text:
Skate park upset

Yackandandah group wants planned park moved

Ovens & Murray Advertiser - - FRONT PAGE - BY CORAL COOKSLEY

INDIGO mayor Jenny O’Connor will meet with the Yackandandah community later this month to enable people to see designs and put views about what has become a contentious plan to redevelop the town’s skate park.

Residents concerned about a $255,000 project to refurbish the existing skate park in Stone Bridge Park convened their own meeting in Yackandandah’s former courthouse earlier last month.

The gathering, hosted by Kevin Poyner, Tanya House, Paul Titterington, David Norman, Susan Reynolds and David Larkin, attracted almost 100 people.

Mr Poyner did not think the community had been widely canvassed about the proposed redevelopment of the skate park by Indigo Shire Council, although some residents and young users of the park had been involved earlier in the process.

“Councillors were invited to hear what this meeting had to say,” Mr Poyner said – but Cr O’Connor had been unable to attend because of another engagement.

The council is proposing to use a Victorian government grant of $100,000 and rate- payers’ funds of $155,000 to meet the costs of the redevelopment.

But there is concern that Stone Bridge Park – with its view of the single arch bridge spanning Commissioner’s Creek – should remain available as civic space.

Mr Poyner said the group which convened last month’s meeting was not opposed to the skate park, but preferred that it be sited in Isaacs Park.

“Infrastructure already exists in Isaacs Park, with amenities such as shelters and toilets that are not available at (Stone Bridge Park),” Mr Poyner said.

Some residents were also concerned about the redevelopment at what is a place significant for its colonial-era gold rush heritage.

“With a shift of the skate park we can improve and beautify a neglected area (in Stone Bridge Park) that has a lovely ambience for the benefit of the community and tourists,” Mr Poyner said.

Indigo Yackandandah councillor James Trenery, who had been involved in scoping the skate park redevelopment, spoke about the consultation process to date.

“We’ve come to a point where it can be done, and now alternatives have been proposed,” he told the courthouse meeting.

He said it was good to come together to discuss concerns.

But he said a proposal to move the skate park would add to the project’s cost and delay it.

Baranduda’s Nick Hazeleger, who worked in Yackandandah and advocated for skateboard riders at the meeting, said he was surprised that further lines of enquiry were being explored after a consultation process which started three years ago.

“A lot of work has been put into the project,” he said.

Mr Hazeleger said the community’s children remained important participants in any decisionmaking process. “It’s a shame that the development could be held up due to these new lines of enquiry at such a late stage,” he said.

A show of hands at the courthouse meeting indicated that more than half of those present supported relocation and that an approach should be made to the council to work on the matter.

Councillors Barb Murdoch and Dianne Shepheard attended the meeting.

PHOTO: Coral Cooksley

CONCERNED: Yackandandah’s John Bradly (left) and Kevin Poyner with some of the town’s skateboard riders Travis Olden, Etham Gray, Niam Elliott, Bobby Jones-Davies, Caleb Elliott and Reggie Pendergast at last month’s meeting about the town’s skateboard park location.

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Our pool and fitness centre could be left floundering if new operators don’t dive in soon

Stanthorpe Border Post - - FRONT PAGE -

GROWING uncertainty has residents fearful about the future of the Stanthorpe pool and fitness centre. Earlier this year Southern Downs Regional Council announced it would undertake a tender process to seek new operators for both facilities.

What does the future hold for Stanthorpe’s recreational hub with no takers so far?

Ideally, to merge and operate as one into the future.

That process has begun, but SDRC have found it’s not quite the “smooth transition” council spruiked a couple months ago.

In the tender document compiled by SDRC it stipulates “interested parties are required to attend a site briefing at the fitness centre at 10am on 1 November 2017”.

The compulsory site visit went ahead, but with only council staff in attendance and no “interested parties”.

Southern Downs Regional Council’s Manager Community Services and Major Projects Michael Bell has played down the non-attendance.

“There are defined steps in the tender process that interested parties can elect to action or not.

“Each of these actions will contribute to the quality and thoroughness of their response to the tender, meaning that some bids will be conforming and others non-conforming.

“It is of the utmost importance that council does not provide a commentary on the tender process. This will include questions from the media and any subsequent media that is produced during the tender period.

“The independence of the procurement process is of significance for the local government sector and it is important that this process is not compromised by on-going commentary that will create angst in the community and potentially influence decision making process,” Mr Bell said.

The final date for tender submissions is next Thursday.

“Should council receive an unsatisfactory response to the tender, the tender will be put to the market again,” he said.

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text:
A bug in your ear

The Aurora (Labrador City) - - EDITORIAL -

What’s a bug worth? Well, according to a 2006 study in the scientific journal Bioscience, the answer numbers in the billions.

“The Economic Value of Ecological Services Provided by Insects” puts a clear number on their value.

“In this article we focus on the vital ecological services provided by insects,” the authors say. “We restrict our focus to services provided by ‘wild’ insects; we do not include services from domesticated or mass-reared insect species.”

What the scientists examined was four crucial services provided by insects: dung burial, pest control, pollination, and nutrition for wildlife.

“We base our estimations of the value of each service on projections of losses that would accrue if insects were not functioning at their current level,” the study goes on to say. “We estimate the annual value of these ecological services provided in the United States to be at least $57 billion…”

So why is an 11-year-old study on the value of insects so interesting today?

Well, because an even newer study is suggesting that insects are disappearing at a staggering rate.

The study, in the journal PLOS One, looks at changes in flying insect biomass in a set of 63 protected areas in Germany. It’s based on 27 years of insect-trap measurement, and the results are alarming.

Between 1989 and 2016, the biomass of flying insects in the areas covered by the study fell by between 76 and 82 per cent. Remember, that’s the total biomass — not the number of species that were found.

According to the researchers, “loss of insect diversity and abundance is expected to provoke cascading effects on food webs and to jeopardize ecosystem services.”

Insects provide 80 per cent of wild plant pollination, and 60 per cent of birds rely on insects as a food source.

“Our results demonstrate that recently reported declines in several taxa such as butterflies, wild bees and moths, are in parallel with a severe loss of total aerial insect biomass, suggesting that it is not only the vulnerable species, but the flying insect community as a whole, that has been decimated over the last few decades.”

Of course, the decline in insects recorded in the study is only part of what the natural world has lost. Another study found that between 1970 and 2012, the planet lost roughly 58 per cent of its wild vertebrate abundance.

Not only is the world becoming a less colourful place, it’s becoming a less functional one as well.

There has to be a point where we stop ignoring the warnings all around us.

Put it this way: canaries in coal mines only effectively detect the presence of coal gas if you are willing to look in their cages to see if they might be dead.

If you just keep blindly digging, well, you can imagine how that’s going to turn out.

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text:
Business Today - - THE BREAKOUT ZONE -

As the battle to be numero uno in the Indian e-commerce space heats up, Amazon India chief Amit Agarwal is all set to double investments in digital payments and the Prime membership programme. Despite rival Flipkart claiming to have grabbed the top spot, Agarwal reiterates that Amazon is by far the largest online retailer in the country, even during the recent Diwali sale. This seems like an endless debate as the two e-commerce players are unwilling to cede ground.

AMIT AGARWAL Senior VP and Country Head, Amazon India

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text:
Gigi, you are one of the few people I would leave my baby for: Serena

Mid Day - - CLOSE OF PLAY - For chatter on sport stars, log on to

Not many mothers would want to keep their newborn child away from them, but American tennis star and new mom Serena Williams is ready to make an exception for American model, Gigi Hadid. Williams, 36, who gave birth to daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. on September 1, left her little one for the first time for an overnight awards functions — the 2017 Glamour Women of the Year Awards in New York City — where she presented Hadid with the Supernova Award. In her first public appearance since child birth Serena said, “Gigi, you are one of the few people on this planet I’d leave my baby for, for one night. It shows how much you mean to me. And I want you to imagine the affect you have on the world,” US website E! online quoted Serena, as saying. Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar has showed how sportspersons can take social messages to the masses, Srinivas Prasad, the minister at India’s UN Mission, told a General Assembly session. Tendulkar has been involved in a campaign for personal hygiene practices among children and also promotes the national “Swachh Bharat” programme, Prasad said at the session on Sport for Development and Peacebuilding, yesterday. “As the top sport of India which reaches millions of people in cities, towns and even small villages across the country, cricket and its stars provide a very important platform for spreading social messages. And Sachin truly illustrates this,” said Prasad.

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text:
Airline’s ‘U-turn’ over cancellations

Irish Daily Mail - - News - By James Ward

RYANAIR was taunted by British aviation chiefs yesterday who claimed it had been forced into an embarassing U-turn.

The British Civil Aviation Authority said the airline had been forced to ‘capitulate’ and inform cancellation-hit passengers of their right to be flown on rival airlines.

Earlier this week the CAA accused Ryanair of ‘misleading’ its customers, by wrongly claiming it was not obliged to arrange new flights for customers on rival airlines. But yesterday the airline caved in to legal pressure from the CAA to tell all 400,000 passengers how they would provide alternative travel arrangements.

When the scandal broke two weeks ago, Michael O’Leary vowed not to send his customers to his competitors.

