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Savages – Adore Life Review

Savages burst onto the stage in fiery fashion with their debut album Silence Yourself back in 2013 and with it they injected new life into what people agree on being as a fusion of Post Punk and Noise Rock. It was a truly modern rock album and with it they demonstrated that Guitar music was not dead and buried just yet, at least not with them. The bold and aggressive revelations both musically and lyrically should have seen them receive greater recognition, but alas with Adore Life there is another opportunity for the quartet to confirm their talent and that they’re here to stay.

‘The Answer’ sees them utilising their punk riffs reverberating around the crashing percussion and Jehnny Beth’s alert and siren-like vocals that sing in a detached fashion from the musical forms around her. The vocals act almost as a counter melody to the music. Both the vocals and instrumentation remain unrelenting in dragging you through the song’s progression. One key point here is the more washed out effects over the guitars which is the main shift away from the isolated sounds of their debut Silence Yourself.  ‘T.I.W.Y.G’ is much more direct and immediate than the first single and is a little more reminiscent of their earlier work with seething percussion which folds into a similarly aggressive bass-line. Emerging from this rumble are the perfectly poised riffs echoing out from the narrow sound. One key difference with this track is its unrelenting, yet tuneful rhythm and a more distorted feel to the sound, particularly the bass-line. ‘Adore’ sees them take it down a notch and deliver a dark and melancholy tune. The slow twitching of the bass and strong reverberating echo of the guitars. Through this emerges Jehnny Beth’s distinctive, melodic roar as the notes rise, but retaining a composed and eerily gentle tone through most of the song. The simplistic nature of the song and the arrangement makes the lyrics of human vulnerability ring out in an emphatic fashion. Beyond that, the song is a beautiful work for it’s minimalism and the understated power running through it.

‘Evil’ is evocative of their earlier work in terms of the general structure, but it is more minimalistic in its delivery, yet fills up the wide spaces they create. The production in this sense compliments their sound perfectly here to generate a song of urgency, but of depth too. ‘I Need Something New’ is almost a rapidly delivered poem with the music acting a reactionary element to the performance. Jehnny’s vocal range fires from the heights and depths with great power. ‘Surrender’ introduces itself a heavily distorted fashion as the guitar and bass groans through the effects. Through this are lighter synths and of course the booming vocals; these shine through in the chorus. It is a track with rougher edges and a hardened attitude. ‘Mechanics’ features a dark and mysterious aesthetic with carefully placed reverberating guitars and echoed bass lines. The track ends an album that is varied in it’s moments of contemplation and focussed rage. At times it is cleaner and clearer with the production but at others it is rough edged and distorted. These highlight the sparse moments and the energetic moments.

Savages – Adore Life = 8.5/10

Owen Riddle @oriddleo1995

Single Review – Savages – The Answer

The wonderfully aggressive and abrasive Savages have announced their return with a new single ‘The Answer’ which is to come from their impending second album Adore Life. The new track sees the London based quartet continue with their punk riffs reverberating around the crashing percussion and Jehnny Beth’s alert and siren-like vocals sing in a detached fashion from the musical forms around her and the vocals act almost as a counter melody to the music. Both the vocals and instrumentation remain unrelenting in dragging you through the song’s progression. One key point here is the more washed out effects over the guitars which is the main shift away from the isolated sounds of their debut Silence Yourself which was one of the highlights of 2013. The jury is still out on whether their second attempt on January 22nd will be as prominent.

Owen Riddle @oriddleo1995

Top 10 Albums of 2013

Now that I have listed my top ten tracks and now that it is 2014, I’ve decided to roll off my top ten albums from last year. Again, if your favourite artists art present they either didn’t make the cut or weren’t reviewed by me last year; for this is a list compiled from albums that have appeared on the blog in 2013. However, the listing is this time based on the rating I gave each album and not on my current opinion. Anyway…

10. Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City

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The band had certainly tried a few different methods with the pitch shifting which was also used on the drums and the guitar was recorded straight onto the recording programme while various different recording techniques were used to ‘soften’ the album and make it listenable. They have certainly done that and while being very careful with the production. It also has a slight edge to it as well and therefore results in their best album yet. They have grown older and their music has grown with it to create a very unique at times and mature sound.

9. Manic Street Preachers – Rewind The Film

Rewind The Film is not too generic and its by no means so experimental and conceptualized that it isn’t relatable or translatable. The lyrics are and music share equal footing and in general it just shows that the Manics are still capable of being truly creative. probably their most complete album since Everything Must Go and This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours in terms of the lyrical challenges posed and the moods and emotions created via their light and airy production.

8. Factory Floor – Factory Floor

It’s not too far away from what The Knife did earlier on in 2013, but perhaps it has a more subtle edge to it. For now, it’s main strengths will be it’s ability to fill dance floors as well as sound dark, scathing and haunting. All in all it’s a great effort and was probably worth the long wait we had to endure for a full studio album.

7. Daft Punk – Random Access Memories

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Even though tracks like ‘Get Lucky’ have been played to death in 2013; it’s a proper song in how it’s been crafted by musicians, written by musicians, produced by musicians and played by musicians and talented ones at that, with bags of experience. The fact this sort of music is topping the charts whether it’s your thing or not should be celebrated. Thomas Bangalter pointed towards the likes of Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd and Sgt Pepper from The Beatles as “the ones that take you on a journey for miles and miles.” They all served as some of the several models for creating an album that provides that journey which they have managed to achieve in the sense that you can become engrossed and lost within it. Perhaps it is their best work in how they are more have proved successful with this different approach.

6. The Knife – Shaking The Habitual

All in all this album is just beyond me. Even if you don’t quite get some of the songs at first you should listen again and try to deconstruct the wall of different and varying sounds. Some of which fill the song but others leave the songs with lots of space to generate a real atmosphere while at times terrifying me. With this they have challenged the norm’s of modern music to the points where a lot of people won’t appreciate it because they don’t understand it. I think had I reviewed this a month ago, then it would have a much higher rating.

5. Connan Mockasin – Caramel

 Though the sound and tone of Caramel isn’t moved and shifted around so much; it would be wrong for that to happen as it would break down the larger flow and feel of the album. It is nearly impossible and it almost feels wrong to plant a mark on it. A surreal and coolly insane and outrageous event from someone being himself, taking risks and being bold.

4. Arctic Monkeys – AM

AM falls down on very few occasions and when it does, it’s only to re-envisage some great Desert Rock, Swooning Ballads etc. The rest of it has been new takes on worn out sounds, showing that you can be innovative in what you don’t bring to a song and with at times fluctuating styles within songs. Josh Homme’s presence has for once not been an overbearing one but something that has furthered their vision and aim. It showed everyone what still can be done with guitar music in 2013. I know it can be easy, but don’t let all the crazed fangirls and boys put you off it because it’s an album that maintains a very high standard throughout. I perhaps think that there are some better albums with a lower ranking in this list, but nevertheless it deserves it’s place in the top ten.

3. Savages – Silence Yourself

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The musical discipline and obvious talent of all the members is clear to see and they don’t seem to have any hidden agenda or motivation either. They lay everything out in their music alone. Not even in their image. This for me is refreshing and they have left themselves with the difficult task of the second album. But that dreaded phase I doubt will effect them at all. They seem so cool and at ease with their music; behind the urgency and rapid nature of it all and Silence Yourself is the result. Just be sure to take in the depth and meaning of the album too, so don’t judge it on first impressions.

2. Pinknoizu – The Drop

All in all this album is highly varied and you should never get bored listening to it. That’s what makes a great album like Sgt Pepper for example. Not only that but the composition and production is also reflective of that variedness that exists across the album. A varied tone that is driven by the mutations and combinations of sounds the Danish group have been able to put together in order to forge new and interesting soundscapes. On top of that; it gets easily manipulated and heightened by the production and recording prowess the group attained. It’s a real treat.

1. Jagwar Ma – Howlin

They have justified all the fuss about them for sure to create a very ‘trippy’ album but an album that is almost perfect on a technical level. Jono Ma’s understanding and meticulous attention to detail on getting the right amount of each element in their songs is a great skill to have. The album does go beyond the combination of their past influences to create an album that sounds familiar yet also new and exciting. All this and it’s only their debut album of which many others have very safe and rather dull debuts with perhaps too much focus on the singles. This is not the case with Howlin. Beyond that they have the basic aspects of variation and at times rhythmic affairs intercepted by more sparse musical artistry.

Tracks of 2013 – Top 10

It is now time to wrap up the year of music 2013 has given us and what better way to start than with my top 10 tracks of the year. Out of the top 10 there have been tracks that have struck me for their imagination, innovation, risk-taking, melodic mastery and so on. They come from worldwide heavyweights to the more obscure crafters of music and they’ve all been picked from those I have looked at, so please don’t despair if there are any missing artists as they might just have passed me by this year.

10. Paul McCartney – Appreciate

Yes. He is 71. Yes. It is from his album New. No. It isn’t what you are thinking. If you look upon McCartney’s 2013 album; full of nostalgic forays into the past decades of his career, then you’ll see that the man of innovation and risk taking is still there. Appreciate is a hidden gem within the New album. It’s neo-psychedlica curled around a hip hop beat and it has more freshness about it than many of the young artists releasing music this year. That is either a sign of McCartney’s prowess or a sign of the lack of it amongst the new musicians of today.

