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The Gun Control Debate, In Progress
July 22, 2012 | Author Steve Harvey
Buy my e-book A Conspiracy of Wizards
For those who are ready for the debate on how to become a kinder, gentler, and less tragic nation (including but not limited to a discussion of the role of our current paradigm regarding firearms), please visit the robust discussion taking place on the Colorado Confluence Facebook page under the post of the gun wrapped in an American flag. http://www.facebook.com/ColoradoConfluence
Posted in Crime and Prevention, Law and Morality | Tags: American gun culture, aurora shooting, Aurora theater shooting, comparative rates of violence, firearms, gun control, gun control debate, gun violence statistics, guns, proactive policies, reactive policies, social institutions, violence | No Comments »
Our Brothers' and Sisters' Keepers
November 19, 2010 | Author Steve Harvey
I have no idea what motivated the Australian sisters, one of whom died and one of whom survived after a suicide pact at a firing range where they rented the weapons they used on themselves (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16649332). But it is something more than just a bizarre story that grabs our attention, or a private human tragedy made public due to a combination of the circumstances and our own fascination. It is one of the more dramatic expressions of something that is very widespread, and very significant: Human desperation. And of the general challenges we face as a society, the general good we can do together, mitigating human desperation should rank high on the list.
As one commenter on the message board following the Denver Post article said, mental health problems are far more prevalent than most people realize, and the need for better mental health hygiene is nearly universal. All of our social problems are interrelated, usually incubating in troubled childhoods with issues of school truancy or academic failure, child abuse, substance abuse, juvenile delinquency, poverty, and/or mental health issues mixed together in various combinations, reinforcing one another, growing over time.
There are many on the Right who decry "the nanny state," but we are not enough of a nanny state when it comes to those who most need nannies. We do not invest enough in our children's welfare –all of our children's welfare– though the benefits to all of us, let alone those whose lives are essentially saved by being proactive with early interventions, are well worth the investment, and end up saving us not only the suffering inflicted by troubled others, but also the material costs.
The mantra on the Right is that that's the responsibility of parents. There was a time, just over a century ago, when "child abuse" and domestic violence in general had not yet been defined into existence, because those issues were the family's business and no one else's. The more rational and compassionate view is that we all have a responsibility to assist families in meeting theirs. When no families exist to do so, or those that do exist are unable or unwilling to do so, then it is our shared responsibility to step in and assist those innocent souls who some would leave to a life of suffering (and often of inflicting suffering on others, sometimes in ways which perpetuate the cycle of violence and despair across generations). The question should not be whether that is our shared responsibility, but rather how best to meet it.
It doesn't matter that the sisters in this story were Australian nationals visiting the U.S. No one can deny that we have many like them that are home grown, and that our policies are implicated. On the news last night, there was a story of a woman who has had problems with alcohol abuse, and child abuse of her nine year old daughter, who apparently adored her daughter nonetheless, who was found, along with her daughter, in her running car in the garage of her home, both dead apparently from carbon monoxide poisoning (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16653435). Friends and neighbors said that she loved her daughter too much to "take her with her" if she had wanted to commit suicide, but desperation isn't that rational, and it's not hard to imagine that, once the despair made suicide the only option the mother felt she had (if that was indeed the case), that same desperation could easily have made the thought of leaving her adored daughter behind to suffer the consequences as unbearable as life itself had become for her.
In an all-too-common story of deadly domestic violence, an ex-boyfriend, a military veteran, killed the girlfriend who ended their relationship (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16643775). No member of the perpetrator's family ever showed up for the three-week-long trial, and the mother of the victim said, with compassion, "I expect they were never there for you." But we should have been. We can reduce the rate at which lives are destroyed by the combination of extreme individualism, a refusal to invest in proactive services (such as mental health service), insanely easy access to weapons and a culture that constantly glorifies violence. The fact that our rates of violent crime are much higher than those of other developed countries suggests that it's not just the inevitable consequence of individual defects, but the very avoidable consequence of political choices and their cultural consequences.
A man, apparently also with mental health problems, who refused to leave his foreclosed home in Jefferson County not far from where I live required a SWAT team to evict him (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16632232). The combination of economic stresses in this period of economic downturn, and a decrease rather than increase in our commitment to take care of one another, bode ill for the rate at which such events are likely to occur, and the rate at which they are likely to end badly.
There is no shame in evolving as a society to do more to mitigate such desperation, to be there for one another, and to create social institutions which identify, intervene, and offer assistance proactively at the earliest possible stage of the development of such problems. But the newly minted Republican Congressional majority in the House voted not to extend extensions of unemployment assistance (http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_16653692), when about 14.8 million Americans are unemployed (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm).
This commitment to leaving people to fend for themselves is justified by a highly questionable analysis of how to strike the optimal balance between debt and spending, and when to impose austerity v. when not to (http://coloradoconfluence.com/?p=1259). In the long run, investing in proactive human services, that reduce the private and public costs of unaddressed problems and the public costs of expensive reactive policies (e.g., the highest both percentage of population and absolute number of people incarcerated of any nation on Earth) not only increases human welfare, but it also improves our bottom line in the long run.
Those who hide behind the subterfuge that, sure, it's our shared responsibility, but a responsibility best met through private charity and the decentralized volition of people of goodwill, are engaging in the convenient historical amnesia of how inadequately these needs were met prior to the utilization of government as an agent for meeting them, and how hollow such calls are when there is no private substitute anywhere in sight, capable of meeting these needs at anywhere near the level that government today currently inadequately meets them.