‘We will not pay for flights on other airlines. We cannot afford to pay the high costs of our competitors.’

But O’Leary’s airline was forced to change its stance yesterday, informing customers it will give full refunds, rebook customers on other Ryanair or ‘comparable low cost carriers’, as well as reimbursing ‘reasonable out of pocket expenses’.

Ryanair’s Kenny Jacobs said: ‘We apologise again, sincerely, for the disruption and inconvenience our rostering failure has caused some of our customers.’ He said they had refunded or re-accommodated 97% of customers affected by the initial cancellations announced on September 18.

The airline said it had emailed all customers again to clarify their rights to refunds, following criticism from passengers, government and consumer groups.

The CAA threatened legal action against the airline after it made a second round of cancellations, affecting 18,000 flights, saying they had flouted the EC261 legislation on the matter.

Yesterday, CAA chief executive Andrew Haines said it appeared that Ryanair had ‘capitulated’ and that it would review their new position in detail.

Speaking from a European summit in Estonia yesterday, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he expected Ryanair to honour its commitments.’

Meanwhile, the Ryanair Pilot Group are reportedly calling for an EGM of shareholders to ‘protect their investments’ and address the animosity between staff and the airline.

They are also predicting that flight cancellations will continue beyond when the end of the winter period in March 2018, despite what senior Ryanair management have said.

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text:
They’re the two common problem areas that are often neglected. These heavy-duty creams will nourish their dry and dehydrated skin back to life.

Female (Singapore) - - CONTENTS -

These heavy-duty creams will nourish dry and dehydrated areas back to life.

1 Kocostar Foot Peeling Pack, $15, Sephora

This gentle sheet mask helps to exfoliate dead skin cells from cracked heels and soften calluses, leaving your feet softer, smoother and moisturised.

2 Supergoop! Forever Young Hand Cream SPF40, $22, Sephora

Enriched with sea buckthorn fruit, meadowfoam and argan oil, this antioxidant-rich hand cream not only keeps hands soft, but also has SPF properties to minimise UV damage.

3 Estelle & Thild Spring Rose Blonde Body Lotion, $35, Sephora

This has aloe vera leaf juice and jojoba oil to instantly hydrate while locking in moisture at the same time, ensuring that skin stays supple and smooth for hours.

4 Sulwhasoo Essentrue Deep Nourishing Hand Cream EX, $45

The perfect rescue for dry hands, this rich hand cream has Sulwhasoo’s Essentrue Korean Herbal Medicinal Oil Complex as well as bamboo sap to nourish and restore, keeping skin velvety soft.

5 The Body Shop Almond Milk & Honey Calming & Protecting Body Butter, $30.90

Formulated with natural botanical extracts, this nourishing cream delivers 48 hours of intense hydration to calm sensitive and dry skin.

6 L’Occitane Shea Intense Hand Balm, $46

Enriched with 25 per cent shea butter and allantoin, this ultra-rich balm can be massaged into dry areas – hands, cuticles, elbows and heels – to keep skin smooth and supple. It also functions as a mask – just apply a thick layer over skin for 10 minutes and wipe off the excess.

7 Origins Reinventing The Heel Mega Moisture for Dry Cracked Feet, $54

Infused with rose fruit, jojoba oil and shea butter to nourish dry soles. The inclusion of salicylic acid ensures that skin remains super soft, while menthol extract instantly soothes tired feet.

8 Orbis Rechercher Body Refrebility Gel, $35

The bead-like vitamin capsules are packed with vitamins C and E, cactus and mandarin extracts, as well as hydrolysed elastin, which work together to calm and moisturise skin, while citrus notes of lemongrass, grapefruit and bergamot refresh the senses.

9 Cle de Peau Beaute Radiant Multi Repair Oil, $200

A multipurpose oil infused with the brand’s signature Illuminating Complex EX, it can be used to soothe and hydrate from top to toe. Apply it anywhere on the face and body – even hair.

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text:
Your eyes are as important to your riding as your heart – and a lot more vulnerable to the elements. Here’s how to treat them right.

Bicycling (South Africa) - - FRONT PAGE - BY EVELYN SPENCE

JENNIFER LYONS HAS BEEN commuting by bike to her job for four out of five days a week since 1999. She rides a few 100-plus kilometre races every summer, and has done at least one multi-stage race a year for the past 10 years. She also works (with other eye specialists) as an ophthalmologist – and knows first-hand that cyclists’ eyes are as important as their legs and lungs. “Vision is so important,” says Lyons. “You have to see clearly and be aware of your surroundings.” Everything else goes out the window if you can’t see well on your bike. Here’s how to outsmart the most common eye irritants, so you can stay focused and safe when you ride.

Most of us have experienced it: that scratchy feeling of dry eyes. It’s caused by evaporation on the surface of the eye, and while it isn’t damaging, it can be irritating and temporarily affect your vision. fix it A snug pair of wraparound sunglasses will keep some wind away from your eyes, but not all of it. Even your own tears won’t help much in these situations – they contain mostly water, and dry quickly. Try applying lubricating eyedrops

before you head out, and if the problem persists, consider carrying a small bottle with you. “But don’t use the kind that claims to ‘get the red out’,” says Lyons. “It’ll constrict the blood vessels, making your eyes drier.” Your eyes might go haywire for another reason: allergies. You may already have a solution to this problem, but changing your riding habits can help, too. fix it Try riding in the evening or in cooler, wetter weather when pollen levels are lower. Allergy pills can make dryness worse, Lyons says. Instead, she recommends using an over-thecounter antihistamine eye drop. “They’re just as good as prescription drops – for a lot cheaper.” Pollution is another irritant. Exhaust fumes aren’t necessarily allergens themselves, but they can aggravate allergies, says Dr Leonard Bielory, an allergy, asthma and immunology specialist. Treat the same way you’d treat dry eyes – with drops and wraparound sunglasses – and spend less time on congested roads.

Even when wearing shades, you can still be hit by insects and grit. If the debris hurts enough, or if tears or blinking interfere with your vision, stop. fix it “You should rinse any debris from your eyes with plenty of clean water,” says opthalmologist Rachel Bishop. “Gently empty a bit of fluid from your water bottle to clear it, then pour water liberally over your eye to rinse.” To dislodge stubborn specks from the inside of your upper lid, Lyons suggests pulling your upper lid down over your lower one, then letting them rub together as you open your eye. If you still feel something foreign in your eye 24 hours after the ride, make an appointment with an opthalmologist – you don’t want to scratch your cornea or get an infection. It’s all about respecting your eyes as much as you would any other important body part. “When your eyesight is functioning at its best, you can just be present on the road,” says Lyons.

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text:
In Flight Magazine - - TOTALLY TASTY -

Getting a little bored with what’s in your liquor cabinet? Then you have to try an exciting new cream liqueur, CuppnChino Red Velvet with its coffee, creamy vanilla and red velvet cake flavour and aroma. Its striking scarlet colour makes a dramatic statement when served in a martini glass or over crushed ice. CuppnChino Red Velvet can also be used as a secret ingredient in baked puddings and desserts. Created by Nature’s Own Beverages in Bonnievale in the Western Cape, every bottle contains fresh cream which is then blended with premium distilled spirits to produce each delicious starburst-in-a-bottle.

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text:
The Stories Behind The Songs

The Cranberries

Classic Rock - - Contents - Words: Emma Johnston Something Else is out now on BMG.

How a storming left-turn, an incendiary, furious track about the bombings in Northern Ireland, made them massive.

By 1994, Limerick rock band The Cranberries had achieved international fame with their chart-topping, multi-platinum debut album Everybody Else Is Doing

It So Why Can’t We?, and most people thought they knew exactly what the

Irish four-piece were about.

As the final days of grunge stormed around them, they were a barefoot, floaty, slightly hippie-ish oasis of calm, the romantic longing of Linger and the fairy tale sugar-rush of Dreams further sweetened by singer Dolores O’Riordan’s girlish, heavily accented vocal style.

Then in September, in the run-up to the release of their second album, No Need To Argue, they turned their own image on its head by returning with Zombie, a grungy, gloomy, furious anti-war song that found O’Riordan raging against the violence caused by the conflict in Northern Ireland, which was making the news headlines on what seemed like a weekly basis.

On March 20, 1993, one of two bombs was planted in a litter bin in Warrington city centre by Irish republicans. When it exploded, 12-year-old Tim Parry and three-year-old Jonathan Ball were killed, and dozens of people injured, in an attack that shocked and appalled the public in the UK and Ireland alike. When the news of the attack broke, The Cranberries were on tour in the UK, and O’Riordan was on the tour bus in London.

“I remember at the time there were a lot of bombs going off in London and the Troubles were pretty bad,” she says now, 24 years later. “I remember being on tour and being in the UK at the time when the child died, and just being really sad about it all. These bombs are going off in random places. It could have been anyone, you know?

“It’s a tough thing to sing about, but when you’re young you don’t think twice about things, you just grab it and do it. As you get older you develop more fear and you get more apprehensive, but when you’re young you’ve no fear.”

Zombie was written in a rare lull between tours; the band had spent the majority of the year on the road in the US, touring universities and arenas and building up their brand. Rather than being a collaborative effort, it was written by O’Riordan alone, in the calm of her own flat, and it began life as a much gentler proposition than it ended up as.

