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Z88.3 FM: Safe For The Little Ears®

Date/Time Event
6:00 PM - 8:30 PM

Larnelle Harris Concert

Location: First Baptist Church Poinciana, Kissimmee Florida

Larnelle Harris will be with us in concert

January 20, 2018 @ 6pm

Tickets are available now for what is sure to be a sell out worship event.

More info @ 863-427-0075 (office) (or) 407-956-7870 (text or call)

VIP Tickets are limited – $40

General Seating $25

Groups – 10+ $15/pp (call ahead required for group pricing)

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7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

St. Luke's Concert Series: Orlando Concert Band

Location: St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, Oviedo FL

St. Luke’s Concert Series

St. Luke’s Concert Series is a FREE gift to all; sharing God’s amazing gift of music with the entire community! We are celebrating its 24th season of offering FREE concerts,  and this year the Orlando Concert Band will start on Saturday, January 20, 2018 at 7pm. The 60 piece ensemble will fill the acoustical space with the lush sounds of “The Music of John Williams,”under the direction of Jon Territo. A truly family-friendly performance of semi-classical and screen music.FREE admission AND FREE parking for both the Friday rehearsal and Saturday concert. Arrive early for best choice of open seating and parking.

NOTE: Audience may opt to attend an Open Dress Rehearsal (Friday, Jan. 19th, from 7-9pm) in lieu of the Saturday concert, which historically draws a large crowd.

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7:30 PM - 9:15 PM

The Fabulous Hubcaps

Location: Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center, Sanford FL

You rarely see such a group of multi-talented musicians delivering sounds from Doo Wop to Disco with equal skill. Bring your dancing shoes. www.wdpac.com

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2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

The First Academy Open House

Location: The First Academy, Orlando Florida

The First Academy is a Christ-centered, college preparatory school serving students from Preschool through grade 12. Families love TFA for the safe environment, world class teaching and learning, and life changing spiritual formation. Join us for Open House on Sunday, January 28th! Enjoy a campus wide personal tour, talk with representatives from our award winning arts and athletic programs, and meet our teachers, leadership, and staff. Visit www.thefirstacademy.org for more information and to RSVP. Go Royals!

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12:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Mayor's Job Fair, Orlando, FL, January 31, 2018

Location: Central Florida Fair Expo Park, Orlando FL

Are you looking for a new job? Find your next employer at Central Florida Employment Council’s (CFEC) job fair in Orlando, Florida, from 12-4 pm at the Central Florida Fair Expo Park, 4603 W Colonial Drive, Orlando, FL 32808. Over 80-90 companies offering thousands of career openings in various industries and resources on hand to assist your job search. PROFESSIONAL DRESS, bring resumes, free admission/parking, and no children, please. Register as a job seeker and get details at CFEC Central Florida Employment Council www.cfec.org/job-fairs. Also, for any questions, please call Christian HELP/CFEC at (407) 834-4022.

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12:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Location: Mennello Museum of American Art, Orlando Florida

We are excited to announce the fourth annual Indie-Folkfest at the Mennello Museum of American Art.  Our annual family-and pet-friendly event takes place again on February 10, 2018, from 12 to 5 p.m. We are excited to bring the community together again and showcase local, national and regional art, music and culinary talent. Bring the family to enjoy the beautiful weather, local music, food, beverages and art. Don’t miss out on the kid’s zone with mini fine art projects for all!

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7:30 PM - 9:15 PM

A Fleetwood Mac Tribute

Location: Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center, Sanford FL

True Rumours, the ultimate tribute to Fleetwood Mac. This show will take you on a Fleetwood Mac journey like no other! You’ll hear all the great songs including  Don’t Stop, Dreams, The Chain, Gold Dust Woman and so many more! True Rumours re-create all the great harmonies, you will see all the enchanting twirls, and experience the vibe of one of the greatest iconic bands of all time. Let True Rumours take you back in time on a Rock n Roll journey with the greatest hits of Fleetwood Mac. www.wdpac.com

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5:30 PM - 10:30 PM

34th Annual Dream Gala

Location: Orlando Marriott Lake Mary, Lake Mary FL

The Foundation for Seminole State College will host the 34th annual Dream Gala, presented by CFE Federal Credit Union, at the Orlando Marriott Lake Mary. The Foundation’s premier, signature fundraising event will celebrate Seminole State College, its students and its continued partnership with the Central Florida community. The event will bring together over 400 guests to enjoy dinner, dancing, a silent and live auction, car raffle, student scholarship auction and more! Proceeds from the evening will benefit Seminole State students, programs and areas of greatest need at the College. Visit dream-gala.com for more information.

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3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Sanford Jazz Ensemble: Black History Month Concert

Location: Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center, Sanford FL

The Sanford Jazz Ensemble is a volunteer community orchestra made up of a diverse group of excellent musicians, dedicated to the preservation of the Big Band Jazz Tradition. The band’s extensive repertoire covers a wide range of material from the classic swing era to the contemporary jazz styles of today.

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7:30 PM - 9:00 PM

Queen Nation: A Tribute to the Music of Queen

Location: Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center, Sanford FL

From Los Angeles California, Queen Nation’s live 90-minute production of Queen’s greatest hits preserves the image, sound, and stage persona of vintage Queen. Audiences are amazed at the accuracy of Queen Nation’s live retrospective journey through such Queen songs as We Will Rock You – Bohemian Rhapsody – We Are The Champions – Crazy Little Thing Called Love – You’re My Best Friend – Another One Bites The Dust – Under Pressure and many more. An incredible show not to be missed. www.wdpac.com

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How long does it take to read a classic 20th-century political novel? What if you read it aloud, from cover to cover over the course of one day?

On Tuesday 6 June , the answer to the first question was 10 hours and 57 minutes.

