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News Release
Getting our Money's Worth?
As Massachusetts kicks off its months-long state budget deliberations, MASSPIRG Education Fund released a new study today that reviews a much-debated and costly category of state spending. The study, Getting our Money's Worth? Promoting Transparency and Accountability for Corporate Tax Subsidies in Massachusetts, provides analysis of Massachusetts's special business tax breaks and finds taxpayer dollars are being put at risk due to a lack of accountability measures in many programs. The report proposes straightforward and proven policy reforms to protect taxpayer dollars and ensure Bay Staters get the best bang for their buck. The study analyzes 25 special business tax breaks worth a total of $770 million. The report found that many tax subsidy programs lack adequate accountability measures, like goals for job creation, measures requiring companies to return subsidies when they fail to deliver promised benefits, and adequate public transparency to enable independent assessment.
"Massachusetts is a national leader in making many forms of state spending transparent, yet many of our corporate subsidy programs put taxpayer money at risk for waste due to a lack of openness and accountability," said Deirdre Cummings, MASSPIRG's Legislative Director and co-author of the report. "By implementing straightforward and proven improvements to these programs, we can ensure that taxpayers get the best bang for their buck."
Special business tax subsidies are deductions, credits, exemptions or other tax treatment specifically designed and enacted by the legislature to spark economic growth. Since fiscal year 1996, tax subsidies have more than doubled in value to $770 million. In fact, growth of special business tax subsidies as a share of the state economy outpaced all other major areas of state spending since 1996. Given the enormous growth of these tax subsidies, accountability to taxpayers is critical.
"The study released by MASSPIRG underscores the need for legislators to keep pushing for greater transparency and accountability for corporate tax subsidies," said Senator Jamie Eldridge. "The people of Massachusetts deserve complete and full transparency and are entitled to know how taxpayer money is being spent. It is imperative that we continue to improve programs that monitor and shed a light on state spending levels."
While Massachusetts' lawmakers have taken steps to make spending through tax expenditures more transparent and accountable, the Commonwealth currently lacks important tools to ensure state spending goes to programs that yield the best results. Specifically,
- Few of the Commonwealth's special business tax subsidies have well-articulated public policy objectives.
- A lack of clearly defined goals for subsidy programs limits the ability of the Commonwealth to impose money-back guarantees, known as "clawback" provisions. Only nine of the 25 active special business tax breaks currently have such provisions in place. Where clawback provisions do exist, they are not as clear or demanding as they should be.
- Fewer than one-third of the Commonwealth's special business tax subsidies (seven of 25) are subject to annual spending limits.
- Only eight of Massachusetts' 25 special business tax subsidies require the Legislature to actively renew the program, meaning that the other 17 continue regardless of their merit.
- Important information is scattered across different reports and online databases.
- Nearly half of all special business tax subsidy programs fail to publicly disclose one or more of the following pieces of information: recipients, subsidized projects, project-by-project or program-wide cost to the state budget, or results generated by the program.
- With the exception of the film industry and life sciences industry tax credits, no publicly available evaluations of after-the-fact cost-effectiveness exist for special business tax subsidies. Bay Staters lack tools to easily discern when the state has recaptured subsidies from companies that fail to deliver on promises. A dearth of information on costs and benefits means that Bay Staters cannot weigh in on the merits of particular subsidy programs before they are renewed.
Despite taking steps in the right direction, the Commonwealth does not yet meet the best practices of accountability and transparency for $770 million in state spending through the tax code. To make the special business tax subsidies full accountable, the state should:
- Transition away from discretionarily awarded tax subsidies to a system of direct grants, improving the transparency, accountability and efficiency of economic development subsidies.
- Set clear and measurable public policy goals for each subsidy program and require that proposals for new breaks include a clear policy purpose.
- Mandate periodic review of all tax subsidies and require them to expire in the absence of active decisions to renew based on the review.
- Cap the cost of each subsidy program, protecting the Commonwealth and its citizens from runaway costs.
- Define strong and clear clawback provisions to recoup tax subsidies from companies that fail to meet their programmatic goals wherever practical.
- Continue to improve public disclosure of information – including information on each subsidy program's purpose, progress toward the policy's goal, total annual cost, expiration date, clawback statistics, and names of beneficiaries – on the state's transparency website. Users should have the ability to "drill down" to see details about the monetary value of each business' tax subsidy, the intended benefit for the state (number and quality of jobs, volume of sales and so on), the recipients' performance relative to targets, and any instance in which the state gets its money back due to a recipient's failure to deliver on promises.
"Spending through the tax code merits particular attention because it is not subject to the normal public scrutiny of other line-item spending in the state budget," concluded Cummings. "Unlike conventional budget items, the annual cost of such spending may not be known until after the money is spent. And because programs are often automatically renewed each year, they can continue to impose costs on the Commonwealth without undergoing thorough consideration and annual approval by the Legislature and Governor."
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The ZIP Code Reality: Where You Live Matters
The data alone — the kinds of things we can tabulate and measure — don't tell the stories of the American people.
The ZIP Code Reality: Where You Live Matters
Not only is the way we work rapidly changing, the atlas of where we work — from coasts, to states, to counties — is increasingly studied and interpreted. Sixty percent of net job growth by 2030 will take place in 25 cities across the United States, while current projections suggest that other, less urban areas throughout the United States will only see a 3 percent increase in jobs. McKinsey's Andre Dua will discuss geographic opportunity across the US, having mapped county by county our strengths and weaknesses. Mary C. Daly of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, will then explore a different angle in conversation with David Brooks: how are communities creating opportunity for themselves when the data may be working against them? The future of work has many unknowns, but this level of clarity is well worth our understanding.
Explore More
The youngest member of the US Senate talks about championing a new brand of conservatism.
Leading on the Frontlines, a series from Aspen Ideas Now, features mayors and governors across the United States in candid discussions about how they're facing tough decisions...
Did the results of the Supreme Court's most recent term surprise you? Plus, "big ideas" from Neal Katyal and Emma Robbins.
Systemic racism in America cuts across institutions like criminal justice, healthcare, housing, employment, and education.
As thousands participate in civil protests in their communities, this critical moment calls on each and every one of us to reflect, step up, and do more.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Vaastu can work wonders for commercial spaces and businessmen. Be it an office, showroom, factory, industry, hospital, shop or school, Vaastu can be applied at the time of construction or if afterwards, then one has to seek Vaastu remedial solutions to remove all kinds of Vaastu defects. It is better if utmost care is taken at the time of design and construction of commercial spaces as then we can adequately as well as accurately follow the rules of Vaastu. Geosols consulting has given effective consultation with regard to Vaastu rules for the construction of commercial spaces to quite a number of reputed clients. If you want production to grow, increase in revenues, better sales, boom in business, success in operations, then allow us to be your one and only true guide.


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Fall is in the air and the outside is rapidly changing here in the Midwest so why not make some changes indoors too. Decorating for the fall is so much fun especially when there are all kinds of beautiful images that you can display in your home. Here are just a few that I love:
There are so many ways to have your art printed, you can put it on canvas framed or wrap, you can put it on aluminum, or on paper, even birchwood and acrylic. All of these options combined with the perfect piece of art for your home.
I finally settled on adding this artistic leave print to our house and can not wait for it to arrive. It was a hard choice as there are so many beautiful prints to choose from and all of them would look amazing on my house and really bring this beautiful time of year into my home. This print just went perfectly with our decor so we ordered it and I can not wait to hang it.
EXCLUSIVE COUPON: Save $40 off your purchase at Photos.com with code: CHICMOM40
Join me @thatchicmomblog for a fun and prize packed Twitter party as we talk sprucing up your walls with @photosdotcom
WHEN: October 5 9pm EST
WHERE: Twitter of course hashtag #loveyourwalls
$100 credit to Photos.com – 3 winners
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To be prize eligible you must do the following:
1. RSVP in the Linky below with your Twitter name linking to your Twitter account.
2. Tweet the following anytime on Monday 10/5: Join
@photosdotcom @ThatChicMomBlog Mon 10/5 @ 9 pm EST to decorate your walls #loveyourwalls https://www.thatchicmom.com/2015/09/photos-com-twitter-party-105-9pm-est-loveyourwalls/


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Our last day in Amsterdam and in the Netherlands.
During the morning we had a very specific time with Sheranne and Froukje dpeaking about campus ministry and what the next steps for them would be on campus.
I am expectant to see how God will use their faithfulness, their availability, their teachability and just their deep desire to see God do something on campus. We have seen in the past how God is able to use ordinary students to do extraordinary things for Him – may we see God do great things again!!
Today we really felt the effect of the past couple of days. Early mornings, full programs and late evenings. I really felt drained and we took a bit of a slow afternoon where I got a short afternoon nap in. The rest of the afternoon was quite relaxed and we just talked around the kitchen table with a cup of tea.
For supper we were told that we have to have another very Dutch dish – a potato war (my literal translation) which is basically fries with a couple of diffent sauces.
We concluded our time in the Netherlands with a final team meeting where we could recap, give feedback, put out expectations and plan towards the next trip in 2018.
After the meeting Andre and I had to move to catch our bus to Berlin. That is where I am typing this blog post from now. Hopefully we will be able to get in some well needed rest.
We were really hosted so well and treated to incrdible generosity! Thank you Stephanus, Nino, Emile, Wilmarie, Sheranne, Froukje, Yori and Elsabe! Till we see you again!