“It was extremely busy and we were working all the time around the clock,” she says. “That song came to me when I was in Limerick, and I wrote it initially on an acoustic guitar, late at night. I remember being in my flat, coming up with the chorus, which was catchy and anthemic. So I took it into rehearsals, and I picked up the electric guitar. Then I kicked in distortion on the chorus, and I said to Ferg [Fergal Lawler, drums]: ‘Maybe you could beat the drums pretty hard.’ Even though it was written on an acoustic, it became a bit of a rocker.

“That was the most aggressive song we’d written. Zombie was quite different to what we’d done before.”

It was recorded in Dublin with producer Stephen Street, who spent a long time working on getting the guitar settings right to give a suitably expansive sound. But while they were experimenting with raising the volume, O’Riordan says it wasn’t a concerted effort to ride the grunge bandwagon.

“It came organically because we were using our live instruments, we were plugging in a lot, and we started to mess around with feedback and distortion. When you’re on tour you start to mess around a bit more with the live side of things. There were a lot of bands around that were part of the grunge thing, and this wasn’t grunge, but the timing was good. We couldn’t have really fitted in with grunge, because we were just a different type of a band. We were Irish and from Limerick, and we had a lot of our own ideas. A lot of the grunge bands were very similar to each other.”

Equally important to the success of the track, released as a single, in the MTV era was the accompanying video, in which the singer was painted gold and surrounded by silver-painted cherubs. It was inter-cut with documentary footage of soldiers and children on the streets of Northern Ireland, filmed by director Samuel Bayer, who also made the videos for Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and Blind Melon’s No Rain.

“I actually thought the director was very brave,” says O’Riordan. “When he got back, he was pretty pumped

– there was a lot of adrenalin pumping through him. He was telling me how tense it was and how he was blown away by the whole thing. He got footage of the kids jumping from one building to another, and he got a lot of footage of the army. He was a very good director.”

Released in 1994, Zombie went to

No.1 in several countries and on the

“It’s a tough thing to sing about, but when you’re young you don’t think twice about things, you just grab it and do it. When you’re young you’ve no fear.”

US rock chart (although it only made it to No.14 in the UK), and was certified platinum in Australia and Germany. At the MTV Awards, the band beat Michael Jackson and TLC to win Best Song. But that paled into insignificance when they were invited to perform it at the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998, when Ulster Unionist leader John Hume and SDLP leader David Trimble were honoured “for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland”.

Parent album No Need To Argue went on to sell 17 million copies, and made O’Riordan very rich.

“I wouldn’t change anything about it, because it did so well,” she says. “It was well-written and it was well-composed. I think it did so well because it’s hard to categorise it. And I still like singing it.”

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text:
Johnny Appleseed returns to Bryn Athyn

Glenside News - - POLICEREPORTS - By Caitlin Burns

Johnny Appleseed will be ret urning to Bryn Athyn at t he eighth annual Johnny Appleseed Festival at the Orchard Artworks, located at 520 Tomlinson Avenue. The festival, which will host more crafts and entertainPHnW WKLV yHDU, wLOO EH 6HSW. 29 I U RP 1 W R 4 S. P.

The day will be filled with apples, baked goods and crafts, as l ocal arti s t s , historians and bakers gather t o participate i n t he f all festival. Craftsmen and women will be having public demonstrat i ons f or spinning wool, pressing apples for cider and making rope L n W KH 18WK FHnWuUy V W yOHV. 7KLV year t here will also be t he addit i on of t he corn s heller, which will demonstrate how farms would collect the corn from their fields before modern machines. For t he f i r s t t i me, t here will also be a book signing by author Ray Silverman. He will be signing copies of his recently published book, “The Core of Johnny Appleseed.”

Returning t h i s y e a r i s t h e a p - ple pie t a s t i n g c o n t e s t where t h r e e j u d g e s wil l t a s t e a n d d e - c i d e who h a s s u b mitt e d the most f l a v o r f u l p i e . Also k e e p - i n g wit h t r a d i t i o n wil l b e the annual tree planting in the o r i g i n a l o r c h a r d , s i n c e much o f WKH RULJLnDO 1914 RUFKDUG KDV d i e d . This y e a r the t r e e wil l b e p l a n t e d i n memory o f a r t i s t Sylvi a Glassman, who p a s s e d a way e a r l y t h i s y e a r. Glassman was a p a p e r c r a f t a r t i s t a t Orc h a r d Artworks s i n c e November 2002 and specialized in making h o memade n o t e c a r d s u s i n g r u b b e r s t a mps.

The festival is held to celebrate the life of Johnny Appleseed, who was really John Chapman from Wooster, Ohio. Chapman traveled throughout Pennsylvania and t he Midwest planting apple trees and spreading the teachings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, upon whose writing the General Church of New Jerusalem was built. Attendees can l earn about his history and legend from the Alnwick Grove Historical Society, which will be handing out information at its table.

The Johnny Appleseed Fest i val coincides with Orchard Artworks’ “Autumn of t he Art” show where all t he artists who r un t he s t udio will be displaying pieces t hat i nclude pottery, j ewelry and photography.

Events will be going on all day and attendees are encouraged to bring a picnic l unch with t hem t o enjoy among t he f estivities. Baked goods will be for sale at t he f estival.

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text:
Golden Gate Park is a great place to walk, take in places like the Conservatory of Flowers

Riverbank News - - FRONT PAGE - By DENNIS WYATT

SAN FRANCISCO – The quintessential San Francisco place to walk?

Some might say Ocean Beach or Land’s End. Others Fisherman’s Wharf, Union Square, Market Street or even across the Golden Gate Bridge.

I’d disagree. Those are haunts, for the most part, heavily laden with tourists, commuters from the provinces, and have a mob feel to them even when you’re hiking down a cypress lined path at Land’s end catching glimpses of the Golden Gate Bridge between breaks in the trees.

There’s only one place you can soak up what makes The City what it is — San Franciscans who live there. And that’s the place were ingenuity and vision transformed 1,017 acres of sand dunes into the Golden Gate Park.

Granted there is a lot of traffic that slices through the half mile wide park especially on that frustrating piece of rolling urban crawl known as California Highway 1. And there are a lot of fee-based attractions — the Academy of Science, the DeYoung Museum of Modern Art, and the Conservatory of Flowers as well as high profile concerts — that manage to pull a lot of people into the there-mile wide urban oasis that stretches from Ocean Beach to the Haight-Asbury neighborhood.

That’s the reason the official visitors’ count for Golden Gate Park is pegged at 13 million annually.

But the real joy besides the relative solitude you can enjoy the lush acreage dotted with tens of thousands of trees is the fact you come in contact with people who actually live in San Francisco.

They’re usually fleeting encounters — a simple exchange of “hi” when you pass — or maybe a prolonged min- ute or so chat when you are stopped soaking in the botanical beauty that is Golden Gate Park. It’s not that San Francisco residents aren’t friendly, it’s

just that Pier 39 et al aren’t where you are going to find them.

That said a trip to Golden Gate Park is really about sharpening your senses for nature.

That sounds crazy given you’ll end up driving 90 minutes or so one way in the best of weekend traffic conditions to take what is essentially a hike of sorts in a city of 870,000.

But when you consider what surrounds you in terms of trees, shrubs, and plants it’s an amazing celebration of nature. There are some 800 species of plants grown in the park’s nursery complex where 3,000 individual plants are taken and planted throughout the park in a typical week.

Granted, Golden Gate Park is essentially a large garden given it doesn’t meet the suburban criteria these days for a park — a couple pf trees with a lot of flat ground covered with grass and a basketball court or jungle gym added for good measure.

It was designed as a respite from the urban jungle. Walk for a few minutes down one of the paths crisscrossing the park and you can forget you’re in a place where parking a car on the street is about as stress free as a full-scale IRS audit.

Speaking of stress-free parking, your best place to ditch your car for an extended walk through the park is in the Ocean Beach parking area across the Great Highway across from the windmills.

You can map out loop routes of less than a mile to easily eight miles plus and never get bored from what you see. Even a straightforward walk around the perimeter — the park on one side and the street and tight rows of homes on the other can be a different venture.

But if it is varied scenery you want, stick to the trails.

And while it’s true many of the best things in life are free, plan on spending a bit of cash if you’d like to enjoy two truly unique treats gleaned from nature — the 5-acre Japanese Tea Garden that is the oldest public Japanese Tea Garden in the United States — and the Conservatory of Flowers.

The Japanese Tea Garden is near the de Young Museum. The garden is features classic elements such as an arched drum bridge, pagodas, stone lanterns, stepping stone paths, native Japanese plants, serene koi ponds and a Zen garden. Cherry blossom trees bloom throughout the garden in March and April.

Winter hours of 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. are now in effect through Feb. 28. The rest of the year the hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is free if you enter before 10 a.m.

Admission at other times for adults is $9 while seniors over 65 and youth ages 12 to 17 are $6. Children 5 to 11 are $2 while those 4 and younger are free.

You can find more information at japaneseteagardensf.com

Perhaps the most unique feature of Golden Gate Park from the standpoint of nature is the Conservatory of Flowers

The Conservatory of Flowers opened in 1879 and is is one of the world’s largest conservatories, as well as one of few large Victorian greenhouses in the United States., The 12,000 square foot structure of glass and wood in the finest Victorian tradition houses 1,700 species of tropical, rare and aquatic plants.