9. Gaz Coombes – Buffalo

Despite plying his Britpop trade around 20 years ago, Gaz is probably making the most profound and elaborate music of his career. Buffalo is to be a single off his upcoming album which is he is currently working on. If this track is anything to go by then he looks set to expand upon the firm foundations of his debut album from 2012. A dramatic and atmospheric glow as the song progresses through it’s stages of varied tone.

8. Arctic Monkeys – Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?

They perhaps needed to do something bold and different after many saw their fourth album as their comparative worst effort. What I like about this track is that it’s not obviously crammed with reverbing guitars or with Alex Turner rapidly delivering his vocal around it. There’s no hint of desert rock here either. It’s driven by a different source which gives the song an indelible groove while giving it bags of space for a more developed and tuneful vocal from Alex. Perfect example of less being more in terms of production.

7. Daft Punk featuring Julian Casablancas – Instant Crush

This one of the best tracks off Random Access Memories and it best combines the 70’s and 80’s influences with the typical Daft Punk sound and style. Throw in Julian Casalancas and you have one of the most tuneful and melodic tracks they’ve ever produced. You’re left vulnerable to the plucked, churning of the rhythm much like Andy Summers of The Police produced with Every Breath You Take in 1983. The vocoded vocal is poised in perfect balance to the synths and you can still detect the character of Julian’s voice beneath it. A fantastic piece of electro pop and a change of direction that worked for Daft Punk.

6. Bombay Bicycle Club – Carry Me

Bombay Bicycle Club

A great progression of their music was suggested with Carry Me. Retaining the elements that make them successful is key and they did that. But the re-evaluation was not only needed but works to great results. A mix of subtlety and sheer boldness. All the fine raw elements clashing with the bold industrial sounds while still forging a great spacious and floating harmony and atmosphere. The result of a complex song being instantly accessible through recording skill.

5. Savages – Husbands

Dark, angry , gritty and everything else. This song features the deep rooted bass line which remains about the only constant throughout. Above it is the grinding and screeching guitars with the clashing percussion. Smashing through it are the snarling and bold vocals that evoke a real raw and emotive feel that is shoved right up into your face

4. TOY – Endlessly

TOY followed their debut with a solid second effort in Join The Dots. It gave them a chance to refine and let their sound grow with Endlessly being the prime example of that. That theme of organised chaos holds true again here, yet it is directed into a more distinguished melody which makes it all the more enjoyable. Wonderfully spaced out and atmospheric despite the various elements in action.

3. Jagwar Ma – Man I Need

Man I Need’ is one of the standout tracks from Howlin which instantly sets the tone with the psychedelic whirring along with the wide scope and relaxed urgency of the percussion which is pretty typical of a psychedelic style. The rhythm makes an indelible groove, the percussion plies at it too. Also a magnificent clash of influences to create something new. A standout track from a standout album.

2. The Knife – Full of Fire

This brother and sister duo from Sweden took the traditional notions of song structure, style and context and shredded them into a million pieces. They didn’t just progress their sound to the next level, but to the next light-year. It’s deep, dark and gritty. The industrial grinding of the lower pitched synths and set against the flashing synths sounds above them. The vocals combine with the instrumentals in such a eerie and unfamiliar way that it is at times a wonderfully terrifying experience. The fact it is a ten minute affair only enhances it as you lay on edge at each development of sound. It is almost too advanced to contemplate for some. But at least we now have a possible avenue for musical progression instead of recycling the last 50 years to no end.

1. Rose Elinor Dougall – Future Vanishes

I have to admit that I initially had this track placed further down the top ten. But only after I listened to all the tracks again did I realise that this song was still ingrained in my mind. It then hit me that this track actually fulfils all the criteria I asked for. It has melodies and hook at every turn, it has a magnificent atmospheric quality to it, imaginative in it’s forms and lyrics and innovative in terms of combining pop and electronic features to a psychedelic track. On top of all this is it’s beautiful contradiction of its self. It can send you into an atmospheric and psychedelic trip into the depths of your thoughts or can leave you at the mercy of it’s rhythm and deep rooted groove. It does everything you ask for. Why shouldn’t this track top my list? Is it because she doesn’t sell out arenas or headline Reading and Leeds, or grace the top of the charts? I don’t think so. That’s not what I’m about, but this song is.

Savages – Silence Yourself Review

There is quite a bit of excitment about Savages upon the release of their debut album Silence Yourself and the Post punk revival girl band have certianly been causing a stir over about the last two years in tiny, cramped London venues. Places they have been completely owning with the frenzied energy of lead singer Jehnny Beth and the wild gritty instrumentals. Their goal is to get people emotionally and physically invloved with music and rediscover that sort of musical pleasure that hasn’t been experienced in a way such as this since P.I.L or Joy Division and with this they are a sort of unique echo into the past but with an attitude and application that perhaps many musicians could take on; maybe not whole-heartedly but certainly in some ways a lot could be learned from Savages.

‘Husbands’ is a song that lit the fuse in terms of grabbing everyones attention by the collar in what is one of many songs that convey the feeling of an intense live performance from them into an album song. The bass is constantly fluxuating up and down the neck of the bass guitar in such an effortless fashion like a twisted version of McCartney on all the LSD he could ever want! They band themselves switch from the muted sound for every line Jehnny sings and to a rousing blast of guitar and cymbals at the end of it and then falling back into the bass driven, lyrical section of the song for another line with such discipline. Even when she whispers ‘husbands’ it’s in such a frantic and ‘on edge’ manner that is complimented by that bass line yet again. A great song to get the intrigue going. ‘She Will’ is one of the centre points of the album that starts of with the gradual build up of all the musical elements in a rather considered manner that allows focus on the vocals and lyrics which demonstrate Jehnny’s vocals well and the build up of grinding guitar for the chorus that leads on to just her vocals and the constant cymbal clash and the repetitive nature of the song towards the end ushers in the rythm and bass guitars back in and results in a further build up of sound from all those involved.

With ‘Shut Up’ the bass again from Ayse Hassan just kills me while the song works in harmony amongst that element along with the rousing and rapid guitar sections and again the cymbal driven purges of percussion inbetween. Lets not forget Jehnny’s vocals that again take the song to a higher level of intensity to mirror their aims about what they wish to do to people’s perception of music perhaps. With ‘I Am Here’ the band in effortless fashion take on a start-stop approach thats works in a wonderful way to sort of emphasise the end of every line sung. ‘City’s Full’ is jam packed with deep and dark bass lines and disstorted guitars which leads to a disstorted bass line for the chorus that provides a dark and intense hook to the song and to be honest Hassan’s bass lines provide that element throughout the album. Lyrically and vocally Jehnny Beth is both thought provoking and wild and intense dually which for most musicians; it’s hard to do either. Gemma Thompsons guitar provides the song with an alertness which gives scope for Jehnny’s vocal performance and the constant crash of cymbals from Fay Milton keeps the song on it’s own edge too and simply adds to the intensity (yes I said it again). Their ideas about image and music should certainly be heeded amongst other musicians but whether the album is for everyone im not sure. It might be too much for someone else but not for me. Even it it was the musical discipline and obvious talent of all the members is clear to see and they don’t seem to have any hidden agenda or motivation either, They lay everything out in their music alone. Not even in their image. This for me is refreshing and they themselves have left themselves with the difficult task of the second album. But that dreaded phase I doubt will effect them at all. They seem so cool and at ease with their music and Silence Yourself is the result. Just be sure to take in the depth and meaning of the album too, so don’t judge it on first impressions.

Savages – Silence Youself = 9/10

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Pyro Trees

Pyro Trees is an indie rock band founded in 2011 by two brothers - Peteris and Rudolfs. The band kick-started their career in 2012 by winning the local new music contest at the one of top Latvian alternative radio stations at the time. The band has ripened up to a point where in the heart they stay true to the values of rock music, but they don’t limit themselves to that. The energy of fusing modern indie rock, psychedelic movements and electronic soundscapes is blowing the audience away. Pyro Trees have played all the biggest Latvian music festivals, including Positivus and SummerSound, and in 2013 toured the country with the upcoming Lithuanian band Deeper Upper. The singles received frequent airplay both nationally as well as on the progressive Estonian Raadio2. In 2014 Pyro Trees embarked on a Baltic tour with other two bands from Estonia and Lithuania, performing in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius. The tour was curated by the leading Baltic new music platform -The Baltic Scene. Pyro Trees were one of the first bands in Latvia to celebrate the 2014 international Record Store Day with a special single release.

