronx, New York City, US; and the pollution clean-up and environmental conservation efforts of the City of Chattanooga, Tennessee, US.


text: As a treky, I figured I'd do my part to try get the word out about this project. Star Trek Renegades is a rogue attempt to try to rebuild the Star Trek following and possibly create an underground Youtube based series if the pilot is successful enough. Here's the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dfhWr9l1NI I don't know about everyone else, but the trailer sends chills down my back. For those who have followed Star Trek over the years, you might know that Chekov was promoted to Star Fleets Command and Chief sometime during Voyager according to many of the books and the canonic Star Trek MMO. This is the first look at him having that role on screen and as such is an extremely neat tie in to a lot of the recent trek stories. The story itself follows the adventures of Captain Lexxa Singh a descendant of Khan Singh as she leads a covert operation to uncover a dark secret that threatens to tear apart the Federation.


text:
Submit News
The Empire Strikes Back: Apple Scores U.S. Ban on HTC's Low End Phones
Jason Mick
December 19, 2011 11:21 PM
Recipient E-mail
Sender E-mail
Move deals a blow to America's largest smartphone seller, but it won't likely hurt its flagship offerings
Remember how the Imperials stormed into the rebel base on Hoth, just as they were successfully clearing out? That's more or less how one of Apple, Inc.'s (
) biggest court victories played out. Much like Apple's
short-lived Netherland's sales ban
against Samung, its legal victory over Taiwan's Android-endowed HTC Corp. (
) only temporarily hits the Asian smartphone maker's lower end products.
I. Apple Manages to Annoy Sales Rival
Christmas came early for Apple, facing off in Washington D.C. before the
U.S. International Trade Commission
(ITC). As companies have increasingly begun to do in recent years, Apple had turned to the ITC to play court and offer a back door to ban its competitors' products.
The ITC examined several of Apple's patent claims (including a humorous one in which Apple claimed to have "invented" interrupt driven undervolting of a computer chip). In the end it decided that HTC was presumably in infringement of only one of those patents --
U.S. Patent 5,946,647
Apple has struck a blow at the pesky Android rebels, with a token victory over HTC's legacy products. [Image Source: LucasFilm; modified]
Like many of Apple's technology patents, it came from the lucrative period between 1998 and 2004, where Apple pushed through increasingly ambiguous patent claims, which it would use over a decade later as a club to try to beat back its mobile competitors.
The patent seems to cover in various vagueries some sort of software framework that takes messages and then launches events -- a nebulous description that could cover everything this side of
Windows 7
Watson the supercomputer
The abstract reads:
A system and method causes a computer to detect and perform actions on structures identified in computer data. The system provides an analyzer server, an application program interface, a user interface and an action processor. The analyzer server receives from an application running concurrently data having recognizable structures, uses a pattern analysis unit, such as a parser or fast string search function, to detect structures in the data, and links relevant actions to the detected structures. The application program interface communicates with the application running concurrently, and transmits relevant information to the user interface. Thus, the user interface can present and enable selection of the detected structures, and upon selection of a detected structure, present the linked candidate actions. Upon selection of an action, the action processor performs the action on the detected structure.
The patent was filed in 1996, over a decade before Apple announced its first smartphone was coming.
II. Busines as Usual for HTC, Despite Ban
The interesting thing is that the ITC somehow seemed to reach the opinion that a shift occurred around Android 2.3 Gingerbread, removing the infringing feature. This means that not only did most of Apple's claims get dismissed, but that its sole successful claim only worked towards banning a handful of aged HTC devices, which were still sporting Android 1.6 ("Donut", remember that?), Android 2.1 "Eclair", and Android 2.2 "Froyo".
Only HTC's older models will be barred from U.S. sales, come April. [Image Source:
LA Times
Noticeably not on the list is HTC's flagship product lineup, which includes best-selling smartphones such as the HTC Rezound.
HTC cheered this positive turn of events, commenting, "We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it. However, the 647 patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon."
Even if the ban is ratified by ITC President , it won't go into effect until April 19, 2012.