A recap of some of the unique features as noted by the City of San Francisco Parks and Recreation Department:

SPECIAL EXHIBITS ROOM: Every six months the special exhibits room changes its gallery. Oftentimes the exhibits include model trains as well as models displaying the topic of presentation. Galleries vary from California fairs to tropical island survival.

POTTED PLANTS GALLERY: The Potted Plant room holds various unusual plants. The pots and urns that hold the plants were created by various artists from around the world. This room is maintained at hotter temperatures to accommodate the needs of the plants.

LOWLANDS GALLERY: The Lowlands Gallery contains plants from the tropics of South America (near the equator). This room also contains plants that produce more well-known products such as bananas, coffee, and cinnamon. The room is usually kept around 70 °F with a very high level of humidity through the use of a frequent system of misters, as the Lowland Tropics typically get 100–400 inches of rain each year and are located in elevations from 3,000 feet to sea level.

HIGHLANDS GALLERY: The Highlands Gallery contains native plants from South to Central America. Its plants collect moisture from the air, and from water that drips from the trees above. Due to its drastically higher elevation (3,000–10,000 feet), this room is kept cooler than the Lowlands Gallery (around 65 °F) and is kept at a very high level of humidity through the use of a misting system, as the Highland Tropics typically receive 200 inches of rain per year.

AQUATICS GALLERY: The Aquatic Plants room is similar in conditions as those near the Amazon River. As such, many carnivorous plants that thrive in hot, humid environments grow throughout the room. The soil is mostly lacking in nutrients and the carnivorous plants are kept very moist by condensation of the water in the extremely humid air. The room also contains 2 large ponds, one holding 9,000 gallons of water, and the other holding half as much. Both ponds are kept at 83 °F and are maintained using beneficial bacteria, filters, water heaters, and solutions to prevent algae buildup.

The Conservatory of Flowers is closed Mondays. It is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with the last ticket sold at 4 p.m. Admission is free on the first Tuesday of each month.

Admission is $9 for adults, $6 for youth 12 to17 and seniors over 65 as well as college students with ID cards, $3 for children 5 to 11, and free for those 4 and under.

For more information go to conservatoryofflowers.org.

And perhaps the best thing about going for a walk at Golden Gate Park is you can choose between 3,500 restaurants to refuel at, given San Francisco with 39.3 restaurants per 10,000 residents has the highest per capita of restaurants anywhere in the United States.

Photo courtesy City of San Francisco Parks & Recreation Department

The Conservatory of Flowers located in Golden Gate Park.

Photo courtesy Asmaudra at English Wikipedia

The Japanese Tea Garden at Golden Gate Park.

Photo courtesy SF Parks & Recreation Department

Among the features at Golden Gate Park are, from top, Stow Lake that offers paddle boats, the botanical gardens, and the Chain of Lakes.

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text:
S.F. supes delay decision on pot rules

Recreational sales almost certainly won’t start Jan. 1

San Francisco Chronicle - - BAYAREA - By Rachel Swan

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday to kick its big cannabis debate down the road two weeks, making it almost certain that recreational sales won’t start in the city on Jan. 1.

The point of contention was a proposal by Supervisors Aaron Peskin and Jeff Sheehy to grant temporary permits to existing medical cannabis dispensaries, cultivators and manufacturers, so that they could enter the recreational market in January.

Supervisor Malia Cohen balked at the idea, saying it would provide a boost to people who already own cannabis businesses, leaving behind the low-income residents, people of color and victims of the country’s war on drugs that the supervisors say they want to help.

“It would be responsible for us to continue this and ensure that the final legislation that is passed is thoughtful, culturally sensitive, and allows us to be up and running by the first week of January,” Cohen said, suggesting that her colleagues could

push the recreational start date to Jan. 5.

This month Cohen introduced an equity permit program that would prioritize permits for people with prior drug arrests and convictions, along with people displaced from their San Francisco homes and residents who earn 80 percent, or less, of the city’s median income. The program seems to have backing from the rest of the board.

Sheehy lamented that the delay could “take what we already have and turn it into chaos,” but he ultimately supported the continuance.

The board’s cannabis debate has reached a standstill, with several supervisors asking for caps or outright bans on the number of stores in their neighborhoods, buffers around schools and child care centers, and other zoning rules that, when added together, would prevent new businesses from opening in most of San Francisco.

Cohen, along with former Supervisors Scott Wiener and David Campos, have raised concerns that if the city issued permits to its existing 46 cannabis businesses and then tightened zoning rules, the market would be closed to new shops.

Although the board has held six committee meetings over the past two weeks to discuss those issues, the supervisors still appear to be stuck. Mark Farrell said at the beginning of the meeting that continuing the item just before a long holiday break might cause it to drag on for months.

“If you prick a balloon, the air deflates,” he said. “We’re not going to pick up this topic for a long time.”

Nonetheless, he and eight other supervisors voted to support the delay. Cohen left before the vote, and Peskin was the only supervisor who dissented.

Before voting to continue the debate, the board defeated an amendment by Supervisor Ahsha Safai to require dispensaries to develop a “good neighbor policy” with help from police captains and district supervisors.

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text:
Man accused of snapping chicken’s neck at Target store

The Garden Island - - Morning Briefing -

HONOLULU — A 56-year-old man is accused of snapping a chicken’s neck in front of a Hawaii Target store after he was asked to leave because he brought a dead black bird in with him.

Walter Anderson was arrested earlier this month after employees said he killed a chicken near the Kailua Target store and then grabbed another chicken, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.

Anderson pleaded not guilty on Thursday to second-degree cruelty to animals. He was released after posting $300 bail. ••• Associated Press

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text:
Late Liz Smith was the grande dame of gossip

The Palm Beach Post - - FRONT PAGE - By John Leland © 2017 New York Times

The following story about society writer Liz Smith ran in The New York Times in July. Smith died Sunday at 94.

Liz Smith, who is 94 and recovering from a minor stroke, would like it to be known that she is available for duty.

“I’m just fine,” she said the other day. “I can’t walk. I can’t talk as well as I used to, but I’m relatively healthy otherwise.”

It was a warm afternoon in her new Park Avenue apartment, six months into the administration of President Donald Trump, whose tabloid rise was once closely linked to her own.

She has a laptop, but she doesn’t like it. She has an electric typewriter, which she bought after her stroke at the suggestion of Tom Hanks, a friend, but it sits on the floor because she does not have a desk.

She has her wits, though words sometimes elude her or come out sideways. She even has a column of sorts, which she writes with her longtime collaborator, Denis Ferrara, for a website called New York Social Diary.

What she does not have is a column in a New York tabloid, the Via Veneto of the gossip world. Since The New York Post dropped her in 2009, she has been a herald without a proper platform, rejected by the media names she helped make boldface.

She pleaded with Rupert Murdoch, owner of The Post, not to drop her — no soap.

She offered herself to Mortimer B. Zuckerman, owner of The Daily News, the paper where she made her name. “I said, you have nothing to lose, you don’t even have to pay me a salary,” she said — no soap there, either.

So when J-Lo sneezes, it is now up to someone else to make sure the public gets sick.

Facebook, maybe?

“I don’t think my name could sell anything now,” Smith said in the apartment where she moved after her stroke in January, from her longtime digs above a Tex-Mex restaurant in Murray Hill. She wore a white cable-knit sweater and bright orange lipstick.

“It used to mean — bylines used to mean something in journalism,” she said, her Texas accent still unbowed. But with the internet and social media, she said, “most people have forgotten about socalled powerful people like me; we served our time.”

Which put Smith at an existential crossroads: If a gossip columnist dishes in the forest and no one repeats it, does it make a sound? In a celebrity landscape that considers contestants on “The Bachelorette” to be celebrities, how does a star-chaser regain her star?

“I am in search of Liz Smith,” she said softly, musing at the thought. “After a lifetime of fun and excitement and money and feeling important and being in the thick of it, I am just shocked every day that I’m not the same person. I think that happens to all old people. They’re searching for a glimmer of what they call their real self. They’re boring, mostly.

“I’m always thinking falsely, expending what little energy I have, believing every day I may just rediscover that person. I try to be all of the things I was, but it inevitably fails. I don’t feel like myself at all.”

Mary Elizabeth Smith was born in 1923 in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up enthralled by the radio broadcasts of Walter Winchell, aching for “the glamour and the excitement of New York,” she said. She was not interested in Hollywood; New York was where the luster was.

Her arrival, in September 1949, was less than glamorous. She reached Pennsylvania Station after a three-day train ride, with $50 and no job prospects, and spent her first night in a hotel room on 21st Street with two friends. She knew how to hail a taxi because she had seen it in movies, she said. When she looked out the window her first morning, she asked, “Which way is town?”

She quickly found her way, landing an apartment with two roommates, taking turns sleeping on the couch. The place was small but it did not matter. The city was too exciting for her to stay home and read or sleep, knowing what was outside her window — stars, celebrities, the El Morocco club.

“I was just climbing and electrified all the time,” she said. “Burning up with ambition. So I don’t want to judge other people too harshly that I see on television. They’re just climbing also. But I like to think that I had some talent.”