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Monthly Archive: January, 2012

My 7 most anticipated albums

So one of the editors at is putting together a list of the editors’ most anticipated albums in 2012. He asked me to contribute a few of my recommendations to the list.… Continue reading

Critical politicking and the plague of Mitt Romney

While the name Alex Ross may be foreign to most, in my field of study, he is a rock star. Before he was 30, The New Yorker brought him onboard as their music… Continue reading

The Grind

The artist lounge at the Westcott Theater in Syracuse is anything but impressive. The former projector space overlooking the one-room theater resembles a disused storage space. An old fridge sits awkwardly in the… Continue reading

Cannibalism, journalism and auto-erotic asphyxiation

[Note: I had this post written and ready to publish when WordPress decided to log me out and lose my work. Below is my best recreation of the original message. Enjoy.] Over drinks… Continue reading

Art vs. Entertainment

Last night at The Daily Show, I watched a well-informed television host discuss the ramifications of the middling of partisan politicians in our nation. But Jon Stewart and his show are regarded as… Continue reading

Age before beauty

It’s the first rule of roadside beet sales: Put the best looking beets out front. A friend of mine spent a few months after college interning for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.… Continue reading


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Welcome to JCSU!
All Johnson C. Smith University students, faculty and staff are required to have an ID card. Our ID card is called the JCSU ID- Card and is used for many important services such as building access, meal plan and flex dollars purchases, admittance to athletic events, and much more.
Golden Bull Academy participants will have the opportunity to take a university photo during GBA. This service will reduce the amount of time you need to stand in line and increase the amount of time you can spend learning more about JCSU’s many offerings
If you miss the opportunity, you will need to come to the ID Card Center during New and Transfer Student Orientation to have your picture taken.
Picking up your JCSU ID Card
You will need to show a valid photo ID in order to receive your JCSU ID-Card. You can pick up your ID at designated areas during New and Transfer Student Orientation. Please refer to your Orientation schedule for specific locations and times.
Valid forms of ID include:
  • State driver's license
  • State-issued identification card
  • Military-issued identification card
  • Valid U.S. of foreign-issues passport (showing country of origin)
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  • Certificate of U.S. Naturalization


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Skip to main content

Welcome to the website of the Chazin laboratory! We study the structure and function of macromolecular complexes that are important for human health. You can find more detailed descriptions of our research interests here and here, and a list of recent publications here. If you’re interested in hearing more, let us know!

Vanderbilt University
Center for Structural Biology


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Fog tree, Cotino – Cotinus coggygria – Cotinus coggygria – Garden plants – Fog tree, Cotino – Cotinus coggygria – Shrubs

The Fog Tree or Cotino is a shrub or small tree, with deciduous leaves, native to Europe; adult specimens can reach dimensions close to three meters in height. Its scientific name is Cotinus coggygria.

It has an erect, roundish habit, with a densely branched and rather disorderly crown; the branches have greenish bark, which becomes grey with the passing of the years, quite smooth.

The leaves are oval, with very long petiole, of a bright green colour, but there are several cultivars with purple red, brown or yellow leaves; in spring it produces big inflorescences formed by small yellow flowers, which, in summer, give way to the fruits, semi-woody drupes surrounded by a long pink down, which renders the infructescence similar to a thin and feathery ball of cotton wool.

If you do not like the flower, very particular, but prefer the leaves, you can prune in autumn the plant about 30-40 cm from the base, so the next year will not bloom, but will produce many very colorful leaves. C. obovatus is an American species with dimensions close to the 7-8 m of height, with green leaves.

Cotinus The >>Cotino tree is a decorative shrub that needs to be positioned in full sun, in well-ventilated areas; it is not afraid of the cold and can bear, without any problems, the torrid periods of July and August.

The Cotinus coggygria is not affected by the cold climate, but when temperatures drop significantly, it would be useful to protect the younger plants, placing the base of the straw or leaves, or mulch to ensure that the roots and stem remain protected, given the greater sensitivity of these shrubs. For an ideal exposure would prefer to place the Cotino in an area where it can receive at least a few hours of sunshine a day, so as to ensure the proper habitat.

  • piante da giardino In this section we talk about shrubs, a collection of detailed information about the different species grown in our gardens, tips for the right choice according to the needs of your ally…
  • Mimosa The mimosa (acacia dealbata) is a tree native to Tasmania, but that, arrived in our country in the mid 1800s, has adapted well to the climate of the Ligurian Riviera and that of the regions of…

  • Corbezzolo Evergreen tree or shrub native to Ireland and countries bordering the Mediterranean, which can reach 9-10 meters high, but which most commonly remains around the size of a tree or shrub.
  • Cornus alba This shrub has deciduous leaves native to central-southern Asia, which reaches 150-200 cm high. The thin stems have erect posture, branch off abundantly with the pass….

cotino The Cotinus coggygria should not be watered too much because it can be very affected by the stagnation of acuqa that can form. From March to October, water regularly, at least every week, letting the soil dry well between one watering and the other; the cotino can stand without problems short periods of drought. In winter, suspend watering.

If the fog tree is grown in pots then has some different needs, it will be necessary to provide more irrigation as the land at its disposal will be less and can not benefit from the moisture present in the full earth.

In autumn, provide little granular fertilizer with slow release, without exceeding: too rich soils and excessive fertilization cause the color of the leaves to be dull and washed out.

The Mist Tree prefers deep, very well drained, not too rich soil; however, it develops without any problems in any soil. When planting it, do not forget to mix the soil with river sand, to increase drainage, so as to avoid dangerous water stagnations. At the end of the winter, it is advisable to add to the soil some good organic fertilizer, which will guarantee us a vigorous flowering. In spring it will then be possible to fertilize periodically.

cotino This plant can be propagated in spring, sowing the seeds of the previous year, possibly in a container; if desired, in spring and autumn, we can take some semi-woody cuttings, which are to be rooted in a mixture of sand and peat in equal parts.

Fog Tree, Cotino – Cotinus coggygria: Parasites and Diseases

Hardly the cotinus is attacked by pests or diseases, even if aphids can ruin new shoots. With the arrival of spring, before the development of the shoots it would be appropriate to intervene with a broad-spectrum insecticide treatment that prevents possible attacks by pests and also with an intervention with fungicides that counteract the effects that can be caused by the presence of fungi that develop when there is a lot of moisture.

Mimosa - Acacia dealbata

Corbezzolo - Arbutus

Photinia x fraseri


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Real life rock-throwing ‘Ernest T. Bass’ being more than mischievous in town that inspired Mayberry

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.
Data pix.

MOUNT AIRY, N.C. -- In the hometown of Andy Griffith you'll find everything Mayberry, including souvenirs of everyone's favorite rock-throwing mountain man -- Ernest T. Bass. But in recent days, police here say what may look like the work of Ernest T. is no laughing matter.

"I was scared and really mad," said Rebecca Romero, owner of Patelicious Bakery. "There is no money -- why would they steal?"

Romero's bakery is one of four business hit by a rock-throwing thief.

"They hit us twice, once Friday morning and then again Sunday," Romero said.

Investigators say the thief is throwing rocks through store windows looking to steal. They hit Dance Works studio next door to the bakery on N.C. 89, Essence Nails and Spa on West Independence Boulevard and Sarah's Beauty Boutique in downtown.

"The glass was out of the door and all across the beauty shop," said Sarah Simpson, of Sarah's Beauty Boutique. "I came in and everything was ransacked, everything was out of the drawer out of these desk. I had a little money from selling church cookbooks and it was gone."

Investigators believe they may be getting close to finding the thief thanks to cameras throughout town.

"It cost us $500 to make repairs," Romero said. "We've added a camera to the inside of the bakery."

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7+1 “secret” tips for while you are in Mykonos

Before scheduling your holiday in Mykonos, you will most probably visit some of the most popular, reliable travel guides and read all about its spectacular beaches, picturesque alleys, whitewashed churches and fancy night clubs! Well, here we are to take you along a more private tour, that will reveal the secret side of this amazing island; an even more magical side that only a few have the privilege to discover while being there.

7+1 "secret" tips for while you are in Mykonos

1. Act “Mykonian”

When in Mykonos, behave like if you’ve been there a hundred times before… This will make locals love you and share with you beauties of the island they would never share with newcomers! They will take you, for instance, to the best fishermen taverns and invite you to taste their best homemade tsipouro drink!

2. Eat Mykonian

If you like the idea of being welcome in a traditional Mykonian home, share the daily routine of its residents, help them prepare the food and enjoy the most delicious recipes of the island, then take the famous cooking classes, available every day in Chora (Mykonos town). More than a lesson it is a cultural experience of the traditional Greek way of life!

3. About Peter

Caught by a fisherman back in 1958, Peter the pelican was the symbol of Mykonos. When he was found he was badly injured and was adopted by the islanders who named it Petros, from “petra”, which in Greek means rock. He may be the most photographed bird ever, as even celebrities like Jackie Onassis wouldn’t miss the opportunity of a picture with the locals’ mascot! Unfortunately, in 1985 Petros was killed by a car. His story is one of a kind that every authentic Mykonos lover should be ready to tell.

4. Stars under the stars!

Open air cinemas are an exquisite attraction in Greece during the summer. So, while in Mykonos don’t miss a chance to visit Ciné Manto, located inside the Municipal Garden in Matoyianni. Inside the full of palm trees cinema area there is also an old church and an all-day cafe-bar-restaurant! You can choose to watch first worldwide released films and box-office productions for adults and children.

5. Go pro

Mykonos beaches are famous as perfect spots for windsurfing lovers. Just a few lessons will help you become the wind tamer you have always dreamt of. However you must take extra care and always follow instructions as every summer the island has a large share of the strong annual meltemi winds which can be an awesome natural force to experience. Best windsurfing beaches: Kalafatis, Korfos and Ftelia!