I am all for well-designed government-private sector partnerships, including with churches and other religious institutions, to address these problems. I have no inherent preference for government; just an inherent preference for facing our collective responsibilities to one another rather than finding excuses to shirk them. In fact, I'm a staunch advocate of strengthening our communities, and building greater non-governmental solidarity and mutual support into them, replacing something that has been lost in our forward march into extreme individualism. There are many pieces to the puzzle of addressing our failings as a society; improving the role of government, and integrating that role into the more organic social institutional materials with which government can and should work, is just one set of such pieces.
It's time to stop the spiral down into cruel insanity, both the cases of individual insanity that we augment with our widespread ideological commitment to hyper-individualistic public policies of mutual indifference and disdain, and the collective insanity that those policies and that attitude are a symptom of.
Posted in Community, Children, and Families, Crime and Prevention, Health Care, Political Forum | Tags: desperation, domestic violence, early intervention, emotional support, eviction, fiscal conservativism, foreclosure, incarceration, individualism, mental health, murder-suicide, proactive policies, public spending, reactive policies, social services, unemployment | 1 Comment »
Small Government Idolatry
November 9, 2010 | Author Steve Harvey
(This is the fourth in a series of four posts which discuss Tea Party "Political Fundamentalism", comprised of the unholy trinity of "Constitutional Idolatry", Liberty Idolatry, and Small Government Idolatry.)
To recap briefly, "Political Fundamentalism" is the mutation of christian fundamentalism that allows it to appeal more broadly to the highly secularized by equally dogma-reliant anti-intellectual populism that permeates our culture. Whereas there has long been cause for some concern about the fanaticism and cooptation by the Republican Party of right-wing evangelicals, I had always maintained that dogmatic ideology rather than merely religious fanaticism was the real problem, and that religious fanaticism in our highly secularized society could only go so far. This mutation into a secular fanaticism, equally rigid and dysfunctional, equally tyrannical, and equally anti-intellectual, is far greater cause for concern.
Political Fundamentalism is the continuation of the Inquisition, adapting to a changing world in an attempt to prevent the world itself from adapting to changing circumstances and insights, creating an obstruction to the continuation of the growth and application of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. Political Fundamentalism can be found all over the political ideological spectrum, just as religious fundamentalism can be found all over the religious spectrum, and, in both cases, the differences in ideological particulars are less compelling than the similarities in attitude. But the currently most dangerous form of Political Fundamentalism in America is the right-wing version, comprised of the three elements already named.
"Constitutional Idolatry," the first element I wrote about, is the conversion of an historical document meant to provide a somewhat flexible legal doctrine and framework into a sacred text the caricature of which must be rigidly adhered to according to some non-existent and impossible literal interpretation. And "Liberty Idolatry," the second element I wrote about, is the reduction of the concept of "liberty" to one divorced from consideration of interdependence and mutual responsibility, defending freedoms independently of consideration of the harm they may inflict on others or on all.
The third element in the unholy trinity of Political Fundamentalism is Small Government Idolatry. It is a fixed belief that smaller government is always better, that lower taxes and less spending are always better, that "government is the problem" (as Ronald Reagan famously proclaimed, ushering in a movement that will long be the bane of our attempts at designing and implementing reasonable proactive policies and public investments). Like its strongly intertwined fellow travelers, Constitutional Idolatry and Liberty Idolatry, it is a fixed belief, impervious to reason and evidence, insulated from compelling counterarguments or sensible attempts to achieve balance and moderation. It is a force for the contraction of the human mind, opposition to reason and knowledge, and obstruction of progress, at a very real and tragic cost in increased human suffering and decreased human welfare.
An argument against Small Government Idolatry is not an argument for big government (just as an argument against Constitutional Idolatry is not an argument against the Constitution, and an argument against Liberty Idolatry is not an argument against liberty). It is an argument in favor of doing the analysis, in favor of applying our principles knowledgeably and rationally in the context of a complex and subtle world, on a case-by-case basis. It is an argument for facing the responsibilities we have to one another and to future generations, utilizing authentic economic analyses rather than ideological pseudo-economic platitudes to balances the demands imposing themselves on government against the real economic and fiscal constraints that must discipline how these demands are met.
A blind commitment to "small government" is both humanly and fiscally irresponsible, for most economists, other social scientists, and lawyers recognize the inevitably large role that modern governments must play in modern economies, even independently of the demands that a commitment to social justice and improved equity impose on them. I've frequently referenced the role of information asymmetries in creating an absolute imperative that we continue to develop our regulatory infrastructure to keep pace with the opportunities to play the market system to individual advantage at sometimes catastrophic public expense. We've seen examples in the Enron-engineered California energy crisis of 2000-2001, and the financial sector collapse that nearly catalized a second Great Depression in 2008. Designing, implementing, and enforcing functional rules of the game for our complex market economy is an essential function of government, and one which already destroys the notion that a government too small too meet that need is preferable to one large enough to do so.
It is also fiscally, as well as humanly, irresponsible to let the problems of extreme poverty, child abuse and neglect, frequently unsuccessful public schools, high rates of violent crime, poor public health and inadequate healthcare for many, and other similar and related social problems, all of which form a mutually reinforcing matrix of dysfunctionality and growing problems that both undermine the safety and welfare of us all, and end up costing us far more to react to (with astronomical rates of very expensive incarceration, and other costs of dependency and predation) than it would have cost us to proactively address.
The fiscal concerns that the Political Fundamentalists identify are not to be disregarded, or treated as irrelevant, but rather are one set of considerations among many, to be included in a complete analysis rather than treated as always and forever dispositive independently of any application of reason or knowledge to the question of whether it is actually dispositive or not. The challenge of self-governance requires utilizing our fully developed and focused cognitive capacities, applied to all available information, in pursuit of intelligent and well-conceived policies. It is undermined by the imposition of an a priori set of fixed certainties that are impervious to both knowledge and reason.