Words that recur in her conversation: climbing, clawing, talent, important, powerful, Trump, Mrs. Astor. Also some that cannot be printed here.

Her friends in New York showed her how to make a meal of free crackers and ketchup at the automat. She knew actor Zachary Scott from college — he played Joan Crawford’s love interest in “Mildred Pierce” — so she looked him up in the phone book, and he helped her get a job at Modern Screen magazine.

The phone book!

“That would be impossible today,” she said. “Any celebrity would flee from the publicity. They are trying to escape their fans. Once they’re really big, they choose to insulate themselves with money, and they don’t need publicity, they just get it by appearing, but they’re not exactly clawing their way to the top, like everybody in the theater and the movies used to be. They’re just so big, they don’t care anymore.”

Into this gap, of course — between the untouchable star and the curious public — rose the gossip columnist, and particularly Smith. Access made the stars more like mortals, and made the gossip columnists more like stars. The price of admission, she discovered, was often uncritical reverence. Celebrities learned they could count on Smith.

Meeting her heroes, she said, did not diminish their glow. “Oh, I don’t think that’s true,” she said. “It seemed fabulous.”

She was invited to lavish openings and parties, or to travel to exotic film locations, and when she wrote favorably about these, she was invited to more. Instead of digging for scandal, like some of her competitors (“I thought I was above it,” she said. “I wanted to better myself ”) she cultivated mutually beneficial relationships with her subjects.

“We need Liz,” gossip columnist Michael Musto once told New York magazine, “because we need someone who actually likes celebrities. We knock everyone down, and then she builds them back up.”

Others resented her fawning and occasional sharp elbows. Spy magazine ran a monthly “Liz Smith Tote Board” of favorites she puffed. Pub-

licist Bobby Zarem, angered over perceived slights, once helped send false wedding notices for Smith and her partner at the time, a socialite and archaeologist named Iris Love. Zarem, who, when asked to comment for this article, said, “I hope it’s for an obituary,” added that as Smith rose, people bowed to her.

“I know people who wouldn’t care if Liz Smith killed somebody as long as she mentioned their names in her column,” he said.

She advised a virginal Elaine Stritch to have sex with Marlon Brando to keep him interested; helped Rock Hudson thwart a blackmailer who threatened to out him; sheltered Ivana Trump from other gossiphounds; traveled the world with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton; and during her tenure at The Post broke the story of Murdoch’s divorce — from his point of view, of course. She mixed with Richard Nixon, Roy Cohn, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Ann Richards, Hillary Clinton and Roger Ailes, among others.

“I had a fabulous education around the world, through people no one else could get,” she said. “What reporter wouldn’t have wanted to go?”

But Smith also had misgivings. She had studied journalism at the University of Texas and wanted to be taken seriously, like the news reporters she admired. When she landed assignments for the first issues of New York magazine, which published the “New Journalism” of writers like Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese, she thought about following their path. “I was still at their feet, slathering over them,” she said. Then she discovered that she could not make a living at it. Celebrities, on the other hand, paid the bills. Like the stars she wrote about, she did what was necessary to get ahead.

“I needed access to people,” she said. “And you’re not supposed to seek access. You’re just supposed to be pure and you go to the person you’re writing about and you write the truth. Nobody can do it totally.”

“But everybody gives up something to be able to do a job, a demanding job,” she added. “And being a reporter is a demanding, dangerous job. It may be glamorous or put you in harm’s way. I gave up being considered ethical and acceptable, for a while.”

She moved from Modern Screen to television to Cosmopolitan, along the way contributing to the pseudonymous Cholly Knickerbocker society column in the Hearst newspaper chain. At The Daily News, where she got her first column under her own name in 1976, she took notice of a brash young real estate developer who irked the city’s oldmoney types but entertained the readers of New York tabloids. Donald Trump was made for tabloid columns, she said, because he was both ravenous for their attention and gifted at feeding their needs.

Smith especially befriended Ivana Trump, who she thought was being unfairly shunned by high society. When the Trump marriage soured in February 1990, Smith chose sides cannily.

“I was horrified at the way he treated her, and I made the mistake of defending her,” she said. “This is always fatal for your aspirations to be taken seriously as a reporter. But I had no choice. I had to be nice to them for a while to get access to them. I didn’t particularly approve of them, I didn’t like or dislike them. And I met his whole family and they were charming. So I was swept up in the scandal of Ivana wanting a decent settlement from Donald. And I became a featured player in the story, which I came to regret.”

“The divorce made Liz,” said gossip columnist Cindy Adams, who landed rival exclusive interviews with Donald Trump for The Post. “It catapulted her, because she had the original story. In those days she was a major force.”

As Ivana Trump’s confidante, Smith channeled details of a divorce that filled not just the tabloids, but also the networks and the covers of Time and Newsweek. As former gossip columnist Jeannette Walls noted in her 2000 book “Dish: How Gossip Became the News and the News Became Just Another Show”: “A lot happened in the world that week. The Berlin Wall was toppled and Germany was reunited. Drexel Burnham Lambert, the wildly powerful junk bond company that spearheaded the 1980s financial boom, collapsed. And after 27 years in prison, South African civil rights leader Nelson Mandela was freed. But for 11 straight days, the front pages of the tabs were devoted to the Trump Divorce.”

For three months, Smith wrote about nothing else, often on the tabloid’s front page, and she even appeared there in a photo, ushering Ivana Trump past a horde of journalists and gapers in front of the restaurant La Grenouille. She repeated her stories or added new ones on the 5 o’clock news. Alexander Cockburn in The Nation called the story “Manhattan’s answer to Götterdämmerung” and wrote that “its Wagner is Liz Smith.” If her universe was one in which the Trumps and Marla Maples were the brightest stars, she was the one handing out the glow.

“I just tried to be fair, and most of these other columnists weren’t,” she said of her rivals. “I like to think I was better than them. I’m probably miscalculating.”

The succession of front page stories raised the stakes for gossip, and made the competition for sources more cutthroat, Adams said. “We were two tigers trying to cover our turf, I’ll just say that,” she said.

Circulation and ratings boomed. With income from her column, syndication and television, Smith was said to be the highest-paid print journalist in America. When Donald Trump vowed to buy The News just to fire her, it made her only bigger.

But the high did not last. When newspapers started to crash in the first decade of this century, Smith fell with them, accepting “less money for the privilege of still being printed as a byline,” she said. Until finally, even this came to an end.

Smith still loves famous people, including Gloria Steinem (“one of my idols”), Larry Kramer (“a superior person”), Jennifer Lopez (“I just love her”) and Michelle Obama (“If I were energetic and young and Liz Smith again, I would go after Michelle Obama”). But she is somewhat baffled to be in a world where people can tell the Kardashians apart.

“Maybe gossip is still amusing, but I don’t think it’s as much fun as it used to be, because it’s now all-pervasive,” she said. “Someone you never knew their name is on the front page, making millions of dollars or going broke, and you never heard of them before. In the past we were able to identify important people and stars.”

Adams, who at 87 is still writing a column for The Post, characterized the new gossip as “young kids who are out there with their telephones recording what these nonpeople are saying.” She added, “They’re making it very difficult.”

Two years ago, a website called AfterEllen described Smith as “the most powerful queer woman in media who you’ve never heard of.”

Smith, who appreciates a well-packed phrase, was amused. “Ha!” she said.

Since publishing her autobiography, “Natural Blonde,” in 2000, she has dropped her reticence about her relationships with men and women, in part in response to gay activists who demanded she come out.

Her regret, she said, was waiting so long. “It sounded defensive to protest that I thought myself bisexual, like I wouldn’t admit that I was a lesbian. I wasn’t a happy convert to any particular sexual thing. But I eventually got tired of defending myself and said, ‘Say whatever you like.’”

Since breaking her hip a few years ago, Smith has used a walker to get around. These days she rarely leaves the apartment, except for the occasional Broadway opening. Even dressing up to go to the restaurant on the ground floor is often too much trouble, she said.

But she still has stories to tell, she said, even if she is no longer sure that anyone is reading them. “It’s just the diminution of your name,” she said. “It’s a natural thing to happen. So I began to be forgotten, like the seven newspapers I worked for are forgotten.”

“And I could give up and commit suicide or just let events take their place,” she added. But she thought she had one last contribution to make — a reminder, perhaps, of what gossip once was, and a chance to discover who Liz Smith was now. “I don’t particularly want any reward,” she said. “I know I’m not going to get it. But I might get another day of searching.”

Liz Smith in her apartment on Park Avenue in New York in July. Smith, the longtime queen of New York’s tabloid gossip columns who for more than three decades chronicled little triumphs and trespasses in the soap-opera lives of the rich, the famous and the merely beautiful, died on Sunday at her home in Manhattan. She was 94.

Gossip columnist Liz Smith (from left) with Donald, Ivana and Ivanka Trump in 1987.

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WARC-Truncated: length

text:
Who has the right to decide authenticity?