6. A reef in Paradise

Speaking about beaches, you may have heard that Paradise is one of the most amazing all-day party beaches in Mykonos, with crystal clear turquoise water. What you may not know though is that is a spectacular location for scuba diving, full of different species, such as sponges, wrasse, sea bream, starfish, octopus and much more. You can rent all equipment and take lessons on location.

7. Some ancient magic

A private tour of nearby Delos Island is an absolute must for every visitor of Mykonos. It is the only place in Greece where ancient private homes have been found in a wonderful state and are preserved in an equally wonderful way. Since 1990, Delos has been declared a World Heritage Site, protected by UNESCO.

Last but not at all least

Tips for an unforgettable stay in this unparallel corner of the world could go on and on for hundreds of pages. From excellent VIP services tailored to your needs and organized tours, to organic wine tasting and walking around Chora with your personal photographer, in Mykonos there is always a once-in-a-lifetime experience waiting for you, just for the gods of the Aegean to make sure that, while being there, all of your dreams have come true!

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Life’s A Beach

The town of Manly is just 30 minutes north of Sydney, Australia by ferry. It is a town that caters to tourists and young professionals who make their living in the city but prefer to live in a place that is more relaxed and with less congestion. It also boasts one of the finest ocean beaches in the world – warm brown sand, abundant surf and a tree lined promenade that stretches for two miles or more along the verge of the Pacific.

My wife and I went to visit Manly during our recent trip to Australia. We chanced upon a delightful small hotel that had an ocean view and a roof top sundeck with pool that was reasonably priced. We liked it so much, we wound up calling the kids back in Sydney to say we had decided to stay an extra night.

Protected beach just a 10 minute walk from Manly.

Aussies are an active lot. Everywhere we looked, people were walking, jogging, biking, surfing, or taking courses at the local surf rescue school. At 7 a.m., we looked out the window to see a group of young men and women taking boxing lessons on the beach. Later, we watched as a young family went power walking down to the ferry landing to see Dad off to work in Sydney. He had his briefcase and suit coat over his shoulder. She was pushing the double wide stroller so the kids could wave to him from the shore. Somehow, commuting by ferry doesn’t seem as numbing as taking the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan every day.

Sydney Harbor from the air with Manly in the foreground

Every time we go away, we ponder what it would be like to live in the areas we visit. Mostly, reality kicks in after a little while and we are glad to get back home when the journey is over. But we could live in Manly and be very happy. It is a nice blend of beachside life in a warm and scenic setting but with all the benefits of the city just a ferry ride away.

Later in our travels, we spent an afternoon at Bondi Beach, one of the most iconic shorefront communities in the world.  But as pretty as Bondi is, the area was too crowded, too frantic and had too much traffic for our tastes. Plus, there is something about taking a ferry ride on Sydney Harbor that is delightfully relaxing, especially compared to the combination of trains and buses needed to get to Bondi.

Bondi Beach Panorama

We’re not sure when we will be going back to Australia, but we know that when we do, more time in Manly will be on the agenda. Lovely town. Can’t wait to sit on this bench again and gaze out at the town of Manly and the ocean beyond.

A peaceful place by the sea.

You can see all of the photos from the Manly excursion at this link.  Enjoy!

About Steve Hanley

Totally enamored with my family, my grandkids, and seeing the world.
This entry was posted in Adventures, Australia, Travel and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

5 Responses to Life’s A Beach

  1. Jason Carpp says:

    Awesome pictures! Thanks for posting! I so want to visit! When did you get to visit Australia, or are you still there? Please keep me informed of more pics. If you have any cool car photos, I’d love to see them.

    • Steve Hanley says:

      Thanks, Jason. For more pixs, follow the links at the bottom of this post and the Newcastle post two before this one. For more on Australia, check out the story of my trip in 2009, which is elsewhere on my blog at this link:

      This trip was about 2 weeks long and was mostly centered around visiting my son and his family, who live in Sydney. But I had to do some sightseeing while there as well.

      We have some excellent beaches here in Rhode Island. I have spent time on wonderful beaches in Florida and Puerto Rico. Visited Hawaii, including the incredibly scenic island of Kuaii. But I think Manly beach is my favorite of all. The combination of being able to step right out of your hotel room onto the beach, the warm Pacific water, the vibrant beach culture and the presence of Sydney just across the harbor makes it ideal, in my mind.

      • Jason Carpp says:

        Thanks. I’ll have to check out the pictures. You have a son who lives in Sydney? Sweet! What kind of work does he do in Sydney? I got to visit Kuaii a few years ago. That was beautiful! I’ve always wanted to visit Australia. The only problem is that I don’t know anyone who lives anywhere there.

      • Steve Hanley says:

        It’s time to make some friends online then! I have traveled though much of France and Italy with friends I met online.

        My son and his wife own a thriving building maintenance company.

      • Jason Carpp says:

        Thanks. I’ll have to check that out. I’d love to visit France, italy, and Germany. I got to visit England a few years ago. I loved it! I felt as though I was home once again, even though it was the first time I ever visited the UK.

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It takes only two things to keep people in chains:Image result for fortune teller
The ignorance of the oppressed
And the treachery of their leaders

Quotes: Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”

Ben Bernanke, “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”

St. Louis Federal Reserve: “As the sole manufacturer of dollars, whose debt is denominated in dollars, the U.S. government can never become insolvent, i.e., unable to pay its bills. In this sense, the government is not dependent on credit markets to remain operational. Moreover, there will always be a market for U.S. government debt at home because the U.S. government has the only means of creating risk-free dollar-denominated assets.”

Alan Greenspan (Re. Social Security solvency): “There’s nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody.”

The CRFB (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget) was formed in 1983. For the past 38 years, they have been telling the same old story, namely that the federal deficit and debt are too high —  really, really, really too high.

But while that myth . . . uh, story, remains the same-old, same-old, year after year, there is another story they conveniently have omitted: What does it mean for the deficit and debt to be high — really, really high? Why should we care?

  1. Does it mean the federal government is running short of dollars?
  2. Does it mean the federal government will be unable to pay its debts?
  3. Does it mean your taxes need to rise?
  4. Does it mean the economy will suffer because of the federal debt?
  5. Does it mean the federal debt will cause hyperinflation?
  6. Does it mean no one will want to buy Treasury securities?

You might think that after 38 years, the CRFB would be ready, willing, and able to provide data to answer such questions. But amazingly, during those 38 painfully wrong years, the CRFB never even attempts to answer.

They just keep repeating the myth that the deficit and debt are too high. The CRFB seems to believe that if they repeat a lie often enough, they can get people to believe it.

Here are excerpts from the sorry and ongoing saga of CRFB, the paid mouthpiece for the rich:

Welcome to the woeful world of free-lunch economics
By Maya MacGuineas. Opinion Contributor — 04/13/18

Congress and the president have been on quite the borrowing binge over the past few months — from multiple rounds of tax cuts to smashing through the budget caps. Meanwhile, talk of paying for these budget-busting policies has just about disappeared.

Immediately, MacGuineas jumps into the phony “paying for” theme. Why is it phony? Because the federal government, unlike state and local governments, uniquely is Monetarily Sovereign.

Being Monetarily Sovereign, the federal government created the very first dollars out of thin air, by creating laws out of thin air. And ever since that time, 240 years ago, the federal government has continued to create dollars out of thin air.

U.S. dollars are not physical things. They are balance sheet notations, and the federal government owns the balance sheets.

Monetarily non-sovereign, state and local government can’t do this. Nor can businesses. Nor can the euro nations. Nor can you and I. The public’s confusion between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, is what helps the CRFB promulgate its myth.

But, in fact, as both former Fed Chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke admit, the federal government, uniquely cannot run short of its own sovereign currency, the dollar (which answers questions #1, and #2, above).

Given that the federal government has the unlimited ability to create its own sovereign currency, it neither needs nor uses tax dollars to pay its bills.

In fact, even if all federal tax collections fell to $0, the federal government could continue to spend dollars, forever, simply by creating more dollars (which answers question #3, above).

So, why does the federal government levy taxes? Federal taxation mostly is a relic of our gold and silver standards — those years when the federal government voluntarily surrendered its unlimited ability to create dollars.

Taxation also is an economic control device to reduce certain activities — for instance sin taxes on cigarettes, gasoline, and liquor. Unlike state & local taxation, federal taxation does not fund its spending.

Finally, the rich, who own the federal politicians, do not want you to know that federal spending is not limited by debt or dollar supply.

Continuing the CRFB article: Instead of the sensible conversation that starts with: “If something is worth doing it is worth paying for,” we have been hearing from our leaders: “Don’t worry, this will pay for itself,” and, “This is too important to have to pay for.”
Welcome to the world of free-lunch economics.

By “pay for itself,” many of our leaders try to make you believe something like: “Increased deficits will cause increased income, which will cause increased tax collections, which in turn, will reduce deficits, leading to lower tax collections.”

The CRFB is right. The whole notion that increased deficits can cause reduced deficits is nutty. The idea leads to a ridiculous endless circle, in which high deficits would beget low deficits, which presumably would again beget high deficits.