Richard Blair, George Orwell’s adopted son was three years old when his father completed the book in 1948. It was Richard who started reading ‘…the clocks were striking  thirteen’. Almost 11 hours, two tides and a fleet of 50 actors, journalists and activists later, writer Bonnie Greer intoned Winston Smith’s final, anguished defeat,  ‘…he loved Big Brother’.

This was 1984 Live, read and performed in our University’s Senate House. Propaganda was plastered over the darkened Chancellor’s Hall (notionally the heart of London’s federal university). The royal portraits and baroque tapestry-map were obscured by flickering slides of blitzed London and Airstrip One. Young actors, soundtrack and lighting, driven by technology Big Brother would have died for, accompanied the marathon reading.

You can see and hear the full reading of 1984 via the Orwell Foundation. Each will have their choice extracts: I’ll flag Michela Wrong on double-thinking Oceania’s international relations (at 1 hour 25 minutes), Peter Hitchens on memory and the revolution (3:19), Simon Schama on Julia’s copse (4:37), Billy Bragg on sex and totalitarianism (5:20), the pairing of Melyvn Bragg and Ken Loach (on Ingsoc and the party, 7:55). Jean Seaton (10:14, on Winston’s incarceration), herself the steely-chair of the Orwell Foundation and, I suspect, the red-sashed powerhouse behind the live reading.

Dank Senate House and its surrounding streets are central to 1984 and Orwell. The Senate inspired 1984’s Ministry of Truth and Room 101. Images of Orwell remain in the Fitzroy Tavern, Bricklayers Arms and other hostelries he frequented off Charlotte St (though not his imaginary ‘The Moon under Water’).  He died of tuberculosis in University College Hospital, a few hundred yards from Birkbeck and Senate House, on 21 January 1950. In the six months between the publication and his death, 1984 was reprinted several times. In its first year it sold almost half a million copies and has been in print ever since.

Birkbeck’s Politics Department was co-founded by the scholar who more than any other shaped our understanding of George Orwell. Bernard Crick’s monumental George Orwell: A Life was published in 1980 and remains the definitive biography. Crick himself gave a series of open lectures in Senate House on Orwell in 1982, marking the publication in paperback of A Life.  Royalties from the book underpinned the Orwell Foundation and the annual Orwell Lecture. Crick, who died in 2008, chaired the Orwell Prize until 2006; his death in 2008 left numerous intellectual legacies. These included Birkbeck’s archives from his work on Orwell, his editorship of Political Quarterly (currently back under a Birkbeck editor), as well as our Department and his wider writings.

You can read Ben Pimlott’s introduction to 1984 here and listen to the Birkbeck Arts week event ‘Will 2017 be 1984?’ here

David Styan is a Lecturer in Politics at Birkbeck

Lots of people are eating humble pie about Jeremy Corbyn. In the 2017 General Election Corbyn was going to destroy the Labour party, lose Wales and lose Bolsover. Yes, yes, I know May technically ‘won’ but anyone who saw Michael Fallon on the TV knows full well who really won and lost. Jeremy Corbyn, the bearded, quasi-Marxist geography teacher and friend of [insert extremist group] deprived May of her majority, stopped her landslide and won the largest increased vote share since 1945. He even swung a near 10,000 vote majority in Canterbury and Canterbury has been Conservative since 1868, apart from a brief Independent Unionist presence 1910-18 (no, I don’t know either).

The point, though, is not to eat humble pie but to work out why the humble pie eating is necessary. Now I can argue that I’m not a quants or statistics person. Nor am I an expert in psephology. I am, I could also point out, extraordinarily bad at predicting elections (Listen in to our podcast to hear the wrongness). I wrongly predicted almost every significant political event since 2010:

  • Lib-Dems going into Coalition in 2010 (‘not going to happen’ I scoffed)
  • Conservative victory in 2015 (‘Don’t have the numbers-mathematically impossible’ I opined)
  • EU referendum of 2016 (‘60-40 Remain’ I announced just seconds before Sunderland)
  • Presidential election 2016 (‘Trump’s done for’ I said sagely after ordering a copy of Clinton’s (second) autobiography)

In part it is also the classic problems of a fire station effect and social media echo chambers. You talk and listen to people like you. Fellow lefties, fellow nerds, fellow cynics. But this isn’t really enough as an explanation. Here’s four reasons I was wrong.

The Polls, the Polls

We are obsessed. They shape our thoughts and guide our actions. We forget margins of error and the all-important qualifications that come with them. We are still obsessed despite a growing series of poor performances. In 3 major political contests in the last two years polling has been out or wrong, from the 2015 General Election, to the Brexit referendum and US presidential election. Yet still we interpret, analyse and believe them. We then enmesh ourselves in analysis of polls without stepping back and seeing them as just one source-and one that has shown to be pretty fallible. YouGov’s recent success now also points to the fact that old fashioned polling is out and more complex modelling is in: as the great Stuart Wilks-Heeg put it ‘Goodbye polls, hello multilevel regression with post-stratification’ (please drop this into casual conversation and impress your friends).

Here’s a series of truisms about UK elections that Jeremy Corbyn has probably overturned or at least badly dented:

  • Campaigns don’t matter,
  • No one cares about manifestos,
  • Older people are all Tories,
  • Young people don’t turn out
  • The press have a decisive influence
  • Divided parties don’t win elections

The problem, as with polls, is that we hold the rules to be ‘self-evident truths’ rather than things that ‘normally’ but don’t ‘always’ happen. Just because you think it, doesn’t make it true, as Thom Yorke perhaps once said.