We need, in our political discourse, less fundamentalism and more analysis, less idolatry and more (and better) methodology, less false certainty and more foundational humility. We need less deference to fixed and static beliefs, and more to our process by which we test our beliefs and improve upon them. We need less commitment to ideologies, and more commitment to working together as reasonable people of goodwill, doing the best we can to confront the challenges and opportunities of a complex and subtle world.
Posted in Civil Rights and Responsibilities, Law and Morality, Political Forum | Tags: administrative state, anti-intellectualism, constitutional idolatry, economic analysis, evangelical christianity, fiscal responsibility, information asymmetries, Political Fundamentalism, populism, proactive policies, reactive policies, small government, social problems, Tea Party | No Comments »


Rumor has it that Google might release Android Wear 2.0 on February 9. The new version of the OS for wearable devices will be available to all those who own compatible smartwatches in early February.
Along with the Android Wear 2.0 announcement, Google is also said to unveil its first smartwatches powered by the new OS, which are built by LG, the Watch Sport and Watch Style.
While there's no mention of price yet, we do expect both LG smartwatches to go on sale in the United States on February 10. They will be available in other countries in the coming weeks, but LG will also showcase them at Mobile World Congress.
Specs-wise, the LG Watch Sport is the better geared. It sports a 1.38-inch OLED display with 480 x 480 pixel resolution, 768MB of RAM, 4GB of storage, and a 430mAh battery.
On the other hand, the LG Watch Style features a smaller 1.2-inch OLED display that supports 360 x 360 pixels resolution, 512MB of RAM, 4GB internal memory, and a 240mAh battery.
Both smartwatches come with iOS compatibility and multiple connectivity options including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. However, the Watch Sport offers cellular connectivity (3G and LTE) as well, along with GPS and NFC (Near Field Communication), which allows users to take advantage of Android Pay.
LG Watch Sport and Watch Style come with deep Google Assistant integration, but the former also features heart rate sensor and "unthetered telephony with the same phone number as a user's primary handset." The former benefits from IP68 certification, while the latter has IP67 certification for water and dust resistance.
Another interesting piece of information revealed before the official announcement is the addition of a digital crown button that would allow for easier operating of the smartwatches.
Looking forward to some new Android Wear hardware around my wrist.
That LG watch sport with that 480x480 resolution display should be awesome, especially since it has LTE, and Android Pay. That is some cool stuff.
I wish I could get a rugged android wear smartwatch with an always on sunlight readable display with a battery life of 5+ days. Unfortunately this probably won't happen for another 5 years.
The Casio WSD-F10 and now F20 have a watch display that will last a month. The F20 is Mil-810G certified. So it's shock, dust, and water proof to 50 meters (150 feet). The Nixon Mission is also Mil-810 certified, but its water proofing allows it to go down to a depth of 100 meters. It won't last 5 days. But you can get a good two days, maybe 3 if you push all the power saving modes on.
I'm not seeing where the Casio watches can last a month on one single charge. The Nixon Mission is a decent looking watch but a bit bulky for my taste. The waterproofing is awesome on both and should be a standard on smartwatches in my opinion.
I was so looking forward to these but the Sport is Massively Thick 14.2mm thick & the style has no heart rate monitor.
It is going to take a lot to get me out of my Gear S2 Classic. It is pretty thin (relatively), has a beautiful full round screen, has a HR monitor and NFC for Samsung Pay. Also the rotating bezel is awesome. I got it in like new condition for only $80 on CL. I may try the LG Style.


Position feedback sensors for hydraulic or pneumatic cylinders have most commonly used one of three technologies: Magnetostrictive (MLDTs), Variable Resistance (Pots), and Variable Inductance (LVITs) sensors. While other sensor technologies have occasionally been used in this application, here we will compare these three most popularly used technologies. Ultimately, a user or systems integrator must determine the requirements of the application and which technology best satisfies it on a total installed cost versus performance basis. The strengths and weaknesses of magnetostrictive, variable resistance and variable inductance sensors are examined below, along with a chart for feature-by-feature comparisons.
First, a point to be noted is that all of these three common sensing technologies utilize a long probe that extends into a deep, small diameter blind hole gun-drilled into the internal end of the cylinder rod.
Magnetostrictive technology has traditionally been the preferred technology for use in high accuracy applications. These sensors, often called LDTs or MLDTs, incorporate a stainless steel tubular probe and a short toroidal permanent magnet assembly around it that is installed in a counterbored recess in the piston. The most common package threads the sensors' electronics housing into an O-ring port in the back of a cylinder, with the long slender probe inserted into the rod's bore.
This technology uses the "time of flight" principle to determine the magnet's position with very high accuracy and moderate response time. In operation, the magnet is used to reflect a torsional mechanical pulse transmitted along a special wire called a waveguide inside of the probe. Typically each magnetostrictive sensor manufacturer has their own style of magnet with unique mounting features like the number of holes, the hole pattern, etc.
Magnetostrictive sensors can consume a fair amount of power and are not the most mechanically rugged sensors. They offer electrical performance over mechanical robustness, because they often encounter shock and vibration issues. Yet, even with these potential drawbacks mechanically, a magnetostrictive position sensor's package is tailor-made for port-mounted in-cylinder use.
Variable Resistance potentiometer-type sensors, commonly called pots, are usually selected where purchase cost is a driver and high accuracy is not paramount. A resistance pot is usually embedded into the cylinder's rear end cap, as opposed to the port mounting of a magnetostrictive sensor. It uses an insulated round carrier attached to the internal end of the gun-drilled cylinder rod supporting an electrically conductive wiper that contacts the surface of a partially conductive plastic probe. As the wiper moves along this plastic element, its resistance changes in a linear fashion, making it fairly easy to determine the carrier's position and, thus, the rod's position.