Kyre Chenven

Ivano Atzori

Orgosolo has a reputation. An enticing, historical, questionable reputation as the epicenter of Sardinian banditry, and as the town where art and emotion conquered diffidence. These stories intersect and intertwine and become the story we want to tell ourselves. A story with just enough contrast to make it interesting (rough and tough Sardinian cowboys, youthful artistic expression). A story close enough in time to feel that we can be a part of it, but far enough away to mean that we can go there without worrying about our cameras being stolen.

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The fact that the legends are true doesn’t change where we are today. Orgosolo has been touted for the last 70 years as the heart of banditismo, which is a particularly Sardinian brand of criminality. It involved mainly shepherds and their internal disputes - though, lest that seem tame, most of the town was made up of shepherds for centuries. Today banditismo in Sardinia has diminished to the point that the shot-up street signs can be entertaining, not scary. It has become folklore that is just real enough to fascinate. Today we come to Orgosolo and find a town with its memory painted on its walls, with its main characters still alive, with streets that offer just enough privacy to avoid the constant trickle of other visitors who might remind us that we are not participating in a historical moment, but just snapping pictures of it.

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Today’s story, then, begins with a stranger (otherwise what kind of Western would this be), who came to Orgosolo in the 1960’s. Francesco Del Casino was from Siena, arguably one of the most precious of Tuscan hilltop cities, long a seat of economic and historic power. But in the ’60’s, Del Casino was looking to teach and the one place there were openings was in the province of Nuoro on the mysterious island of Sardinia. At that time, Orgosolo’s fifteen minutes of fame was Vittorio De Seta’s movie from 1961, Bandits of Orgosolo, that glorified the story of small mountain towns in this particular area of the island. It tells of life for the shepherds and residents and bases its plot around something that is always more glamorous in film than in real life - the rivalries between families that had long made the town a place where unsolved murder was commonplace. Del Casino was young and presumably foolhardy and, thanks to this film, he signed up to teach high school art in Orgosolo.

Del Casino tells the story of arriving on the bus, not understanding a word of what is being said around him, surrounded by silence, women dressed head to toe in black and fog. But the town was not abandoned or terrorized by banditry and, in fact, it had attracted more than just this one young misfit. There was a barber that hosted different international artists in an informal hostel above his shop. It was home to well-known poets and singers. In short, it seems that something about the town encouraged or produced eccentricity - more proof that every small town in Sardinia has its own richness.

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Banditismo is based mostly on robbery and kidnapping - it can include shepherds stealing each others flocks, or groups working together to trap bank trucks, or even a network of bandits working together to kidnap people and extort hefty ransoms. Barbagia, where Orgosolo is located, is the region where banditry is most common. In fact the region’s name comes from the Romans who felt that the mountainous area was too wild, too barbaric, to be tamed. This is a place that has seen more than its fair share of kidnappings, hijackings, murders and robbery. But it isn’t quite as unruly as it may sound. Historically, there is a fierce and complicated honor code in place that must be respected - the Barbaricino Code - that sets limitations on what is acceptable and what punishments may be exacted and by whom.

And there is an equally fierce sense of community. The Italian police have tried numerous times to make inroads, however they find it ridiculously hard to get information out of anyone. Part of this is the honor code - snitching is tantamount to a sin - but part of it is rumored to be because no one person steals only for personal greed. Apparently the whole community must benefit. In this way, banditry differs greatly from Italian mafia; there is no boss, no official hierarchy, no mansions and no terrorizing the local population. People don’t stay quiet because they’re afraid of a horse’s head in their bed; they stay quiet because even the criminals are part of this community, and the community takes care of its own. So in comes a Tuscan art teacher with long hair and funny jeans. But Del Casino was able to become a part of the community himself. And when that community was threatened from the outside, he showed that he was committed to saving it.

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In the summer of 1969, flyers appeared pasted up on the walls throughout town. It was the Italian Army, informing the shepherds and townspeople to abandon a certain part of the valley, called Pratobello, for the next couple of weeks. They were putting up a temporary shooting range & training camp. The town was outraged - this was their land and their livelihood and they didn’t trust the Italian government to do anything temporary. Their wariness proved farsighted - at least 60% of Italy’s military bases are on Sardinian land, land which was generally usurped with little or no payment years ago for what were originally temporary outposts. Quickly the town began organizing, and Del Casino was deeply involved. A few weeks later, most of the town’s population moved down to the farmland where the Italian Forces were already beginning to set up. Shepherds and wives and grandmothers and children all camped out on the spot for days, interacting with the soldiers, explaining themselves, refusing to leave.

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The Pratobello Revolt, as it is known, is remarkable in many ways. Sardinians are not big on organized civil actions. They are also not rash or hurried or generally convinced that social action can hold much weight. One of the most commonly repeated phrases on the island is “Bisogna avere pazienza,” or “One must have patience.” The citizens of Orgosolo, however, uncharacteristically put their faith in a group of young activists. They were able to organize and to convince the army to leave without even one episode of violence and today Pratobello remains a lovely and unassuming pasture.

A few years later, undoubtedly riding the emotional wave that had swept through the town after the success of the revolt, Del Casino began painting a mural with his students in order to “break down the wall between school and society.” The first mural was politically minded, but not at all questionable, recalling and celebrating the liberation of Italy from the Fascists. It was well received. Through the years he then painted more and more murals, covering much of the center of town with paintings. His murals became ever more brazen, decrying injustice and violence and celebrating leftist heroes such as Emilio Lussu and Antonio Gramsci. Soon enough, the murals began to take on larger themes - from heartfelt representations of strong local issues, they began to tackle global problems. One of the more recent murals foresees the bewildering and deplorable situation we find ourselves in today with hundreds of migrants alone and desperate on the sea: an illustration shows a group of tattered Italian immigrants reaching New York on a self-made raft. The caption reads, “Siamo tutti clandestini” - “we are all stowaways.”

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Del Casino has not painted all of the murals in the town, however he can be considered directly responsible for every last one. Today Orgosolo is covered in murals - over 300 decorate the walls of the small center. They help to tell the story of Sardinia itself, with references to all of its special sons and daughters. There is a mural that gives voice to the shepherds’ fight for a fair price for milk, a mural that decries the damages to the forests from frequent arson, a mural for Grazia Deledda, Sardinian author and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. But it seems that the town is a work in progress. In early October of 2016, Del Casino visited Orgosolo both to restore some damaged murals and to paint a few new ones, including one dedicated to the recently deceased Sardinian artist Pinuccio Sciola.

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Who has the right to decide authenticity? And yet, it is something we recognize, and that we recognize as necessary. So is Orgosolo authentic, and how has it made it into all of the guidebooks? Is the town an overblown exaggeration of a myth we want to believe in, or is it a last outpost of an era that was? When one visits, what is stronger, what prevails? We tend to judge authenticity by some inner mark, some feeling that convinces us or doesn’t - were we convinced by the traditional dishes at the trattoria, or did the multitude of foreign languages at the other tables make us feel like we were spectators?

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Does it matter that the stories we came here for were true? Does it matter that they are no longer true? Families did mourn their loved ones, people were killed on these very streets for arguments that were long-forgotten by all others. The street signs do have gaping holes. The murals do exist. And they are powerful; they give us a reason to walk through this otherwise small and simple mountain town. But do the tour buses filled with portly tourists with cameras at the ready overtake those memories? Do we need to avoid the mirror of other travelers in order to convince ourselves that the place we are is real? Can we still be fascinated by actions that were taken bravely or foolishly a generation ago? Can we still be motivated to buy the postcards commemorating those actions?
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*All black and white pictures are historical photographs courtesy of the great Francesco Del Casino.
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Sunday, February 25, 2018 11:55:48 AM
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Electricity & Gas

Our Procurement Analysts are experts at sourcing cheaper electricity and gas. Use our expertise for your business to benefit, both for now and in the long term!

The savings we are making on electricity alone will cover the cost of two support workers…

Philp Bunt, care charity Norwood..

There’s no denying the fact that energy is a huge overhead for every business. You can’t work with the lights out so it does need managed. That is time-consuming for every company.

  • Hundreds of tariffs to choose from
  • From thousands of providers
  • All with various contract terms

We help save you time, money and hassle with our proficient energy procurement service.

Tel: 0800 0193 244

Gas and Electricity: Could You Pay Less?

The gas and electricity market is highly volatile. Prices fluctuate frequently.

To source the best deal, you need to:

  • Follow the best prices
  • Negotiate the contract duration
  • Manage the finer details within your energy contract
  • Manage your relationship with your supplier to ensure you’re always on the best suited plan for your business.

No easy feat!

What’s more is that you can be fooled into selecting the cheapest supplier, which could distract and prevent you from locking in future potential savings with longer-term cost reduction measures.

That’s why our energy procurement specialists focus on cost savings now, and on better terms as well as locking in the best terms for the future too.

You may find some solace using Energy Cost Comparison Websites, but don’t be fooled into thinking you’re getting a good deal. Most likely you aren’t because these only focus on the current prices and offer nothing to compare for the terms and conditions attached to your contract. Those can often tarnish any immediate cost savings.

What’s really on offer is huge complexity.

You need a trusted advisor who can work with you to plan ahead and be proactive at managing your energy supply in the most efficient way possible.

Talk to us, and we’ll advise on what you can do to be sure you are always positioned to get the best deals.