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YooHoo And Friends - Scare Play
Children'sRepeatClosed Captions AvailableRated: G11 mins
8:10am Thursday, January 24 2013
YooHoo & Friends, Episode 08 - Scare Play
Series Synopsis
An animated series about the eco-adventures of five, cute-as-can-be, furry-tailed animals who are on a global quest to save the planet from a series of eco-disasters.
Episode Synopsis
Episode 08 - Scare Play
The furry five must find out if a vampire bat or something far worse is scaring all of the forest animals away.
Previous Episode Synopsis
Episode 04 - Water You Talkin' About
The YooHoos are off to find a way to return the water to a desert oasis and along the way rescue a mini-Merkaat from a hungry hyena.
Future Episodes
- 2:45pm Monday, January 21 (R)
- 8:10am Tuesday, January 22 (R)
- 2:45pm Tuesday, January 22 (R)
- 8:10am Wednesday, January 23 (R)
- 2:45pm Wednesday, January 23 (R)
- 8:10am Thursday, January 24 (R)
- 2:45pm Thursday, January 24 (R)
- 8:10am Friday, January 25 (R)


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Here comes another sci-fi remake. The folks behind ABC's V (circa 2009) are tackling a new series. Get ready for a revamped version of Space: 1999.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, ITV Studios America and HDFilms have announced plans to unveil a "re-imagining" of the sci-fi series, which will be called Space: 2099.
The original program ran for two seasons (1975—1977) and starred Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. As expected, the story took place in 1999 and followed the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha, a space research center stationed on—you guessed it, the moon.
HDFilms president Jace Hall (who brought us the new V) claims that Space: 2099 will feature familiar themes taken from the original.
"We are indeed re-imagining the franchise and bringing something new and relevant to today's audiences," said Hall. "I feel strongly that some of the overall tones set by the original Space: 1999 television show represent an exciting platform to explore possibilities."
Do you feel concerned? A lot of space-centric shows have come and gone since 1977. How will they make Space: 2099 stick out from the rest of the pack?
Will you be tuning in to Space: 2099? Or will you stick to the original?
(via Hollywood Reporter)


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© Rex
EARLIER this month Jennifer Aniston stood up to the media scrutiny that she faced over her changing body shape with a resounding open letter calling for the body shaming to stop, and now the actress has encouraged the younger generation to unite in standing up to bullies.
"When you see a bully, you have to, in a group of you, take the bully down and not allow it," she told a group of teenagers at the Giffoni Film Festival which she attended to pick up a Lifetime Achievement Award, adding that the internet has exasperated the situation for a younger generation because of the anonymity it affords. "They hide behind their computers, so it's about not allowing it to penetrate... put your computers down and have conversations."
It's an emotive topic for the actress who, when asked by a member of the crowd if she ever woke up and didn't know who she was, was brought to tears. She replied that she had frequently felt that way in her life, but insisted it's not an abnormal feeling.
"And also know that your actors, your idols, your icons, whatever you call them, have all had that experience in their lives many, many times," Aniston continued, reports The Hollywood Reporter. "There's nothing that separates us from you, because we all started at the same place. We all came out of nowhere. Don't punish yourself if you feel that. Go talk to people and seek help and always find something to inspire you."
Aniston is the second high-profile personality to urge people to communicate their emotions when they are feeling distressed. Just yesterday, Prince Harry said how important he felt it is for people to talk about grief.
"It's OK to suffer, as long as you talk about it," he said, at an event for his charity Head Space. "It's not a weakness. Weakness is having a problem and not recognising it and not solving that problem."


text: Magic Breakers is an explosive blend of 4 highly skilled circus acrobats and breakdancers from Europe and the USA. Together, they have been dancing their way across the globe for the past 9 years whilst captivating all types of crowds with world-class breakdancing, Cyr Wheel acts, seemingly impossible acrobatics and hilarious witty comedy. Professional, surprising and dynamic, Magic Breakers has continually stood out amongst other acts.


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This fund was established in 2005 by Mary P. Campbell in honour of her late husband J. Melville Campbell, a prominent Summerside business man, lawyer and former mayor of Summerside. Earnings from this fund provides grants in support of youth activities in the Summersie area and at the Summerside Boys and Girls Club.
Mary passed away at the Wedgewood Manor in Summerside, on Friday, August 31st, 2018, of Mary P. Campbell, RN, of Summerside and formerly of Malpeque. Born in Malpeque, she was the daughter of the late Duncan and Lilla (MacEwen) MacGougan. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations to the J. Melville & Mary P. Campbell Fund managed by Community Foundation of PEI would be appreciated.


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Email Metrics
4 Email Metrics that Really Matter
How are you measuring the success of your emails?
With a sea of data at your fingertips, it can be difficult to focus on the email metrics that impact your bottom line. Discover the 4 email metrics you should zero in on to achieve success with every campaign.
Email Engagement Metrics: Applying What We've Learned
Welcome to the third and final installment of our series on Email Engagement Metrics. This time around, we are going to apply what we've learned from past marketing efforts and formulate new strategies and innovative campaign tactics to increase engagement in future marketing campaigns.


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Grand Old Day is Sunday, June 3. We're making history!
For the first time in over 25 years, Treadle is joining the fun!
Extended Hours: 10-5
Embroidery Demo - Kits available!
Free fat quarter for the first 50 customers!
Please note: parking in the neighborhood is limited as this is one fabulous street festival!
Plan accordingly.
For more info visit the Grand Old Day page at:


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Mara Keisling as a speaker on April 10. Keisling serves as executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Keisling is delivering a talk titled "Trending Now #transequality:
Transgender Equality and Justice with Mara Keisling." Earlier in the
day, Keisling is scheduled to present a workshop for faculty and staff on creating
trans-inclusive classrooms and student culture environments.


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Classified Views: 575
Apple MacBook Pro - Florida
Apple MacBook Pro
1TB STORAGE. i5 TURBO PROCESSOR. 13.3 MACBOOK PRO. Macbook Pro 13.3in. DVD/CD APPLE INTERNAL SUPER DRIVE. Illinois Precision Group started 10 years ago in Huntley, IL. We wanted to create a new experience when purchasing products from us
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Second Travelodge hotel could open in town
PUBLISHED: 12:22 22 July 2019 | UPDATED: 15:36 24 July 2019
Archant © 2009
A hotel chain is continuing to search for sites as it plans to open a second Travelodge in a coastal town.
Earlier this year Travelodge announced plans to open another hotel in Lowestoft, which potentially would create 25 new jobs.
The chain, which opened the £2.3m Lowestoft Travelodge on Leisure Way in 2009, has selected Lowestoft as one of its key coastal locations as part of its seaside expansion programme.
The chain already has sites in Norwich, Thetford, Great Yarmouth, Wisbech and King's Lynn, and they continue to actively look for a second hotel site, which would become the eighth in Suffolk.
The expansion programme equates to a proposed investment of £5 million and 25 new jobs within the Lowestoft community,
Travelodge - who operate 584 hotels across the UK, Ireland and Spain - is looking to grow its coastal hotel network with a further 26 properties in seaside resorts and coastal towns.
You may also want to watch:
The group's latest seaside hotel opening, Rhyl Seafront Travelodge, is the town's first branded hotel to be located at the beach. It is also the company's ninth Local Authorities development partnership.
Tony O' Brien, Travelodge UK development director, said: "We are becoming a strong Staycation nation that likes to take lots of short breaks throughout the year rather than a traditional two-week block holiday and Suffolk is benefiting from this trend.
"The county's tourism industry has great potential for further growth and we want to be a part of this.
"Therefore we are looking for another hotel site in the idyllic seaside town, Lowestoft.
"This expansion would represent an investment of £5 million for third party investors and create 25 new jobs.
"It will also support the local economy as our research shows on average our customers spend double their room rate with local businesses which annually results in a multimillion boost for the local economy."
He added: "To kick start our search for our second hotel in Lowestoft we are writing to Lowestoft Town Council to see if we can play a pivotal role in their regeneration programmes like we have done in Rhyl.
"Investing in a low-cost hotel like Travelodge is an increasingly attractive choice, as it draws visitors, creates jobs and helps boost the local economy."
If you value what this story gives you, please consider supporting the Beccles and Bungay Journal. Click the link in the orange box above for details.


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Periodic Cleaning Works
Mobile workshops, whenever necessary, provide periodic work with the appropriate equipment.
Windscreen Cleaners: Windscreen cleaning is done with special poles and by using de-ionized water. Where necessary, light-duty vehicles or safety baskets are also used.
Floor cleaning: Floor cleaning is done with professional rotary machines and vacuum cleaners.