Pots have been seen as a good position measurement solution for use in cylinders because of their ruggedness, favorable stroke-to-length ratio, and their large analog dc voltage output, which is a large percentage of the input voltage.
The major drawback to resistance pots is wearout, especially if the cylinder is actuated at a high frequency, or even more importantly, dithered over a short range to improve a system's dynamic characteristics. Since a resistance pot is embedded into the cylinder, replacement of a worn out pot can be very time-consuming and expensive, and could even result in the need for a completely new cylinder.
Linear Variable Inductance Transducer (LVIT) position sensors have been used in the cylinder industry but have not had the industry-wide recognition of magnetostrictive sensors or resistance potentiometers. This non-contacting technology has many significant advantages over resistance potentiometers regarding product life and long-term reliability, and usually can compete favorably with the performance of magnetostrictive sensors in terms of linearity, resolution and frequency response, but at a significantly lower cost. Equally important is the fact that variable inductance transducers can withstand much greater shocks and vibration, such as those commonly found in heavy industrial fluid power and mobile equipment applications.
LVIT sensors cover the middle ground between the higher level of performance and external port mounting flexibility associated with a magnetostrictive sensor and the better ruggedness and lower price of an embedded resistance potentiometer. These sensors operate by measuring the resonant frequency of an oscillator circuit of an inductive probe whose inductance is varied by the position of the conductive gun-drilled rod over it, using built-in electronics. Typically offered in full-scale ranges of 4 to 36 in. (100 to 900 mm), both port-mounted and embedded packages are available, with connector and cable terminations. LVIT sensors offer either an analog dc voltage or current output, with some types of digital output available for OEM applications. The LVIT sensor presents a contactless solution that does not require a ring magnet. In fact, if an LVIT sensor were installed to replace an existing magnetostrictive sensor, the magnet can be left in place in the cylinder rod end without interfering with the sensor's basic operation.
In the past few years, the requirements for instrumented cylinders for subsea applications have dramatically increased. LVIT sensors are offered in a pressure-sealed version that allows a user to install the sensor and cylinder in subsea environments to depths of 10,000 ft (3,000 m), with 3,000 psig of internal pressure.
Remote field calibration is a standard feature offered on many variable inductance sensors. This feature permits a user to scale the output of the sensor after it is installed on the cylinder. With a simple process to set the zero and the full-scale output points, the sensor will give the desired full-scale output over its newly set range, so it is no longer necessary to scale the unit in the associated control system.
In a related fluid power application, though not involving hydraulic cylinders, spool position feedback sensing in two-stage hydraulic valves is often done with a pressure sealed LVDT. A short-range LVIT sensor with its simple inductive probe inserted into a blind hole in the end of the main spool is often an easier installation than the LVDT that requires an isolation tube to seal off the core from the valve's pilot pressure, and external electronics to operate the LVDT.
Where there are still many fluid power applications where resistance potentiometers and magnetostrictive sensors are a good solution, these applications tend to fall to either side of a bell curve. Recent electronic advancements and the flexibility of package designs make LVIT variable inductance sensors very cost effective for mainstream in-cylinder applications, especially those that tend to be near the peak of that bell curve.


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After joining the Junior Committee in March of 2012, several experiences have encouraged my commitment to Pro Mujer's mission of providing poor women in Latin America with the means to build livelihoods for themselves and futures for their families. Interacting with Pro Mujer staff in both New York and Latin American offices suggested one thing: Pro Mujer's microfinance, business training and health care support have affected poor women in a way you cannot adequately understand without witnessing the change firsthand.
In May 2012 the Junior Committee hosted a dinner with the country director for Nicaragua, Gloria Ruiz. Gloria's inspiring ascent from a credit officer to country director is an impressive insight into Pro Mujer's devotion to the theory that given access to the right opportunities, women can become powerful agents of change. Gloria shared client testimonials and demonstrated the positive impact that financial and health services can have on clients who are profoundly without resources. Following the dinner, the Junior Committee hosted events including a summer social fundraiser, a Citi women's initiative, and participated in Pro Mujer's Annual Giving Women Credit Benefit. All of these experiences have contributed to my continued enthusiasm for Pro Mujer's core values.
The Junior Committee serves as my avenue to effect change. For me, participating with the Junior Committee has been a way to generate financial support and raise awareness of Pro Mujer. All 16 JC members share a common passion for poverty alleviation, and the understanding that investing in women has a return that spans generations. When women unlock their potential, families become healthier, better fed and more educated. This ripple effect is the cornerstone of Pro Mujer's ability to transform communities to overcome poverty. Pro Mujer empowers women by delivering vital tools and services that focus on three key areas: financial services, business and empowerment training, and high-quality, low-cost primary health care.
In November, I visited Pro Mujer's office in Salta, Argentina. I wanted to see Pro Mujer's impact firsthand. Pro Mujer Argentina opened its doors in Salta in 2005 and has since expanded to two other provinces: Jujuy and Tucuman. In total, Pro Mujer serves over 10,110 clients through 669 communal banks with a portfolio balance of over US$4M. The country has four health clinics staffed with eight nurses. Prior to my visit I spoke with Pro Mujer's Global Human Resources Manager, Denise Ferreyra, to schedule interviews with employees and clients. While in Salta, I spoke with Denise, Ana Lucía Mondada (Financial Services Coordinator), and Gabriela Salguero (General Manager), among others. Talking with Pro Mujer staff was inspiring. Employees, 10% of whom once received Pro Mujer services, are devoted to improving every facet of clients' lives. Their familiarity with client situations and compassion for helping educate women was contagious. Pro Mujer is filled with deeply committed individuals who are both inspired and inspiring in their daily interactions with clients.
