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Somewhere, during the elaborate choreography leading up to my initial meeting with Issa Rae, a miscommunication between her publicist and me led to my asking Rae how the filming of her pilot was going. Rae pressed her chin to her chest and rolled her eyes upward, making the universal face for: ''Are you kidding me?'' Actually, she explained, the show had no director attached, no pit crew, not even the slightest inkling of a cast. She was nowhere near filming. All she had was a finished script and a charged cellphone.
It was a sweltering March morning, and we were sitting in her office in Inglewood, Calif., a small and efficient affair just a few blocks from where she grew up. It's little more than a couple of nearly empty rooms, mostly used for meetings — that is, when Rae has meetings to take. She pulled out a box of Frito-Lay snack packs and offered me one.
Rae, who is 30, was fresh off a photo shoot for the May issue of Essence magazine. It had anointed her, per the cover line, a ''game changer,'' alongside some of the biggest names in television and film, including Shonda Rhimes and Ava DuVernay. Two years ago, HBO hired Rae based on the viral success of her YouTube show ''The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl,'' which she wrote, directed and starred in. The first episode alone attracted almost two million views by serving up a slice of black life not often available on-screen — a quirky, misanthropic main character, like Liz Lemon but with more melanin.
Rae looked at her phone briefly, then asked me if I'd read a story published that day on the website Indiewire. It was a sort of census of TV pilots, and it found that 73 were in the works featuring black actors in major roles. Included in that tally was the show Rae is developing for HBO, tentatively titled ''Insecure.'' But her part as the lead character was the only one she'd been able to cast. People had warned her that television is notoriously slow, but it has been excruciating for Rae, who built her career ad hoc, out of her bedroom.
Recently, the critical and commercial success of shows like ''Black-ish'' and ''Empire'' has demonstrated to Hollywood executives that the public is hungry for complex characters of color. Now they must figure out how to bring them to life. In a way, whether Hollywood can adapt to creators like Rae will be a litmus test for how seriously it takes black entertainment.
I had seen the story on Indiewire, and mentioned that 73 seemed higher than I expected. Rae slowly nodded, tempering her optimism: ''It still feels like we need to be in charge to prioritize story lines. Behind the scenes, it can be very white.'' I asked if she thought that mattered. ''I think so,'' she said. ''Otherwise, it could just be a trend.''
A few days later, Rae took me for a ride past the strip malls, drought-parched lawns and stucco houses that make up View Park-Windsor Hills, the South Los Angeles neighborhood where she spent her formative years. She bounced giddily in the driver's seat as she reeled off a list of beloved black movies and television shows set in the area: ''Boyz N the Hood,'' ''Moesha,'' the rom-com ''Love and Basketball'' and the TV show ''Girlfriends.'' These movies and shows captivated Rae when she was young, not because they were shot near her but because they offered a glimpse of how black lives could be depicted on-screen. They felt real to her, textured, authentic creations.
Windsor Hills is also known for being among the wealthiest black neighborhoods in the country. Rae drove us by a low-slung ranch house that, from the outside, appeared to have a generous rec room, and a palatial white home that Rae said had probably been added to since she lived there. They were just a couple of blocks apart, and she spent two large, but very separate, portions of her childhood in them.
Her mother, Delyna, is from Louisiana, and her father, Abdoulaye, is from Senegal. They met while studying in France, started a family, then moved around a lot before briefly settling with their five young children in Windsor Hills in the '80s. Adboulaye, a doctor, was working to build a pediatric clinic in nearby Inglewood. His clinic is still there, on the corner of West Manchester Boulevard and South Seventh Avenue. Rae took me by it as part of her tour, and the building bears his name in 1,000-point font: A. Diop Family Care Medical Group. (Issa Rae's full name is Jo-Issa Rae Diop.) The family fell into an exceptionally average life, until escalating gang violence unnerved Rae's mother. She insisted that the family relocate to Senegal, and Rae's father agreed; living in Africa would also instill his children with discipline and respect for their heritage.
In 1988, they moved to a lavish home, kitted out with a security guard and a maid, in an upscale neighborhood in Dakar — the capital and Abdoulaye's hometown. Rae's father tried and failed to open a hospital there, and after about two years, the family moved back to Windsor Hills. Rae's mother enrolled her in one of the best schools in South Los Angeles, King/Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science.
Until then, Rae had zigzagged between private schools, where she stood out for being black, and public schools, where she was mocked for her so-called white affectations. King/Drew was largely black and Latino, and she relished her immersion in mainstream American black culture, which until then she had mostly experienced through TV. Rae calls it her ''pinnacle black experience.'' It was also here that she began taking acting seriously. King/Drew's drama department often staged complex and challenging narratives about race; Rae participated in a production of ''On Strivers' Row,'' a 1939 play about class conflict among Harlemites.
Rae went to Stanford University, where she majored in African and African-American studies. She found the drama department to be bland in comparison with King/Drew's, but she continued acting and directing outside it. Inspired by a classmate who'd written and produced a D.I.Y. hip-hop opera, Rae started working on a project of her own: a stage adaptation of Spike Lee's ''School Daze.'' It attracted a packed house. Rae realized she liked writing and producing — as well as the feeling of bypassing gatekeepers.
A 20-minute drive from campus, in a makeshift office above a Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim were developing a video-sharing website called YouTube. When Rae first discovered the site, she mostly used it to watch old ''American Idol'' clips. Soon she started to make raunchy music videos with her friends and classmates for parody songs they wrote, like ''Working the V'' and ''Nani Pop.''
During her senior year, she recruited friends to star in a soapy, low-budget mockumentary series she wrote about student life at Stanford called ''Dorm Diaries.'' The series alternated between vignettes of action and confessionals, like those on MTV's ''Real World.'' But unlike the cast of that show, which tends to include one or two black characters per season, Rae's actors were all black. Rae posted episodes of ''Dorm Diaries'' to Facebook, and the show quickly circulated around her campus. From there, it spread to others, like Georgetown and Harvard. Rae learned that she had a knack for portraying everyday black life — not made special by its otherness or defined in contrast to whiteness, but treated as a subject worthy of exploration all of its own. ''It was a light bulb, my epiphany moment,'' she says.
After graduating in 2007, Rae got a fellowship at the Public Theater in New York. She planned to pitch ''Dorm Diaries'' to MTV or BET. Then, one night, thieves broke into her Washington Heights apartment and stole thousands of dollars' worth of equipment, including her laptops, camera and all of her tapes. Even her scripts and the pitch reel she was polishing for the networks were taken.
The burglary left her in debt and depressed; you can't make movies without equipment. Still, she forced herself to attend film networking events. She found them absurd and torturous, especially for an introvert (which Rae likes to claim she is). After a particularly excruciating gathering, Rae was sitting on her bed in her apartment, drawing in her journal. She scrawled out the words: ''I'm awkward. And black.'' Rae liked the way they challenged the archetypes generally available for black people in entertainment, especially women, who are often cast as sassy, power tops, angry or motherly figures — sometimes a combination of them all — but rarely awkward. This thought process led her to create a character that, much like Rae herself, defied these stereotypes: a woman at home in her blackness, but shy, who grappled with her identity, and who loved rap music but couldn't dance to it to save her life. This sketch became the basis for her alter ego, J, the protagonist of ''Awkward Black Girl.''
In Rae's best-selling memoir, also called ''The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl,'' published earlier this year, she writes about her discomfort with ''Precious,'' the critically acclaimed 2009 movie about an abused, illiterate, pregnant black teenager. It is punishing to watch; in one of its most vivid scenes, Precious steals and eats a bucket of fried chicken and then vomits into a trash can. Rae felt uneasy ''not because I disliked the film, not because I couldn't relate to the story, but because Hollywood was so [expletive] excited about this movie,'' she writes. ''Is that what it takes to create a sympathetic black female lead character?'' In a sense, it is this question that has animated Rae's short career in television writing.
One episode of ''Awkward Black Girl,'' titled ''The Job,'' encapsulates the show's seamless blend of race politics and Seinfeldian situational comedy. On the show, J works as a telemarketer for Gutbusters, a dubious weight-loss-supplement company in Los Angeles, and in this particular episode, she cuts off all of her hair after a boyfriend dumps her. J's boss, an older white woman, becomes fascinated with the haircut, asking a series of rapid-fire questions: ''Do you wash it?'' ''Can you wash it?'' ''Can I touch it?'' J's eyes widen in disbelief as she fantasizes about a variety of ways to shut her up, including smushing her boss in the face and yelling ''Stop!'' Eventually, she is required to attend anger-management counseling, which allows her to grow closer to another attendee: a gentle blond man named Jay (christened White Jay by fans, a name that stuck).
Part of the sly genius of the show is that viewers are let in on J's interior monologue — the show leans heavily on voice-over — and much of the humor comes from the tension between her self-image and the impression she makes on others, who generally struggle to reconcile all of the seemingly incongruent aspects of her identity. In one episode, after J sleeps over at White Jay's house and borrows a clean shirt from him, a new receptionist gives J's short Afro and baggy clothes a knowing smirk, and invites her to an L.G.B.T. support group. J scrambles to come up with a way to say she isn't gay without causing offense, but she can't find one, so she reluctantly accepts the invitation.
Rae grew up in the '90s, which is sometimes called the golden era of black television. Many of the most memorable shows on TV that decade — ''The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,'' ''Family Matters,'' ''Martin,'' ''In Living Color,'' ''Sister, Sister'' — starred black actors and were written by black writers, and many had long runs on major networks. Some smaller networks had entire lineups that skewed black, too: Fox, UPN and the WB in particular. But this era was short-lived. Kristal Brent Zook, the author of ''Color by Fox: The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television,'' says that the collapse was caused by these networks tacking toward the mainstream. In the mid-'90s, Fox started to model itself after the Big Three networks. ''Once they had the means to move up in the world, they didn't need the African-American viewer anymore,'' Zook says. ''In 1994, they just canceled the majority of black-produced shows in one fell swoop.'' UPN ended up in CBS's portfolio and was then merged with the WB to form a new station called the CW, best known for ''Gilmore Girls.''