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Rita Felski
University of Virginia; University of Southern Denmark
I sometimes wish I'd become a sociologist. Not any kind of sociologist, mind you: not a structuralist functionalist or a rational choice theorist, but perhaps a cultural sociologist or a sociologist of intellectuals. In his Introduction to Sociology–surely the only one of his books that could be called a gripping read— Adorno reflects on the proliferation of hyphen sociologies and the very diverse nature of the field. Rather than being a self-contained intellectual whole, he remarks, sociology is an agglomerate of disparate disciplines, thanks to its divided origins: in the philosophical ambitions of August Comte and other nineteenth-century thinkers on the one hand, and in modern empirical methods of planning and administration on the other. Is there anything, he wonders, that holds together this "whole commotion"? (Adorno, 2002: 54).
Among literary scholars, especially in the US where I currently teach, this diversity is rarely registered. [1] When sociology is not being ignored or dismissed—I've lost count of how often I've heard the phrase "merely sociological"– it is usually portrayed in one of two ways. Either as being synonymous with quantitative and statistical methods, as when James English (2010) argues that the indifference toward sociology among literary scholars stems from their allergy toward numbers. (That U.S sociology departments are so heavily slanted toward quantitative research plays its part in promoting this perception.) Or else as associated with broad synoptic theories of modern or postmodern society; here European social theorists are often invoked, such as Zygmunt Bauman on liquid modernity or Ulrich Beck on risk society.
Yet neither of these perceptions does full justice to sociology's distinctive features. Looking back over my own writing, for example, I'm struck by how often I've been helped out of intellectual jams and dead-ends by sociological thought. My first book drew extensively on Anthony Giddens and Jürgen Habermas. The Gender of Modernity had a pivotal chapter on Simmel and Tönnies. Reading C. Wright Mills was indispensable when I wrote an essay about shame and the lower middle class. The work of the phenomenologist-sociologist Alfred Schutz helped me to defend the value of habit, routine, and taken-for-grantedness in everyday life. George Herbert Mead's idea of the generalized other and Weber on disenchantment crop up in Uses of Literature. When I was drafting The Limits of Critique, the arguments of Luc Boltanski were useful in clarifying the relations between academic critique and vernacular forms of dissent. And Hooked: Art and Attachment has close affinities to the work of cultural sociologists such as Antoine Hennion.
None of this work drew on quantitative methods; nor did it turn to sociology to bolster broad claims about the nature of modern or postmodern society. What I found instructive in sociology, rather, was its sharply honed attentiveness to the many kinds of phenomena that make up social existence. While sociologists continue to assume a concept of society—a concept that Bruno Latour, for example, would question—they cannot help being conscious that this society is highly variegated and differentiated: made up of many kinds of institutions, communities, norms, and behaviors. Such knowledge is built into the DNA of the discipline, given its multiple foci and subfields: the sociology of intellectuals, the sociology of the family, the sociology of law, and the sociology of religion are all quite different areas of inquiry. Bureaucracies, social movements, and soap opera audiences are all part of "society"—but they are shaped by very different motives, actions, conventions, and vocabularies. [2] Acknowledging this differentiation does not mean ignoring larger patterns, including systemic inequalities: but it does demand attention to divergence, unpredictability, and the ever-present possibility of being surprised. One of the main tasks of sociology, writes Luc Boltanski, is to "demonstrate the importance of uncertainty in social life" (2014: 594).
Literary critics, meanwhile, are acutely conscious of the differences in and among literary works, but are far less attuned, as Caroline Levine remarks, to the "many different and often disconnected arrangements that govern social experience" (2015: 18). The hashtag notallcritics must be inserted here; some literary and cultural historians have crafted accounts of the social shaping of literature and reading that are backed up by extensive empirical work. Sharon Marcus's Between Women, Leah Price's How To Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain, or Nicholas Dames' The Physiology of the Novel could serve as exemplary instances in Victorian Studies. And there are also scholars of the contemporary scene–think John Guillory, Mark McGurl, James English, Pascale Casanova, Ato Quayson, and others—who have combined literary and sociological thinking in productive ways. Yet imputing homogeneity to the social world has long been a defining move of literary studies. Whether one thinks of Leavisites portraying literature as a bulwark against soulless materialism, deconstructive critics tracing out its subversion of Western metaphysics, or Marxists hailing its capacity for negativity and critique—society's sameness is the necessary foil for accentuating literature's difference. To assume the oppressive uniformity of the social is also to bolster claims for the dissident force of the aesthetic and the critics who study it. Close reading, we might say, is selectively close; critics zoom in in order to zoom out; literary or cultural works are read with meticulous care and attention, while the social world is deciphered—and often denounced–from a distance.
And here the language of structure is endowed with a great deal of explanatory force—frequently presented as the only alternative to thinking in terms of individuals or "subjects." And yet, how structure is to be defined; what kind of analytical work it does, what conceptual or methodological difficulties it might pose—such issues are less frequently addressed in literary studies. When writing the dissertation that became my first book, I found myself at odds with the determinism of the Althusserian and Lacanian theories that were in vogue among literary scholars in the 1980s. It came as something of a revelation to learn that sociologists had been grappling with the problem of structure for decades; worrying about its tendency to promote the picture of a metaphysical puppet master that precedes, stands over, and manipulates human practices rather than being constituted through those same practices. It was sociology that taught me to think of structures as multiple and often in conflict; as not just coercive but also enabling, not a barrier to action but involved in its production.
"Functionalist" is not a word you hear much in literary studies, though it's often wielded in the social sciences to criticize arguments that strive to reduce many-sided phenomena to a single purpose. And yet, while literary scholars like to pride themselves on their attention to nuance, they are no less prone to functionalist thinking than social scientists when making claims about the social world. Indeed, they are arguably more so, thanks to the prevalence of a style of thinking –often referred to as "textual politics"—that imputes a necessary politics to artistic forms. Feminist literary critics were being functionalist, for example, when they argued that certain forms or genres—such as the Bildungsroman– were inherently tied to, and complicit with, patriarchal structures. From a sociological perspective, meanwhile, they fell into the opposite trap of idealism or voluntarism in arguing that experimental styles of writing would subvert these same structures, without factoring in the many mediations—of class, education, and institution—that affect how literature circulates through the world. There is a recurring tendency in literary studies, as Timothy Aubry (2018) has recently reminded us, to drastically overestimate the transformative effects of literary form.
Here again, sociology turned out to be something of a godsend; instead of using the feminist literary theories of the time, I drew on Habermas and on Negt and Kluge to develop the idea of a feminist counter-public sphere: the creation of new public spaces for the articulation of feminist critiques and counter-imaginaries. Such an idea could account, in more empirically sensitive ways, for the impact of women's writing; for feminism's influence and its limits, and for its existence inside as well as outside institutions (Felski, 1989). This argument had implications not just for feminism, but also for those strands of melancholic Marxism that saw the life world and cultural institutions as entirely colonized by economic interests, including Habermas' thesis that the critical potential of the public sphere had been snuffed out at the end of the eighteenth century. Feminist analysis was not just a matter of offering more differentiated accounts of the interplay between cultural, political, and economic forces in the present, but also of questioning the nostalgic narrative on which Habermas's account of publics was premised.