At the heart of Pro Mujer's mission are women who represent a better opportunity for their entire family. More than just credit, Pro Mujer has shown me how a holistic package of services can have effects that cannot be measured by loan repayment statistics. A sense of self-worth is invaluable, and the ripple effect of confidence is tremendous. Pro Mujer and the Junior Committee have given me the opportunity to inspire action. Moving forward, the Junior Committee hopes to inspire many more young professionals to join Pro Mujer's movement to improve the lives of women and their families living in poverty in Latin America.


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An ALICE Research Seminar series
SURROUNDED BY A FOG OF VIRTUAL IMAGES
01 Maps as instruments of architectural (dis)orientation (December 9th)
02 Haunted bodies and ghostly spatialities (January 20th)
03 Landscape as affective image (and the instruments of experience) (February 17th)
04 Architecture, law, capability (May 5th)
05 Choreo-spatial politics (May 12th)
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01 Maps: instruments of architectural (dis)orientation
Wed, December 9th @16.30h
Zoom link
Surrounded by a fog of virtual images, how do we orient ourselves? How do we work with the dynamic assemblages of actual and virtual entities, of living and non-living things that constitute our environment? How do we organize the multiplicity of agencies and emerging potentialities in order to set new spatial processes in motion? How do we make present the plural temporalities defining this collective production? In our first ALICE Research Seminar we seek to address these questions by considering the role of maps and their (dis)orienting qualities in contemporary architectural and spatial practices.
While maps have often been considered precise and objective representations of the world, the fascination and disquiet they produce in us lies in their endless potential to hint new orders, new relations, new narratives and actions. While conceived to hold the world within them in a precise image, maps are actually always fuzzy, rattling with potentialities and the movement of the living. They reveal to us how to every movement of orientation and ordering there is a parallel one of disorientation just as from every unsettling action on the existing frameworks and references, new organizing and referencing impulses emerge. Acknowledging this back and forth motion as key to our architectural practice requires a transformation of our tools and strategies.
When architecture goes beyond representation and starts mapping, it gains, among its techniques and practices, the ability to work with processes and fields instead of fixed states or objects; to work with an expanding field of material agencies and care to attend to the multilayered balances of the environment; to work with histories and plural temporalities to fully and justly relate to the complexity of our present. With our guest speakers, Frédérique Ait-Touati, historian and author of Terra Forma, and Roger Paez, architect and author of Operative Mapping, we will dive further into these active and activating instruments.
Guest Speakers:
Roger Paez. Architect ETSAB, Barcelona (Hons.); MS AAD Columbia University, New York (GSAPP Honor Award for Excellence in Design); PhD UPC, Barcelona (Excellent Cum Laude). His Doctoral Dissertation "Operative Cartography. Mapping Agency in Architectural Design, 1982-2012", directed by Jaime Coll (ETSAB UPC) and Iñaki Abalos (Harvard GSD), was awarded the highest distinction. Following professional experience in the studios of Alison+Peter Smithson (London) and Enric Miralles (Barcelona), he founded A i B (www.aib.cat), a studio devoted to contemporary architectural practice with a critical edge, based in Barcelona. He has designed the Marine Zoo of Barcelona, the Hospital Clínic extension, and the Mas d'Enric Penitentiary, selected for the FAD Prize 2013 and finalist to Catalunya Construcció 2013 Award.
Frédérique Aït-Touati is a historian of literature and modern science, a seventeenth century specialist, and a theatre director. She is a research fellow at the CNRS and a member of the Centre de Recherches sur les Arts et le Langage at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. She works on the uses of fiction and narrative in astronomy in the seventeenth century, as well as the history of images and scientific instruments; more recently, her research has focused on the narratives and aesthetics of the Anthropocene, particularly in theatre. Her books include Fictions of the Cosmos (2011), Histoires et savoirs (2012), Le Monde en images (2015), Terra Forma (2019).
02 Haunted bodies and ghostly spatialities
Julien Lafontaine Carboni in conversation w/
Gabriele Schwab & Avery Gordon
Wed, January 20th @15.00h
Ghosts and hauntings are familiar with architecture. Das Unheimliche, the essay of Freud, resonated all along the XXth century into architectural theory. Unhomeliness has been first thought of as a bourgeois aesthetic experience referring to estranged homes to their inhabitants and leading to the haunted house's figure. Secondly, the development of psychoanalysis in architectural methods and theories to address the fundamental unlivable conditions of the modern city shifted the relations between bodies and architecture, site and structure, and paved the way to deconstructivism's dismembered bodies and below language aesthetics.
However, a third way remains unaddressed in the architectural field. Ghosts appear asking for reparations. Traces of institutionalized violence and silencing, their phenomenal existence is an effective, shared, and lived reality. As a particular figure of plural temporalities defining affective landscapes, ghosts inhabit, dwell, and thus, shape and influence our spatialities. Not our past, our commons, ghosts are a particular texture of living memories with whom we are sharing our lands, practices, and becoming.
For this second session of the seminar Surrounded by a fog of virtual images, we aim at addressing architectural histories of haunting, as much as the spatial dimensions and agencies of ghosts. Starting from different perspectives (sociology, architectural, and critical theory), this discussion aims at opening common grounds for critical, intersectional, and reparative architectural (hi)stories.
We will do it in collaboration with Avery Gordon, whose intervention will address subversive historical alternatives with the aim of returning to the ghost a certain agency with which the living might make common cause. Meanwhile, Gabriel Schwab will ask how "ghostly spatialities" affect the texture of traumatic memories. Under the title Memory Crypts, she will use several examples from her hometown in order to analyze these haunting memories, including the erasure of traces of Jewish life, a spatial memory of Roma life, and a memory of the discovery of an Aleman burial ground.