Black television was a lifeline for Rae, especially during a period of her childhood spent in Maryland. ''When I was in Potomac as the sole black girl, these shows were my access to black culture in some ways,'' she writes in her memoir. ''When I moved to Los Angeles, and the kids said I talked white but had nappy hair, I found a sort of solace in knowing that Freddie from 'A Different World' and Synclaire from 'Living Single' were napped out, too. I could be worse things.'' Freddie and Synclaire were free-spirited black women who could be described in many ways — artsy, oddballs, sporty, cultivators of strange hobbies and affectations — and yet were unequivocally and undeniably black.
As she grew up, Rae became disillusioned by the rise of catty reality-television tropes and token stock characters. She describes them in her book as the ''extremely tragic black woman, or the magic helpless Negro, or the many black men in dresses.''
''How hard is it to portray a three-dimensional woman of color on television or in film?'' she writes. ''I'm surrounded by them. They're my friends. I talk to them every day. How come Hollywood won't acknowledge us? Are we a joke to them?''
Her own show was an instant hit online in 2011, and soon a number of networks and production companies expressed interest in adapting ''Awkward Black Girl'' for prime-time TV. To Rae's disappointment, most wanted to completely rework the show. Rae recalls a phone conversation with a network executive who wanted to make it into a pan-racial franchise operation, starting with ''Awkward Indian Boy.'' Another suggested Rae recast the lead with a lighter-skinned actress with long, straight hair — in essence, the exact opposite of Rae. She turned down the offers.
''They wanted to make it as broad as possible, broadly niche, but I was like: No, that's not what this is about,'' she says. Another botched opportunity came in the summer of 2012 with Shonda Rhimes and Rhimes's production partner, Betsy Beers. Rae pitched them a show called ''I Hate L.A. Dudes,'' a comedy about a woman trying to date preening, image-obsessed men in Hollywood. Rhimes and Beers loved it so much that they sold it to ABC. But Rae had trouble getting the script ready for pilot-reading season that winter. She recalls fielding constant, sometimes overlapping and contradictory notes from the network and Rhimes's team. (Rhimes declined to be interviewed for this story.) In the end, her treatment fell short of expectations, and the pilot wasn't picked up. ''I compromised my vision, and it didn't end up the show that I wanted,'' she says. ''It wasn't funny anymore.''
While Rae grappled with the pressure to dilute her sensibilities to find mainstream approval, Silicon Valley would once again intervene in her favor. The rise of digital streaming over the past few years has altered the calculus of representation in television. Broadcast networks are no longer the sole creators and distributors of shows; a vast array is being produced by media and technology companies, including Snapchat, Yahoo, Hulu and Amazon. Even premium networks like Showtime and HBO have introduced stand-alone digital products to appeal to younger viewers and have shifted their focus to making original programming — which, in the long run, may drive subscriptions. This shift allows — and encourages — the creation of bold, nontraditional programming that can be aimed at specific audiences instead of the broadest market possible.
In February 2013, Rae received a call from Casey Bloys, executive vice president of programming at HBO, who wondered if she had any other ideas to pitch. She eventually came to the network with the concept for ''Insecure.'' It's about a woman on the brink of turning 30 who is wrestling with the onset of her delayed adulthood. She would be played by, and loosely based on, Rae.
Rae happened to share a management firm, 3 Arts, with the actor and writer Larry Wilmore, and it arranged for Wilmore to walk her through the screenwriting process. Before he joined Comedy Central, Wilmore had a hand in practically every black television show of note: ''In Living Color,'' ''The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,'' ''The Jamie Foxx Show,'' ''The Bernie Mac Show,'' ''The PJs,'' ''Sister, Sister'' and even the short-lived ''Whoopi.'' He spent a month interviewing Rae. They would sit for hours on his building's rooftop in downtown Los Angeles. ''I asked her what was going on in her life, what's important to her, her sex life, what she thinks about, and we built the show out of that,'' Wilmore says. ''She had the ideas for characters, and we created a world around them.'' They wrote the first script in eight days and revised it over the following weeks.
HBO approved the script for ''Insecure'' in December 2014. Rae was excited to hire a support staff of other nonwhite directors and producers who would be intimately familiar with the milieu inhabited by her characters. She had a wish list of people she liked — primarily young women of color — but she soon found out HBO had little interest in hiring them. Generally, an HBO spokeswoman said, the network wants people who have experience.
By this March, Rae was eager for some forward momentum but still wary of ending up with the wrong team. She knew she needed a showrunner who would be amenable to her vision and polished enough to please the networks. Chris Rock had expressed interest in directing the pilot episode of the show, but he wanted to shoot it in New York. This would have been convenient for him but would have undermined Rae's desire to depict her Southern California home. (Rock declined to comment.) Eventually, HBO offered a promising candidate: Prentice Penny, a black showrunner with a reputation for his work on ''Scrubs,'' ''Brooklyn Nine-Nine'' and the colorfully strange ''Happy Endings.''
Shortly after our conversation in her office, Rae and I drove to a gastropub in Culver City, where she and Penny were scheduled to meet. We were shown to a booth in the back of the restaurant, an industrial-chic joint with exposed steel piping. As we waited for Penny to arrive, Rae fidgeted, obsessively smoothing out her checkered button-down shirt. She was nervous; a lot was riding on the meeting. A few minutes later, Penny breezed in, looking every bit the part of a successful Hollywood writer, with the kind of dewy skin that comes from expensive moisturizers and a visibly sculpted physique beneath a fitted periwinkle shirt and stylishly tapered sweatpants.
He sat down, summoned the waiter and ordered a Manhattan. Then he told Rae that he had a message from Mara Brock Akil, the creator of the UPN sitcom ''Girlfriends,'' which gave Penny his start as a writer. When she heard that he was meeting with Rae about her show, she gave him a stern warning: ''She said, 'Don't [expletive] it up! Get this black girl's vision right.' '' Both broke into laughter. Penny continued: ''I told her, 'That's easy!' ''
Penny asked Rae where she grew up, and when she told him, his face lit up in recognition. He knew Windsor Hills well, and they played that classic Southern California name game of intersections and boulevards. Rae sat back in the booth, a beatific grin spreading across her face. ''That's the neighborhood I want to depict,'' she said.
Rae and Penny ordered food and talked about how they'd handle some of the scenes in the treatment. In one scene, Rae's character is dumped and goes on a bender; in another, she and her best friend, Molly, have a philosophical discussion about Marge Simpson. He told her to focus on the relationship between the two protagonists. ''People will watch if Molly and Issa have chemistry,'' he said. Penny pushed Rae to think about the vibe of her show: its look (polished or gritty?), the pace (quick cuts or slow-moving scenes?) and even the color palette (washed-out or glossy?). He said it would be important to differentiate her show from HBO's other female-centric offerings, to increase not only its chances of being picked up for a full season but also the likelihood of a renewal for a second season. And renewal is the goal, he said — there's no surer sign of success in Hollywood.
''Insecure'' will deal with race and cultural identity directly, so Penny encouraged Rae to think creatively about how she might portray the duality between what he described as ''the internal and external Issa.'' Despite some writers' ambivalence about voice-over, Penny praised her use of it, especially on ''Awkward Black Girl.'' One of Rae's strengths as a writer is her ability to wring comedy out of the peculiarity of the black experience in America, specifically what W. E. B. Du Bois called ''double-consciousness'': the sense that you're always looking at yourself through the eyes of others, and trying to pre-emptively understand what judgments and opinions they may be making about you at any given moment. Penny seemed to understand this. ''These are the things that we as black people think and feel and can't say,'' he said. ''It's the fine line we all walk.''
Lena Waithe, a producer of the recent movie ''Dear White People,'' thinks a coming cluster of TV shows, including Rae's, will broaden the types of stories being told about black America. ''She was at the beginning of the wave of creators, black millennials who don't fit into either stream,'' she says. ''They don't come from the 'hood, but they aren't the Huxtables.'' She pointed to Jerrod Carmichael and Donald Glover, two black comics whose pilots were recently picked up. ''There are black people on television, but they're still painted with broad strokes,'' she says. ''We don't have characters painted with tiny paintbrushes.''
Rae's desire to render her world accurately has pushed her to be particular about her hiring decisions. To direct her pilot, Rae signed on Melina Matsoukas, best known for her lush art direction on music videos, including Rihanna's ''We Found Love.'' At a casting session in July, Matsoukas and Rae were auditioning a woman for the Molly character. Molly is modeled on Rae's real-life best friend, a corporate lawyer who grew up in South Central and can flawlessly toggle her speech patterns and behaviors to suit her environment. Rae didn't quite know how to ask the actress to act more ''street,'' but she needed to see if she could code-switch with the same dexterity as her friend. Matsoukas tried to guide the actress through it, and she fumbled despite the coaching, helping Rae realize she might not be the right person for the role.
As Rae sees it, the lack of diversity in writers' rooms makes it hard to develop complex characters of color on-screen. Her solution is to bring more people of color into the television-writing pipeline, so she spends much of her free time working on Color Creative, a digital platform she co-founded for minority writers. She helps produce and find funding for their web shows, and offers aspiring writers a place to showcase their work. She started the organization, in part, as a response to her own difficulties with the network pitching process. ''I don't ever want it to be just me, ever,'' she says. ''That is the worst feeling, to be alone, because then all the pressure is on you. People expect you to be the voice of everyone.''
As Penny and Rae finished their meal, Penny told her stories from his decade-long career, in which he was, more often than not, the only black person in the writers' room. In 2000, he made a film about the way men and women interpret milestones in relationships. Its working title was ''You Say Tomato,'' but his production company wanted to package it better for a black audience. Rae erupted with laughter as he dropped the punch line: The movie was eventually released as ''Soul Talkin'.''
Throughout the arc of his career, Penny explained, he has often found himself in situations that required a delicate touch, and he stressed the importance of staying professional in uncomfortable settings. His anecdotes and advice added up to something like a guide to navigating Hollywood while black. Rae listened, rapt, drinking in his words. He later summarized his philosophy to me this way: ''Make sure you're professional, and your stuff is tight. Have it together. You can't ever look like you are not on your game. As a writer of color, be strategic, and be careful.''
The check came, and Rae picked it up. Before they left, they lingered, seemingly reluctant to say goodbye. Eventually, Penny grew serious, offering words of motivation. ''I want you to win,'' he said. ''If you win, another Issa wins. And another, and another.''