Empirical has often been a dirty word in literary studies, but it does not have to mean a naïve belief in accessing things "as they really are" that overlooks the shaping of experience by interpretation and cultural schema. It is, however, premised on the conviction that we can learn from experience, observation, and investigation; that details matter; and that in engaging with the world we can find our beliefs rattled and our schemes altered. In her forthcoming book Underdogs, Heather Love challenges the view—not uncommon in both queer theory and literary studies—that empirical methods are not only theoretically unsophisticated but complicit with techniques of objectification and social control, making a powerful case for the merits of documentation and description. Cultural studies had drawn on similar ideas in taking issue with the armchair theorizing about audiences by Adorno or Mulvey– think of the marvelous ethnographic work on film and television reception by scholars such as Ien Ang and Jackie Stacey, among others. As cultural studies moved across the Atlantic, however, these sociological aspects of cultural studies gradually withered away and were replaced, in literature departments, by forms of historical thinking that had much stronger ties to the discipline. In much of the US, cultural studies, to all intents and purposes, is now synonymous with cultural history.
None of this is to deny the limits of some of the work that goes under the banner of sociology. Such work, write Jeffrey Alexander and Philip Smith (2003) in their well-known manifesto for cultural sociology, is often afflicted by numbness toward meaning. What they call "culturally unmusical scholars" parse human action in instrumental terms; often lack hermeneutic subtlety; and embrace mechanical accounts of how society works that are echoed in the rhythms of their own prose. And yet sociologists themselves have long criticized such tendencies: see, for example, C. Wright Mills's complaints about "turgid and polysyllabic prose" and his call for creative forms of sociological writing that can enchant as well as analyze by attuning themselves to the rich puzzles of reality (Gane and Back 2012). More recent examples would include Andrew Abbott's call for a lyrical sociology; Ann Game and Andrew Metcalfe's account of passionate sociology, John Law's advocacy for messy sociology, or David Beer's riff on a punk sociology that is willing to experiment and take risks with its arguments. While they may constitute a minority, there are still quite a few dissidents within the city walls.
Meanwhile, the field of cultural sociology has long moved beyond accounts of aesthetic questions as nothing more than a smoke screen for status distinctions and power struggles. We might think of Claudio Benzecry on the passionate affiliations of Argentine opera fans; Tia DeNora's analysis of the many different uses of music in everyday life; Cath Lambert's bringing together of live art with feminist and queer methodologies, or Eduardo de la Fuente's interest in the agency of art works. And there is, of course, Antoine Hennion's path-breaking work on amateurs—on how the love of art and music is made by many different actors and factors coming together. Hennion argues not for a sociology of music, but a sociology from music—in which musical experience assumes a central place. How could the "appeal of the artwork," he writes, "not concern the sociology of art?" (2018: 42). This body of work is highly relevant to humanists, enriching our understanding of the many uses of art and literature—as shaped by the affordances and complexities of specific works, but also the varying attachments of audiences. And here—to give one final example–I've also benefited from Maria Olave's (2018) ethnographic work on female readers. Arguing that sociology has often paid little attention to the specifics of why reading matters, while cultural studies is too quick to impose pre-fabricated categories of complicity or resistance onto audience response, Olave offers a subtle analysis of readers' testimonies to the experience and value of reading.
A much-noted editorial essay in the New York-based journal n plus one (2013) complained that cultural analysis was suffering from too much sociology. "Few things are less contested today," the authors write, "than the idea that art mostly expresses class and status hierarchies, and only secondarily might have snippets of aesthetic value." I'd be the last to disagree with this observation, and the problems of reducing aesthetic preferences to nothing more than power moves in a struggle for distinction. But this line of argument is unfair to sociology, which includes far more than ritual gestures of critical demystification. In an email that he sent me several years ago, Howard Becker, one of the founding figures of U.S cultural sociology, remarked: "It's been kind of a scandal to me for years that people in the humanities and arts have taken Bourdieu to be the whole story about sociology, and have proceeded to use him either to bash sociology or adopt some version of what they think he was up to."
In the current moment of stock-taking in literary studies, we are seeing a resurgence of interest in aesthetic questions. I share this interest but fail to see why it conflicts with sociological thinking. Aesthetic experience is mediated, aesthetic experience can feel intensely immediate; both propositions hold true and neither cancels out the other. Over the last few decades, the rhetoric of "social construction" has been weaponized to weaken the status of art works, as being overwritten by a more decisive and determining reality. And yet the social fabrication of things does not have to be played out against them but can also be played out with them, as Antoine Hennion points out (2016: 297). That ties to art works must be made does not diminish their value; that we help create the work does not mean it cannot surprise us or move us. The task is to account for the complexity of this co-making. What can't talk of artistic form or aesthetic pleasure co-exist with fine-grained and differentiated accounts of social ties?
It would be a great pity if the recent surge of interest in aesthetics among literary scholars were to result in a disciplinary retrenchment, a retreat into academic silos, an insistence that close reading is the primary or only thing that scholars in literature departments should do. To be sure, many literary critics have no interest in sociology—and nothing I've argued implies it must take precedence over other disciplinary or interdisciplinary approaches. And yet, to those of us interested in rethinking questions of how literature and art hook up to the world—who want to explore alternatives to critical distancing or poetic waxing, to a focus on overarching "structures" or the individual work –sociology offers some vital, and largely neglected, resources.
[1] Of course, indifference to and misperceptions of literary studies by social scientists are also widespread, but not my topic here.
[2] Mills (1959) famously extolled perspective-shifting—the ability to move from poetry to the oil industry, from theology to state budgets—as a defining aspect of the sociological imagination. As sociology has become ever more specialized, however, scholars are increasingly likely to remain within a single subfield rather than roam across many.
The writing of this essay was supported by the Danish National Research Foundation, grant no. DNRF 127
Adorno, T.W. (2002). Introduction to Sociology. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
Alexander, J.C. and P. Smith. (2003) "The Strong Program in Cultural Sociology: Elements of a Structural Hermeneutics," in The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 11-26. https://ccs.yale.edu/strong-program
Aubry, T. (2018). Guilty Aesthetic Pleasures. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Boltanski, L. (2014) "The Fragility of Reality: Luc Boltanski in Conversation with Juliette Renne and Simon Susen," in The Spirit of Luc Boltanski. Essays on "The Pragmatic Sociology of Critique." London: Anthem, 591-610.
English, J. (2010) "Everywhere and Nowhere: The Sociology of Literature After the 'Sociology of Literature'." New Literary History: special issue on New Sociologies of Literature, 41, 2: v-xxiii.
Felski, Rita (1989) Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Gane, N. and L. Back (2012) "C. Wright Mills 50 Years On: The Promise and Craft of Sociology Revisited." Theory, Culture, and Society, 29, 7-8: 399-421.
Hennion, A. (2016) "From ANT to Pragmatism: A Journey with Bruno Latour at the CSI," New Literary History, 47, 2-3: 289-308.
Hennion, A (2018) "Objects, Belief, and the Sociologist: The Sociology of Art as a Work-to-Be-Done," in Alfred Smuditz (ed), Roads to Music Sociology. Heidelberg: Springer.
Levine, C. (2015) Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network. Princeton. N. J.; Princeton University Press.
Love, H. (Forthcoming) Underdogs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mills, C. W. (1959) The Sociological Imagination. Harmondworth: Penguin.
N Plus One editors (2013). "Too Much Sociology." N Plus One, 16. https://nplusonemag.com/issue-16/the-intellectual-situation/too-much-sociology/
Olave. M. A. T. (2018) "Reading Matters: Towards a Cultural Sociology of Reading." American Journal of Cultural Sociology, 6, 3: 417-454.
Rita Felski is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at the University of Virginia and Niels Bohr Professor at the University of Southern Denmark. She is the author of Beyond Feminist Aesthetics, The Gender of Modernity, Doing Time: Feminist Theory and Postmodern Culture, Literature After Feminism, The Uses of Literature, and The Limits of Critique as well as four edited or co-edited volumes. Her new book Hooked: Art and Attachment will be published in 2019.