Gabriele M. Schwab is Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Irvine. She holds appointments in the departments of Comparative Literature, Anthropology, English and European Languages and Studies. She received her Ph.D. in literary studies and critical theory at the University of Constance in 1976 and a Ph.D. in Psychoanalysis from the New Center for Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles in 2009. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Heisenberg Fellowship, her research interests range across critical theory, psychoanalysis, trauma studies, literature and anthropology, and 20th- and 21st century comparative literatures. Among her published books we would distinguish Haunting Legacies: Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma (2010); Imaginary Ethnographies: Literature, Subjectivity, Culture (2012) and Radioactive Ghosts (2020).
Avery F. Gordon was a Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara for thirty years and is currently a Visiting Professor at Birkbeck School ofLaw University of London. Her most recent books are The Hawthorn Archive: Letters from the Utopian Margins, The Workhouse: The Breitenau Room (with Ines Schaber), Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination and Keeping Good Time: Reflections on Knowledge, Power and People. Her work focuses on radical thought and practice and she writes about captivity, enslavement, war and other forms of dispossession and how to eliminate them. She has been the co-host of No Alibis, a weekly public affairs radio program on KCSB FM Santa Barbara since 1997.
Denise Bertschi, artist and PhD candidate at EPFL/HEAD will participate as a guest discutant.
03 Landscape as affective image (and the instruments of experience)
Lucía Jalón Oyarzun in conversation w/
Matthew Gandy & Elise Misao Hunchuck
Wed, February 17th @15.00h
In his Ethics, the philosopher Spinoza defined the image as "those affections of the human body, the ideas of which represent to us external bodies as if they were present, although they do not actually reproduce the forms of the things". In this third seminar, we want to explore how this image allows us to overcome landscape's enclosure within the pictorial or figurative and point to new practical and conceptual tools for landscape, architecture and urban planning. Spinoza's "affective image" sends us from the 17th century paintings at the beginning of so many landscape histories to the older definition of landschaft as a form of commons emerging out of shared practices, customary law and the inherent dynamism of the land. By thinking of landscape as the common entanglement of nature, material practices and meanings, a form of commons organizing and supporting the spatiality of more-than-human communities, we seek to find new instruments to make this affective image operative within our architectural practice.
Landscape and architectural representation have been substituted by objectifiable and/or quantifiable description. Locations are reduced to coordinates while the botanical richness of our world becomes photoshopped greenery. Meanwhile, in magazines and Instagram feeds architectural and landscape images become asignifying snapshots thrown at a passive user. Against this situation, the affective image operates in the realm of fuzziness and ambiguity, always requiring an active engagement from its embodied beholder. Do the idea of an affective image and the expanded sensorium it brings about offer an opportunity to open up the architectural toolbox once more to the entanglements between the affective, the symbolic and the political? Drawings and traces, narrations and performances, atlases and figurations… are they capable of unlocking the noticeable dead-end of current architectural representation? What imaginal, perceptual and experimental instruments do the affective atmospheres of our living environments demand?
Imagination is a form of collective unconscious, an immanent repertoire of virtual images feeding agency and engaging us politically with(in) the world. Landscape understood and operationalized as the common affect threading and giving ground to dynamic nature cultures, can help us unfold material practices capable of working with the ambiguous and the indeterminate while acknowledging the socioecological challenges of our time.
Matthew Gandy is a cultural, urban, and environmental geographer with particular interests in landscape, infrastructure, and more recently bio-diversity. He is Professor of Geography and Fellow of King's College at the University of Cambridge. He previously taught at University College London, where he was the founder and director of the UCL Urban Laboratory from 2005 to 2011. He has published several books: Concrete and Clay: Reworking Nature in New York City (2002), The Fabric of Space Water, Modernity, and the Urban Imagination (2014) or The Botanical City (with Sandra Jasper, 2020). His next book Natura Urbana is forthcoming from The MIT Press and will explore spontaneous forms of urban nature in an international context. He is the Principal Investigator for the ERC Advanced Grant Rethinking urban nature.
Elise Hunchuck is a Berlin based researcher and designer with degrees in landscape architecture, philosophy, and geography whose work focuses on bringing together fieldwork and design through collaborative practices of observation, care, and coordination. Facilitating multidisciplinary exchanges between teaching and representational methods as a way to further develop landscape-oriented research methodologies at multiple scales, her research develops cartographic, photographic, and text-based practices to explore and communicate the agency of disasters through the continual configuring and reconfiguring of infrastructures of risk, including memorials, monuments, and coastal defense structures.
04 Architecture, law, capability
Nagy Makhlouf in conversation w/
Patrick Bouchain & Charlotte Malterre-Barthes
(extraordinarily, this event will be held in French)
Wed, May 5th @18.00h
The theory of evolution defines the living as the interaction between an organism and a milieu that conditions its activity. For the philosopher John Dewey, the human species transforms its milieu according to its needs and desires through the construction of a collective intelligence, by which it experiments and deliberates on its ends and means. This definition provides the basis for a renewed democracy, as an organising principle of collective life that is inseparably biological, spatial and social, where architecture and law are experimental and participatory practices.
The relationship between architecture and law conditions our capability, that is to say the whole of what we can do with the material milieu in which we live, with our means of living. Law exists through architecture: it materialises a boundary and defines the limit of a property, whether it is for use, land, profit, real estate or movable property. Law must support experimentation and confront the evolution of ways of living. It must make the organisation of the milieu - extraction, design, construction, use, re-use, demolition - a practice essential to democratic living, supporting our participation and responsibility, from the scale of the home to that of the infrastructure.