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How a Small North Carolina Community Is Pushing Back on Pollution
By Isabella Garcia
On Thanksgiving Day 2019, right after Caroline Laur had finished giving thanks for her home, a neighbor at church told her that a company had submitted permit requests to build an asphalt plant in their community. The plans indicated the plant would be 250 feet from Laur's backdoor.
Grassroots Resistance
The plant that would threaten Laur's health and home was awaiting the approval of an air permit by the North Carolina Department of Air Quality which, if approved, would basically greenlight the project. "This made me get out and go door to door," Laur says. One by one, she alerted her neighbors to the prospect of the asphalt plant. "I got to meet some of my neighbors I never knew before," she says. "There's no secret that there has always been a pretty strong line between the White community and the Black community here." In the end, three neighbors joined her efforts—the Rev. Bryon Shoffner, Anita Foust, and Bill Compton. Together, they formed the Anderson Community Group to advocate for environmental justice in their community.

"We are all the four corners of the community," Laur says with a laugh. "You've got a sick old White lady, Rev. Shoffner is a disabled vet, you've got Anita, who is a Black woman, and you've got a White, old country farmer. We all come from different faiths, but we've all come together as one."

Suddenly thrust into activism, the group contacted the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, a coalition that provides resources and connections with other groups. "We advocate, we organize, and we assist communities with whatever actions they are thinking of trying to protect themselves," says Naeema Muhammad, the network's co-director. Muhammad met with the activists from Anderson and recognized their need for legal advice, so she connected them with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The legal resources were key when the group determined that the data from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality's environmental justice report wasn't adding up.

The report—a requirement for all DEQ permit requests—stated that the Anderson community was 33% minority. That seemed far too low to the residents, so the Anderson Community Group did a census of each house within a 1-mile radius of the proposed plant—the same radius considered in the DEQ's environmental justice report.

"Rev. Shoffner went out into the community and did his own survey and found out that it was more than 70% minority," Laur says. "That was huge, because that changed the situation to a Title VI matter." Title VI is a federal civil rights law that prevents people from being discriminated against on the grounds of race, color, or national origin. Title VI cases require a more rigorous and comprehensive environmental justice report, so recognizing the Anderson community as a Title VI matter increases the strength of their request for a more in-depth report.

The massive difference in race demographics comes down to census data, Laur says. The DEQ was using race data from the 2010 census, which was only completed by about 64% of the population of Caswell County—the county where Anderson is located. Laur says the Anderson population response rate could be even lower because the community is considered "hard-to-count" by the U.S. Census Bureau.

"The people who don't fill it out are rural people who want to keep their land and don't want zoning and minorities," Laur says, which creates skewed race demographics. The Anderson Community Group said that when they brought up this issue with the director of North Carolina DEQ, he said he was aware of the problem.

"So that tells me that all the EJ reports in North Carolina that have been done may not even be valid, just like ours," Laur says. "We were told that we are the first [community members] who have ever doubted it and checked it out."

Elevating Voices
Determined to have new data collected, the Anderson Community Group rallied in early 2020. After learning from the state Department of Air Quality, the department responsible for approving or rejecting the asphalt air permit, that 100 statements of concern from community members would be sufficient to trigger a public hearing, the Anderson group gathered letters of concern from their community. They submitted more than 108.

"Then we were told there wasn't enough concern to have a public hearing," Laur says. "So, we started inundating the [Department of Air Quality director with emails and phone calls from the community."

Finally, in February 2020, the DEQ declared a public comment period for the issue, effectively placing the air permit for the asphalt plant on hold until a public hearing August 3. The public hearing will be held online because of COVID-19, but Laur says most people in Anderson don't own computers, and won't be able to attend. When the community group filed a complaint regarding accessibility, the DEQ then allowed public comments to be submitted via voicemail.

"Well, we don't have a cell tower out here," Laur says. She has personally never been able to use her cellphone in her home, and even her landline phone drops calls frequently. Even being able to afford a landline is a luxury in Anderson, Laur says.

By Danielle Nierenberg and Jason Flatt
The world's Indigenous Peoples face severe and disproportionate rates of food insecurity. While Indigenous Peoples comprise 5 percent of the world's population, they account for 15 percent of the world's poor, according to the World Health Organization.
1. Aboriginal Carbon Foundation (Oceania)
The Aboriginal Carbon Foundation is building a carbon farming industry in Australia by Aboriginals, for Aboriginals. The Foundation offers training and support for new Indigenous farmers so they can learn how to capture atmospheric carbon in the soil. The carbon farming projects generate certified Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCU), which major carbon-producing businesses must purchase to offset their carbon emissions. Income generated by ACCUs is reinvested in Aboriginal communities by the Aboriginal Carbon Foundation and its participating farmers.

2. AgroEcology Fund (International)
The AgroEcology Fund (AEF) galvanizes global leaders and experts to fund biodiverse and regenerative agriculture projects worldwide. Projects funded by AEF have included Indigenous food sovereignty initiatives, agroecology training institutions, and women's market access networks on every continent. With the support of governments and financial institutions, AEF hopes that agroecology will become the standard model for food production worldwide within thirty years.

3. Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (Asia)
The Asia Indigenous People Pact is an alliance of Indigenous organizations across southern and eastern Asia. Collectively, the Pact promotes and protects Indigenous lands, food systems, and biodiversity. Their alliance is bolstered by regional youth and women's networks, as well as support from international institutions, including the United Nations and Oxfam.

4. Association of Guardians of the Native Potato from Central Peru (South America)
The Association of Guardians of the Native Potato from Central Peru (AGUAPAN) is a collective of Indigenous farmers. Each farmer grows between 50 and 300 ancestral varieties of potato, which are indigenous to the Andes Mountains of modern-day Peru. AGUAPAN farmers preserve the crop's biodiversity in their native communities and band together to advocate for economic, gender, education, and healthcare equity.

5. Cheyenne River Youth Project (North America)
The Cheyenne River Youth Project in Eagle Butte, South Dakota has served Lakota youth for more than three decades. Its Native Food Sovereignty initiative offers public workshops on Three Sisters gardening of corn, beans, and squash. They also offer classes on Indigenous plants, gardening, and cooking. Their Winyan Tokay Win (Leading Lady) Garden serves as an outdoor classroom to reacquaint Lakota children with the earth. Their other programs use food grown in the garden for meals and snacks. They also sell surplus crops at their weekly Leading Lady Farmer's Market.

6. Dream of Wild Health (North America)
Dream of Wild Health runs a 10-acre farm just outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Their Indigenous Food Share CSA program and farmer's market booths sell produce and value-added products grown by Native Americans. During the summer, Dream of Wild Health offers a Garden Warriors program where children can learn about seed saving, foraging, farmers market management, and other aspects of food sovereignty. They also host the Indigenous Food Network (IFN), a collective of Indigenous partners who advocate for local and regional policy changes. The IFN also hosts community food tasting events featuring prominent Indigenous chefs.

7. First Peoples Worldwide (International)
First Peoples Worldwide was founded by Cherokee social entrepreneur Rebecca Adamson to help businesses to align with First Peoples' rights. Now a part of the University of Colorado's Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility, First Peoples Worldwide continues to ensure that Indigenous voices are at the forefront of decision-making processes affecting their own self-determination. The organization works with businesses and institutions to assess their investments and guide them in incorporating Indigenous Peoples' rights and interests into their business decisions.

8. Indigikitchen (North America)
Mariah Gladstone's Indigikitchen uses Native foods as resistance. Her cooking videos offer healthy, creative ways to eat pre-contact, Indigenous foods. The recipes abstain from highly-processed grains, dairy, and sugar, ingredients that did not become standard in diets of the Americas until European colonization. Indigikitchen hopes that its recipes inspire Indigenous cooks to connect with Native foods.

9. Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative (North America)
The Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative at the University of Arkansas provides model policies for Tribal governments to help promote and protect food sovereignty. They also co-organize the Native Farm Bill Coalition with the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, the Intertribal Agriculture Council, and the National Congress of American Indians. The Initiative hosts annual Native Youth in Food and Agriculture Leadership Summits, where American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian youth can learn about agricultural business, land stewardship, agricultural law, and more.

10. Indigenous Food Systems Network (North America)
The Indigenous Food Systems Network (IFSN) is a convener of Indigenous food producers, researchers, and policymakers across the 98 Indigenous nations of Canada. IFSN supports research, policy reform, and direct action that builds food sovereignty in Indigenous communities. The organization's Indigenous Food Sovereignty email listserv offers its subscribers everything from stories and legends to recipes and policy reform tools.

11. Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty (International)
Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty is an international organization based in Rome, Italy connecting the world's Indigenous People to agricultural research and advocacy groups. With Indigenous communities from China to India and Thailand to Latin America, Indigenous Partnerships forges dialogues within Indigenous communities to ensure free, prior, and informed consent between research and advocacy partners. Indigenous Partnerships also seeks to incorporate global and local Indigenous knowledge into non-Indigenous knowledge systems.