Thus, it logically and mathematically is impossible for deficit spending ever to “pay for itself” — impossible and wholly unnecessary for a Monetarily Sovereign government.

More to the point, however, the CRFB never acknowledges that increased deficits actually result in economic growth.

Deficit spending grows the economy by putting dollars into consumers’ pockets, which is why when deficit growth decreases we have recessions, and when we have recessions, deficit growth cures them.

The CRFB never mentions this fact, though that answers question #4, above. The economy does not suffer because of federal debt; it thrives.

Recessions (vertical bars) tend to begin after deficit growth has been low, and are cured by increased deficit growth.

Continuing the CRFB article: Just this week, we learned that budget deficits are now projected to be $12.4 trillion over the next 10 years — an increase of $2.3 trillion since 10 months ago.

The milestones of trillion-dollar deficits about to return and become permanent, the debt reaching the size of the economy in just over a decade, and annual interest payments increasing by $600 billion over the decade are signs this new school of economics is not putting us on a smart path.

Why are “trillion-dollar deficits” a problem? The CRFB never tells you, principally because they aren’t a problem — not for the federal government and not for taxpayers. No, your grandchildren never will pay the U.S. federal debt, just as you have not paid the debt accumulated for the past seventy years.

(Deficits are a problem for monetarily non-sovereign state and local governments, and for you and me, but the CRFB doesn’t want you to understand the difference.)

And as for question #5 above, do not believe the scaremongers, who tell you deficit spending will cause a Zimbabwe, Weimar Germany hyperinflation (which the U.S. never has had in all its 240-year history).

This graph shows the huge increase in federal debt compared to our modest increase in inflation.

Federal debt (red line); inflation (blue line)

(Aside: Hyperinflations historically have not been caused by deficit spending. They are caused by shortages. Zimbabwe’s was a shortage of food. Germany’s was a shortage of gold. Deficit spending often has been a government’s bad response to hyperinflation, not a cause.)

Continuing the CRFB article: In just a little over a decade, our debt could be the highest it has even been compared to the overall economy. The current record was set just after World War II. The difference here, though is there is no world war. No recession. No depression. Unemployment is low. Growth is strong.

There is no need for stimulus and no rationale to rack up such a huge tab during stable times and already historic levels of debt.

Apparently, Ms. MacGuineas doesn’t realize that she has just admitted the truth:

The highest debt it has even been” and “historic levels of debt” have brought us “no recession, no depression, low unemployment and strong growth.”

So Ms. MacGuineas, please remind us again why you wish to reduce the debt.

Continuing the CRFB article: Instead, at this point in the business cycle, we should be running surpluses (remember that quaint concept?) to be prepared for the next emergency. But there is zero talk of changing course.

Not only are federal surpluses a “quaint concept,” but they are an economically suicidal concept. U.S. depressions tend to come on the heels of federal surpluses.

1804-1812: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 48%. Depression began 1807.
1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began 1819.
1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began 1837.
1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began 1857.
1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began 1873.
1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began 1893.
1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began 1929.
1997-2001: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 15%. Recession began 2001.

Why have federal surpluses repeatedly led to economic failures?  Because federal surpluses require either higher taxes and/or lower federal spending. In short,  federal surpluses take dollars out of consumers’ pockets, which depresses the economy.

It’s really a simple and straightforward concept, which the CRFB wishes to obfuscate. Don’t fall for it.

Continuing the CRFB article: Sure, there is the empty idea of voting on a balanced budget amendment. If people were serious, this would be a reasonable idea for discussion.

Many details would need to be worked out, like escape hatches for recessions and emergencies, and balancing restraints on spending and revenue.

If a balanced budget was a “reasonable idea,” why would it need “escape hatches for recessions and emergencies?”

Hers is a tacit admission that a balanced budget cannot grow the economy, and whenever a balanced budget causes economic stagnation (which it always has), we need to “escape” from the balanced budget.

Escape how? By running federal deficits — by pumping dollars into the economy — and the bigger the deficits, the faster the recovery.

Continuing the CRFB article: Our fiscal hole is now so large that balance is a long, long way off, and it is better to focus on more credible goals. But come on, in this context, the balanced budget amendment is a total joke.

Here, we agree with MacGuineas. The balanced budget amendment is a total joke, because it would cause the greatest depression in American history, with no way out, no “escape hatch.”

Continuing the CRFB article: Voting to require balancing the budget without putting out a budget that does indeed balance is still looking for that free lunch.

MacGuineas never explains “free lunch,” but we’ll try to help her. A “free lunch” is what the rich receive whenever deficit reduction plans are put forth. The rich always make sure to escape the pain, while the poor and middle-income groups suffer.

Continuing the CRFB article: Our debt is projected to increase by almost 20 percentage points over the next 10 years. Spending on health, retirement and interest alone will double in dollars, and entitlement reform is long overdue.

During the next 13 years, our nation’s major trust funds for highways, Medicare hospital insurance and Social Security will run out of full funding. If Congress had addressed this problem 10 years ago, revenue and benefit changes would have been much smaller.

And here, the CRFB reveals its true motive: On behalf of the rich, the CRFB wants to cut Medicare, Social Security, and all other social programs (aka “entitlement reform”).

Using the lie of unaffordability, the rich want to widen the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

(The Gap is what makes the rich, rich. Without the Gap, no one would be rich; we all would be the same. The wider the Gap, the richer they are.)

Continuing the CRFB article: Even today, changes can be phased in. But if we wait a few more years, the choices are much more difficult. Instead, this fiscal situation has been made dramatically worse by the large, irresponsible, unpaid-for tax cuts.

Taxes are “paid for” by taxpayers. But, who pays for tax cuts? Answer: The federal government which, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses tax dollars.

Continuing the CRFB article: Free-lunch economics appears poised to do major damage to our economy, slowing growth, increasing the chances of some type of crisis and starving the nation of the resources and flexibility to meet new challenges — from the threat of recession to grappling with artificial intelligence and the future of work.

Let’s examine the above nonsense paragraph. MacGuineas claims deficit spending “slows economic growth.” But how does pumping more dollars into the economy — the thing the government does to cure recessions — slow economic growth? It doesn’t.

And how does adding dollars to the economy “starve the nation of resources and flexibility to meet new challenges”? It’s all ridiculous.

Finally, if one wishes to “grapple with artificial intelligence (AI),” we must provide a source of income for people who have lost income to AI. Federal deficit spending, not tax increases, are needed.

Continuing the CRFB article: Policymakers have dug themselves into quite the hole. Our historic and unsustainable debt cannot be fixed with more tweaks and gimmicks.

What is “unsustainable” about the debt? It consists of deposits plus interest. The deposits are paid off with dollars already in the accounts, and the interest is paid by a government that has the unlimited ability to create dollars.

So, “unsustainable,” a word the CRFB often uses to describe the deficit and debt, is a lie, a Big Lie.

And then finally MacGuineas repeats the real purpose of the CRFB:

Continuing the CRFB article: It will take a big deal including new discretionary spending caps, a real plan to fix our entitlement programs and changes to bring in more revenues. Fairy dust, wishful thinking and free-lunch economics won’t get us there.

The real purpose of the CRFB is to facilitate cutting “entitlement” programs — Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, aids to the poor, aids to education.

The CRFB wants to cut the programs that help narrow the Gap between the rich and the rest. That is the fundamental purpose of the CRFB.

Let’s end with a mention of question #6: Does it (a large debt) mean no one will want to buy Treasury securities?

As we already have discussed, the federal government does not need to sell T-securities — at least not to fund spending.  And even if the federal government did need to sell T-securities, and in the remote possibility that no one wanted to buy them, the Federal Reserve has the power to buy them — in fact, it already has, many times.

An excerpt from a December 22, 2010, Wall Street Journal article by Jon Hilsenrath, gives you one example:

“Back in March 2009, Mr. Ben Bernanke told CBS News’s Scott Pelley that the Fed was printing money to fund an earlier bond-buying program.

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed, much the same way that you have an account in a commercial bank.

“So, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed.

“It’s much more akin to printing money than it is to borrowing.”

The Federal Reserve, an agency of the federal government, the bank where other federal agencies maintain accounts, has the unlimited ability to “use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed.”

That is how the federal government creates dollars. It uses the computer to mark up accounts. It can do this endlessly if it chooses.

So think about it. If you could use your computer to create unlimited dollars simply by marking up your bank account, at any time, and in any amount you chose, would you worry about debt? Would you need to borrow? Would you need to ask anyone for dollars?

Of course not. And that is why the CRFB is a fountain of lies — lies that hurt America, just to widen the Gap between the rich and the rest.

To summarize:

  1. The federal government is not running short of dollars.
  2. The federal government always will be able to pay its debts.
  3. Your taxes do not need to rise.
  4. The economy will not suffer. because of the debt.
  5. The debt will not cause hyperinflation.
  6. It does not mean no one will want to buy Treasury securities.

Continuing the CRFB article: Maya MacGuineas is the president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and head of the Campaign to Fix the Debt.