We need to recognise how these ‘rules’ can be bent. Take the example of technology. Andrew Chadwick pointed a year ago to the new ‘parties-behaving-like-movements’ phenomenon, where old bodies used social media and fluid networks to reach and mobilise voters in new ways. While everyone focused on Conservative Facebook ads, Labour was digitally mobilising, organising and undercutting the power of the traditional media, demolishing several truisms while we looked the other way.

Bias and Cynicism

Most academics are left-wing. However, most political scientists, I sense, have been somewhere between unimpressed to hostile towards Corbyn (though I suspect we have many ‘shy Corbynites’ amongst us). Why the bias? Most of us probably felt he has been a reasonably poor opposition leader by any measure, seemingly unfocused, disorganised and ineffective. For me personally, a red line was his lack of enthusiasm in the Brexit referendum and his later whipping of MPs and Peers over article 50. The only time I felt slightly pulled towards him was when he confessed he didn’t know who Ant and Dec were.

Corbyn 2

Yet I forgot certain things, or at least my bias let me forget them. I forgot a politician campaigns in poetry but governs in prose. Corbyn’s prose was pretty clunky but his campaigning was, well, Shakespearean, especially when compared with May’s approach, which seemed to consist of  running around the heath in a lightning storm trying to lose her power (see what I did there?). Abraham Lincoln was once told his Commander in Chief, U.S. Grant, was a drunk. ‘I can’t spare that man’ he answered ‘he fights’. And so did Corbyn.

I also forgot that politicians and public perceptions of them can change and change very quickly. Look, topically, at how Martin McGuinness and Iain Paisley transformed themselves into doves or how Gordon Brown went from ‘Stalin to Mr Bean’ in a matter of weeks. It’s ironic that as the campaign unfolded I was writing about Ken Livingstone, another figure of the Left who, in the 1980s, turned vicious press attacks into a strength and sold Leftist policies as ‘common sense’ and simple fairness.

Frustratingly, I had glimpsed at how Corbyn could become a powerful anti-elite symbol but then dismissed it (and I want to go on record as being the only academic I know to openly compare Jeremy Corbyn to Charles De Gaulle). I have no such trouble with the Conservatives and have been loudly proclaiming May’s total incompetence since I saw her misinterpret article 50 at the largely unreported car-crash of a liaison committee appearance in December 2016.

But it isn’t just about bias. It’s also cynicism. Studying politics can make you rather pessimistic. Everyone fails, everyone disappoints. For any academic vaguely of the left the last few years have been a series of hammer blows from Miliband’s failure to Farage’s success, with a great big Trump shaped cherry on top. It was hard to believe someone could again bend the rules and win from the left.

Brexit has confused us all and left British Politics in flux. Divided parties, divided countries and referendums, real and threatened, have all clumped into one huge rolling political and constitutional crisis that dare not speak its name. The fault lines run across Scotland, especially across Northern Ireland, and also through the ‘Two Englands’ that Jennings and Stoker have brilliantly mapped. But do people care?

Remember, the election was supposed to be all about Brexit. It was called because (i) those opposed to Brexit (9 Lib-Dem MPs and 55 SNP) could actively sabotage the other (586 MPs) who supported or accepted it and (ii) because the EU were plotting to throw the election to Labour (‘How’s the paranoia meter running?’ as Bob Dylan used to say).

Then something odd happened. Brexit stopped being discussed in the campaign. The Tories offered no further detail than they had in their utterly opaque White Paper that gave us all 14 weeks holiday a year. Labour’s Brexit plans would have confused the oracle at Delphi and, even now, I still can’t understand whether we would be in the Single Market or out.

But while the parties side-stepped it the voters didn’t. We are still awaiting proper analysis and data. So far, it seems, as the great John Curtice put it ‘Thursday’s results revealed that voters had not forgotten about Brexit.’ So it was, in a sense, the revenge of the Remainers who swung heaviest for Labour with Corbyn capturing even a good chunk, according to YouGov, of 25-44 year old Conservative Remainers. Yet Labour also drew in an anti-establishment UKIP vote up north. It’s almost impossible to know what to conclude except, perhaps, that Labour’s fudging was masterful as well as infuriating and that May lost not with the dementia tax but with her hard Brexit speech in January. Perhaps.

And so?

So what do we do now? There’s more mileage in connecting with activists and those who ‘do’ politics (a few Momentum and Tory workers wouldn’t go amiss at conferences) and also in understanding technology and change more generally. I also need to step back from media horse race and prediction game: I’ll aim to offer insight without predictions or at least give more wary speculations. Perhaps the best thing that could happen is to open up politics to other disciplines-historians, anthropologists and literature scholars can all offer insights (see this talk by Dr Declan Gilmore-Kavanagh on Boris and Jeremy here). We should certainly sellotape health warnings and margins of error to our heads and keep in mind Martin Luther King’s and/or Pliny the Younger’s dictum that ‘it always seems impossible, until it is done’.

So Theresa May’s gamble failed and we now have a hung Parliament. This means that, although they are the largest party, the Conservatives do not have a majority of MPs to pass laws. As the House of Commons Library explains:

General elections are held to return MPs to the House of Commons. Most commonly, one party has a majority of seats, and this party then forms a government. If a general election produces results in which no party has a majority of Members this is known as a ‘hung Parliament’.

Here’s the balance of seats (number of MPs). No party has the magic 326 (50% plus one but actually 322) to have a majority to pass a bill [1]

Party Seats
Conservative 317
Labour 262
Scottish National Party 35
Liberal Democrat 12
Democratic Unionist Party 10
Sinn Fein 7
Plaid Cymru 4
Green Party 1
Independent 1
Speaker 1
Total number of seats 650
Working Government Majority  0

This great graphic from the Institute for Government shows how no one quite gets over the finishing line of 322 seats:

So What Now?