Today, neoliberal politics organise the milieu as a condition for a world-wide economy, posited as the indisputable end of biological evolution, and materialised in post-colonial extraction and construction practices. It transforms law into technical regulation, imposes an authoritarian division between 'expert' architects and a 'mass' of inhabitants to be managed, and whose participation is denied. In this context, it is necessary to build a framework of action through which to grasp the power of architecture and law, to act on the causes and effects of the democratic and ecological catastrophe we are going through, and to invent another politics of life and the living.
Patrick Bouchain does not define himself as an architect - he never joined the French Order of Architects out of rejection of corporatism. As a builder, repairer, urban planner and scenographer, he has been practicing with the office Construire since 1986. He is a pioneer in the reconfiguration of industrial sites into cultural spaces, and in the appropriation of law in project strategies that fully involve inhabitants and users. He notably founded the École nationale supérieure de Création Industrielle in 1982, and is currently working on "La preuve par 7", a project based on key principles such as the "déjà-là" (already-there) and the "architectural permanence".
Charlotte Malterre-Barthes is an architect, scholar, urban designer, and feminist. She currently teaches urban design at Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she has been notably leading "critical thinking seminars" that seek to build operational and critical frameworks for an emancipating architectural practice. She holds a Ph.D. in architecture from ETH Zürich, which dealt with the political economy of food systems and its effects on the built environment. Charlotte's "strategic practice" adresses the variegated dimensions that inform architecture, the mechanisms of domination it supports, and the manners through which they can be alleviated through fostering collective and individual agency.
05 Choreo-spatial politics
Aurélie Dupuis in conversation w/
Beth Weinstein & Karen Kurczynski
Wed, May 12th @18.00h
The performance theorist André Lepecki distinguishes two ways in which movement can be activated aesthetically and politically: kineticactivation, which is the one promoted by industrialization, capitalization and militarization, and intensive activation -- which other authors will describe as kinaesthetic -- privileging micro-assemblies and including all kinds of physical, artistic or political practices that dissociate mobility from the imperative of displacement. In this second category, it is not about individualities that move each one for itself: movement is an already there, operating between bodies and through them, that these practices possibly make felt and intensify.
Architectural practice and research have not escaped the growing predominance of the figure of movement, which they have approached in many ways throughout the 20th century. But attempts to consider this mobile reality, to address the kinetic and rhythmic nature of our living environments and their formation have frequently been limited to a reading, tracing and designing of its flows. Not only does this approach run the risk of reducing all movement to consensual mobility, but it also ignores a whole aspect, that of intensive movement, which, by proposing a specific alternative to the couple subject/freedom of movement as pre-established entities, makes it possible to approach the notions of movement and 'freedom' in a radically different way.
The 'choreo-spatial' work of the architect suggested here involves experimentation and engagement with this much more precarious type of movement, with the exercise of movement as freedom: a movement that is learned, repeated, experimented with, practiced, transformed through a certain design practice or intervention, inviting to actively pay attention to more complicities and mutual interferences. In this process, the techniques and instruments of architecture themselves, notably drawing, allow for the setting up of a 'soft choreography' supporting the unfolding of the political through choreo-spatial experimentation.
In this last session of the SBAFOVI series, we will receive two researchers in whose work these notions are addressed in a very tangible way: their accounts from the fields of contemporary art drawing and performance, respectively, will outline specific mediation processes included in a both sensual and political practice that addresses urgent questions without sweeping away the 'not yet' that remains to be explored.
Karen Kurczynski is a critic and historian of contemporary visual art and currently an Associate Professor of Art History at University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has published an introduction to the Danish artist Asger Jorn's work in English called The Art and Politics of Asger Jorn: The Avant-Garde Won't Give Up (2014) and a new evaluation of the Cobra movement, The Cobra Movement in Postwar Europe: Reanimating Art (2020). Her research interests include the relationship of art to politics and activism, feminist and critical theory and the legacy of early-20th-century cultural encounters in contemporary discourses of identity and globalization. Her next book project, Drawing in color, discusses the rise of drawing as a major medium or "anti-medium" in the contemporary period. It examines practices of whiteness and blackness in recent drawings, investigating why drawing is uniquely able to comment on those today.
Beth Weinstein is an architect and Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Arizona. Her research and practice move between the architectural and the performative and across scales from drawing to performance-installations to urban interventions, investigating spatial manifestations and invisibilities of political, environmental and labor issues. Her practice-based doctoral research explored how performances of spatial labor, employing architecture's instruments (text, drawings and models), can render 'sensible' (in)visibilities around architectures of internment. She continues to ask what forms of architecture, and associated invisibilities, are produced through executive order and under states of exception. She is currently writing a book titled Architecture + Choreography: Collaborations in Dance, Space and Time (2022).
To care and nurture for the richness and diversity of our architectural practice(s) we need to go beyond the definition of space as an inert background or a merely abstract dimension. We seek instead to attend to the emerging processes and forms of spatiality threading the living environment around us, with us, through us… For this to become more than mere words, we require new theories, know-hows, instruments and strategies. This extended repertoire will allow us to work with a broader spatial enactment of materiality where the minor realities threading our everyday are heard and operationalized for a meaningful, negotiated and inclusive transformation of our world.
Surrounded by a fog of virtual images is a series of online Research Seminars organized by ALICE (Atelier de la Conception de l'Espace) at the ENAC / EPFL to explore and operationalize these questions through a series of talks with international guest speakers led by its grad and post-grad researchers around key topics of their work.