MacGuineas should be ashamed of damaging America by telling such monstrous lies, but apparently, a nice salary can be convincing.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty
Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

The most important problems in economics involve the excessive income/wealth/power Gaps between the have-mores and the have-lesses.

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.

Implementation of The Ten Steps To Prosperity can narrow the Gaps:

Ten Steps To Prosperity:
1. ELIMINATE FICA (Ten Reasons to Eliminate FICA )
Although the article lists 10 reasons to eliminate FICA, there are two fundamental reasons:
*FICA is the most regressive tax in American history, widening the Gap by punishing the low and middle-income groups, while leaving the rich untouched, and
*The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, neither needs nor uses FICA to support Social Security and Medicare.
This article addresses the questions:
*Does the economy benefit when the rich can afford better health care than can the rest of Americans?
*Aside from improved health care, what are the other economic effects of “Medicare for everyone?”
*How much would it cost taxpayers?
*Who opposes it?”
3. PROVIDE A MONTHLY ECONOMIC BONUS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD IN AMERICA (similar to Social Security for All) (The JG (Jobs Guarantee) vs the GI (Guaranteed Income) vs the EB (Economic Bonus)) Or institute a reverse income tax.
This article is the fifth in a series about direct financial assistance to Americans:

Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Employer of Last Resort is a bad idea. Sunday, Jan 1 2012
MMT’s Job Guarantee (JG) — “Another crazy, rightwing, Austrian nutjob?” Thursday, Jan 12 2012
Why Modern Monetary Theory’s Jobs Guarantee is like the EU’s euro: A beloved solution to the wrong problem. Tuesday, May 29 2012
“You can’t fire me. I’m on JG” Saturday, Jun 2 2012

Economic growth should include the “bottom” 99.9%, not just the .1%, the only question being, how best to accomplish that. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) favors giving everyone a job. Monetary Sovereignty (MS) favors giving everyone money. The five articles describe the pros and cons of each approach.
4. FREE EDUCATION (INCLUDING POST-GRAD) FOR EVERYONE Five reasons why we should eliminate school loans
Monetarily non-sovereign State and local governments, despite their limited finances, support grades K-12. That level of education may have been sufficient for a largely agrarian economy, but not for our currently more technical economy that demands greater numbers of highly educated workers.
Because state and local funding is so limited, grades K-12 receive short shrift, especially those schools whose populations come from the lowest economic groups. And college is too costly for most families.
An educated populace benefits a nation, and benefitting the nation is the purpose of the federal government, which has the unlimited ability to pay for K-16 and beyond.
Even were schooling to be completely free, many young people cannot attend, because they and their families cannot afford to support non-workers. In a foundering boat, everyone needs to bail, and no one can take time off for study.
If a young person’s “job” is to learn and be productive, he/she should be paid to do that job, especially since that job is one of America’s most important.
Businesses are dollar-transferring machines. They transfer dollars from customers to employees, suppliers, shareholders and the federal government (the later having no use for those dollars). Any tax on businesses reduces the amount going to employees, suppliers and shareholders, which diminishes the economy. Ultimately, all business taxes reduce your personal income.
7. INCREASE THE STANDARD INCOME TAX DEDUCTION, ANNUALLY. (Refer to this.) Federal taxes punish taxpayers and harm the economy. The federal government has no need for those punishing and harmful tax dollars. There are several ways to reduce taxes, and we should evaluate and choose the most progressive approaches.
Cutting FICA and business taxes would be a good early step, as both dramatically affect the 99%. Annual increases in the standard income tax deduction, and a reverse income tax also would provide benefits from the bottom up. Both would narrow the Gap.
There was a time when I argued against increasing anyone’s federal taxes. After all, the federal government has no need for tax dollars, and all taxes reduce Gross Domestic Product, thereby negatively affecting the entire economy, including the 99.9%.
But I have come to realize that narrowing the Gap requires trimming the top. It simply would not be possible to provide the 99.9% with enough benefits to narrow the Gap in any meaningful way. Bill Gates reportedly owns $70 billion. To get to that level, he must have been earning $10 billion a year. Pick any acceptable Gap (1000 to 1?), and the lowest paid American would have to receive $10 million a year. Unreasonable.
9. FEDERAL OWNERSHIP OF ALL BANKS (Click The end of private banking and How should America decide “who-gets-money”?)
Banks have created all the dollars that exist. Even dollars created at the direction of the federal government, actually come into being when banks increase the numbers in checking accounts. This gives the banks enormous financial power, and as we all know, power corrupts — especially when multiplied by a profit motive.
Although the federal government also is powerful and corrupted, it does not suffer from a profit motive, the world’s most corrupting influence.
10. INCREASE FEDERAL SPENDING ON THE MYRIAD INITIATIVES THAT BENEFIT AMERICA’S 99.9% (Federal agencies)Browse the agencies. See how many agencies benefit the lower- and middle-income/wealth/ power groups, by adding dollars to the economy and/or by actions more beneficial to the 99.9% than to the .1%.
Save this reference as your primer to current economics. Sadly, much of the material is not being taught in American schools, which is all the more reason for you to use it.

The Ten Steps will grow the economy, and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and you.


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SSL Certificate Generator in Website Hosting
Given that SSL certificates are among the services which we provide along with our website hosting packages, you will be able to obtain an SSL for any site hosted in an account here with just a couple of clicks. What is more, we have an auto-installer instrument, so once you approve the order via e-mail, our system will set everything up on your behalf and it'll install the certificate, the CSR as well as the 2 private keys. Soon after that, you will be able to visit your website with https:// and any details submitted on it will be secured, therefore no unauthorized people can intercept it. In case you've chosen some other SSL service provider, you can only generate a Certificate Signing Request within your account on our end together with the unique private key, then save the CSR code and submit it to the other service provider.


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The extradition of TVShack’s Richard O’Dywer: is it right?

picture of Richard ODwyer from

UK student Richard O’Dwyer is facing copyright infringement charges in the US for running, a site that provided links to movies and television series infringing copyright.

On the 13th January, Westminster Magistrates Court confirmed that the 23-year-old could be extradited to the US for trial.

This case highlights broader policy issues about US-UK extradition relations, not to mention US attempts at extending its jurisdiction for enforcement of alleged copyright infringement offences.

Before the site domain was seized in 2010, it is reported that O’Dwyer made about £15,000 per month in advertising revenues. If you visit the site at the time of posting this article, you will see this image shown below.

If you click on the image, you are shown a “Piracy is bad” video hosted on YouTube.

Since mid-2010, US Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been following a campaign of domain name seizures for illegal websites called Operation in Our Sites. was an ICE target but was not hosted on servers inside the US. The .net gTLD suffix is managed by US registry operator Verisign and ICE used this link as a basis for asserting jurisdiction to prosecute

tv-shack_logoO’Dwyer is UK-based, and apart from the .net domain, there doesn’t seem to be any other direct ties with the US. Well, other than the content being produced by US-based creative industries of course.

In this judgement, O’Dwyer’s counsel, Ben Cooper, sought to rely on, the ‘mere conduit’ defence of Regulation 17 in the UK E-Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002.

This legislation provides protection from liability when the service has limited control over its transmissions. Relying on the similar 2010 UK ‘TV-Links’ case, O’Dwyer’s counsel claims that Regulation 17 prevents other legitimate linking services like search engines being challenged for copyright infringement, and, he argues, TVShack should be treated similarly.

Unfortunately for O’Dwyer, Judge Purdy didn’t accept this argument because O’Dwyer actively chose what links were posted on and exerted control over transmissions in excess of a ‘mere conduit’.

s78, in Part II of the controversial Extradition Act 2003, has a ‘dual criminality’ requirement. This procedural step requires conduct to be a criminal offence in both the UK and the US.

Judge Purdy was satisfied that the alleged conduct was a chargeable criminal offence in the UK, namely s107 (2A) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Whether he could be convicted of this “dealing with infringing content” offence is another matter. The appeal may readdress this issue, but if he gets tried in the US anyway we may never know the answer.

Although the procedural extradition requirements have been met, it raises the question: why extradite Mr O’Dwyer to the US when the alleged offence was committed within the UK and there is a suitable chargeable crime available in UK law?

Gary MckinnonIt is difficult to discuss unfair extradition process without mentioning the plight of alleged hacker Gary McKinnon. Although indicted on severe alleged charges, hacking into various US databases including NASA and the US army, his extradition case now been dragging on for 9 years.

Such a long process has to be avoided for O’Dwyer. It simply seems unjust when when the UK courts and legal system can try the case in the UK rather than rely on a foreign legal system.

General concerns regarding the imbalance in UK-US extradition process have come to the political fore recently. Significantly more UK citizens are extradited to the US than vice versa, leading to suggestions of a review by the UK Human Rights Joint Committee, and recent debate in the House of Commons.

I hope this increased political scrutiny may see the development of a more balanced extradition process. Greater efforts to prevent extensions of US jurisdiction in O’Dwyer’s case at appeal may be the first step in the right direction.


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Lockheed Martin Says This Desalination Technology Is An Industry Game-Changer

Lockheed Martin Says This Desalination Technology Is An Industry Game-Changer

Workers stand near pressure vessels at Britain’s first-ever mainland desalination plant, known as the Thames Gateway Water Treatment.