12. Indigenous Terra Madre (International)
Indigenous Terra Madre is a global network of Indigenous Peoples sponsored by Slow Food, an international institution based in Rome, Italy. The network amplifies Indigenous voices and protects the biodiversity of the crops Indigenous communities cultivate. By providing a platform for Indigenous communities to pool power and resources, Indigenous Terra Madre fights to defend the land, culture, and opportunity of all Indigenous Peoples.

13. Intertribal Agriculture Council (North America)
The American Indian Food Program by the Intertribal Agriculture Council (IAC) helps Native American and Alaskan Native agribusinesses and food entrepreneurs expand their market reach. The Made/Produced by American Indians Trademark promoted by the IAC identifies certified American Indian products and is used by over 500 businesses. IAC's other major American Indian Food Program, Native Food Connection, helps market Native American foods and food producers across the United States. IAC also offers technical and natural resource assistance to connect Native businesses with U.S. Department of Agriculture programs and conservation stewardship resources.

14. Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska (North America)
Through its Alaskan Inuit Food Sovereignty Initiative, the Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska is convening Inuit community leaders from across Alaska. The Initiative seeks to unify Inuit throughout the state to advocate for land and wildlife management sovereignty. The Initiative also strives for international cooperation to promote food sovereignty across Inuit Nunaat.

15. Mantasa (Asia)
Mantasa is a research institution in Indonesia dedicated to expanding the number of indigenous plants consumed by the Javanese people. According to Mantasa, only 20 plant species comprise 90 percent of Javanese food needs. Their research is incorporating new wild foods from Indonesia's vast biodiversity into Javanese diets to improve food security and nutrition. Mantasa also helps promote these foods to consumers and local farmers to increase their popularity.

16. Muonde Trust (Africa)
In Mazvhiwa, Zimbabwe, the Muonde Trust invests in Indigenous innovations in food, land, and water management. The Trust seeks out individuals with new ideas and provides peer-to-peer support to help bring those ideas to life. Muonde Trust currently supports innovations in indigenous seed saving and sharing, livestock and woodland management, irrigation systems, and constructing kitchen spaces.

17. Native American Agriculture Fund (North America)
The Native American Agriculture Fund (NAAF) is the largest philanthropic supporter of Native American agriculture. The Fund offers grants to Tribal governments, nonprofit organizations, and educational institutions to support healthy lands, healthy people, and healthy economies. In 2020, NAAF is offering US$1 million in grant funds specifically for youth initiatives and young farmers and ranchers. NAAF is also centralizing COVID-19 relief information for Native farmers, ranchers, fishers, and Tribal governments.

18. Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance (North America)
The Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance (NAFSA) places Indigenous farmers, wild-crafters, fishers, hunters, ranchers, and eaters at the center of the fight to restore Indigenous food systems and self-determination. NAFSA's primary initiatives are the Indigenous Seedkeepers Network, the Food and Culinary Mentorship Program, and their Native Food Sovereignty Events. Each of these initiatives centers around the reclamation of Indigenous seeds and foods.

19. Native Seed/SEARCH (North America)
Native Seed/SEARCH preserves and proliferates indigenous seeds through their Native Access programs. Their Native American Seed Request program offers free seed packets to Native Americans living in or originating from the Greater Southwestern Region. The Bulk Seed Exchange allows growers to pay it forward by returning 1.5 times the seeds they receive to be put towards future Native American Seed Request packs. While Native Seed/SEARCH sells an assortment of popular seeds to the general public, its collection of indigenous seeds are only available to Native farmers and families. They hope these seeds will revitalize traditional foods and build food sovereignty.

20. Navajo Ethno-Agriculture (North America)
Navajo Ethno-Agriculture is sustaining Navajo culture through lessons on traditional farming. The seasonal courses focus on land, water, and food as students cultivate, harvest, and prepare heritage crops. During COVID-19, Navajo Ethno-Agriculture suspended its courses and is focusing on supplying neighboring farms with heritage seeds and farm equipment. They are also offering food processing and packaging services to protect and rejuvenate soil.

21. North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (North America)
Founded by the chefs of The Sioux Chef, North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NāTIFS) is reimagining the North American food system as a generator of wealth and good health for Native communities. The organization seeks to reverse the effects of forced assimilation and colonization through food entrepreneurship and a reclamation of ancestral education. NāTIFS is establishing an Indigenous Food Lab in Minneapolis, Minnesota as a training center and restaurant for Native chefs and food. NāTIFS plans to eventually spread this model across North America.

22. Oyate Teca Project (North America)

In response to dire food access on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota, the Oyate Teca Project offers year-long classes in gardening, food entrepreneurship, and traditional food preservation techniques. Oyate Teca helps make local foods available to the community by selling produce grown in their half-acre garden at farmer's markets. The project also serves as an emergency food provider for families and children.

23. Tebtebba (Asia)
Tebtebba is an international organization based in the Philippines committed to sharing global Indigenous wisdom. Its Indigenous Peoples and Biodiversity project strengthens Indigenous organizations' research, policy advocacy, and education on biodiversity. The project also works directly with Indigenous communities to strengthen their governance structures, protect their land, and improve their food security.

24. Sierra Seeds (North America)

Rowan White and her organization, Sierra Seeds, are dedicated to the next generation of farmers, gardeners, and food justice activists. Her flagship program, Seed Seva, offers a multi-layered education on seed stewardship and Indigenous permaculture. The program is offered online, allowing anybody to access White's wisdom. Additionally, Sierra Seeds offers a Seeding Change leadership incubator, where emerging food justice leaders meet virtually to support one another while developing individual projects.

25. Storying Kaitiakitanga (Oceania)
Storying Kaitiakitanga – A Kaupapa Māori Land and Water Food Story is a project of Dr. Jessica Hutchings and other Māori researchers and storytellers. The project was developed as part of the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge to collect the stories of Māori food producers across the food system. Storying Kaitiakitanga is exploring how traditional Māori principles and practices can inspire more sustainable food systems for the next generation. Stories include beekeepers, yogurt producers, and business development service providers.

26. Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation (North America)
The Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation (CDC) is a grassroots Lakota organization building food sovereignty on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota. Their reservation-wide Food Sovereignty Coalition is dedicated to reconstructing a healthy local food system. They have greatly increased food production on the reservation and train residents and students on Oglala food histories, current local foods, gardening, and food preservation.

27. Wangi Tangni (Central America)
In Nicaragua's Caribbean Coast, the women of Indigenous Miskita communities receive native plants from Wangi Tangni to grow for food, medicine, and reforestation. The organization provides communal and legal support for women, many of whom do not speak Spanish. The organization's overall mission is to promote political participation and gender equality through sustainable development projects such as indigenous plant rematriation.

28. Zuni Youth Enrichment Project (North America)
The public schools of the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico and Arizona partner with the Zuni Youth Enrichment Project to build gardening spaces and provide nutrition education. The partnership is intended to reintroduce traditional knowledge and practices into students' educations about food. The Project hopes that the community gardens will also inspire more Zuni to grow their own food and reduce rates of obesity and diabetes in their communities.

- Indigikitchen Is Bringing Native Food Sovereignty Online - EcoWatch ›
- 8 Gardening Tips From Indigenous Food Growers - EcoWatch ›
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By Olivia Sullivan
One of the many unfortunate outcomes of the coronavirus pandemic has been the quick and obvious increase in single-use plastic products. After COVID-19 arrived in the United States, many grocery stores prohibited customers from using reusable bags, coffee shops banned reusable mugs, and takeout food with plastic forks and knives became the new normal.
Kamikatsu, Japan. Yuki Shimazu / CC BY-SA 2.0
This reveals a worldwide truth: Even products made mostly from easily recyclable materials like paper, aluminum or cardboard can't be sorted and recycled if they contain plastic components that can't be separated.

The truth is, some materials simply aren't recyclable, and only 9% of all the plastic ever created has been recycled. As Kamikatsu's residents have painstakingly proven, no matter how many categories consumers sort their waste into or how diligently they scrub down their plastic food containers, most plastics cannot be recycled.

Meanwhile we keep hearing the industry-driven narrative that recycling can stop plastic from choking our marine life or littering our natural places. That's intentionally misleading.

Around the world, as in Kamikatsu, plastic is everywhere. With excessive amounts of plastic products and packaging stocked on store shelves, it's clear that zero-waste goals cannot be achieved by consumers alone. Plastic is not a "zero waste" material, so in order to achieve zero waste, companies must stop making so much plastic.

Marine debris collected at Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. NOAA
We can achieve that. The first steps include banning some of the worst and most polluting single-use plastics, placing a pause on the development of new plastics facilities, and protecting state and local governments' ability to enact more stringent regulations.

We must also shift the paradigm by holding producers responsible for the waste they create. By requiring new plastic products to contain recycled plastic and making producers fund the collection and recycling of plastic products, producers would be incentivized to design longer lasting products that can actually be reused and recycled.

These goals — outlined in numerous scientific studies and advocacy reports — have some forward motion. In the United States, a federal bill was recently introduced in both the House and the Senate, the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act. If passed this bill — or others like it on the local, state or national levels — could help move the world beyond single-use plastics and make that needed systemic change a reality.

The bill hasn't moved forward since it was introduced this past February, but the world is still on a deadline. A recent study published in the journal Science looked at rising levels of plastic production and said "coordinated global action is urgently needed to reduce plastic consumption, increase rates of reuse, waste collection and recycling, expand safe disposal systems and accelerate innovation in the plastic value chain."

Requiring producers to stop making nonrecyclable products designed to be thrown out is the first step toward achieving that goal. Only then will Kamikatsu and other towns, cities and countries around the world finally be able to eliminate plastic pollution and reach 100% zero waste.

The opinions expressed above are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or their employees.

Olivia Sullivan is a zero waste associate with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) working on a campaign to move the United States beyond plastic.

Reposted with permission from The Revelator.