According to the Cabinet Manual that tells us the rules of the political game in the UK, the Conservatives get first chance to try and form a government that can govern ‘command the confidence of the House of Commons’(i.e. put together a group who can pass laws):

Where an election does not result in an overall majority for a single party, the incumbent government remains in office unless and until the Prime Minister tenders his or her resignation and the Government’s resignation to the Sovereign. An incumbent government is entitled to wait until the new Parliament has met to see if it can command the confidence of the House of Commons, but is expected to resign if it becomes clear that it is unlikely to be able to command that confidence and there is a clear alternative.

They now have a number of options. The Conservatives can (i) govern as a minority government, working to pass legislation each time and ‘to strike issue-by-issue deals to pass its business’ (ii) create an informal alliance with another party (iii) put together a formal coalition with agreed terms.

Their current choice is to go for (ii) and ask for the support of the Democratic Unionist Party, a small Northern Irish party (see how many UK newspaper have articles entitled ‘who are the DUP’). This will probably done by a so-called ‘supply and confidence’ arrangement (see this explainer and analysis here). This means the DUP will support important bills in exchange for certain concessions (probably about money). At the time of writing it seems the negotiations are a little trickier than many thought.

How Long Will It Last?

If you think such an arrangement sounds a little temporary then you are right. Below is table of how such minority governments and informal arrangements have lasted since 1910.

Government Lasted (approx)
Minority Liberal Government (1910-1915) 5 years (Dec 1910-1915).
Minority Labour Government (1924) 9 months (Jan-October 1924)
Minority Labour Government (1929-1931) 2 years (June 1929-August 1931)
Minority Labour Government (1974) 8 months (Feb-October 1974)
1977 Lib Lab pact (1977-1978) 14 months (March 1977-July 1978)
Minority Conservative Government (1997) 4 months (Feb-May 1997)
Minority Conservative Government (2017) ?

The Liberal minority from 1910-1915 is probably the exception, when the Liberals governed with the support of Labour MPs and others. The government achieved a great deal but was beset by a crisis in Ireland and constitutional deadlock with the House of Lords and then interrupted by the First World War in August 1914. All the others have lasted months rather than years. Minority and informal pact governments have often been temporary and driven by crisis.

In each case, whether formally in the case of the 1977 Lib Lab pact or informally, the larger party has relied on the votes of smaller parties to pass bills. The difficulty, as this report puts it, is that it ‘depends upon shared interests and the ability of the leaderships of both parties to work together’. The question is what the shared interests of the DUP and Conservatives are (especially around Brexit) and whether Theresa May has the skills to hold together an informal alliance.

The wider politics of the agreement could raise all sorts of problems and have ‘worrying consequences’ . It would make the  peace process in Northern Ireland much harder (at a delicate stage since elections this year and the suspension of the Assembly) and also raises political tensions, with unhappiness in the Conservative party and among the public at DUP policies on LGBT rights, abortion and association with Northern Ireland’s violent past.

How About a Coalition?

Would a more concrete arrangement not be better? Looking at the more formal coalitions since 1915, it seems they do last much longer (though again a number of these were created in crisis, either wartime or economic).

Government Lasted
Wartime coalition and the “coupon” election (1915-1922)

7 years
The National Government (1931-1940?) 9 years
Wartime coalition (1940-45) 5 years
Conservative Liberal Democrat Coalition Government (2010-2015) 5 years

A formal deal would, so to speak, be stronger and more stable. As the great @Parlyapp put it ‘Coalition government would have been preferable for the Tories as from a Commons point of view it is a majority government.’ It also gives a government greater control of committees and rules in Parliament.

However, it seems the DUP would be reluctant to do it as smaller parties tend to suffer in more formal agreements and the DUP saw how the Liberal Democrats suffered in coalition with the Conservatives. The black widow effect means the weaker gets eaten. Some Conservative MPs may also shy from being seen as too close to the DUP on too many issues.

And Now?

What happens next is uncertain. If May cobbles together an arrangement (and it is still if) it will probably be short-lived and tricky. Amid all the discussion of the General Election two things are certain with the new hung parliament: Northern Ireland is back at the heart of UK politics and Brexit just got a lot harder.

Further Reading

House of Commons Library Hung Parliaments in the 20th Century

[1] It isn’t actually 326 owing to the non-voting Speaker, deputies and 7 Sinn Fein MPs who don’t attend-it’s actually 322.

Birkbeck’s Professor Rosie Campbell explains what makes people vote the way they do…

After weeks of political campaigning, the UK’s electorate is about to be asked to choose a new government. But do people actually listen to politicians before deciding how to cast their vote? Is it party, reputation, fear or anger? Read the full piece on the BBC here

In Birkbeck Politic’s 33rd Westminster Watch podcast Dermot Hodson and Ben Worthy looks across the General Election of May-June 2017, asking who has had the best campaign and who had the worst policy (is it the Conservative’s dementia tax or UKIp’s hospital ships?). Most importantly, who will win? Find out here.

Ben Worthy and Mark Bennister

Measuring leadership is a tricky business. Our work has experimented with the concept of ‘leadership capital’ to analyse a leader’s ‘stock of authority’. Journalists and commentators often talk about political capital as a sort of ‘credit’ stock accumulated by and gifted to politicians. Leadership capital is, we argue, made up of three attributes:

  • Skills: personalised ability to communicate, present a vision, and gain popularity
  • Relations: with the political party, the voting public, and colleagues
  • Reputation: levels of trust, ability to influence policy, and get things done.

Our Leadership Capital Index tracks the trajectory of leadership capital over time. The general tendency is for capital to be high when a leader gains office (because they win an election, are popular etc.) and to inevitably decline over time as mistakes, scandals, and inability to solve ‘wicked’ public policy problems diminish it. High capital leaders tend to be transformative, pushing change, and presenting bold policies. Low capital leaders struggle to have an impact and are often consumed with fighting off threats to their leadership, both at elections and with internal challenges. We apply this approach in a new edited volume published by Oxford University Press, using a range of case studies. So how does Theresa May’s leadership capital look so far?