If Apple hope to use the lawsuits to regain its U.S. sales lead, which it
recently lost to HTC
, it's likely out of luck. And while Apple may be able to at least effectively harass patent-poor HTC, Apple has seen its legal campaign against the world's top smartphone maker, Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (
) start to collapse.
Earlier this month the ITC
slapped down Apple's request
to ban Samsung's mobile devices. And in Australia it saw one of its lone victories over Samsung erased as a
of appeals courts
unanimously decided to lift
a sales ban, admonishing a lower court judge, who they argued grossly misinterpreted the law in her pro-Apple decision.
II. The More You Tighten Your Grip... The More Star Systems Slip Through Your Fingers.
Falling behind in both domestic and international sales to its surging Android rivals, Apple CEO and co-founder in his waning days urged his workers to
spend the entirety of Apple's substantial cash fortune
, if necessary to try to legally drive Android into the ground.
For it's part Apple is reportedly trying some more clever techniques, founding shell companies, such as Cliff Island LLC, and
partnering with experienced "trolls"
like Digitude Innnovations. Apple also continues to patent seemingly obvious technologies that have been on the market for several years or more,
such as the swipe unlock
, a feature found on Neonode Inc.'s (
) mid-2000s feature phones, and on other early products. Oddly the U.S. Patent and Trademark rubber-stamped two Apple patents on that particularly feature, with nary a question or complaint.
Currently while Android smartphone makers are drastically outselling it (roughly 5-to-2), Apple is still wildly more profitable,
rivalling Exxon Mobile
) for the distinction of being the world's most profitable company. But those massive sales are predicated on the continued success of Apple's tablets and smartphones. If that market share continues to dwindle, as analysts are predicting, Apple may find itself falling off
its record fiscal fortunes
, which it has enjoyed of late.
ArsTechnica (Apple patent trolling)
"So if you want to save the planet, feel free to drive your Hummer. Just avoid the drive thru line at McDonalds." -- Michael Asher
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text:
Force Hight Motz McBride Runte Canuso Bogue Larsen Hope Pereira Head Alexander Moore
- Details
- Published on Monday, 14 January 2013 14:11
We're celebrating our 50th Anniversary at the Auto Plus Night Under Fire on August 10, 2013
NORWALK, Ohio -- When others turn up the nitrous to multiply power and excitement, Bill Bader Jr. piles on the talent!
Especially for our Golden Anniversary Celebration at the 36th Annual Auto Plus Night Under Fire on August 10, 2013 at Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio, President Bill Bader Jr. loaded the entertainment!
Are you ready for this?
The Bader Family Signature Fireworks always cap a show with ageless delight, inviting all to relax, pull loved ones close and enjoy the view.
But 2013 presents no ordinary season. The Golden Anniversary Celebration ramps up the fireworks so this truly will be a Night Under Fire.
Of course Bill Bader Jr. invited to the party the legendary Bob Motz with his flame-throwing 200 mph Jet Kenworth; and the incomparable Larry "Spiderman" McBride piloting his Top Fuel motorcycle.
Then Bill beaconed four Jet Dragsters with their sizzling roar:
- Jill Canuso and the Queen of Diamonds
- Elaine Larsen and the Miller Welding Jet Dragster
- Ernie Bogue and the Beast from the East
- Lou Pereira and the Terminator
Also, so many people fell in love with Funny Cars, how could Bill Bader Jr. resist? The four-Funny-Car showdown includes veteran drivers, 15-time World Champion John Force and his son-in-law Robert Hight, and two young bucks, Chad Head and Blake Alexander.
Then Ron Hope changes up the mix with a sweet baby of a Fuel Altered.
Meanwhile Columbus, Ohio businessman and Top Fuel Funny Car racer Jim Head, Chad's father, lines up in a different breed of Funny Car.
You say these magnificent machines need some brutish heft to round out the show?
You've got it!
Bill Bader Jr. hailed two Monster Trucks: Dan Runte and the Summit Racing "Bigfoot;" and Randy Moore in the "War Wizard."
How's that for brutish heft?
Many of you know Bill Bader Jr. loves to throw a huge party.