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Pacific States Environmental Team Celebrates Earth Day at Local Elementary School
April 29, 2014
The Environmental Team at Pacific States celebrated Earth Day 2014 by going to a local elementary school as part of a community project. They set up different stations and did different activities with the children to teach them about pollution and how to protect the environment.
Find a Product
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Moving Industries Forward by Redefining Fire Suppression


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Instructions to read before looking up – September night sky
- Learn what is September and what we do with it,
- Find out what's the Sun up to,
- Find out what's in the Milky Way,
- Find out what Orion and Scorpius are up to
- Find out what are the brightest stars visible at night after sunset and finally find out about our favourite binocular and telescope objects.
A bit about September
September comes from Latin word "septem", which means "seven." This is because in the old Roman calendar it was the 7th month, rather than 9th as it is today. Old Roman calendar used to only have 10 months until Julius Caesar introduced a new Julian calendar with 12 months. September has 30 days and marks the Autumn season in the northern hemisphere, and Spring in the Southern Hemisphere. This is the time of harvest and when many schools start their new school year in the northern hemisphere.
Here, in New Zealand it is the month when we celebrate the September equinox, when the day is equal to the night.
What's the Sun up to?
The Sun rises at 6:47 am on the first day of September and earlier and earlier every day so that on the 28th of September it will rise at 6:01 AM. However, the clock will shift by one hour on the night of the 29 September so on the 30th of September it will rise at 6:57 am. The sun sets at 5:55 PM on the 1st of September and later and later 7:24 PM on the 31st of August. The days are getting longer. September 23rd marks the September Equinox, or the "vernal equinox", the word vernal means spring in Latin. At the equinox, the day and night are roughly the same length. The word "equinox" comes from Latin words "equal" and "night". As the month goes, the days will be longer than nights until we reach Summer Solstice. The equinoxes only occur twice per year so this is a very special astronomical event of the year and you experience it every September!
Spring begins on the 1st of September
Since 1870s New Zealand used the meteorological dates to mark the beginning of spring, thus spring here begins on the 1st of September!
- People who come here from the Northern Hemisphere usually miss this, and they think of the beginning of spring with the autumnal equinox. But just for the sake of the argument, according to WeatherWatch Managing Director Philip Duncan, there are actually four ways to start a season:
(1) looking at astronomical dates, which would place the date on September 22 or 23, based on the equinox,
(2) by meteorological dates – which is a three-month division of the year into seasons, thus Spring starts on September 1,
(3) observing the solar winter, which is the three "darkest" months with the June 21-22 winter solstice in the middle, which shifts the beginning of spring to August 8 and
(4) looking at what nature does, which in New Zealand is hard to pin down.
- This is the Zodiacal band, an awesome drawing by Eugene Georgiades. Since one thousand years ago, when people stopped taking precession into account, the zodiacal constellations have shifted. Yes, we are once again not what we think we are. Here is an excellent site with more details about your real star sign.
In September, the Sun transits first the zodiacal constellations of Leo, and then moves into Virgo on the 17th of September where it stays until October 31st. The zodiacal constellations are those stars visible behind the plane of our solar system, about 8 degrees each side of the ecliptic. This is why we say they form a band in the sky, called the Zodiacal Band. Since the Sun is transiting both the space we call Leo and Virgo it means we cannot see the stars in these constellations, they are behind the Sun.
It's dangerous to look into the Sun!!
Of course, if you have solar telescope, that is well maintained and is designed for looking at the Sun, then you can look at the Sun.
The Sun in Virgo means only one thing: opposite the Sun (that 180 degrees on the other side of the zodiacal band) is Pisces. Pisces will rise just after sunset and be visible all night long.
The Milky Way and Zodiacal Light
Here in Aotearoa, in September, the constellation of scorpius is the Fishhook of Maui that drags the Milky Way down from the sky. We still get to admire the amazing galactic centre and the Milky-Way.kiwi inside it.
Many cultures and languages have various names for the Milky Way. In Kazakh, the Milky Way is called "құс жолы," meaning the "bird's road" (Alina Sabyr).
In addition to the Milky Way, if you are stargazing from somewhere with very dark skies, you can spot what is called the "Zodiacal Light" It's a cone-shaped light that stretches from low on horizon along the ecliptic. The ecliptic marks the plane of our solar system bearing the zodiacal constellations. The ecliptic is "a great circle on the celestial sphere representing the Sun's apparent path during the year, so called because lunar and solar eclipses can only occur when the moon crosses it. The zodiacal light is the light we see reflected from dust and ice particles in the plane of our own solar system! How cool is that? So in the sky we can see both the galaxy that we inhabit and the solar system. Two completely different scales!
Scorpius, Centaurus and Southern Cross
At this time of the year, in Aotearoa, the Māori names for Scorpius is Te Matau A Maui – the fishhook of Maui that drags the Milky Way from the sky all night long. This is alluding to the fact that after sunset you can see the fish hook at Zenith and then falling down towards the western part of the sky.
The constellation Scorpius has a magnificent red supergiant star Antares. It is impossible to miss on a clear night. It looks quite reddish, just like planet Mars! In fact, its name is derived from Greek, meaning "rival to Ares," Ares being Greek reference to planet Mars.
South of Scorpius you can find the constellation of Centaurus, a creature that is half-human and half-horse in Greek mythology. Although the constellation itself is more difficult to discern, it contains two very well known star systems in the southern hemisphere: Alpha and Beta Centauri. Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to Earth! It's about 4.37 light years away so it takes light about 4.37 years to reach it. As a reference, it takes about 8 minutes for light to reach us from the Sun! It is a triple star system and there was an exoplanet discovered orbiting Proxima Centauri, one of the three stars in this system.
Alpha and Beta Centauri can be used as pointers to what is arguably the most well-known constellation in the southern hemisphere, the Southern Cross or Crux. It is on the New Zealand flag! It is seen year-round in New Zealand, and is a circumpolar object in New Zealand.
Circumpolar objects to New Zealand
What does circumpolar mean?
Circumpolar are objects that rotate around the celestial pole. These objects are above the horizon at all times in a given latitude. For instance Casiopeea is circumpolar from Europe but here in Wellington we cannot even see it, it's hidden by the Earth. We could if Earth would have been transparent. Here on the other hand we have the Southern Cross with the pointers that are circumpolar.
The Diamond Cross and the False Cross are circumpolar too. Canopus and Achernar are also circumpolar. The same for the Magellanic Clouds, Omega Centauri, 47 Tucanae, the Jewel Box, the Southern Pleiades, the Gem Cluster and Omicron Velorum. Being circumpolar it means they turn around once every 23 hours and 56 minutes. That's why they are always somewhere else in the sky.
In September, in the evenings, you will find the Southern Cross in the south western part of the sky. So just after sunset is at the 3 o'clock position heading down followed by the pointers. Canopus would be at the same time grazing the southern horizon so hard to see from hilly Wellington. Achernar and the two Magellanic Clouds would be in the south eastern part of the sky.
As it is opposite Scorpius, Orion will appear in the Eastern horizon as Scorpius sets in the western horizon, and at this time of the year is in the early morning sky.
Bright stars
On the Ecliptic
In addition to stars that we have already mentioned, we have a few more to mention.
As seen from Wellington the ecliptic runs through the northern part of the sky. That's why everyone here looks for houses that face north. Very close to the ecliptic are Spica in Virgo early in the month. Spica means "head of grain" from Latin, it's the grain that Virgo is holding. We can also see stars Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamali in Libra, and Nunki in Sagittarius. The ecliptic intersects the Milky Way in Scorpius.
Stars in the Milky Way
Starting from the centre of the Galaxy, going North are Shaula, the stinger of Scorpius and Atria in Triangulum Australe.
Other Bright stars:
In the north, we can see the bright star Altair in Aquila, the constellation of the eagle, a triangle-shaped constellation in north-eastern skies. Canopus, the brightest star in the southern hemispheres continues to shine bright and can be seen near horizon in southern skies.
Dark patches
Other than the Milky Way Kiwi that can be photographed at length this time of the year, the other famous dark patch is the Coalsack, near the Southern Cross. The coalsack is also known as the flounder, which is the Māori name for it. In deed, if you find a truly dark sky, you will see the resemblance.
However, talking about naming objects in the sky, the name of Coalsack is also very appropriate as the dark patch, made of interstellar dust matter holds inside it the Jewel Box, or the Kappa Crucis Cluster, NGC 4755.
Other deep sky objects in September
Some of the deep sky objects that you can point to with a telescope are the Butterfly Cluster (M6), an open cluster in the constellation Scorpius, Wishing Well open cluster (NGC 3532) in Carina and Southern Pinwheel Galaxy in Hydra.
Planets in September 2019
Listen to our September 2019 podcast on Galactic conversations
Thanks to Alina Sabyr for her contribution to this post.


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April 2019 |   Volume: 51 |   Number: 4
The member magazine of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers
Identify your audience, then create a framework for the problem and its solution
By J. MacGregor Smith
Writing a technical paper in industrial and systems engineering for publication is a complex challenge. Not only must
you have something creative to say, you should have a clear idea of your audience and how it will benefit from your
ideas. From one perspective, it can be seen as a network optimization problem where the best flow of ideas is
created. Viewing the problem from this perspective is challenging, informative and ultimately constructive.
You must be an IISE member to have full access to this content. Please log in at the top right corner of this Web page.
IISE members visiting this site for the first time must register. As part of this process you will create a user name and password. This is a one-time process that requires your member number.
If you are not a member, join IISE now and begin enjoying benefits immediately, including full access to ISE magazine.


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RE/MAX, Direct
Part of RE/MAX
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- Aldara Park
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- Fairland
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- Little Falls
- Magaliesburg
- Noordheuwel
- Parys Golf Estate
- Pennington
- Quellerina
- Radiokop
- Reebok
- Roodekrans
- Ruimsig
- Ruimsig Country Estate
- Sundowner
- Weltevreden Park
- Wilgeheuwel
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- Zebula Golf Estate
Residential Property To Rent
- Albertville
- Allens Nek
- Bergbron
- Discovery
- Florida Lake
- Florida North
- Georginia
- Helderkruin
- Homes Haven
- Honeydew Manor
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Commercial Property For Sale
About RE/MAX, Direct
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We treat a rental as seriously as a sale – not as a sideline
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RE / MAX Direct. inspections will be done when the tenant takes occupation (with photographs) and on vacating the property in a twelve month lease.
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A premium of 3.5% of the monthly rent. 6 Months rental guaranteed with an excess of 50% on the first months claim and a R 150 000.00 cover for legal fees in the case of eviction.
Underwriters – Tenrisk.
_ *Commission Charges on an Administration Lease*_
Once off charge of 4% (excluding VAT) take on fee on the annual rental amount. Minimum fee of R1500.00 (excluding VAT).
10% management fee (excluding VAT) on the monthly rental collected every month
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I currently work from two locations – a community centre (wheelchair accessible) and my home (a ground-floor room accessed via two small steps on the front path).
Community Centre
Phoenix House is just off Sittingbourne high street (behind the library, opposite the police station).
The full address is:
Swale Community Centres
Phoenix House
Central Avenue
This venue has step-free access and accessible toilets
There is a car park available for Phoenix House users, at the back of the library car park (to the rear of the Phoenix House building) and spaces are on a first come, first served basis. If it is full, the council-run pay and display car park at the library is less than 100 yards away from Phoenix House (60 spaces, of which 4 are designated as disabled spaces) and rarely full. There are also a small number of spaces for Blue Badge holders along Central Avenue.
Please note that I hire these rooms hourly as needed, I do not have a permanent room here. There may be other Phoenix House users around when you visit.
Swale Community Centres has a website which has a map and details of the centre.
My home
My home therapy space is about a mile and a half from the town centre, drivable in a few minutes and with driveway parking directly outside.