COVID-19 Lockdowns Will Barely Reduce Global Warming, New Study Finds
The shelter in place orders that brought clean skies to some of the world's most polluted cities and saw greenhouse gas emissions plummet were just a temporary relief that provided an illusory benefit to the long-term consequences of the climate crisis. According to new research, the COVID-19 lockdowns will have a "neglible" impact on global warming, as Newshub in New Zealand reported.
- Coronavirus Lockdown Linked to Falling Air Pollution Levels in Italy ... ›
- Greenhouse Gas Emissions Set for Record Decline Due to ... ›
- Coronavirus Lockdowns Led to Record 17% Emissions Drop ... ›
- India's Air Pollution Plummets in COVID-19 Lockdown - EcoWatch ›
Modern Medical Techniques Reveal Malignant Cancer in 77-Million Year-Old Dinosaur Bone
Scientists have discovered and diagnosed the first instance of malignant cancer in a dinosaur, and they did so by using modern medical techniques. They published their results earlier this week in The Lancet Oncology.
- New Blood Test Can Detect Cancer 4 Years Before Symptoms ... ›
- Skull of Smallest Known Dinosaur Found in 99-Million-Year Old Amber ›
- Antarctica Was a Rainforest During the Times of Dinosaurs, New ... ›
- Earth Is Hurtling Towards a Catastrophe Worse Than the Dinosaur ... ›
- Help Save the World's Last Dinosaur - EcoWatch ›
Twitter Posts Show That People Are Profoundly Sad – and Visiting Parks to Feel Happy
By Joe Roman and Taylor Ricketts
The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is the deepest and longest period of malaise in a dozen years. Our colleagues at the University of Vermont have concluded this by analyzing posts on Twitter. The Vermont Complex Systems Center studies 50 million tweets a day, scoring the "happiness" of people's words to monitor the national mood. That mood today is at its lowest point since 2008 when they started this project.
The Hedonometer measures happiness through analysis of key words on Twitter, which is now used by one in five Americans. This chart covers 18 months from early 2019 to July 2020, showing major dips in 2020. hedonometer.org
These same tweets also indicate a potential salve. Before pandemic lockdowns began, doctoral student Aaron Schwartz compared tweets before, during, and after visits to 150 parks, playgrounds and plazas in San Francisco. He found that park visits corresponded with a spike in happiness, followed by an afterglow lasting up to four hours.

Tweets from parks contained fewer negative words such as "no," "not" and "can't," and fewer first-person pronouns like "I" and "me." It seems that nature makes people more positive and less self-obsessed.

Parks keep people happy in times of global crisis, economic shutdown and public anger. Research has also shown that transmission rates for COVID-19 are much lower outdoors than inside. As scholars who study conservation and how nature contributes to human well-being, we see opening up parks and creating new ones as a straightforward remedy for Americans' current blues.

Park Visits Are Up During the Pandemic
According to the Hedonometer, sentiments expressed online started trending lower in mid-March as the impacts of the pandemic became clear. As lockdowns continued, they registered the lowest sentiment scores on record. Then in late May, effects from George Floyd's death in police custody and the following protests and police response once again could be seen on Twitter. May 31, 2020 was the saddest day of the project.

Recent surveys of park visitors around the University of Vermont have shown people using green spaces more since COVID-19 lockdowns began. Many people reported that parks were highly important to their well-being during the pandemic.

#Goldengatepark #sf #quarantinemood https://t.co/9l3ufnbkt6
 — Suvd (@Suvd)1596258783.0

The powerful effects of nature are strongest in large parks with more trees, but smaller neighborhood parks also provide a significant boost. Their impact on happiness is real, measurable and lasting.

Twitter records show that parks increase happiness to a level similar to the bounce at Christmas, which typically is the happiest day of the year. Schwartz has since expanded his Twitter study to the 25 largest cities in the U.S. and found this bounce everywhere.

Parks and public spaces won't cure COVID-19 or stop police brutality, but they are far more than playgrounds. There is growing evidence that parks contribute to mental and physical health in a range of communities.

In a 2015 study, for example, Stanford researchers sent people out for one of two walks: through a local park or on a busy street. Those who walked in nature showed improved moods and better memory performance compared to the urban group. And a team led by Gina South of the University of Pennsylvania showed in a 2018 study that greening and cleaning up blighted vacant lots in Philadelphia reduced local residents' feelings of depression, worthlessness and poor mental health.

Creative Strategies
It isn't easy to create new parks on the scale of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park or the Washington Mall, but smaller projects can expand outdoor space. Options include greening vacant lots, closing streets and investing in existing parks to make them safer, greener and shadier and support wildlife.

These initiatives don't have to be capital-intensive. In the University of Pennsylvania study, for example, renovating a vacant lot by removing trash, planting grass and trees and installing a low fence cost only about US$1,600.

Urban green space is most needed in neighborhoods that have lacked funding for parks, especially given COVID-19's disproportionate impact on Black and Latinx people.

Cities can also create parklike spaces by closing streets to cars. Many cities worldwide are currently retooling their transportation systems for the post-COVID-19 world in order to reallocate public space, widen sidewalks and make more space for nature.

Urban designers, artists, ecologists and other citizens can play a direct role, too, creating pop-up parks and green spaces. Some advocates transform parking spaces into mini-parks with grass, potted trees and seating for just the time on the meter, to make a larger point about turning so much public space over to cars.

Or cities can invest a little more. Minneapolis, Cincinnati and Arlington, Virginia, have won national recognition for their ambitious investments in public park systems. These areas could serve as models for neighborhoods that lack access to parks.

Looking to safely get outside? Check out the best parks for social distancing in this year's top ten ParkScore citi… https://t.co/HJjEtDsrTD
 — The Trust for Public Land (@The Trust for Public Land)1593190296.0

A New Park Deal?
The United States has historically driven economic recovery with major infrastructure investments, like the New Deal in the 1930s and the 2009 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Such investments could easily include nature-positive spaces.

Parks are not panaceas, as evidenced by the widely publicized racist confrontation between a white woman and a Black birder in New York's Central Park in early July. But Hedonometer data add to a growing body of evidence that they provide clear mental health benefits. Creating and expanding parks also generates jobs and economic activity, with much of the money spent locally.

We believe investments in nature are well worth it, offering both short-term solace in difficult times and long-term benefits to health, economies and communities.

- Growing Up Near Nature Is Good for Your Adult Mental Health, New ... ›
- Doctors Prescribe Spending Time In Parks - EcoWatch ›
- This Is the Best Type of Green Space for Your Mental Health ... ›
New York Attorney General Files Suit to Dismantle the NRA
New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced Thursday that she will attempt to dismantle the National Rifle Association (NRA), arguing that years of corruption and mismanagement warrant the dissolution of the activist organization, as CNN reported.
Mauritius' First Major Oil Spill Poses Environmental Crisis
The Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, renowned for its coral reefs, is facing an unprecedented ecological catastrophe after a tanker ran aground offshore and began leaking oil.

🚨RESPONSE to #Mauritius #OILSpill 🚨 "Once again we see the risks in oil: aggravating the #ClimateCrisis, as well as… https://t.co/PBLioZat6X
 — Greenpeace Africa (@Greenpeace Africa)1596801446.0

"There is no guaranteed safe way to extract, transport and store fossil fuel products. This oil leak is not a twist of fate, but the choice of our twisted addiction to fossil fuels. We must react by accelerating our withdrawal from fossil fuels," Greenpeace Africa Senior Climate and Energy Campaign Manager Happy Khambule said in a statement Friday. "Once again we see the risks in oil: aggravating the climate crisis, as well as devastating oceans and biodiversity and threatening local livelihoods around some of Africa's most precious lagoons."

- Which Country Will Be First to Go Completely Underwater Due to ... ›
- Overfishing Starts Here - EcoWatch ›
Coronavirus Trend Update: The Pandemic Is Far From Over
By Gianna-Carina Grün
While the first countries are easing their lockdowns, others are reporting more and more new cases every day. Data for the global picture shows the pandemic is far from over. DW has the latest statistics.
What's the Current Global Trend?
The goal for all countries is to make it to the blue part of the chart and stay there. Countries and territories in this section reported zero new cases both this week (past seven days) and the week before.

Currently, that is the case for 14 out of 209 countries and territories.

How Has the Covid-19 Trend Evolved Over the Past Weeks?
The situation has improved slightly: 87 countries report more cases this week than last week.

- Coronavirus Has Infected More Than 60,000 Worldwide, New ... ›
- Apple Fire Forces 7,800 to Seek Shelter in Coronavirus-Ravaged ... ›
- CDC Expands List of Those With Higher COVID-19 Risks - EcoWatch ›
As Schools Reopen, Georgia Students Suspended for Blowing the Whistle on Crowded Hallways
As the debate over how and if to safely reopen schools in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic continues, two student whistleblowers have been caught in the crosshairs.
- The South Isn't Prepared for a COVID-19 Surge - EcoWatch ›
- Until Teachers Feel Safe, Widespread In-Person K-12 Schooling ... ›
- Teens and Tweens Are Fastest COVID-19 Spreaders, New Study ... ›
- How Other Countries Reopened Schools During the Pandemic ... ›
- Young Children May Have Higher Coronavirus Levels, Raising ... ›
- COVID-19: What Experts Think About Reopening Schools - EcoWatch ›
2020 Hurricane Season Expected to Be Second Most Active Since 1980s
Hurricane forecasters predict the 2020 hurricane season will be the second-most active in nearly four decades.