Image credit: Number 10, Jay Allen, Crown Copyright, BY-NC-NC 2.0

Theresa May seemingly accumulated high levels of leadership capital when she assumed office in July 2016 in the wake of the EU referendum result, even though, like many prime ministers before her, she came into power by ‘taking over’ rather than winning a General Election. May arrived after a vicious and very public internal party war, to become the unifier for both the Conservative party and the country in the grip of uncertainty and division.

In terms of skills, May championed a clear, if rather succinct, vision of Brexit (‘Brexit means Brexit’) while her forthright and direct style offered a contrast with Cameron’s slick and rather too smooth rhetoric. She entered power with high poll ratings and levels of trust and, perhaps most remarkably, a relatively united party after the civil war over Brexit. Her experience as Home Secretary was seen to demonstrate both firmness and a mastery of details.

In policy terms, May blended a wider policy agenda of reforming capitalism with a populist agenda pitched on the side of working families. Her uncontested party leadership coronation left no rivals with only Boris Johnson in the ‘gilded cage’ of the Foreign Office where he could do no harm. May was the candidate who could and would ‘get things done’ with plenty of leadership capital to do it.

Jump forward to June 2017 and May’s capital looks a little different. It is still high. May retains her high poll ratings and trust: May is much more popular than her party while the reverse is true for Corbyn. Perhaps most remarkably, the Conservative party has fallen into line behind her stance on Brexit. The General Election of 2017, and with campaign emphasis on May herself, has hinged on these positives. This election, in a sense, is a leadership capital election as this Populus party leader polling shows. The strategic, personalised focus on her leadership was a deliberate approach to contrast with her opponent.

But there have been signs of fraying capital. Her communicative style has been derided as robotic, under the intense media scrutiny of a campaign. Meanwhile her firmness and mastery of detail have been exposed as less positive attributes, once her tendency towards secretive and closed group decision-making became evident, and after some less than certain public performances. The Brexit process has seen White Papers and speeches that appeared less than detailed, while electioneering slogans have glossed over a lack of depth of policy planning. The reformist agenda so far has been a little underwhelming.

When a leader’s communication and policy control falters, leadership capital – gifted to them by supporters, commentators and electors – declines. May’s problems are exemplified by the U-turn on social care policy, an embarrassing volte-face during an election campaign. As a poorly thought through policy, it apparently by-passed Cabinet and so damaged her relations, not only with colleagues, but also the grassroots members busy knocking on doors. May’s attempts to defend the policy left the party rather unhappy and less convinced by her competence. As Janan Ganesh argued

Her self-image as a firm leader hinged on her fidelity to this brave, contentious idea…Colleagues who defended her proposal in public, lobby interests who fought it and any EU negotiators tuning in from the continent will infer the same lesson: this prime minister is strong and stable, until you test her.

The social care climb down has not been an isolated incident. It follows a series of mistakes and retreats from National Insurance rise to the fundamental decision to hold a snap election. There is also a tendency towards blaming others in a crisis – whether the EU for leaking or her own Chancellor for the aborted National Insurance rise. Recent headlines perhaps tell us the reputational damage. George Osborne’s London Evening Standard editorial described May’s campaign as an ‘abortive personality cult’ that, after the ‘self-inflicted wound’ of social care, could be summed up as “Honey, I shrunk the poll lead.” The Times ran with the headline ‘Mrs May has been rumbled as not very good’ and Paxman, with a phrase that could haunt May, suggested she was a blowhard who collapses at the first sign of gunfire.

May appears set for a convincing win, if not a landslide. Her polling and personal ratings mean she retains more than enough leadership capital to make this victory her win – though expectations may make a smaller win rather Pyrrhic. Framed as the Brexit election, she can still present herself as the leader with the capital and mandate to see it through, but her personalised campaign has been dented under close scrutiny and in the face of an unexpectedly resilient opponent.

She may gain capital on the back of an election win, but expect her to lose capital in her relations with her own cabinet: collegiality has been with her own Chancellor, tension between her team and the Cabinet, muttering in the party over U-turns and mistakes. Aside from the deep rolling crisis that is Brexit, many other problems will still loom large on June the 9th: from Scotland to the too long neglected divisions and stalemate in Northern Ireland. May’s leadership capital could well diminish swiftly after her election victory. As she faces the huge complexity of Brexit, her skills are not so evident, her relations are frayed, and her reputation dented.

Mark Bennister, Ben Worthy, and Paul ‘t Hart are editors of the collection The Leadership Capital Index: A New Perspective on Political Leadership published by OUP. See more on leadership capital in this paper here and their blog. You can also read more about the Leadership Capital Index here and read a more detailed analysis of Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher.

Originally on the LSE blog here

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Listen to Bruce Springsteen on iHeartRadio | Listen to Kanye West on iHeartRadio

Rocker Bruce Springsteen is throwing his support behind Kanye West.

In an interview with NPR's Ann Powers, "The Boss" calls Kanye "incredible" and specifically praises his Yeezus track "Blood on the Leaves."

Apparently, Springsteen had seen Kanye perform the track on the British late night program "Later...With Jools Holland" and thought song was "fantastic."

According to Bruce, Kanye also deserves applause for his "fascinating record-making."  Apart from West, Springsteen also says he's a fan of hip-hop acts Public Enemy, Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac.

"The Village Voice" is also voicing their approval of Kanye West.  The emcee is topping the magazine's annual "Pazz and Jop" music critics' poll.  Not only did the critics rank his sixth album Yeezus as 2013's number one album, but they also placed three Yeezus singles in their top ten list of last year's songs.