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Personal Quotes
I'd probably have been wealthier if I had stayed with law, but pretty miserable doing it.
"It's basically lazy journalism if they say I'm the new Colin Farrell. This thing about heat, it's all just hot air".
You're an actor who's Irish, not an Irish actor. And you shouldn't be limited by your extraction. On breaking the Irish type cast.
"Well, the first part of the question, I think if you ask any male if you really want to get into a real suit, that was a dream come true obviously and then just to get to work with Chris even for that little test was amazing as well and then I don't know, he saw something in it that he thought maybe he could use for the other characters" - On auditioning for Batman Begins (2005).
"I can have a bit of fun with it, too, because my only motivation really is being bad. I love doing proper dramatic character studies, but it's also good to have a but of fun, dress up and stuff". - On accepting the role of the Scarecrow in Batman Begins (2005).
"Well, we are doppelgangers." - on that Howard Stern nearly played Scarecrow, Cillian's role in Batman Begins (2005), in an early attempted adaptation.
If there's an opportunity to work with Ken Loach, you can't really turn that down. He's made some of the finest films of the past 25 years. Whether you like or dislike his movies, there's never a bad performance in them, ever. There's none of the bullshit. There's no trailers, no nonsense, no pampering. It's a breath of fresh air.
It's easy to take the check, you know, but if you want to have any longevity, just take things that have artistic merit in them. I want to do quality. If it's good telly, I'll do it. If it's good theater, I'll do it.
I've a very, very close-knit group of friends from Ireland. They and my family are the most important things to me.
I don't know if anyone will ever sit beside me on a plane again. - on his role as a terrorist in Vuelo nocturno (2005).
Journalists have a myopic view of your versatility. They're like 'You only play the creep'.
If you behave like a celebrity, then people will treat you like a celebrity, and if you don't, they won't. There's not much to write about me in the tabloids.
Today I pick and choose my films very carefully. There's nothing I've done so far that I can't talk about with commitment and passion.
But you can make wonderful films within a small, independent environment and you can make wonderful films in Los Angeles, within the studio system. You hear a lot of actors saying, 'I'd never go to Hollywood and sell out.' But, if it's a good script and a good director, why not? To shut oneself off completely is, I think, very limiting.
Too many filmmakers today are trying to put their work into a box. I can't stand that! Making movies is a lot of work. Let's take some risks.
"To me, someone's sexuality is usually the least interesting thing about them. It's secondary. The only reason it becomes a source for dramatic storytelling is because people have made such an issue out of it." (about his character in Breakfast on Pluto)
I'm not worried about being pegged, but it's important for me to knock down any perceptions of me that are out there.
I think there's such a thing, as a performance gene. If it's in your DNA it needs to come out. For me it originally came out through music, then segued into acting and came out through there. I always needed to get up and perform.


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Eleanor Roosevelt, Ellie for short, is our second (foster to adopt) dog.
We first fostered a twelve year old rat terrier called Suzi until she was thirteen and a half, when she passed away.
Nobody wanted to adopt an older overweight and slightly handicapped dog, so we kept her until she died.
Suzi lost nineteen pounds while we fostered her and had an unbeatable spirit.
She was my furry little soulmate.
I thought I could save her and give her a longer life, though sadly she was only with us for seventeen months.
After Suzi died, the group that we fostered her for, called Ready for Rescue, contacted us to see if we were too heartbroken or ready to foster again."


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New York City Events, Coupons, Reviews!
Subscribe to KidsScoop! The monthly family event and savings newsletter.
I was given tickets from Moody Gardens to facilitate this review. All opinions are 100% mine.
This summer we spent a week in Galveston. We happened to arrive on the same day that Tropical Storm Bill did. It was incredibly windy and raining, and we thought our vacation was going to be ruined. However, the worst of the storm went around Galveston, and we ended up with a little bit of rain, mild temperatures, and very few lines! It was actually perfect. By the end of the trip, the sun was out again, and we had a great time.
We chose to go to Moody Garden our first day since the storm was still there, and it was raining off and on. Due to the weather, we were not able to check out the water park part of Moody Gardens, but we got to explore all the pyramids.
We had one day tickets, which meant we could go through each attraction one time. Our first attraction was right after the ticket booth, and it was a 4-D movie of Rio. It was my 5-yr olds first 3-D movie. She calls them "stick out movies." Not only was it 3D, but it also had smells and the seats moved. It was about a 15-minute movie with clips put together of the two Rio movies about the blue macaw parrots. It was funny and light, and while there was a message of conservation and not taking animals out of the rainforest, it was not extreme or in your face. We all enjoyed it.
After the movie, we headed to the Rainforest Pyramid. I have to say it was my favorite. There was so much to see. The first stop was the Giant River Otter. It was very relaxing to just watch how active it was. It was out in the rain, then it would come and swim in the tank. There were benches where you could just watch.
To read more about our visit, please click HERE!


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The crucial fuel to anti-African immigrant sentiment, and hence of xenophobia, is the language of illegality which serves to scapegoat African migrants. They are here illegally, the logic goes, therefore they must be criminals.
I have been researching the response of civil society to xenophobic violence in South Africa since 2013. I was motivated to begin this research project because I was impressed with the broad public response to the 2008 violence, which seemed to invoke the best of South Africa's anti-apartheid values.
While conducting my research, I have been fortunate to work with many remarkable activists, particularly migrant activists, and I have encountered powerful condemnations of the xenophobic violence from across South Africa's social spectrum. But I have also become aware of the contradictions that underlie that condemnation, particularly in the way calls for protection of the rights of migrants are matched by anxiety about the threat of African migration, anxiety fuelled by stereotypes and misinformation about African migrants. It is unsurprising to me, therefore, that xenophobic violence has persisted despite expressions of pan-African solidarity.
The crucial fuel to anti-African immigrant sentiment is the language of illegality, which serves to scapegoat African migrants. In my discussions with South Africans of all walks of life, I have encountered two repeated tropes:
South Africa's borders are porous and the government isn't doing enough to control migration (even as deportation and policing of migrants continues to escalate); and
Corrupt, criminal migrants are taking advantage of bad systems, including a broken asylum system, and unfairly claiming opportunities that belong to locals (that is, migrants themselves, rather than inconsistent and contradictory immigration policies, are the source of the problems with our immigration system).
An important feature of the language of immigrant illegality is that it imputes bad character to migrants. Because they deliberately choose to break the law by entering the country without permission, they have shown themselves to be both immoral and untrustworthy and as a result, they deserve to be punished. Failure to punish these treacherous migrants, in turn, would be condoning criminal behaviour, thus undermining the rule of law.
Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba has been a key proponent of these arguments, even as he is simply voicing a widespread commonsense. The irony is, it is exactly this reasoning that is driving the vigilante violence in the first place. By taking the law into their own hands, vigilantes are simply appropriating the state's legitimate monopoly on the abuse and victimisation of migrants.
I think it is important to be critical of the language of illegality, which ascribes a problematic agency to undocumented migrants, thereby masking the structural factor that both creates the condition of illegality and forces certain migrants to move.
It is a fallacy that most African migrants can easily be documented in South Africa. All the African migrants I have worked with are desperate to be documented because being undocumented increases their vulnerability and makes it harder for them to access needed services. But they can't.
South Africa, both during and after apartheid, has consistently limited the ability of African migrants to legally migrate. A profound legacy of apartheid is broad scepticism about the value of African migration. As a result, about the only way for most African migrants to legally enter the country is through claiming asylum, which has only served to magnify the contradictions of our refugee system, which features a nearly 90% rejection rate.
Unfortunately, rather than interrogate those contradictions, we continue to scapegoat African migrants. The problem is those "illegals" rather than the system of legal violence that defines our immigration controls. The result is the continued justification of the heavy-handed policing of migrants, despite calls for the protection of those same migrants.
Even worse, vulnerable migrants end up being conflated with their attackers, implying that they should be treated similarly. Police operations like Operation Fiela, which featured disproportionate arrests of undocumented migrants, exemplify this dynamic. The outcome is a vicious cycle of xenophobia that we are struggling to escape, in part because immigration controls necessitate the very condition we seek to punish. This vicious cycle builds on and reinforces colonial legacies.
I will offer a few brief observations about how we might disrupt this cycle.
To start, I think it is necessary to change the way we think about xenophobia. Xenophobia is not an outlier, it is not simply a matter of individual attitudes, and it is not only expressed through overt hostility. Rather, it is a manifestation of a broad anti-African immigrant culture, which takes shape through a range of forms — from statements by political leaders to township gossip to uncritical media reports — and is finally reified through legal and political institutions of immigration control.
In other words, xenophobia has its roots not in the unjustified hostility of vigilantes, but in the commonsense of border controls. A more complex understanding of xenophobia requires grappling with the dangerous logic of the Mashabas of the world, who, in many ways, reflect the status quo of the international border hegemony and its requisite rhetoric of illegality.
South Africa's xenophobic violence is hardly an exception. Actually, the vigilante violence in South Africa is dwarfed by the legal border violence that has taken the lives of thousands of migrants while crossing the US southern border and the Mediterranean. All of this violence is performed in the name of citizenship and its attendant rights. The irony is that South Africa is under pressure to increase its controls exactly because the US and Europe are deliberately pushing the "risk" of migration back to countries such as South Africa, Turkey, Jordan, Libya, Mexico, Honduras and so on.
In effect, I am asking South Africans to be more critical of the status quo of international immigration controls, which serve to limit the movement of Africans in particular. As the Department of Home Affairs' contradictory 2017 white paper on immigration recognises, the colonial legacy of border controls works to reinforce historical inequalities, which means we need a policy that fundamentally challenges that border logic.
In other words, it is time for us to move from saying "no" to xenophobia to saying "yes" to African migration.
Ryan Solomon / DailyMaverick
Ryan Solomon is a South African academic based in the US who has been conducting research on xenophobia in South Africa since 2013. He is Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric at Colgate University.
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text: John Crichton 4 Report post Posted September 4, 2008 I continue to be amazed at Rolfe's ability to surprise. I was expecting him to tackle Battletoads from the difficulty angle (a bit like Silver Surfer) but instead dissects the horribly unforgiving two player mode. Add in an extended cameo from Kyle Justin, and it's a damn fine video. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites


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The People's Armed Police (PAP) is a paramilitary police force tasked with maintaining law and order, dealing with riots and terrorist attacks, and responding to natural disasters and other emergencies in China. The force is composed of uniformed active-duty servicemen and follows PLA rules and regulations. The PAP is regarded by the Constitution of the People's Republic of China (PRC) as one of the three integral parts of the Armed Forces, along with the PLA and militia/reserve forces.
The main body of the PAP is the Internal Troops (武警内卫部队), with a strength of 660,000 men, or more than half of the PAP's total manpower. In Chinese official documentations, the term "PAP" is often used explicitly to refer to the Internal Troops. In addition, the PAP provides manpower for the three Public Security (police) branches under the authority of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS): Border Defence Troops (公安边防部队), Firefighting Troops (公安消防部队), and Guard Troops (公安警卫部队).
There are also four specialised PAP branches: Forestry Troops (武警森林部队), Gold Mining Troops (武警黄金部队), Transportation Troops (武警交通部队), and Hydropower Troops (武警水电部队), which are non-combat units specialised in economic activities including forest conservation, mining and construction projects.
The PAP was officially created in 1983, but it can trace its lineage back to the Public Security Force (公安部队, PSF) that existed in the history of the PRC between 1950 and 1966. The PSF was originally formed in 1950, and had undergone near-constant mergers and splits with other branches of the PLA and police forces. In July 1966, the PSF was finally disbanded and its troops were absorbed by the PLA.
In 1982, the Chinese leadership decided to transfer the responsibility of internal security from the PLA back to civilian police, in an effort to trim down the military's roles in the country's political and social life. Control over the PLA Internal Guards Troops and various other local PLA units assigned to internal security duties were transferred to the Public Security departments. These units were soon combined with three police branches – Border Defence, Armed Police, and Firefighting – to form the new People's Armed Police.
Over the next two years, as a result of the one-million-man cut in the PLA, three specialised engineering units from the PLA Capital Construction Corps – Gold Mining, Hydropower, and Transportation – were absorbed into the PAP. In 1988, the Armed Forestry Police also joined the PAP. The PAP headquarters, plus specialised bureaus, were created to oversee the operations of the PAP and its specialised branches.
Originally, the PAP was regarded as "a constituent part of the Public Security departments", but the restructuring of PAP leadership and management in the aftermath of the 1989 incident led to the responsibility of overseeing the PAP's daily running taken away from the Public Security departments and centralised under the leadership of the Central Military Commission, resulting in the PAP being further integrated into the military.
Throughout the 1990s, the PAP saw some significant expansion in its force size and continuous elevation of its status within the military. In 1995, the PAP Headquarters was promoted to "Military Region Grade" within the military administrative hierarchy – the same level as the Air Force and Navy. In 1996, 14 PLA infantry divisions were transferred to the PAP Internal Troops to become "mobile divisions". In 1999, the previously shared responsibility of managing the four specialised branches of the PAP was taken away from the government departments and centralised under the sole leadership of the PAP headquarters.
Command and Control
The PAP has been placed under a command and control system of joint government-military leadership, which was described in official PRC writings as "unified leadership and management, with command divided by levels". "Unified leadership and management" refers to the fact that the PAP is under the joint leadership of the CMC and the State Council. The budget of the PAP is funded by the central and local governments, not the defence budget. The control over the force's personnel affairs, political education, and training lies with the CMC, and the force follows PLA rules and regulations.
"Divided command" gives the local Public Security departments the authority to mobilise the PAP within their jurisdictions in the event of emergencies. In order to streamline the PAP's command and control, the Minister of Public Security is concurrently appointed as the First Political Commissar of the PAP. Local public security department chiefs are also appointed as the First Commissars of the local PAP Internal Troops.
It appears that the extraordinary bureaucracy and political complexity in the system of "joint government-military leadership" has created a great deal of ambiguity in the control over the PAP in its operations. As a result, personal relationships among individual local Party secretaries, PAP and PLA commanders, and local Public Security chiefs have become crucial in determining how the PAP will respond in a crisis.
Internal Security Roles
The PAP is responsible for providing armed protections and safeguarding for a wide range of targets, including senior Party and government officials, key Party and government establishments, important public events, prisons and detention centres, foreign embassies and consulates, international airports and seaports, key bridges and tunnels on roads and railway lines, state-owned TV and radio stations, communications hubs, strategic depots, and key industrial facilities.
The PAP also provides assistance for the Public Security (police) and other law enforcement departments of the PRC in maintaining state security and social stability. This includes pursuing and arresting criminals, escorting convicts and prisoners, providing executioners, carrying out armed patrols in key areas of metropolitans and large cities, dealing with riots and uprisings, and fighting serious crimes and terrorism activities. The PAP played a key role in suppressing the ethnic minority secessionism uprisings in Tibet in 2008, and in Xiniiang in 2009.
In 2004, a team of six PAP servicemen from the Internal Troops of Beijing was sent to Bagdad in Iraq to provide protection for Chinese diplomats. This was the first time that PAP troops were deployed to a foreign country. In 2006, a second diplomat protection team was deployed to Kabul in Afghanistan. During the Beijing Olympic torch relay in 2008, a group of 30 PAP servicemen from the Special Police Academy were sent to London, Paris and other cities to escort the torch and stop protestors disrupting the relay.
The PAP Internal Troops are deployed across the country based on geographic locations. Each provincial-level entity (provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities) has an Armed Police General Corps (武警总队, APGC). Each prefectural-level entity (cities and prefectures) has an Armed Police Detachment (武警支队, APD). Each county-level entity (county, league, and town) has an Armed Police Group (武警大队, APG) or Armed Police Squadron (武警中队, APS). There are also 14 Armed Police Mobile Divisions (武警机动师, APMD), which are lightly-armed infantry units similar to the PLA in equipment and training.
The Beijing APGC (武警北京总队) is the largest and one of the best equipped general corps of the PAP, with a strength of over 30,000 troops. The unit is responsible for maintaining the security and social order in the Chinese capital Beijing. The Beijing APGC was formed in 1983 by transferring the 2nd Guard Division of the PLA Beijing Garrison District to the PAP. Following the 1989 Tiananmen incident, the 2nd Beijing APGC was formed by transferring the 4th Guard Division of the Beijing Garrison District to the PAP. The two general corpses were merged into a single bigger Beijing APGC in 1999, and the general corps was promoted to a "Corps Grade" (正军级) unit in 2008.
The Beijing APGC is composed of three division-sized units (1st, 2nd and 3rd Division) and two brigade-sized (9th and 13th APD). The 9th APD is specifically responsible for guarding all foreign embassies and other diplomatic organisations in Beijing. The 13th APD (also known as "Snow Leopard Commando") is an elite special weapon and tactic (SWAT) unit, responsible for dealing with high-profile missions such as counter-terrorism, anti-hijacking, and dealing with abrupt protests and riots.
The Xinjiang APGC plays in a key role in maintaining security and fighting the secessionism movement in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Xinjiang APGC has two regional command headquarters – PAP Southern Xinjiang Command Headquarters (武警南疆指挥部) and PAP Production & Construction Corps Command Headquarters (武警生产建设兵团指挥部). In time of crisis, the general corps could also be reinforced by the 7th Armed Police Mobile Division stationed at Yili, Xinjiang.
Armed Police Mobile Divisions (APMD) were created from the 14 infantry divisions transferred from the PLA to the PAP in 1996. These units retained more military characteristics, including an organisational structure along military lines, with regiments, battalions and companies, instead of APD, APG, and APS found in ordinary PAP units. As well as standard issue individual weapons, mobile divisions are also equipped with some infantry support weapons such as mortars and light anti-tank guns. These units serve as strategic reserve for the PAP Headquarters, intended to be deployed anywhere within the country if required.
The PAP also maintains various tactical counterterrorism (CT) and special police units, specially trained and equipped to carry out high-risk missions such as hostage rescue, counter-terrorism, engaging heavily-armed criminals, and dealing with mass protests and riots. The PAP Special Police College (武警特警学院) is a national counter-terrorism and anti-hijacking unit that combines both combat and education functions. The 3rd APG of the 13th APD of the Beijing APGC, also known as "Snow Leopard Commando", is a 300-men commando unit with four specialised squadrons for counter-terrorism, bomb disposal, chemical, biological, and radiological (CBR) safety, and sniper fire roles.
The PAP Internal Troops are equipped with standard-issue military weapons including the Type 81 and Type 95 assault rifle, Type 79 submachine gun, Type 56 and 81 light machine gun, Type 79 and Type 88 sniper rifle, and Type 69 rocket-propelled grenade launcher. For law enforcement and anti-riot missions, the troops are also allocated with standard police equipment such as batons, riot shields, and body armours. Some APMDs also retained some infantry support weapons including 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine guns, 82mm recoilless guns and 82mm mortars.
PAP servicemen wear the olive-green PAP uniform in peacetime, and the digital camouflage or black combat uniform during training and operations. For transportation, the PAP troops are equipped with various trucks and other motor vehicles, and have to rely on railway or military aircraft for long-distance travelling. Some PAP units are equipped with small numbers of wheeled and tracked armoured personnel carriers (APC) and specially-modified anti-riot vehicles, as well as helicopters.
Last updated: 1 January 2017