subset: commoncrawl


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Anonymous Credentials in der Public Cloud
Unique identification and secure authentication are important processes in several security-sensitive areas of applications such as e-Government or e-Health. Within Europe, electronic IDs (eIDs) are the means to securely support these processes. In Austria, the Austrian citizen card is used by citizens for identification and authentication at online applications. Identification in Austria is based on a special data structure including multiple personal attributes stored on the citizen card. However, in the current situation it is only possible to disclose the complete identity of a citizen and not only parts of it. To bypass this issue and to increase privacy, in this paper we propose a security architecture which uses anonymous credentials for Austrian eID authentication to enable minimum/selective disclosure. Due to the use of anonymous credentials, our proposed architecture also allows the migration of important components of the Austrian eID system into a public cloud. A public cloud deployment has several advantages, in particular with respect to scalability and cost savings. While public cloud deployment brings up new issues relating to privacy, the use of anonymous credentials can mitigate these issues as they can ensure privacy with respect to the cloud provider.
- Titel: Using Anonymous Credentials for eID Authentication in the Public Cloud
- Autor: Bernd Zwattendorfer
- Konferenz: 11th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies (WEBIST 2015)
- Erscheinungsdatum: 05/2015
- Download: Volltext


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Saturday, 21 January 2017
Local Group Report – Easebourne Thursday 19th January 2017
Eight of us made it out in the dark and cold to The Three Moles in Selham on Thursday night to enjoy a lively social evening with a few drinks and some very good songs. We welcomed a new member – Christine from Fittleworth who genuinely enjoyed joining in and discovering what singing with the South Downs Folk Singers is all about! We warmed up with Fathom the Bowl and Country Life and then went round the circle singing whatever song each member requested. This resulted in a great variety of songs from The Constant Lovers and A Smuggler's Song to old favourites like Thousands or More, The Turnip Hoer, Rosebuds in June and The Nightingale. Gordon got us all to sing his specially composed and very funny Three Moles Song and Stephen A taught us the song Valiants All which apparently was composed and sung in the past by a poor inmate of the Midhurst workhouse! We finished up with Ale Glorious Ale, Sussex by the Sea and of course Rolling Home which we all did most contentedly at the end of the evening. Please note that our next sing will be on Thursday 16th February at the Chichester Inn in West Street, Chichester. We hope to see lots of you there!
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In select Metro areas in the United States, (Queens, Manhattan, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and others) you can now order your favorite take-out and have it delivered to you at home, or to the office, and the service is free of charge. Seamlessweb.com has released an Android version of their software that allows you to place your carry-out order or delivery food order, all from an app on your phone. It even saves your preferences if you tend to order the #5 down at Johnny's Deli, it will store if you like pastrami, but want them to hold the mayo!
It really is a great app, but unfortunately, the areas that it serves are still somewhat limited, but they are looking to expand, and even give a link inside the app to make suggestions for future growth for the service. It's a free download, so why not give it a shot, and see if it's available in your area!


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There was an interesting online article about how well-kept properties could reduce crime in a neighbourhood. However it didn't explain how healthy mowed lawns and planting trees reduced crime. I decided to do some added research to see how it tied together in creating safer communities.
There were some obvious advantages outlined on how landscaping of a yard can deter crime. For instance, large bushes or trees that block windows and entryways can provide privacy for someone to hide and possibly gain access to you home. A simple solution was to trim trees so that low hanging branches don't obstruct a window, door or walkway. Trimming bushes under a window was also suggested along with considering planting a thorny-bush. Additional ways to use landscaping to make a property a harder target were also suggested. Many of which were familiar as they are part of the well-known practice of (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED pronounced sep-ted). That seemed straight forward, but what about mowing a lawn? How does that deter crime?
That question brought me to a point where four fairly well-known ideas and people seemed to converge: CPTED, Neighbourhood Watch, the broken windows hypothesis and Jane Jacob (namesake for Jane's Walk).
Basically the idea can be explained as this; people show they care about their property by (you guessed it) caring for their property. People that care about their property are more likely to pay attention and care about what happens on their street. That tied-in with Jane Jacob's concept of "Eyes on the Street" which indicates that well-kept properties encourage people to spend time outside which lends to the practice of informal surveillance. That made perfect sense. People are outside both tending and enjoying to their yards & homes. While being outside people are providing that informal surveillance. This fits perfectly with ENW's program goals in which we encourage residents to practice what the Neighbourhood Watch signs say "we report suspicious activities to police". However, that brought up the question whether this would still apply when residents were not physically in their yards? Can a care-for appearance make a difference in crime prevention? In the article "The relationship between residential yard management and neighborhood crime" done in Baltimore it referenced a growing amount of literature that suggests well-kept properties are "cues to care". That theory can be seen as an inverse to the well-known crime theory of the "broken window". The broken windows hypothesis suggests that if a neighbourhood is uncared for, in disrepair with "broken windows", and it remains that way, it indicates that the people in the neighbourhood don't care. It suggests that criminals look for areas to target based on the level of neglect. If true, the inverse suggests that when people take care of their property it shows an increased level of involvement and awareness. People living in properties that are well-kept are more likely to be watching out for their property and their neighbourhood. The article suggests:
- "The level of maintenance of the yard is almost like a neighborhood watch sign saying, 'We have eyes on the street and we will say something.'"
- "The most powerful indicators of a decrease in crime were having a lawn, the presence of garden hoses or sprinklers, shrubs, tree cover, percentage of pervious area, and the presence of yard trees."
- "The factors most strongly tied to more crime were the number of small street trees, litter, uncut lawn, and a dried out lawn."
Research does indicate that residents can help reduce crime by taking care of their yards (including mowing their lawn) and being visible in their neighbourhood.
Until next time…
Debbie Sellers, ENW
Edmonton Neighbourhood Watch (ENW) is a not-for-profit, charitable, volunteer passive crime prevention organization.
A. Troy et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 147 (2016) 78–87. The relationship between residential yard management and neighborhood crime: An analysis from Baltimore City and County. Retrieved from URL https://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/jrnl/2016/nrs_2016_troy_001.pdf