As hot as this talent lineup sizzles for the 36th Annual Auto Plus Night Under Fire, expect a backdraft in the coming weeks. It's not done yet!
We recommend buying tickets and lodging in advance for obvious reasons, namely Force, Hight, Motz, McBride, Runte, Canuso, Bogue, Larsen, Pereira, Head, Alexander, Hope, Head, Moore…
Call Summit Motorsports Park at 419-668-5555, or buy tickets on the Web at www.summitmotorsportspark.com/NUF


text:
A former football player and a former basketball player for the University of Georgia have been charged with armed robbery, loitering and prowling, according to a report from the Athens Banner-Herald.
Demario Mayfield, 22, a former basketball player who played one season before transferring to a college in Charlotte, N.C., and Ricardo Crawford, 25, a former defensive lineman for the football team, were arrested.
The arrests occurred about 2:30 a.m., when two officers patrolling the city's Oak Street saw the suspects' car, a silver 1988 Mercury Marquis, make a sharp turn and enter a neighborhood officers knew was home to mostly college students who were out of town, the report said. The officers followed the Mercury and observed the driver turn off the headlights and drive down an alley behind some apartments, where it parked, police said. At that point, the officers stopped and approached the car.
During the stop, an officer who confronted the driver saw a clown mask on the floorboard, a furry hat on the seat and a handgun tucked in the man's crotch, according to the report.
A second handgun was found in the floor near the passenger along with a dust mask and latex gloves, the report said. A bag with rounds of 9mm ammunition also was seized.
The weapons were identified by police as a Makarov .380-caliber pistol and a Hi-Point 9mm pistol.
Mayfield and Crawford remained in the Clarke County Jail late Monday without bond on the armed robbery charge.


text:
Foxx: Hagan race tests N.C. Dems
As North Carolina Democrats come to terms with across-the-board losses they suffered on Election Day, they are also gearing up for a 2014 fight to defend Sen. Kay Hagan, said Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, one of the state's most visible Democrats.
"It's gonna be one of the biggest Senate races in the country," said Foxx in a Saturday interview with POLITICO. "And that's going to be a fight."
Story Continued Below
( PHOTOS: 15 memorable campaign slogans)
On Election Day, North Carolina elected its first Republican governor since the 1980s — Pat McCrory — by double digits, in a state where both chambers of the state house are controlled by the GOP, and one that went to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney despite Charlotte's hosting of the DNC. Republicans also gained three congressional seats, giving them nine of the 13 congressional districts.
"I think it's incumbent on North Carolina Democrats to do what national Republicans are doing, which is to huddle up and figure out what happened and to think about what the implications are and what needs to happen going forward to build a case for progressive politics in North Carolina," said Foxx, who was in Washington for the Inauguration, as well as a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Foxx, a rising star in the Democratic Party, acknowledged that Democrats "got wiped out," something he attributes in part to redistricting; and in part to mishaps tied to the state party, including allegations of a sexual harassment against a state party leader. But he cited Obama's relatively narrow loss of North Carolina, by fewer than 100,000 votes, as a reason for Democrats to keep up hope.
"Interestingly enough, the presidential race was one of the more optimistic aspects of 2012," he said. "The president lost North Carolina, ultimately, but only by 92,000 votes. … So, it's clear that Democrats can be competitive in North Carolina, but we've just got to have a different message. And I do think you'll see a new generation of North Carolina politicians engaging in statewide races."
( PHOTOS: 7 best campaign dustups)
When asked whether he would seek a statewide position, Foxx responded, "Who knows?"
"I have such a full plate doing what I'm doing, I don't want to put myself ahead of where I am," he said. "But I do think this is gonna mark a generational change and that could be a good thing for the Democratic Party."


text:
A-Rod focused on wins, not milestones
By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com
TORONTO -- There did not seem to be much fanfare for Alex Rodriguez's 650th career home run, and the Yankees slugger does not seem to mind.
Considering what has transpired during Rodriguez's eventful first month back in a big league uniform, being able to fly under the radar seems like a nice change of pace. Or, as A-Rod put it on Tuesday, "Quiet is good."