Tel: 0800 0193 244

Lower Your Gas and Electricity Bills: What We Do

Our energy experts will…

  • Analyse your gas and electricity bills to establish the charging mechanisms currently in place.
  • Produce recommendations that explain how you can develop a strategy for lower gas and electricity costs now and in the future.

As energy management professionals, we use a combination of approaches to achieve significantly better prices for our clients.
Examples include:

  • Using our expertise to negotiate extremely beneficial consolidated billing arrangements for clients with multiple sites.
  • Implementing smarter metering so that you can manage your gas and electricity consumption more efficiently and be sure your bills are accurate.

Access to Gas and Electricity Trading Information

This is why we can get you the best pricing on the best terms. With hundreds of tariffs to choose from, from thousands of suppliers, all offering various contract terms in a market that’s consistently changing…

You need up-to-date information.

Our energy experts get daily market reports from trading desks detailing the wholesale gas and electricity market prices. When we give our clients advice, it’s guaranteed to be sourced from the most up-to-date energy market information available.

This service allows us to provide you with immediate and forward-buying pricing options allowing you to buy up to three years ahead – at today’s market prices.

What’s more is that we can use those forward-buying market prices to provide you with sound advice on when to buy and the duration to sign up for ensuring you have continually lowered energy prices based on the best market prices available.

Make no mistake – this service is invaluable to our clients and it will be to your business too because it enables you to manage and lock in savings years in advance.
This is pro-active energy management at its best.
Tel: 0800 0193 244

With each of our proposals, you’ll get a full explanation of the supplier’s small print. We’ll make sure that you have all the information you need to make the right decision for your business.

And once you’ve made your choice, we’ll handle all the paperwork for you, whilst ensuring that the changeover goes smoothly.

Cheap Gas & Electricity Free From Risk

We work with independent companies who buy capacity to re-sell and with the big six national suppliers.

A cheap electricity or gas supply isn’t a risky one, because regulatory procedures ensure that in the event of a supplier’s business failing, other suppliers will step in.

You can be confident that the lights won’t suddenly go out – and that the new supplier isn’t allowed to make any immediate changes to your terms and conditions.

Complete Energy Management Service: Efficient and Compliant Buildings

A full Energy Management service is also available.
With this service our team will…

  • Reduce your energy consumption
  • Keep your cost low
  • Keep your supplier contracts under consistent review
  • Recommend changes as necessary to best meet the needs of your business.

What the Law Says:

New legal obligations provide a new energy-conscious focus for many businesses. The law now states that you must provide an EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) when selling or renting commercial premises, and that public authorities are required to display a DEC (Display Energy Certificate) at all times in public buildings over 1,000 square feet. If you don’t comply, you can be fined up to 12.5% of the rateable value of the property.
For full details see our Energy Management page.

Talk to Our Energy Experts

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A Look at America's Safe-Driving States

Source: Forbes

Posted on 05 Jan 2010

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As we reported yesterday, as of January 1st, drivers in Illinois, Oregon and New Hampshire must submit to state laws forbidding text-messaging while driving. Those states will join 16 others, plus the District of Columbia, in banning texts.

The new laws are undoubtedly effective: AAA reports that as many as 8,000 crashes related to distracted driving--including text-messaging--occur each day nationwide. That's 80% of total accidents. According the Auto Club of Southern California, a similar ban implemented in California last January has reduced on-the-road texts by 70%.

It turns out, however, that as much as these measures help, there isn't a correlation between more laws on the books and fewer accidents. Sometimes, it's the states with fewer rules--but more educational initiatives--that have safer roads.

For example, New Hampshire joins Rhode Island and Vermont on Forbes' list of the safest states for drivers. But New Hampshire has enacted neither a primary nor secondary seat belt law for adults. (Primary laws allow police to ticket a driver for not wearing a seat belt, without any other traffic offense taking place. Secondary laws require officers to issue a ticket for not wearing a seat belt only when there is another citable infraction.) Thirty states have primary seat belt laws; 19 have secondary laws.

In the same vein, Vermont currently has no cellphone law. But Rhode Island, No. 1 on the Forbes' list, uses laws against aggressive driving, strict blood-alcohol-level enforcement for drivers, helmet laws and the aforementioned texting-while-driving ban to great effect. And the state also employs aggressive marketing campaigns.

"It's just blanket targeting media in the market with messages," says Michael Lewis, director of Rhode Island's Department of Transportation. "Particularly, we target the 18- to 34-year-old male age group, because that's where the vast majority, statistically, of your accidents happen."

Lewis says the state spends nearly $1 million a year in government grants on media events and on TV and radio ads, including prominent spots--during Red Sox games--with professional athletes acting as safety spokesmen.

Behind the Numbers

To determine the states with America's safest drivers, Forbes used traffic fatality data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Each state was ranked first by the number of deaths it had per million miles driven, awarding one point for the state with the fewest deaths, two points to the state with the next fewest deaths, etc.

Then the states were ranked by their average number of traffic fatalities for the years 2008 and 2009. Again, Forbes awarded one point for the state with the lowest average, two points for the state with the next-lowest number, and so on.

The two rankings were then added. The states with the lowest overall scores made the Forbes' list; ties were broken by giving preference to the state with the fewest fatalities per million vehicle miles driven.

Not every state with a low fatality average made the list. Alaska and North Dakota, for example, reported some of the lowest average death rates of any states, 72 and 107.5, respectively, for 2008 and 2009. It's no surprise, though. Those states each have populations of fewer than 700,000 people and large swaths of land where virtually no one drives.

In much the same way, a low deaths-per-million-miles rank didn't guarantee a slot on the list. While Massachusetts tops the country for fewest deaths per million miles driven (0.79), it ultimately placed lower down at No. 4 on the list because of its higher absolute number of total fatalities.

Even though New York and New Jersey have less than one person killed per million miles driven, their large populations lend to inevitably high absolute numbers of fatalities (more than 1,200 per year in New York and more than 600 in New Jersey).

Crashes Cost Money

Safe-driving states have an additional advantage: Fewer accidents mean a state saves taxpayer dollars. According to the National Safety Council, the average cost per death in 2007, the most recent year on record, was $1.1 million (for a non-fatal but disabling injury, it's $61,600). That includes wage and productivity losses, medical expenses, administrative expenses, motor vehicle damage and employers’ uninsured costs.

Rhode Island's Lewis considers the state's $1 million outlay for public service announcements--particularly those focused on curbing drunk driving--money well spent. And rightly so: Alcohol is a factor in 40% of crash-related deaths, and in 60% of the fatal crashes for 16- to 24-year-olds. One and a half million people are arrested annually for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. More than 2,700 people in Rhode Island were arrested for drunk driving in 2008, according to the 2008 FBI Uniform Crime Report.

Speeding is a factor in 33% of all fatal crashes nationwide, according to AAA. It's also the most common traffic law violation--and associated with a disproportionate amount of winter-time accidents, says Boulder County Road Supervisor Ted Plank.

"Most of the accidents we see are speed-related," Plank says. "That's the thing we talk to folks about in terms of winter driving. The first point is obviously to slow down."

It's apt advice, if just a few more Colorado drivers would follow it: The state was six spots from making our list.

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Workplace Class Action Litigation Spiked in 2010

Source: Seyfarth Shaw’s

Posted on 06 Jan 2011

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The year just ended was a seismic one for employment-related class action litigation, paving the way for more far-reaching judgments, court rulings, and changes to class action law in 2011. The value of employment discrimination class action settlements also increased four-fold in 2010 over 2009 and the top ten settlements of wage & hour, ERISA, and governmental enforcement class actions increased to $1.16 billion, the highest amount ever.

The “tipping point” aspect of these changes is well captured in the 2011 edition of Seyfarth Shaw’s Workplace Class Action Litigation Report. The 664-page Report, the seventh annual edition, is the most comprehensive analysis of workplace-related class actions in the U.S. It examines over 848 decisions rendered in 2010 against employers in state and federal courts, including private plaintiff and government enforcement actions.

As it has since its launch in 2004, the Report is authored and edited by Seyfarth Shaw partner Gerald L. Maatman, Jr., co-chair of the firm’s class action defense group. Maatman, who represents companies facing labor and employment-related class actions, won several key workplace class action decisions in 2010, including a gender discrimination class action that was the first case testing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling regarding arbitration clauses in Stolt-Nielsen v. Animalfeeds. The Report is the sole compendium in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to workplace class action litigation, and has become to "go to" research and resource guide for businesses and corporate counsel facing complex litigation.

The new Report makes clear that while securities, shareholder and commercial class actions remained stable in 2010, workplace class actions – especially those brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act – spiked considerably. Employment litigation costs represent a substantial portion of corporate legal budgets, and constitute a significant reputational issue for companies. While the financial stakes often force class actions to settle before trial, 2010 witnessed a landmark exception: Velez v. Novartis not only went before a jury, but ended in a $253 million plaintiffs’ verdict; the subsequent $175 million settlement is one of the largest employment discrimination class action settlements ever.

In its current term, the U.S. Supreme Court has three cases that may effectuate substantial changes to class action law. In March the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Title VII gender discrimination case Dukes v. Wal-Mart, covering more than 1.5 million class members. In AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, argued in November of 2010, the Supreme Court must resolve whether service agreements favoring non-class-wide arbitration abrogate consumers’ right to bring a class arbitration – the outcome could well impact workplace arbitration agreements. And in Smith v. Bayer, scheduled for argument later this month, the Justices must determine how far one court’s rejection of class certification can go in determining another court’s capacity to certify a class on the same issue.