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Finance Business Analyst
Co-managed the successful rollout of high profile Microsoft SharePoint Expenditure Approval project
- Collaborated with key stakeholders and 3rd Party vendors to ensure the company's goals were being met by creating business requirement and functional documents.
- Improved process efficiency and increased accountability by 80% by executing (analysis, planning, design, testing, training and documentation) the upgrade of the Microsoft SharePoint based approval system.
- Managed the migration from the existing to the upgraded system.
- Increased headcount capacity by 40% as a result of automating manual processes for the Finance group.
at this job
Finance Business Analyst/team Lead
Implemented online loan approval system.Marketed and sold bank's products and services, packaged loans and credit facilities, booked investments, relationship management. Packaged over 25 auto leases which increased the bank's revenue by over 15% for that financial year. Brought in over N300m ($2m) deposit from the major political party and a government parastatal.
- Completed major enhancements on or ahead of schedule
- Studied, analyzed and documented as-Is business process for loan approvals
- Performed Gap Analysis for implementation project
- Conducted unit testing, integration testing, solution design and functional specification documentation.
- Created end-user training materials
- Provided go-live support and post-live support
at this job
Finance Business Analyst
Prepared Requirement Documentations (Business, System and Data) on the Project called HCFG (Home and Consumer Finance Group) in which accumulated three line of business for integrated architecture and common artifacts.
- Performing business analysis including process reengineering, requirements elicitation, gathering and writing for an employee pension and benefits web development initiative.
- Analyzed and documented process decomposition and prepared business process models for the major functions of the Project portfolio management system.
- Wrote Test Cases and developed strategies with Quality Assurance group to implement them.
- Worked for Enterprise Data Solution Group (EDSG) including three major functionalities: Data Management Methodology (DMM), Master Data Management and Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW).
- Drive execution to the EDW roadmap as it relates to the data domain and participated in transformational change required from Data initiation to Storage to Application in its end-to-end cycle.
at this job
Finance Business Analyst
Analyzed business strategy and user needs and translated business objectives into proper system requirement specifications. Refined the processes and identified the most ideal system configuration.
- Developed the technical specifications for the data migration, and coordinated technical requirements to transfer data from the existing accounting system to Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne release 9.0.
- Worked closely with the developers and end users to test the system configurations and customizations.
- Owned end-to-end testing of solutions developed, including test plans, test scenarios, and documentation of test results. Prepared and/or reviewed end user documentation and user training materials. Conduct new user training in one-on-one and classroom settings.
- Completed full lifecycle implementations of Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0 ERP software for two of the company's subsidiaries.
- Prepared design specifications and testing of an interface between J.D. Edwards EnterpriseOne and JWS ticketing automation system.
at this job
Finance Business Analyst
Managed Cloud Virtualization group in booking forecasts, revenue, gross margin, and OPEX.
- Provided senior management with financial results/analysis/metrics.
- Performed monthly/quarterly close activities; managed yearly/quarterly Budget/Commit planning processes.
- Reviewed/approved ROI template and revenue recognition worksheets for new product/major releases.
- Streamlined the royalty process by collaborating with BU Licensing and Royalty Accounting teams. Identified and corrected $1M+ in error in the royalty accrual per quarter.
- Involved in new OEM revenue shared agreement review.
at this job
Finance Business Analyst, Revenue Accounting Operations
Received Cisco Achievement Program Award for outstanding performance. Implemented worldwide process standardization and coordinated with cross-functional teams in improving efficiency. Developed Wiki team website to enhance communication and support forecast needs of cross-functional teams.
- Implemented revenue transfer centralization in transferring APAC/Japan/EMEA operations to the central team, collaborated with international business partners in standardization and process improvement.
- Managed accounting activities related to revenue recognition and revenue assurance process for non-standard Multiple Element Arrangement deals.
- Provided guidance to business partners, coordinated with cross-functional teams to ensure smooth process flows to support timely forecast for Sales, Finance, and FP&A teams.
- Performed month end journal entries and reconciliations on revenue transfer activities, supported central RAO team in financial profile reconciliations and Revenue Consolidation team in revenue forecast.
- Prepared quarterly revenue transfer metrics and presented to the RAO management at quarter end meeting.
- Improved/documented policies and procedures, ensured compliance with SOX requirements and corporate revenue recognition policies, performed monthly SOX controls and supported internal and external audits.
at this job
Finance Business Analyst III
Business Technology & Operations Finance - Data Center, Switching & Cloud
- Generated executive level business updates and dashboards for $14 billion Switching Technology Group and $5 billion Data Center businesses
- Provided qualitative and quantitative business analytics across geographies, market segments, key verticals, technologies, partners, and customers
- Drove business decisions by financially and operationally partnering with engineering VPs and management
- Managed $120M Operating Expenses (OPEX) budget and $3M Capital Expenditures (CAPEX) combined budget for 430+ total headcount ASICS and Data Center Customer Operations organizations
- Awarded 2 Cisco Achievement Program (CAP) awards
at this job
Finance Business Analyst I / II
- Generated $100K of annual cost savings by streamlining and automating monthly reporting tools
- Prepared extensive financial analysis and program reporting packages for Executive Leadership quarterly reviews on multi-year programs with total multi-year budgets ranging from $10M to $30M
- Heavily coordinated information and work stream activities among cross-functional Integrated Project Team
- Performed project setup, cost controlling, tracking, reporting, historical trend analysis, estimate-at-completion, variance analysis, net investment analysis, earned value management analysis, and sales forecasting
at this job
Finance Business Analyst
Led the Inventory Control Initiative to improve cycle count accuracy, accountability and inventory control processes
- Supported Supply Operations organization
- Supported weekly/monthly/quarterly database maintenance in Cost Tool
- Tracked and validated purchase price variances, analyzed Inventory Revaluation to ensure adherence to negotiated standards
- Partnered with Finance, Mfg Operations and IT to drive process and system improvements
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Capital Finance Business Analyst
Participated in major project revamping Intel's SAP configuration and business processes for capital settlement and tax calculation:
- Compiled critical success indicators and presented to management.
- Compiled data assessment for before-and-after demonstration of value.
- Gathered requirements across multiple finance groups.
- Initiated change impact assessment.
- Delivered various user enhancements in SAP and Microstrategy.
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Geneva, 2 July 2015
Today, the 2nd of July, marks two years since 94 Emirati nationals, including 13 women, were convicted on national security charges after the highly politicized trial, known as the "UAE 94" case, before the State Security Chamber of the Federal Supreme Court (FSC).
The 94 defendants were charged with founding, organizing and administering an organization aimed at overthrowing the government, based on article 180 of the penal code. The offences carried a maximum sentence of 15 years' imprisonment. At the conclusion of the trial on 2nd July 2013, 69 defendants were convicted and 25 acquitted. Many were sentenced to 10 years and others to 7 years imprisonment. The group tried in absentia received the maximum 15 years imprisonment.
The large group of defendants includes prominent human rights lawyers, academics, judges,teachers and student leaders, among them:
- Sheikh Sultan Ben Kaid Al-Kasimi, President of al-Islah (Reformation) Association;
- Justice Mohamed Al-Abduli, a judge;
- Dr.Hadef Al-Oais, law professor and lawyer;
- Dr. Mohamed Al-Mansoori, Legal Adviser to the ruler of Ras Al-Kaima Emirate, and law professor and Lawyer Dr. Mohammed al-Roken. Both are prominent human rights advocate
- Ahmed Al-Zaabi, retired judge, and
- Saleh Mohammed al-Dhufairi and Khalifa al-Nuaimi, bloggers.
They are all UAE citizens who demanded social and political reforms. Many are members of a local group, the Reform and Social Guidance Association (Al-Islah).
The Court failed to investigate allegations that some defendants were tortured during months of pre-trial incommunicado detention to obtain forced confessions that formed the basis of the prosecution case against them, and which the court accepted as evidence. The defendants were denied a right of appeal, in breach of international fair trial standards.
During the trial, observers, foreign lawyers, international media, human rights organizations, and many of the defendant's relatives were barred from the proceedings, which is a grave violation of Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In fact, in her last report, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Gabriela Knaul, has also expressed her concerns, about the lack of transparency during both the investigation phase and court proceedings in UAE, particularly with regard to criminal cases heard before the State Security Chamber of the Federal Supreme Court. The report highlights cases where hearings were held in closed sessions or with limited public access, such as "UAE94", in addition to cases where lawyers faced serious difficulties in accessing information, especially investigation files.
The "UAE94" group was put in Rezin prison, known as "UAE's Guantanamo" which is one of the most ill reputed prisons in UAE. Despite international appeals to improve the situation of its prisoners, Emirati authorities paid no heed to any of these appeals. In fact, authorities in Rezin Prison continue their repressive practices with the prisoners of conscience and in particular the "UAE 94" group. They inflict severe sanctions and deprive them of their most basic rights for trivial reasons. Prisoners are subjected to a series of persecution including:
- Solitary confinement in inhumane conditions, without beds or blankets for days;
- Systematic searches without any respect for prisoners' decency and dignity;
- Policy of starvation by giving little food to political prisoners and forbidding them to buy from canteen;
- Ban visits to disabled relatives of prisoners;
- Block access to newspapers and information;
- Continuous insults and humiliation;
- Lack of ventilation in cells, which creates unsafe and unhealthy conditions; and
- Some detainees had severe poisoning caused by eating rotten meat, which led to the deterioration of their health, diarrhea and vomiting without allowing the prison administration to provide any medical treatment to them.
Besides, families of prisoners are subjected to various kinds of punishments and harassments such as travel ban, barring from work and higher education as well as restrictions on their properties, pensions, birth certificates and travel papers.
We, the undersigned organizations, condemn these heinous and inhumane practices and human rights violations and therefore call on the UAE authorities to:
- Order the immediate release of those imprisoned as a result of this unfair trial and all prisoners of conscience;
- Provide an independent investigation into the allegations of torture and inhumane treatment;
- Insure the publicity of hearings and the transparency of the proceedings;
- Implement the recommendations made by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers;
- Abolish all special courts;
- Ensure all fair trial guarantees including the independence of the judiciary;
- Refrain from restricting freedoms of expression and opinion;
- Ratify the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Optional Protocol to United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; and
- Stop the collective punishment imposed on families of prisoners of conscience and grant them their full rights.
- The International Centre for Justice and Human Rights, Geneva
- European Alliance for Human Rights, Paris
- International Federation for Rights and Development, Roma
- Free Voice, Paris
- Human Rights Solidarity, Geneva
- AFD International department Mena, Brussels
- Association for the victims of Torture in Tunisia, Geneva
- ICFUAE – International Campaign for Freedom in the UAE, London


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Welcome to scv.nyc, the official website of the Archibald Gracie Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans! Whether you are visiting out of curiosity, or a desire to support Confederate heritage in New York City, it is my hope that this website will help you find what you are looking for.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is a society for male descendants of those who served honorably in the armed forces of the Confederate States of America. It is a very special organization, due to the fact that it was created by the Confederate Veterans themselves, in order to (as "The Charge" above states) "see that the true history of the South is presented to future generations." This is an important distinction, and one we are awfully proud of. Many have attempted to tarnish the honor and aims of Confederates, but only we were authorized by the veterans themselves to speak on their behalf!
With over 30,000 members, the SCV operates on a local level through "camps" in towns and cities around the world. These camps hold meetings, host programs related to Confederate history, participate in parades and ceremonies, care for Confederate graves, and much more, with an aim towards educating themselves and the public about who the Confederate soldier was, and honoring their sacrifices in any way possible.
People, even SCV members down south, are often shocked to learn that there is a camp in New York City. This is understandable, as New York City is certainly a northern city! But just as it does today, New York City has been attracting people from all over the world long before the War Between the States started, and Southerners have never been an exception! For one thing, the US Military Academy at West Point lies only a few miles to the north, and Lee and Jackson are but two Confederate heroes who spent time stationed in New York City.
Our camp is called the Archibald Gracie Camp, #985, in honor of General Archibald Gracie, a New Yorker whose ancestral home, Gracie Mansion, is now the official residence of the Mayor of New York City. At well over one hundred years old, it is one of the oldest Sons of Confederate Veterans Camps in the country, predating even the national organization! It also holds the distinction of having, from 1951 through 1953, one of its own members, Judge William M. Beard, led the national Sons of Confederate Veterans organization as Commander-in-Chief.
The camp was formed as a result of thousands of Southerners who fled to New York from the horrors of the Federal Military Occupation of the South that terrorized the region in the years following the end of the War.
And much as the foreign immigrants of today, Expatriate Southerners of the era felt a tremendous need to keep the rich legacy of their heritage and culture alive among their descendants. As a result, through most of the twentieth century, New York City claimed no fewer than thirty Southern Organizations, including the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the Kentucky Club, the New-York Southern Society, the Association of Southern Democrats, and the Dixie Society. However, as the century progressed, and some segments of the South became battlegrounds of the era's culture wars, the South itself became widely disdained. Today, the Archibald Gracie Camp is one of the last organizations in the City devoted to Southern Heritage. It is comprised of both the descendents of those Southerners who flocked to New York City following the War, as well as recent transplants. We also have associate members, who do not have a Confederate ancestor, but support the cause!
If you fit this bill, I certainly hope you will consider joining! Fill out our online application, or drop me a line if you have any questions. Now as never before, our heritage is under attack, and the South needs every son to come to her defense!
Deo Vindice!