Rodriguez, 38, connected with an R.A. Dickey knuckleball in the fifth inning of the Yankees' 5-2 loss to the Blue Jays on Monday at Rogers Centre, but he left the stadium without speaking to reporters.
With a day to ponder the milestone, Rodriguez said that there was still not much to say about it.
"It's hard to reflect on it right now," Rodriguez said. "We're in the middle of a pennant race, and we need wins like oxygen right now. I think at some time, there will be a time and a place to appreciate that. But it's probably not right now."
Yankees manager Joe Girardi acknowledged that Rodriguez's appeal of a 211-game suspension and the corresponding allegations of performance-enhancing drug use could be one explanation for why Rodriguez's 650th home run did not seem to be celebrated.
Girardi also noted that milestones with numbers in the hundreds tend to be more publicized.
"My thoughts? I haven't seen where 50s have been celebrated," Girardi said. "Hundreds have, or maybe when you pass a guy who's in front of you. It's not every day you see someone hit 650, but it seems like the hundreds are the ones people concentrate on more."
Rodriguez ranks fifth on baseball's all-time home run list and is gaining ground on Hall of Famer Willie Mays (660). Rodriguez's Yankees contract includes a $6 million bonus payable if he ties Mays.
"I can't really think about that right now," Rodriguez said. "Really, we need every victory right now. We need every game. That's my focus, and I've got to try to go out there and help my team win."
Girardi on Hughes: 'We'll see how it goes'
TORONTO -- There has been speculation that right-hander Phil Hughes might be skipped or removed from the Yankees' rotation, but manager Joe Girardi was not prepared to announce any changes to his rotation on Tuesday.
"We'll see -- we'll see how it goes," Girardi said. "We'll see what happens, make sure people are OK and see what we do."
Hughes absorbed another rough outing on Monday, allowing five runs (three earned) in 4 2/3 innings while taking the loss in a 5-2 defeat to the Blue Jays. Hughes said that he is not concerned about his job security.
"I don't think about those things," Hughes said. "I worry about what I can do every day I'm given the ball. Those types of things aren't really a concern for me."
Pitching coach Larry Rothschild and the Yankees have been trying to correct several issues with Hughes, who is 2-11 with a 5.12 ERA since May 15.
"For Phil, sometimes it's putting hitters away," Girardi said. "Sometimes it's his fastball coming back, getting too much of the plate. He's a fastball guy -- that's who he is -- but your location becomes very important when you're like that."
Mo shares 'Boss' memories with Toronto staffers
TORONTO -- There has traditionally been very little for the Blue Jays to smile about while "Enter Sandman" by Metallica has blared from the Yankee Stadium speakers whenever Mariano Rivera has stepped onto the field during his illustrious 19-year career.
It's easy to see why, as Rivera entered Tuesday's game at Toronto with an 8-2 record, a 1.83 ERA, 53 saves and 106 strikeouts over 103 career innings against the Blue Jays.
But as Rivera stepped into the executive lounge at Rogers Centre on Tuesday to meet with 20 Blue Jays employees, there were more than just a handful of smiles.
The all-time saves leader delighted those in attendance during a 45-minute question-and-answer session that included a photo opportunity and a signed ball.
Rivera and Jason Zillo, the Yankees' communications and media relations director, addressed the room full of some long-time and deserving behind-the-scenes employees, including one who's been with the club since before it even had a name.
The 43-year-old Rivera answered questions ranging from his retirement plans to how it feels to stand on the mound and how he learned his famous cutter.
Rivera's most poignant and thoughtful answer, however, may have come as a surprise. Answering the final question, Rivera discussed what it was like to know late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, giving a brief glimpse of "The Boss" when the cameras weren't rolling.
Rivera called Steinbrenner "loyal" and "loving," adding that he wanted his players only to try their best, regardless of the outcome.
Rivera then told the story of the Yankees' dramatic loss to the D-backs in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. With Rivera on the mound in the ninth inning, Arizona outfielder Luis Gonzalez stroked a single past a drawn-in infield, plating the final run of the Series and saddling Rivera with a crushing loss.