The latest technology for removing salt from seawater, developed by Lockheed Martin, will be a game-changer for the industry, according to Ray O. Johnson, senior vice president and chief technology officer of the jet and weapons manufacturer.

Desalination technology is used in regions of the world, particularly developing countries, where fresh water is not available. Water from oceans or rivers is diverted into treatment plants where the salt is removed and clean drinking water is produced through a process called reverse osmosis.

Imagine a tank with seawater on one side and pure water on the other, separated by a filter with billions of tiny holes. Lots of pressure on the salty side pushes water through faster than the salt, so fresh water comes out the other end.

The problem is that current filters use plastic polymers that use an immense amount of energy (800 to 1,000 pounds per square inch of pressure) to push water through.

Lockheed has developed a special material that doesn’t need as much energy to drag water through the filter.

Graphene is a substance made of pure carbon. Carbon atoms are arranged in a regular hexagonal or honeycomb pattern in a one-atom thick sheet.

This special material is a film of a special structure of carbon, a honeycomb lattice called graphene.

“Graphene is pure carbon that is made in a hot oven on top of a copper sheet
in a vacuum,” John Stetson, the chief technologist at Lockheed for this initiative explained to Business Insider. “Methane gas is put into the vacuum and the methane changes
into a single film of carbon atoms all linked together tightly like chickenwire (at the atomic level) 1,000 times stronger than steel and tolerant of temperature, pressure and pH.”

The sheet is dotted with holes that are one nanometer or less. These holes between carbon atoms trap the salt and other impurities.

Graphene researchers won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for developing the wonder-material.

In addition, the film is super thin — just a single atom thick — so that the water simply “pops through the very, very small holes that we make in the graphene and leaves the salt behind,” said Stetson.

Lockheed anticipates that their filters will be able to provide clean drinking water “at a fraction of the cost of industry-standard reverse osmosis systems,” their press release says. Water-poor regions of the world will be the first to benefit.

The perforated graphene is aptly called Perforene. Lockheed has the U.S. Patent on this technology and is currently pumping out “pretty big quantities of it” at Lockheed’s advanced technology center in Palo Alto, California, according to Stetson.

The Perforene has a smoky grey-color film that is translucent, even though its carbon, because it is so thin. It’s also about 1,000 times stronger than steel, but still has a permeability that is about 100 times greater than the best competitive membrane out in the market, said Stetson.

Perforene isn’t a game-changer, yet. Lockheed is still in the prototype stage. One challenge is figuring out how to scale up production. Graphene is cheap but it’s very delicate because of its thinness, also making it difficult to transfer.

Stetson says Lockheed is targeting to have a prototype to test in a reverse osmosis plant by 2014 or 2015, where they would simply be able to “plug in” the Perforene to replace the existing filter.

The great news is that this technology is not just limited to desalination plants. It can potentially be used for pharmaceutical filtration, dialysis, and gas separation, to a name a few other uses.

The possibilities are endless.

Posted in Desalination, Editors Picks and tagged .


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What kind of group is the Nashville Feminist Collective?

The Nashville Feminist Collective (NFC) is a grassroots, community organizing collective with a virtual/online presence. Our power is generated–in part, but importantly–from personal interactions with one another and with the members of other local organizations we support and and with whom we partner. The purpose of our online presence is to increase accessibility and provide another avenue for our members to communicate, share information, and build relationships. It is one of multiple organizing spaces.

We seek to build feminist leadership, feminist allyship, and feminist community–in part, through connecting individuals and communities, strengthening ties between communities, and building and deepening relationships. We initiate and lead our own work, and amplify the work of others, to address the injustices experienced by our members and by other marginalized members of our Nashville community.

NFC aims to center the experiences, needs, and voices of those who have been historically left out and overlooked in mainstream feminist activism. These means centering working class, disabled, LGBTQI+, women and nonbinary people of color, especially black women. Every issue that we take on must be approached from an intersectional lens.

Steering Committee

Our current leadership is in the process of transitioning to a steering committee. We are moving from “leadership” to “steering committee” because we see our role as facilitators, mobilizers, liaisons, and dreamers and do not seek hierarchical power over members. It is the founders intention that the NFC steering committee should always be majority people of color because at the intersection of every oppression, the most marginalized will always be a person of color and especially black people.

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Italy: Modern Art Removed by Cleaners Who Thought it was Trash

Sometimes the least educated have better sense and taste than the miseducated.

CLEANERS AT A museum in Italy threw away one of the exhibits thinking it was mess left over from a party on Friday night. (ILLUSTRATION: This is what the installation used to look like…)

The empty champagne bottles, confetti and pieces of paper did look like the remains of a good night out — but all that’s left to see now is a scrubbed floor and a sign explaining where the art has gone.

Staff at the Museion Bozen-Bolzano in northern Italy posted before and after pictures on their Facebook page yesterday morning explaining the situation.

The exhibition space today

The artwork, called ‘Where are we going to dance this evening?’ by Goldschmied & Chiari, was meant to represent the decadence of 1980s Italy, characterised by hedonism and consumerism.

It looks like it might have worked a little too well, with cleaners thinking they had extra work to deal with all the rubbish.

This sign has been put up at the museum:

It translates as ‘The work will be restored soon’ in Italian.

Luckily the dutiful cleaners recycled all the work separating glass and paper so it should be possible to put the installation back together, an Italian newspaper reported.

The added cleaners at the museum had been warned about cleaning up exhibits after similar problems had happened before, but this time a party really had been hosted at the museum on Friday night which led to the confusion.

* * *

Source: Metro

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Alexander Noble
Alexander Noble

It WAS trash. I agree, better uneducated than miseducated.

Robert Ford
Robert Ford

Figures that a least one of the no-talented prats would be a kike.

Travon Martinberg
Travon Martinberg

Only in San Francisco (hopefully): Article reveals the silliness of people attracted to modern art, as well.


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New research suggests that the economic contribution of India’s forests, rivals the total GDP of major countries around the world.

“India has decided to put a financial value on its forests: Rs115 trillion, or an astounding $1.7 trillion.

This is lower than India’s GDP, pegged at $2.1 trillion, but higher than the GDPs of countries such as Canada, Korea, Mexico or Russia.

The valuation was arrived at by an expert panel that the Indian government set up in 2013. The committee was asked to decide on the net present value (NPV) of forest land in case they had to be diverted for industrial or construction purposes.

“The numbers are definitely shocking,” Madhu Verma, a professor at the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), and one of the two lead authors of the report, said. “The moment you put a value to these forestlands is when people take these concerns (regarding diverting forest land) seriously.”

India’s environment ministry has now approved the committee’s report, the Hindustan Times reported…”

Read on at: Quartz India


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This article was originally published on Scientific American

Insects like the cold-hardy emerald ash borer could see mass die-offs, but survivors could have hardier offspring

It’s been so cold in the upper Midwest this week that even a few minutes outside invites frostbite. But there is least one upside to the polar vortex deep freeze: The extreme cold is likely wiping out millions of invasive tree-killing insects across a broad swath of territory from South Dakota to Minnesota, offering hope for at least a temporary reprieve from their incessant spread into a steadily warming north.

A swelling army of invasive insects—including the gypsy moth, introduced to the U.S. from Asia in the late 1800s, and the emerald ash borer, which arrived in Michigan in 2009 (most likely on shipping palettes from China)—have killed millions of trees across the northern states. They continue to colonize new territory, aided by warming trends that are rendering more areas  hospitable to them.

The consequences for forest ecosystems and cities alike have been swift and severe. The emerald ash borer has already wiped out 100 percent of ash trees in parts of Ohio and Indiana, says Robert Venette, a research biologist with the U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) Northern Research Station. As infestations spread northward, the one-of-a-kind black ash swamps of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin could become treeless marshlands—leaving nearby areas more prone to flooding.

Gypsy moths have defoliated millions of oak, birch, cottonwood and other tree species, causing millions of dollars’ worth of damage. The hemlock woolly adelgid, a sap-sucking native of eastern Asia that has decimated hemlock trees throughout the U.S. Northeast, is now encroaching into Midwest forests. “It’s a pretty big impact,” says Lee Frelich, director of the Center for Forest Ecology at the University of Minnesota, referring to all the region’s invading insects. “Hundreds of millions of trees have been killed.”…”

Read on at: Scientific American.