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Taking a Dip in the SAMR Swimming Pool
I recently got to watch the SAMR master himself, Dr. Ruben Puentedura take the stage at iPad Summit Boston. His SAMR model research is based on years of observing one-to-one technology integration in Maine's Student Laptop initiative (now called MLTI as we love acronyms in education). At it's simplest form, the SAMR model states that when you introduce technology to an environment, like a classroom, generally the first thing the user will do is figure out a way to use technology as a Substitute for an existing task. As you "climb up the SAMR ladder" you see a shift of pedagogical practice from teacher-centered to student-driven. This is exemplified by the "R" in SAMR which stands for Redefinition – or, simply put, when technology allows for a creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable.
When researching our own 1:1, I kept running into this research and the more I delved into it, the more I understood and realized that in reality, it's not a ladder at all that we are trying to climb, but something a little more nebulous and fluid. The problem with the "ladder" visual is teachers may think they have accomplished all they need to once they reach the "R" in SAMR and don't know what to do next. This part of the visual really troubled me when talking with parents, teachers and administrators. Enter our middle school Ed Tech, Greg Garner (@classroom_tech). His approach to SAMR was simple: It isn't a ladder that we should try to climb, but instead a pool that we need to be swimming in.
I loved his analogy because I felt it provided a better reality of what happens with SAMR in a classroom on a day-to-day basis. It even inspired me to make this clever graphic (see below).
So with full credit to Greg, here's a quick overview of what I think it means to swim in the SAMR Swimming Pool:
Enhancement Shallow End –
You have to be comfortable wading in the water before you can venture into the deep. The ideas behind Substitution and Augmentation are that you are swimming in the pool of technology integration, but you don't have to wear yourself out treading water. As a teacher, you know you can always just stand up and breathe. These tasks are simply technological extensions of your everyday teaching and if things get really messy, you can always step out of the pool and still get a majority of your goals accomplished. Sure, it won't be as stimulating or engaging, but learning and traditional teaching can still happen around the edges. (just NO running!)
Similarly, like when entering a pool that's not at the ideal temperature, teachers sometimes need to walk in slowly, allowing their bodies to adjust to this shift. Some can just jump right in, knowing their bodies will eventually adjust, and at the same time knowing they can just stand up and jump out if they need to. Others need time, going in step by step slowly and at times gasping when their body enters the depths of new pedagogical practice.
This idea of touching their toe in the water of technology integration is not new. A majority of our teachers want to test the water several times before fully submerging in it. If something should go wrong and they get water up their nose, it could be weeks before they are comfortable venturing back in. Eventually, they will get comfortable wading in the shallow end and want to venture out past the rope into the depths beyond basic technology integration.
Transformative Deep End –
Once you cross the rope, you will not be able to stand up (except maybe hopping on your tiptoes for a little while). Someone venturing into this end of the pool, must have confidence in their teaching and know that they can tread water at times, but when things are going right and redefinition is happening, it's almost like you can walk on water.
This doesn't happen everyday, but without the practice of stumbling around in the shallow end of the pool, teachers can drown by trying to go into the deep end too quickly. They need to think about the purpose of swimming there. Some may decide to jump off the diving board straight into the deep end and learn how to integrate from day one with a particular learning objective. Others, elect to take swimming lessons (Professional Development) and use the occasional swim noodle (instructional technology integrators) to help them stay afloat. In addition, they will want to make sure that a lifeguard (Principal) is on hand should they begin to really struggle and possibly blow the whistle when they need to take a break.
The bottom line is without time, practice, support, and motivation, rarely would a teacher elect to venture into that deep end of SAMR. The amazing thing is, once a teacher does enter that realm, they may realize that they aren't swimming alone. Swimming in the transformative deep end doesn't mean the students are on the side of the pool cheering you on. It means they are in the pool with you – working, collaborating, problem-solving, and creating their future with you at their side.
Posted on December 10, 2013, in Innovation, Leadership, Techy, Theory and tagged educational technology, instructional technology, pool, Ruben, Ruben Puentedura, SAMR, SAMR swimming pool, Swimming pool, technology, technology integration. Bookmark the permalink. 18 Comments.
I also find it helpful to think in terms of tasks and specific usage of a tool being at a particular level of SAMR. In other words, an individual teacher is not "at" a particular level per se, but the way they or their students are using a tool at a given moment is what determines the level.
Even a specific tool can be used at different levels, so, for example categorizing iPad apps by SAMR levels can give the wrong idea. Notability can be used to have kids fill out PDF worksheets, which I'd call substitution. Having them record audio of the teacher lecture while they take notes could be considered augmentation. Having students use it as a way to write up a science lab activity, including annotated photos, sketches, and audio that they then turn in pushes into M-R range.
Connecting to your pool metaphor, an accomplished swimmer spends time at both ends of the pool, because some activities are perfectly appropriate for the shallow end, while other things (diving) can only be done in the deep end.
I certainly agree with your views on both the app and the teacher/student. As you have correctly pointed out, an app can be used in wide array of ways, depending on the learning outcome/objective.
As teachers become more confident and competent with planning for tech integration, they will begin to create more enhancement opportunities to extend the learners. Does this mean they will no longer visit the "shallow end?" Of course not, this will be dependent upon the LO.
Thanks for your Notability example to help illustrate your point.
I agree with you here. SAMR should not be based on the teacher, but based on how the teacher uses the technology in the classroom. I have seen many SAMR app wheels produced but I always caution my Masters students that it is how the tool is used that determines the level of SAMR. The goal should be that we try to use higher levels of SAMR when we teach to be able to push the higher level thinking.
While I like this change to the SAMR model, I think it misses one key point… sometimes it is appropriate to swim in the shallow end even when you know how to use the deep end. We seem to forget that just because we can swim in deep water, we don't always have to. There is a time and a place for both sides of the pool.
Thank you for posting this. This post absolutely resonated with me as this was my first year flipping my foreign language class, especially that bit about sometimes feeling like I was walking on water. Truly a transformative experience.
I think this swimming pool model/analogy is something that will be very helpful in encouraging "shallow-end" or "completely-dry" teachers to feel comfortable with integrating tech.
Just popped by your blog to read this post again for inspiration for my own SAMR analogy I've been cooking up… I share this great comparison during my presentations when the topic of SAMR comes up. Thanks!
I like the analogy of the swimming pool rather than a ladder when implementing SAMR. As a veteran teacher that after 13 years of teaching, was used to "jumping in" because there was a comfort level with the technology is now adjusting to a new school district that uses different technology than I'm used to. I feel like at times I am "jumping in" while other times I am easing in to "adjust to the temperature" by putting my toe in as I'm faced with something unfamiliar. I look forward to continuing through the SAMR process.
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Here's another example of an Alex Raymond sunday page that really doesn't exist. Same here as last post: re-formatted dailies made into a "sunday".
I keep forgetting wich magazine ran this ("Teknik för alla"?) but if my memory serves me right they only ran one episode and called Rip "Red Race". Printed in black, white and RED of course...
I can't find the complete story at the moment, but could it be that Rip was a race car driver in this episode? Mayby that theme fit with the rest of magazine contents, and made them run this episode only.
An odd curiosity for the hardcore Raymond fan. And aren't we all? :)
Sunday, 22 April 2007
"Red Race" by Alex Raymond
Upplagd av Joakim Gunnarsson kl. 09:29
1 comment:
- -= Steamboat Willie =- said...
Well.. a very good "Rip Kirby" episode.. I remember reading it in the swedish Agent X9 comic book.
- 22 April 2007 at 09:58
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I teamed up with Three Degrees to bring you this Oscars treat.
It's time for the Oscars!
And this year, like very other year, I haven't seen any of the nominated movies. Not. One. That doesn't stop me from making picks, though. Oh no, no, no…that's one of my favorite parts of the whole event!
That could all change this year.
Did you realize that you can catch up on some of those films Movies On Demand? Yep! Movies On Demand is just the place to make that happen. You can find the timeliest titles to get you in the Oscars spirit — and they're movies you can't find anywhere else!
You might not be aware, but if you have access to cable, odds are you can order a movie through Movies On Demand. It's pretty much everywhere in the U.S. Some of the Oscar-nominated movies are already available through Movies On Demand and new titles will continue to premiere as we get closer to the Oscars.
And…Movies on Demand is hosting an Oscars Pool – kind of a March Madness bracket for movies. Head on over to check out the interactive site, and make your Oscar predictions — all the way up til the start of the show!
You can create your own pool, or participate in one that's already been put together. However you do it, it will make the Oscars experience even more fun! Oh, and you could just win free Movies On Demand movies for a year!
Of the Oscar-nominated movies (for all sorts of awards, not necessarily "Best Picture"), these are available from Movies On Demand right now:
Room (nominated for Best Picture)
Brooklyn (nominated for Best Picture)
Spotlight (nominated for Best Picture)
The Martian (nominated for Best Picture)
I cannot wait to see The Martian! And I have some fun facts to share with you:
- The Mars exterior scenes were filmed in Jordan, (specifically Wadi Rum) because of its red-colored desert.
- The Martian is based on a book that was initially self-published for free on a blog.
- A real potato farm was installed on the studio lot for filming.
- The Martian was shot in just 72 days.
- Matt Damon is the only Best Actor nominee for this year's Oscars who is nominated for playing a fictional character. All the other Best Actor nominees were nominated for playing historical figures.
You can check out all the Oscar nominees at the Oscars site.
In case you don't know about Movies on Demand, they feature the most current films making their television premieres. And, don't worry, you can find the newest titles from every major Hollywood studio, as well as all the important indies.
You'll get to watch all those movies in high quality, too — 1080i HD (and 3D when available). You won't have to deal with buffering, glitches, or stopping. It's so annoying when that happens, isn't it?
It's so easy to order Movies On Demand, too. Just press the Movies On Demand button on your cable remote, scroll through the movie artwork, select your title, and voila! You're ready to watch from the comfort of your home. There are no passwords to remember, and no wires or alternate screens to connect. It's easy to find the movie you want with the Movies On Demand themed folders, such as new releases, library titles, action, drama, comedy, kids. Still not sure? No worries! You can watch any trailer before you place your order.
After you place your order, you can watch the vast majority of titles for 48 hours (and some even longer!). It won't disappear after one day!
Let's have some fun! I have five Movies On Demand codes so one of you can watch some movies right from your couch! This giveaway is open to U.S. residents and ends Sunday (February 28) at 7 p.m. EST (the start of the Oscars). Just leave a comment below letting me know your pick for Best Picture (here are all the Oscar nominees)!