After the game, Steinbrenner was the first to approach Rivera in the clubhouse at the ballpark that's now called Chase Field.
Rivera turned to Steinbrenner and told him he had done his best. Steinbrenner simply said, "I know."
It was a simple yet fitting way for Rivera to end the brief but lasting session.
On his way out, Rivera again thanked the group for everything they've done for baseball, then made his way down to the field to get back to what he does best.
Bombers bits
• When Derek Jeter (3,308 career hits), Rodriguez (2,919 career hits entering Monday) and Ichiro Suzuki (2,725 career hits entering Monday) were in the Yankees' starting lineup on Monday, they combined for the second-highest total of hits (8,952) by teammates in history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Only Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins and Zach Wheat of the 1927 Philadelphia Athletics had more, combining for 10,121 hits in the last game they started together. The two trios are the only in history to start a game with all three players having more than 2,500 hits.
• On this date in 1938, the Yankees played their fourth doubleheader in four consecutive days, sweeping the Indians by scores of 8-7 and 13-0. Joe DiMaggio tripled three times in the first game, and Monte Pearson threw a no-hitter in the second game.
Bryan Hoch is a reporter for MLB.com. Follow him on Twitter @bryanhoch and read his MLBlog, Bombers Beat. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.


text:
Movie Review
Lee Daniels' The Butler
Rated PG-13 for some violence and disturbing images, language, sexual material, thematic elements and smoking. Two hours, 12 minutes.
Publication date: Aug. 16, 2013
Review by Peter Canavese
Released: (2013)
Actor-screenwriter Danny Strong skates along the surface of eight decades of American history with his script "inspired by the true story" of Eugene Allen, a member of the White House serving staff for 34 years. It's easy to understand the real-life-Forrest-Gump-ian appeal: Oscar winner Forest Whitaker plays Cecil Gaines, who -- as Allen did -- serves the administrations of Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Ford, Nixon and Reagan.
You would think that would make for some really great stories, but the source material -- Wil Haygood's Washington Post article "A Butler Well Served by This Election" -- is more poem than drama in describing an African-American man who served eight white presidents, was very good at his job and lived to see Obama elected.
The film grasps for greater significance by "enhancing" Allen's life. After a framing device, "The Butler" takes us to 1926 Macon, Ga., for Cecil's "origin story." The 8-year-old cotton picker learns to shut up and serve following a tragedy that writes him a ticket from the fields to the house. Out on his own, Cecil gets further instruction from a hotel waiter (Clarence Williams III) before landing a gig in the White House pantry.
Once Cecil is installed as a butler, the film broadens its focus to include his home life with wife Gloria (Oprah Winfrey) and sons Louis (David Oyelowo, convincingly playing boy to man) and Charlie (Isaac White, then Elijah Kelley). Here, Strong invents domestic strife in the forms of alcoholism and infidelity for Gloria, and rebellion through political protest for Louis.
While Cecil plays witness to history (he's told, "You hear nothing, you see nothing you only serve"), Louis makes history: at the Woolworths' lunch counter, as a Freedom Rider, in Memphis with MLK, in Oakland with the Black Panthers and on the steps of the South African embassy, protesting apartheid. In this way, the film barrels through a lesson in the civil rights movement by pitting Cecil's quiet dignity against Louis' aggressive protest.
That comparison is a point of interest, and it leads to a memorable scene in which an argument over the social significance of Sidney Poitier stands in for the tension between father and son, who cannot help but think of his father, a cog in the system, as being something of a shuffling, bowing Uncle Tom. But, despite admirable work from Whitaker and Winfrey, the film is nearly crushed by its own symbolic weight and its contrivance of a central character arc from keeping one's head down to learning to stand up.
Oprah's presence brings to mind her onetime theme song of choice, with its line "I'm every woman; it's all in me." Daniels wants his film to be every episode in African-American history, so Cecil hovers over Eisenhower as he contends with Faubus, Reagan as he contends with apartheid, with almost everything in between (the film comically brushes off Ford and Carter) and pseudo-slavery and Obama as bookends. That's the gig, I guess, but we're still left wishing for more truth and less legend.