Photo Credit Getty Images


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Why Ten Toes On Two Feet?

God created our physical body, which houses our spirit (soul) on Earth, with precisely TEN toes so we would have a visible and permanent reminder of His 10 love commandments (10LC) at all times.

Then later, when God wrote down the 10LC on stone, He did it on TWO tables (instead of just one) to once again confirm the spiritual/physical connection between His Law of Love and the way in which He designed our human body – specifically, with TEN toes on TWO feet!

Please be aware that when you look at your 2 feet, containing your 10 toes, you are really looking at a replica of the 2 stone tables God created containing the 10LC. (Notice how the length of your five toes even forms a natural arch, like the traditional tables we see of the 10LC in drawings?) May this knowledge help you always to keep God’s Law of Love first and foremost on your mind, and thus to obey it.

“I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies. I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments” (Psalms 119:59-60)

“Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil” (Proverbs 4:26-27)

Click image above to watch video

Why did God tell Moses to take the shoes off his feet, for you are standing on holy ground? Why did God command Aaron and his sons (and all future priests) to wash their hands and feet in water before ministering to Him in the Tabernacle, or else they would surely die?

Jesus was a walking, talking, living, breathing embodiment of the 10LC, for he kept them perfectly at all times. In other words, he loved always! Often in Christ’s ministry people would fall at his feet and worship him. What did this symbolize? What did Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with perfume, just days before his death, represent?

Where are your feet carrying you? And to do what?

FF1  Red_Arrow-Left      Red_Arrow-001      Red_Arrow-Right  FF3

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Monday, December 19, 2011

Last chance for 12 Meter Gear Gifts!

TODAY is the last day to order your 12 Meter Gifts and receive them before Christmas!  Get shopping!

Looking for the perfect gift for the sailing enthusiast on your holiday shopping list?  Looking for something that will blow them away? Whether you are looking for a relaxing cruising experience, an on-the-water adventure or just something to wear sailing, we've got you covered!
12 Meter Charters offers gift certificates for all of our sailing experiences. 12 Meter Charters offers many ways to experience the thrill of sailing on an America's Cup 12 Meter yacht:
           - Buy a gift for just one on your list and come aboard for a two hour public sail, tickets are just $68 per person.
           - Buy a gift for everyone on your list and come aboard for a private charter, rates start at $850 per boat for up to 15 guests.
           - Book one of our Newport packages and view all that Newport has to offer by
Land and Sea OR Air and Sea.
, with or without
12 Meter Crew Gear, are available and your sail date can be chosen now or later.
12 Meter Crew Gear!
12 Meter Crew Gear!
12 Meter Crew Gear!

Our 12 Meter Crew Gear is the perfect holiday gift for any sailor!  Stuff their stockings with a sailor's cap, t-shirt or polo shirt from their favorite 12 Meter yacht.  Remind them of their sensational sailing season or get them psyched up for another summer on beautiful Narragansett Bay!
Order online with a few easy clicks or call 401-851-1216 to order. We ship anywhere!
 Give a gift from 12 Meter Charters and the sailing enthusiast on your list is sure to be BLOWN AWAY!

Friday, December 16, 2011

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas in Newport!

Bowen's and Banniseter's Wharf are all dressed up for Christmas!  Come down see the lights, get in the spirit and shop local in the heart of downtown Newport.


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Moose Walks Off with Royals Win over M’s

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) Mike Moustakas homered to lead off the 13th inning, lifting the Kansas City Royals to a 7-6 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Thursday.

Moustakas homered to right on an 0-2 pitch from Chance Ruffin, who had not pitched in the majors since 2011.

Louis Coleman, the eighth Kansas City pitcher, retired the only batter he faced in the top of the 13th.

Kansas City rallied from five runs down and led 6-5 in the ninth inning before Raul Ibanez homered off Greg Holland into the Mariners’ bullpen with two outs to tie the score. It was Holland’s first blown save since May 6 to end his streak of 31 consecutive saves.

Billy Butler went 5 for 5, matching his career high in hits for the Royals, while Emilo Bonifacio went 4 for 6 for his first four-hit game since July 4, 2009.

The Royals start a three game series with AL Central leader Detroit on Friday night at 7:10pm at Kauffman Stadium.

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Sunday, April 6, 2003

Will Code For Food

I am working on a yardage calculator.  It will probably take me several days to build the database for the calculator.  I plan to have select lists for style, size, yarn type, stitches/inch and rows/inch.  Then the user would enter the yarn name and the yardage per skein.  The result would be the recommended number of skeins to work the garment.  I have researched several sources for information on the yardage for a given size/style.  The time consuming part is collating all the resources into the database.

BTW, my day job at" target="_blank">
is going away July 1, 2003 because our local governor has not made his wishes known regarding IT contract staff.  Therefore, my motto is now

Will code ColdFusion and/or SQL for food.


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Saturday, March 3, 2012

Knitting Abbreviations and Other Stuff

I have been reorganizing my on-line collection of knitting abbreviations and terms.  This has caused me to remember a time when I took a technical writing class.  I took the class only because it met a graduation requirement and it was a substitute for the more conventional English Writing class that most under graduates have to take.  I was ideologically at odds with all my high school English teachers, and even to this day I have not met an English teacher whom I considered entirely worthy of oxygen.

I could tell some stories about my war with English teachers including an essay I wrote for an ultra-pacifist, gun-hating English teacher about the beauty of 12-gauge shotgun shells.  If you are an English teacher take comfort in the knowledge that I am actively trying to avoid you and, oh by the way, suck to be you.

At this point any English teacher will be fighting the urge to scrawl a great, red "F" on this blog and report me to the principal for . . . what?  As you can see, it was imperative that I sign up for the technical writing class to avoid the dreaded English teacher.  The technical writing class was taught by a Communication graduate student instead of someone from the English department, a slight improvement.