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Lately on social media I've been hearing about Black women talking about Black men calling them "Basic Brothas" whatever that's supposed to mean. Nothing new here. Pay attention to social media platforms and it is easy to find examples of Black women going on in Black men. Often the sistas will talk about personality traits of Black men but if one digs deeper this is just a smoke screen. The underlying issue is that some Black women are really hard on many Black men because of their physical appearance. When Black women call some Black men lame it's not because of their personality or what they do or not do in life. Many Black women are really criticizing Black men on their looks and style. I've seen this in the real world.
Years ago I was at a relationship forum. It was unique in a sense because the format was a panel of men addressing mostly a group of Black women. At one point an older sister stood up told these men who were educated and gainfully employed that they were, "nothing." Many sistas consigned the woman. Later a cool sista friend who was there told me the women felt the way they did because the men weren't "fine."
Now the issue of Black women judging Black men on physical appearance I've addressed elsewhere. The funny thing about this particular incident was that many of the women judging these men wouldn't be offered modeling contracts themselves. The thought of getting phone numbers from this group of women didn't occur to me. Most of these women would need a makeover to get to average looking. It's the same thing on social media.
One of the most interesting things I've noticed on social media with Black women who attack Black men is that they never show their faces. There are only a few exceptions to this rule. Indeed many will use a model's picture as their icon. One thing I peeped with attractive women is that they will at least show their face. Not with these basic Black women. They talk more trash about Black men on social media and in real life and they are frequently butt ugly. Even in the real world the most disagreeable Black women are ugly and out of shape. Sometimes they have funky attitudes even when Black men try to be nice to them. This dynamic is the exact opposite when it comes to physically attractive Black women.
Something I peeped since I was young was that the Black women who are physically attractive as a whole don't have anything negative to say about Black men on social media and in real life. As with everything there may be a few exceptions. Very few though. Indeed even if an attractive Black woman has a disagreement with Black men she will handle it using class and what someone termed "Irish Diplomacy." Irish Diplomacy is telling someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip. Attractive Black women will use their femininity to get their point across. Also the way they carry themselves Black men are more likely to show them respect even in disagreements. Also many attractive Black women tend to be more supportive of Black men in general.
Basic Black women, the unattractive and unappealing ones hurt themselves in their efforts to put down Black men. An old saying is that if as a woman you are fat and ugly you need to at least be nice. Apparently many of these women didn't get the memo. These basic sistas may congratulate each other for some trash they are saying to brothas but really they make themselves more unattractive.


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Bella Vista Lounge
A casual, inviting setting located in the lobby lounge, overlooking the 18th hole of Tiburón Golf Club, Bella Vista is ideal for relaxing with a glass of vintage port or champagne, inventive cocktails and savory fare. Or, unwind at dusk on the Bella Vista Terrace while lounging in the cozy Adirondack chairs aside glowing fire pits.
Enjoy Bella Vista's delectable lunch and dinner menus, featuring modern world cuisine, using local ingredients.
New to Bella Vista is an extensive list of creative libations, using only fresh fruits, juices and herbs, like Elderflower, Jerry Thomas Bitters and Sage.
- Savor fine wines, champagnes, cocktails and cordials while overlooking Tiburón Golf Club's 18th hole.
- Relax by the fire pits on the Bella Vista Terrace nightly.
- The terrace is also available for al fresco dining with spectacular views.
- Resort casual attire.
- Lunch and Dinner menu available 12 p.m. – 12 a.m.
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Seven Days a Week, 11:30 a.m. - 12 a.m.; Including all-day menu and beverage service.
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THS Baseball Donation
William Fritcher
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
An anonymous donor has come forward to give about $2,000 toward extending the backstop at the THS baseball field so we do not have to chase as many foul balls across the railroad tracks. There is one catch to the donation. The donor wants another $1,000 in donations prior to giving us the funds for the extension of the backstop. Those interested in learning more or making a donation can contact THS Athletic Director Mike Wilson or Athletic Secretary Sharon Roepke. The number at THS is 857-3139.


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I have to confess that while I am not so excited about shoes for myself, I absolutely adore baby shoes, and now that I have a beautiful little baby again, my obsession has been reignited.
I saw these absolutely adorable aqua sandals on flickr one day (browsing through one of the many baby shoe groups I have joined, of course!) and when I realised she was selling them, I quickly flickr-mailed Wendy and asked for a pair to be made especially for Madelyn. They are crocheted and whi;le I can do lots of different things crafty, Ican't crochet for the life of me. I managed a few granny squares as a teenager, but couldn't even do that when I tried again as an adult.
Choosing the colours was the hardest part. You all know how much I love aqua, and I was never much of a "pink person" until Madelyn came along. However I am really fond of pink on her - it's kind of celebration of the fact I have a daughter I guess, and she has the most adorable little dress with pink flowers and mint trim so I thought these colours would go with the dress perfectly.
I can't wait to get them now, they are just so beautiful! I will be stalking the postie over the next two weeks I think, and they will be here for us to take all the way back to the US for my graduation day, to wear with that pretty dress.
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Shoe fenatic!
I have to confess that while I am not so excited about shoes for myself, I absolutely adore baby shoes, and now that I have a beautiful little baby again, my obsession has been reignited.
5 comments:
- Emma said...
How cute!
- 25 March 2009 at 8:32 pm
- Karen said...
Adorable Joy - I've had no luck getting shoes to stay on Miss G - she rubs her feet and gets them off every time!
Can't wait to see them with the whole outfit!
- 25 March 2009 at 9:27 pm
- AJ said...
OMG!!! they are the sweetest things...might have to get some myself...even if it is a boy :P
- 25 March 2009 at 10:56 pm
- Sereknitty said...
Oh my, so cute!
- 26 March 2009 at 4:15 pm
- Belinda said...
They are just adorable!!!
- 8 April 2009 at 3:41 pm


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EPAA/AAPE is a peer-reviewed, open-access, international, multilingual, and multidisciplinary journal designed for researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and development analysts concerned with education policies. EPAA/AAPE accepts unpublished original manuscripts in English, Spanish and Portuguese without restriction as to conceptual and methodological perspectives, time or place. EPAA/AAPE publishes issues comprised of empirical articles, commentaries, and special issues at roughly weekly intervals, all of which pertain to educational policy, with direct implications for educational policy.
Allison I. Griffith
York University
Alison I. Griffith, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education, York University, ON, Canada. As Associate Dean of the Field Development unit at York University, she is actively involved in the design and implementation of professional development programs for Ontario educators and has published extensively in the area of school leadership and educational reforms.
Svitlana Taraban
York University
Svitlana Taraban holds Master's degree in Educational Administration from University at Buffalo. Currently, she is a Doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Education, York University, Canada.
Contact EPAA//AAPE at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College


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12 Jul, 2011
Moment of Bliss #013
Posted by andrea tomkins in: Moments of bliss|Multimedia experiments
I am lying on the border of warm and cold, cool and damp from a dip in the lake but quickly warming in the summer sun. The water beads on my skin and evaporates.
The sky, which had opened the day wearing shades of white and grey is now almost completely blue overhead.
I listen to the shouts of children amid the sound of waves hitting the sand. There is much happiness here and I feel like I'm absorbing it all, along with the sun, and it's charging me up like a drained battery.
I turn my view upwards to take it all in.