“The past several years have placed several important issues governing class action law on the table and 2011 looks like the year many of these questions will be answered by the Supreme Court,” said Maatman. He noted that the Supreme Court’s rulings in all three cases could have profound effects on the way class actions are brought against companies, including wage & hour class actions and collective actions.  ??“Wage & hour cases in particular have yet to slow down, even as the economy is starting to improve,” Maatman noted. “For most companies that is their Number 1 exposure – and we expect to see even more and bigger cases brought in 2011.”

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Saturday, October 28, 2017

Trash pandas smarter than we thought

Raccoons solve an ancient puzzle, but do they really understand it?

Related imageScientists have been using an ancient Greek fable written by Aesop as inspiration to test whether birds and small children understand cause and effect relationships.

In "The Crow and the Pitcher," a thirsty crow realizes it should drop stones into a pitcher in order to raise the water level high enough so that the bird is able to drink it.

A group of US scientists led by Lauren Stanton of the University of Wyoming have now extended this body of work to study raccoon intelligence. Their research in Springer's journal Animal Cognition is the first to use the Aesop's Fable paradigm to assess if mammalian carnivores understand the principles of water displacement.

The research team included Sarah Benson-Amram and Emily Davis from the University of Wyoming, as well as Shylo Johnson and Amy Gilbert from the USDA National Wildlife Research Center, where the experiments were performed.

The scientists first tested whether eight raccoons (Procyon lotor) held in captivity would spontaneously drop stones into a clear fifty centimetre tube of water to retrieve floating pieces of marshmallow. They found that, similar to studies of birds, the raccoons did not spontaneously drop stones into the tube from the start.

Following previous studies on birds and human children, the scientists then trained the raccoons to drop stones into the tube. They did this by balancing stones on a rim on top of the tube.

If the raccoons accidentally knocked the stones in, this raised the water level high enough to bring the marshmallow reward within reach. Raccoons could then learn that the stones falling into the tube brought the marshmallow closer.

During training, seven raccoons interacted with the stones, and four raccoons retrieved the marshmallow reward after accidentally knocking the stones into the water.

Two of the four raccoons that got the marshmallow during training then learned on their own to pick up stones off the ground and drop them into the water to get a reward.

A third raccoon surprised the scientists by inventing an entirely new method for solving the problem. She found a way to overturn the entire, very heavy, tube and base to get the marshmallow reward.

The two raccoons that successfully dropped stones into the tube were then presented with different objects that they could drop into the tube to solve the problem, such as large versus small stones, and sinking versus floating balls.

These experiments enabled the researchers to determine whether the raccoons really understood the problem. If the raccoons understand water displacement, they should select the objects that displace the most water, like the large stones and sinking balls.

The raccoons performed differently than birds and human children did in previous Aesop's Fable studies, and they did not always pick the most functional option. Stanton, however, believes the raccoons' performance is not necessarily a reflection of their cognitive abilities, but more so of their exploratory behaviour and the build of their dexterous paws.

"We found raccoons to be innovative in many aspects of this task, and we observed diverse, investigative behaviours that are unique to raccoons," says Stanton, adding that the way in which the experiment was conducted might also have played a role.

She explains that the raccoons had fewer opportunities to interact with the puzzle than did many of the birds that were tested in previous studies. Therefore, the performance of the raccoons might improve if they have more time to familiarize themselves with the stones and the water tube.

Despite the low success rates of the raccoons, Benson-Amram is optimistic about running more experiments with raccoons.

As Benson-Amram explains "Our study demonstrates that captive raccoons are able to learn to solve novel problems and that they approach classic tests of animal cognition in diverse and exciting ways. We can't wait to see what they do next."


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Property for sale in Bracondale Road, Abbey Wood

a couple of double master bedroom, 4th floor flat, which can be situated inside a popular region, close to Abbey Wood station and local stores. The property includes entrance hall, living room, fitted cooking area, 2 double bedrooms plus bathroom. The property also advantages from gas central heating and twice glazing. All of us strongly recommend inner viewing. Excellent Investment.

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The Redemption Tour begins.

Two innings. Twenty-two pitches. Sixteen strikes. One hit. No runs. No walks. Two strikeouts. Zero insults hurled from the sellout crowd.

This was Jon Lester's stat line against the Northeastern Huskies yesterday.

When it was over, Lester was not afraid to acknowledge the obvious: This year is a little different. He is not just another established starting pitcher down here with the Red Sox getting his work in. He is a man on a mission to make amends.

"Like Josh [Beckett] said, we've got to earn the trust back from the fans and show them that we are here busting our butts every day,'' Lester said.

Lester was a big part of the trouble last year. He was one of the pitchers who appeared in the "Hell, Yeah, I Like Beer'' country music video. He admitted to drinking beer in the clubhouse and ordering Popeye's Chicken during games.


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Alex Rodriguez. Ryan Braun. Jhonny Peralta. The list goes on and on, and it’s a tune everyone would like to get out of their heads but can’t, like an annoying ad jingle stuck on an endless loop in your head. Yes, sports fans, Major League Baseball is once again up to its neck in juice.

Ryan Braun has had accolade after accolade piled on him, starting with Rookie of the year in his major league debut season (2007) though his selection as NL MVP in 2011 and the home run champion last year. He was also called on the carpet to answer to a urinalysis test that showed elevated levels of testosterone. His (somehow) successful defense? The sample collector didn’t get to the FedEx office quick enough to suit the arbitrator.


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Southampton are eyeing a cut-price move for Leeds full-back Sam Byram if Calum Chambers leaves the club this summer.

Mauricio Pochettino hopes to keep hold of the talented defender in spite of interest from Manchester United and Arsenal, but is keeping tabs on England Under-20 international Byram’s situation at the Championship club.

Nathaniel Clyne would likely become first choice at St Mary’s if Chambers is sold, but the Saints are keen on Byram’s versatility and encouraged by reports that have suggested his character would fit in well with Pochettino’s squad.


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Things to know on ballot measure to end NV Energy monopoly

Posted by: Andy Maggi Tags: There is no tags | Categories: Newsroom

By Michelle Rindels | April 25, 2016

A proposed ballot measure called the Energy Choice Initiative aims to deregulate electrical service in Nevada, opening up the market to providers other than NV Energy — the sole provider in most parts of the state. Here’s how it came about and what it could mean for consumers.

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PS3 VideosResonance of Fate Japanese Battle Tutorial Video - PS3

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Resonance of Fate - Japanese Battle Tutorial Video

  Want to learn how to execute some of the biggest, flashiest, most crowd-pleasing maneuvers in the history of RPGs? If so, then watch this tutorial for Resonance of Fate; it may take some practice to perform masterfully, but the end result should be spectacular. This isn't your typical RPG, where you take your time and cast a few spells here and there; this one will have you launching a barrage of firepower at towering, terrifying enemies. You'll need all the training you can get. Could we be looking at one of the most impressive and entertaining titles of the generation so far?

12/30/2009 Ben Dutka

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PS3 VideosBrink Get SMART Series: Classes Video - PS3

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Brink - Get SMART Series: Classes Video

  Classes are nothing new in shooters but you've never seen a FPS like Splash Damage's Brink before. Enter their "Get SMART Series" of videos that place the game's originality on display; the latest involves the various and distinct classes in the game. Set to release next week, Brink could be one of those immensely entertaining sleeper hits that both critics and gamers adore...

5/4/2011 Ben Dutka

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Bad Advice to Ignore from Your Critique Group

This post, from Anne R. Allen, originally appeared on her blog on 5/9/10.

Finding a beta reader or critique group is essential to any writer’s development. We can’t write in a vacuum. Nobody ever learned to be a good writer holed up in an attic with no one to review his work but the cat. (Cats can be so cruel.)

Rachelle Gardner ran a guest post by Becky Levine in April with useful advice on how to choose a critique group by assessing your own stage of writing development.

There are lots of places to look for groups—bookstores and libraries if you want an in-person experience, or writers’ forums and genre organizations like RWA online. I’ve heard good things about Critique Circle and there are many more. If you’re looking for a single beta reader, you might try the forums at Nathan Bransford’s blog , the hub of all things writerly on the interwebz

But remember not all the advice you’ll hear will be useful. As Victoria Strauss says in her must-read Writer Beware blog “never forget that people who know nothing are as eager to opine as people who know something.”

Even worse than know-nothings are the know-somethings who turn every bit of advice they’ve ever heard into a “rule” as ironclad and immutable as an algebraic formula. Follow their advice and your book will read like an algebraic formula, too.

Here are a few critique group “rules” I find more annoying than useful.

1) Eliminate all clichés

Unless your characters are wildly inventive poets, space aliens, or children fostered by wolves, their dialogue and thoughts will include familiar expressions. Don’t rob your Scarlett O’Hara of her "fiddle dee-dees" or deprive your Bogart of "doesn’t amount to a hill of beans."

Read the rest of the post, which includes 7 more types of advice to ignore, on Anne R. Allen‘s blog.