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Feature Story

July 2016

Schlitz Audubon Nature Center

Filtering Nature: The Facebook Effect

Catherine Koons Hubbard

Lately, my Facebook feed has exploded with pictures of children playing in nature. This is not surprising. As the Director of a Nature Preschool just north of downtown Milwaukee, I follow a number of groups online, among them: The Children and Nature Network, the Natural Start Alliance, the Wisconsin Nature Action Collaborative for Children, and the International Association of Nature Pedagogy
The images in my news feed are always joyful. They feature fresh-faced children jumping in puddles, making mud pies, or looking under rocks for worms. The kids are dressed in adorable rain boots, usually with ladybugs or bumblebees on them. One of my favorite photos, taken at a nature-based preschool in North West Australia, pictured a traditional Aboriginal eel roast, “prepared with paperbark, banksia pods, and lemon myrtle.” I just loved the way those plant names rolled off the tongue. I loved the idea that banksia pods are as common for some children as pine cones are to others.
It is thrilling to see nature-based education taking off in such a big way, and in so many preschools across the globe. I am certain that this is a direct result of children spending more of their days--and evenings--sitting immobile in front of screens; of technology taking precedence over outdoor experiences; of school recess shrinking as student testing increases. Parents are growing alarmed at how disconnected young people seem to have grown from the natural world beyond their door. Grandparents despair that this new generation is overprotected and socially isolated, preferring their phones to actual conversations. Nature has become a hands-off experience.
I realize that this is all anecdotal. But I’m sure I’m right. When we ask the parents at our preschool why they want a nature-based curriculum for their kids, they tell us: children need to run and play! They need to get dirty and spend time outside. By the time they enter kindergarten, they are asked to sit still for much of the day. Parents want their children to be outside now, when they can, because they know that all too soon it will come to an end.
So, all in all, I am delighted to open my Facebook feed and see image after image of happy children hanging from trees, squelching in mud, or carefully dipping their nets into ponds.
And yet. Very quickly, all of these images start to look the same. I often cannot tell if a photo was taken in New Zealand or New Jersey. There is the small muddy hand, carefully clutching an acorn cap. There is the child leaping with glee into a great big pile of leaves. There is a romanticism to these images that becomes almost boring after a while.
Of course, I understand the desire to post only the best images on Facebook. And having personally taken thousands of pictures of children playing outdoors, I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to filtering out the whole truth.  Take, for instance, the video I shot of a small group of four-year-old boys hauling a log across a muddy play space. In the video, the boys work as a team, offering one another encouragement as they maneuvered the log from one place to another. Other children quickly rush in to help. Playing in nature leads to cooperative play, the video seems to imply. And while this is true, it does not tell the whole story, which is that seconds after the video ends, the log crashed to the ground, the kids started yelling, and a teacher had to intervene.
I have filmed children rolling frozen water-balloon balls down hills, only to hit pause on the camera when one child accused another of taking her ball and a shoving match ensued. I have wondered if we could edit out the sound of teacher’s raised voice, just off camera, telling the kids not to throw rocks at each other.
It is worth asking ourselves: what is the deeper purpose of all these photographs? Are we documenting children engaged in play? Or are we reassuring ourselves that as teachers and parents we are providing children with profound experiences? I believe we need to fight the urge to promote nature and childhood through rose-colored glasses. We do not tell the whole truth when we imply that all children need are a few pine cones and sticks and they will never be bored or cranky again.
One of my favorite online diversions is a webpage devoted to “Pinterest Fails.” As someone who never mastered the art of the frosting rosette, or even the perfect preschool bulletin board, these disastrous attempts at Pinterest projects always make me smile. It is reassuring to me that not everyone is an expert at crafting and cake decoration.  And lately, as I peruse photo after photo of sun-filtered children holding hands under looming birch trees, I am tempted to dig out some of our photos that did not make the final cut, to reassure myself that not every moment in nature is golden. I want to see the child who stuck his hand into an icy puddle and is now wailing because his mitten is soaked. I want to see the child standing with her sock half-off, with her boot stuck deep in the mud. I want to see the children’s garden in which the lettuce has been eaten, the marigolds picked, and the vegetables hopelessly overwatered.
As much as I appreciate the beauty of nature, the delightfulness of childhood, and the wonderful results when you mix the two, the reality is seldom a perfect rosette. Children cry. They get hurt. They frequently refuse to take turns. Teachers must have infinite patience as they help child after child struggle in and out of rain pants, or navigate trips to the bathroom a quarter mile away from the woods. When I first saw that photo of the Australian Eel Roast, I thought: goodness, how fascinating! But later I was curious: how many children sampled that eel, and how many turned up their noses and instead insisted on goldfish crackers?
The next time I take a camera in hand, documenting the magic that happens when you give children time to play freely in nature, I am going to resist the urge to hit pause. Nature is tricky. Paths can be icy. As adults, we must fight the urge to project our own romanticized view of nature and childhood onto this new generation. There will always be the child who glares, or pushes, or bursts into tears the moment we click the camera. There will always be one who looks down at the ground, just when a monarch butterfly goes by.

About the Author

Catherine Koons Hubbard is the Nature Preschool Director at Schlitz Audubon Nature Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She holds a Master’s Degree in Education from the University of Pennsylvania, and has worked as a teaching naturalist for over fourteen years. She enjoys taking children outdoors in all sorts of weather, and while she has a beautiful collection of idyllic photographs featuring children engaged in nature play, she has recently begun a much more entertaining, and just as realistic, collection of non-idyllic photos, which are likely to show children making faces, recoiling from worms, and covered from head to toe in mud.

nature preschool


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Nature Pedagogy

What is nature pedagogy? It is a way of being with children in the outdoor setting. Being on nature's terms and in 'nature time' sets the stage for curious minds to investigate and discover the world around them. This site is meant to inspire and motivate you to make the outdoors part of your daily life; at school and at home.
Children who spend time outside develop an inclination to experiment and solve problems. Children naturally develop important skills including resilience, motivation, persistence, and creativity when curriculum is authentic and multi-sensory.

If you please contact me at: audrey.elszasz@naturepedagogy.


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About Forest Therapy

Shinrin-Yoku Forest MedicineShinrin-Yoku (Forest Bathing) inspired Forest Therapy has been studied by scientists since the 1980s. Health benefits include lower blood pressure, boosted immune system, increased cancer-fighting proteins (natural killer cells), reduced stress hormones and improved mental health.  Scientists have discovered that 2 hours of forest therapy can increase your immunity (number of natural killer cells) by 40% and it will remain boosted for a week.  Furthermore, 2 hours of forest therapy for 3 consecutive days can boost your immunity by 50% and the level remains increased for 30 days.

Shinrin-Yoku inspired Forest Therapy is a slow, guided walk in nature that awakens every sense, calms the mind, and produces more joy, creativity, curiosity and healthy solutions.  The Forest is the Therapist, The Guide Opens The Door to the forest and invites you to experience the forest with a variety of sensory invitations.  Although hiking in the woods and going on a nature interpretive walk are beneficial experiences, forest therapy / forest bathing is not either of these.  It is unique.  It is inspiring. It’s like a vacation at the Spa! And it helps to build a healthier heart and body connection.

“During the walk, I slowed down, and the entire experience was an artistic and sensory experience.  I loved it.  Would not have known how to appreciate the forest like this even though I go to the forest frequently. I felt supported being in the forest and guided to experience a calming and immune boosting therapeutic opportunity.  It was evident to me that the experience was beneficial.”  ~ J.R., Nurse

Each Forest Therapy Walk is an unique experience

Why Walk With a Forest Guide?

A guide will help you to have a better forest experience and will:

  • slow you down. Most people move too fast through the forest to experience the kind of health benefits that forest therapy / forest bathing creates. Participants often are grateful to have a guide to slow their pace.
  • offer invitations, or suggestions, on unique, fun and healing ways to interact with the forest.
  • plan ahead, assess current hazards, carries a first aid kit and certificate.
  • provide a tea ceremony and snacks.
  • listen  attentively, non-judgmentally, confidentially
  • help you be more accountable and committed; helping ensure you get out for the therapeutic forest time you know and say you want.
  • share her experience of the forest too so you can “see” and “hear” the forest through other’s eyes and ears too!

“The highlights of the walk for me included the inviting and peaceful approach, the tea ceremony to close the walk, and the lovely facilitator with her calming voice. This walk refreshed my spirit, soul and outlook on life.”  ~ A.B., Young Adult Woman

Forest Therapy Walks with Tea Ceremony

“A forest therapy walk with Haida is an experience that is great for families. It’s a great way to reconnect with yourself, nature and family. Children learn new skills and come alive in nature. Haida is a gentle guide with lots of respect for the forest.” ~ Sonya Salamon, Mother

Interested in experiencing Forest Therapy or
Forest Bathing for yourself?

Visit my Experiences page to learn about my
Forest Therapy Individual, Couple and Small Group packages


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Green stool

Updated: 5/30/2018

Green stool — when your feces look green — is usually the result of something you ate, such as spinach. Certain medications or iron supplements can also cause green stool.

Newborns pass a dark green stool called meconium, and breast-fed infants often produce yellow-green stools. In older children and adults, green stool is uncommon. It's rarely cause for concern.

Infants might have green stool as a result of:

  • Not finishing nursing entirely on one side, thus missing some of the high-fat-content breast milk, which affects the digestion of the milk
  • Protein hydrolysate formula (for babies with milk or soy allergy)
  • Lack of normal intestinal bacteria in breast-fed infants
  • Diarrhea

Children and adults

Causes of green stool include:

  • Diarrhea
  • Diet high in green vegetables such as spinach
  • Food dyes
  • Indomethacin – a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug
  • Iron supplements
  • Medroxyprogesterone (Depo-Provera), a contraceptive drug

When to see a doctor

Call your doctor if you or your child has green stool for more than a few days. Green stool often occurs with diarrhea, so drink plenty of fluids and seek immediate medical attention if you or your child becomes dehydrated.

Content from Mayo Clinic