In the first class, the instructor presented the class with several examples of badly written instructions.  Lo and behold, she gave her worst marks to a crocheted doily pattern from a 1950's booklet.  She went on in detail about how incomprehensible it was.  And then to make her point, the little darling put it on my desk and ask me if I didn't agree.  I just started reading it off to her, not as the literal abbreviations on the page, but rather, in its long-hand, translated version.  Shut her up!  She didn't know my Mother owned a copy of the same booklet and I had already made the one she singled out for criticism.

This all occurred decades ago before computers were common place.  Since then I realize that crochet pattern was not an ordinary set of instructions.  It was more like a computer program.  In fact, syntactically, it was closer to a low-level programming language such as machine code or assembler language.  Knitting patterns for lace doilies are similar in construction to the crocheted doily patterns.  The patterns are the code and the knitter or crocheter is the computer central processing unit.

The technical writing class was not exactly enjoyable, but I probably enjoyed it more than the rest of the class.  I have a perverse affinity for tedious, mind-numbing, excessively linear processes.  And that explains why I would spend days trying to find a better database structure and web page interface to store my collection of knitting terms and abbreviations.  It will always be a work in progress with pauses.

Meanwhile I am already penciling together some ideas for a better way to store and display my knitting symbols collection.  I'm trying to figure out something for knitting symbols that would be like Mendeleev's Periodic Table of Elements.  I don't think I can make anything that elegant.  Mendeleev had a distinct advantage because unlike knitting stitches, the elements were created by God, therefore Mendeleev's work has the strength of Natural Law to give it order.

  1. 2 Questions:

    How do I get to the patterns that do not have a picture associated with them?

    Do you publish a list of just the patterns that have been added or updated?

  2. 1. There is a way to get to the one's that don't have pictures yet. I won't say how here; send me an email and I will consider it. However, there is a caveat: Those patterns without pictures are rough. I conceal them for a good reason -- protecting you from poorly written stuff. For example, there are some from a late 1800's publication that uses 'narrow' for both ssk and k2-tog. I enter narrow as k2-tog and I edit in ssk if I find that is more appropriate to the aethetics of the pattern.

    Come to think of it I should probably just hide the number on the interface so you never have an indication that there are patterns without pictures.

    2. That's a good idea. I could make a link that would lead to a listing of patterns that have been updated or added in the last 30 days. I'll try to get that out this week.


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Thursday, 7 January 2010

Slab Ship - almost done

Sorry for not much in the way of an update on this for quite a while, but my Modelling Mojo has been absent of late, in favour of readin' and writin'.
But had a bit of time the last couple of days and we're nearly done now. I've been adding tons of panels and the odd widget here and there and i'm pretty pleased how its shaping up. Just need to focus on the engine area and i'm done.
You see here i've drawn lines in coloured pencil. This is where i plan to put on red stripes over the white basecoat and i've drawn them on so i don't put anything in the way of them.
You can also see i've drawn some circles on the front. These will be observation windows made from the bubble windows of WW2 bombers and i'm putting them on in an unordered pattern to maybe get a spider-eye effect. Maybe.

Andrew Glazebrook said...

Paint this in some bright Peter Elson style colours !! :) Happy New Year to you !!!

Mangamax said...

Cheers Andrew - ditto right back at'cha.
Yep, am going to be doing another Elson with this one. Originally was going with a dark rusty red as i've still almost a whole can of Red Primer left over from my Pursuit Ship and it'd be very much like a Scorpio in finish.
But this is such an unfeasable design (it just LANDS - no undercarriage for this baby) that it just cries out for a 70's SF paperback colour scheme.


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Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins.

Even if you don't particularly dig the blues, I'd strongly recommend putting an eye on this wonderful little film. It's shot by Les Blank, a documentary filmmaker noted for his portraits of various traditional American musicians, as well as for work in collaboration with the great German director and 21st century folk legend Werner Herzog. ( Blank has made a short documentary called Werner Herzog Eats his Shoe (1980) in which the great man does indeed cook and eat his shoe!) In The Blues Accordin'..., Blank's access to his subject is intimate and candid, the music by Hopkins, Billy Bizor, Ruth "Blues"Ames, and a variety of other musicians, is fantastic, and the footage of the Hopkins' Texan hometown Centerville in the 60s is very striking and beautifully assembled:

Part 2 here

Album image from TreMarzo

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The XXV meeting of the International Bioacoustics Council (IBAC) will be held in the town of Murnau, Bavaria, Germany, from 7-12 September 2015 at the Culture and Convention Centre, Kultur- und Tagungszentrum Murnau (KTM).

Luftaufnahme Murnauer Land

Photo: Stoess © Tourist-Info Murnau

The objective of the International Bioacoustics Council is to promote international participation throughout the entire field of bioacoustical activity. The subject of bioacoustics is principally a marriage between the fields of biology and physical acoustics. Given its multidisciplinary nature, IBAC aims to bring together, in informal settings, biologists from different specialisms (ethologists, physiologists, taxonomists, etc.) with engineers, sound archivists and amateur sound recordists, to foster discussion and exchange of ideas.

Please check this site on a regular basis for updates. We look forward to seeing you in beautiful Bavaria.


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Ascension Symptoms – (Intense IRRITABILITY)

Have you noticed that you get a bit edgy when a Full or New Moon approaches?

Would you agree that labeling this sensation… “a bit edgy” is the understatement of the century?!

You’re not alone.

I felt this a LOT this last week and especially, the day of… our recent Full Moon/Lunar Eclipse…

This pulsating, present, and physical irritability is interesting because it seems to just… well up inside us, initially unprovoked by outside circumstance…

However, in us walking around through life, with it… as we all know… a vibration like that will only call forth situations and circumstances that reflect it… ie.. (Stressors!).

Yet, due to the fact that we are already… WAY… on edge.. we deal with them very poorly, and only increase our irritable state of being.

We eventually admit that we are perhaps perpetuating this cycle of agitation & agitating instances, but because we are so lost in it… we simply can’t do anything about it.

Fortunately, this passes… and we return back to base line… hopefully not with too much damage.

What the heck is the reason for this madness you probably wonder?

How on earth is this, “out of control tension” in any way, helping our spiritual growth?

I asked this question myself… (every time I experienced it, which was many)

And to be perfectly honest… I don’t have a definitive answer.

I have however come up with a hypothesis that has helped me deal with these trying times…

Simply put, I sense this phenomenon is merely a fleeting symptom… a physical manifestation and indication of a vibrational jump we are making.

Sometimes it feels like our vibration raises up faster than we are used to and it just takes a few days or so for our body and life to match it, hence the symptom of feeling irritable.

Remember… our vibration changes before our life experience and reflection.

So, if we go through a jump, which often happens during a powerful astrological alignment, like last Friday’s Full Moon/Lunar Eclipse… than there is a lot of catching up to do… and we simply feel this in our body as tension.

It’s not a sign we need some anger management or anything like that…

It’s a sign we are taking a big energetic and vibrational leap.

Okay… so what can we do about it?  How can I manage this?

Well, I would love to be that go-to source for solutions to every ascension related issue, but in this case, once again, I am falling short…

Here’s my experience… (And I think it will help you)

I have attempted to address this, because I have kids and don’t like to be  wound so tight around them for obvious reasons…

So, I have experimented with doing more yoga, long walks, and meditation. (My typical go – to routine for managing my ascension symptoms).

And… on those walks and in the meditation, I would feel noticeably calmer..  and overall, much much better.

However, the second I would be confronted with even the slightest inconvenience… AHHHHHHH!!!!!!

That tranquil state of being that took me 60 minutes to cultivate – GONE!

Ironically, this would only enrage me more!

Punch, Kick…. Yell! etc….

With that said…

This edgy cloud does have a silver lining…

After a decade of insanity, finally I did lear ONE THING about these periods.

I have learned how to make them shorter in duration.

The idea I mentioned above… about us perpetuating them with negative thinking and pessimism.

It’s true, that does happen.

But, he cycles, themselves don’t normally last very long.

However, due to our own reaction – (resistance) we have the potential to extend them because all of the fuel we add.

Fuel as in – (Negative thoughts, Victimhood, and any other form of Inner Resistance)

Again, I am not claiming that… not adding the fuel is necessarily easy, but we can and often do, get a bit carried away.

In fact I started writing this very blog post because I felt this exact way last night.

We are currently on another camping trip.

For those of you who don’t know..

“We” = (myself, my wife and… 3 kids, 2 dogs, and a cat!)

All in a little camper.

I admit that my aim to create harmony in this situation is a bit naive.

I still have hope!

However, it may take more tweaking than I would prefer.

So anyways… last night, as you could probably predict… being only our second trip together in this situation was just as chaotic as the first one…

As I mentioned, I was feeling that primordial, ascension symptom of intense tension, which didn’t help…

However, as I awoke this morning.. I knew that the tension, at least the ascension related symptom… was pretty much gone, but I was so resentful that my evening didn’t go as planned that I stubbornly wallowed in a little self-imposed funk/pity party.

The cycle of intensity had ceased, and yet due to my own lack of acceptance and choices… I continued to suffer with depression and irritability.

Fortunately, I have you guys to wake up to! – so it didn’t last long 🙂

Just reading some of your comments and all the love, pulled me right out of that funk.

However, in the past…

I would EXTEND those periods of ascension induced tension and irritability…  for MUCH longer periods of time because I was resentful that they happened in the first place!

So.. .the take away here is this….

Remain conscious enough to perceive when the “Ascension Tension”… fades away.

Know… it typically doesn’t last very long at all.

Once you feel it shift…

Snap out of it!

Let it go… move on….

Do something you enjoy… meditate… yoga…. anything you enjoy that has helped you lift your mood in the past…

Do it at this point when you can sense the energy lifting, and this time it will work, and you can move on very easily.

Most importantly, as is the case with many of the symptoms of your awakening…

Accept them…

I know it’s difficult because many of them are so annoying, but I know we can all agree that resisting them never helps and only serves to amplify them.

Eckhart Tolle has a quote that would always help me…

It’s so simple, but so true….

“The present moment is as it is… make friends with it.”

Meaning… say YES to what is… simply because it is what it is.

Even a very frustrating situation or circumstance that would drive most people nuts can be experienced as neutral if we can simply… not put forth any inner resistance to it.

At the same time… and in going with this train of thought…

Accept that you are still in the process of learning to do this consistently.

These bouts of intense irritability are like a lesson of tough love from the universe…

If you slip up, freak out, spazz out… oh well… you’ll get em next time… wether you have a good day or not… overall, you are all progressing beautifully.

As I said.. I am not perfect… far from it… but I am light – years ahead of where I used to be.

And so are you!

PS… These bouts of intense tension, sometimes come and go randomly within a day or weeks span.

For me.. I felt this off and on this past couple weeks or so, and if I was like I used to be… it would have been 2 straight weeks of insanity… but because I have become better at moving on more quickly… I experienced many amazing moments, even within this intense period we have all finally made it through.

My Courses and Programs (That Help With The Awakening Process)

Mood Shift (Reduce Symptoms, Feel More Balanced During Your Awakening Process)

How To Awaken Your Kundalini (28 Day Program To Awaken Your Powerful Kundalini Energy)

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