Echoing the fog of virtual images used by Gilles Deleuze to describe how our surroundings cannot be understood without taking into consideration those minor existences circling around them, hinting and prompting the emergence of new dispositions, we invite everyone interested to meet us in the fog for a series of virtual discussions and critical questionings. As the Zoom rooms' natives we have become, we live surrounded by a constant flow of high-resolution virtual images made out of ones and zeroes. Consequently we want to make the most of the current Covid-19 situation by joining these two virtualities. Together, we will introduce some conceptual fuzziness and much-needed sensoriality into our screens to draw up new forms of architectural practice determined to work with those material potentialities and plural temporalities so often short-circuited by our new media environment and/or forgotten by our discipline.
Organized by Lucía Jalón Oyarzun, Julien Lafontaine Carboni, Nagy Makhlouf, Aurélie Dupuis and Dieter Dietz.
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Home Alumni Alumni Profile
In Ancient Footsteps
For Dali Basu, there was never really any doubt about what she would be when she grew up. "As a child I could never sit still," the 27-year-old says. "I don't think I ever walked—I was always dancing." What is perhaps surprising is that Basu...
Dr. R.B. Singh has learned many lessons from his long-standing collaboration with the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute over the years. From tasks such as proposal writing to working with large groups of people amidst cultural differences and...
Listening To Locals So They Can Be Heard
He has lost count of the number of times he has been to India, but Dr. John Sinclair is under no illusions about the value of those trips. "It has been a life-changing opportunity for me and for the students who have gone," says Sinclair, a...
Marching to His Own Beat
When he flew to Delhi in the summer of 2005 Abbas Janmohamed was making his first trip to India, but in many ways he was catching up with an old friend he'd left behind.
Janmohamed was using a Shastri arts fellowship to pursue his passion...
A Priceless Experience
"On a professional level, I can say that I probably wouldn't be working where I am today if it wasn't for my Shastri Institute internship," says Shelly Abdool a former youth internship participant who now works with the Department of Gender,...
The Wind of Change
"What is multicultural in Canada pales with what one finds in India where you have so many different languages being spoken; where you have so many different cultures and different religions brought together in a single very populous country,"...
The Road Taken
A fourth year seminar course at Queen's University was not only an integral part of Deviah Aiama's undergraduate studies but a pivotal moment that would introduce him to the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute and put him on the course toward his...
A Cultured Understanding
High school gives many students an inkling of what they want to do with their lives. Dr. Anne Pearson spent those formative years in New Delhi in the early 1970s and began to think that her career path might lead through India.
An Affair to Remember
It was the mid-1970s and Dr. Judy Whitehead was working on her undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia when a life-long interest began to steer her toward what became the focus of her future research. "I had always been...
Seeing the forest, the Trees and the People
In 1999 when a joint Canadian International Development Agency-Shastri Institute project took her to some isolated forest communities in the southern Indian state of Karnataka Dr. R. Indira found villages that were all but cut off from the...


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Paris Opera musicians serenade public in pension reform protest
Tear gas, dozens of arrests in fresh anti-Macron protest in Paris
HomeWorldIran answers Trumps maximum pressure with maximum resistance
Iran answers Trumps maximum pressure with maximum resistance
November 8, 201934 views
posted on Nov. 08, 2019 at 10:42 pm
Asphyxiated by US sanctions, Iran has been scaling back its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal in a bid to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of US President Donald Trump's maximum pressure policy.
Over the past few months, Tehran has been steadily turning its back on the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. On Thursday, November 7, uranium enrichment resumed at Irans underground Fordo facility, marking the fourth phase of a disengagement strategy that began on May 8 in response to the unilateral US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.
The announcement came as Iran cancelled the accreditation of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspector who was prevented from entering the Natanz nuclear facility last week.
Iran alleged the inspector tested positive for suspected traces of explosive nitrates. The IAEA, which is the UN's nuclear watchdog, disputed Tehrans claim.
Tensions between Tehran and Washington have been rising since Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal last year despite IAEA assurances that Iran was in compliance with the terms of the multilateral agreement. Iran has warned that it will resume nuclear activities outside the JCPOA following successive waves of crippling US sanctions that has blocked Irans oil exports, damaged its currency and its access to products such as medicines.
On Thursday morning, Irans atomic energy agency said it had successfully injected uranium gas into 1,044 centrifuges at Fordo in the presence of IAEA inspectors. The centrifuges had previously spun empty under the terms of the 2015 deal.
"This is an important decision, the Iranian authorities are taking a new step forward, because with the Fordo site, which has more than 1,000 centrifuges, Iran has just significantly increased its uranium enrichment capacity," said Siavosh Ghazi, an Iran correspondent at FRANCE 24s sister radio station, RFI. "This means that Tehran is determined to go even further to accelerate its nuclear programme, since enrichment capacity has reached the level of before the 2015 agreement," he added.
The US, for its part, criticised the decision, warning of grave consequences. "Iran's expansion of proliferation-sensitive activities raises concerns that Iran is positioning itself to have the option of a rapid nuclear breakout," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. "It is now time for all nations to reject this regime's nuclear extortion and take serious steps to increase pressure."
Pompeos statement made no reference to Trump's decision to leave the deal in May 2018, which sparked the crisis.
Crossing yellow, but not red, lines
The Trump administrations maximum pressure strategy was designed to force Iran to return to the table to negotiate a new deal. But it has failed to pressure the country to negotiate a new, more comprehensive and binding agreement, while mediation attempts, particularly by France, have remained unsuccessful.
"By gradually disengaging from certain clauses of the 2015 agreement, Iran is seeking to get the US to ease sanctions, and then, perhaps, Tehran will say it is ready to discuss again," explained FRANCE 24's international affairs expert Bruno Daroux. "Its a defensive strategy, a kind of maximum resistance to the policy of maximum pressure led by the Trump administration."
But while Tehran has been steadily crossing yellow lines, it has not yet crossed the 5% uranium enrichment red line.
IAEA spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told reporters on Thursday that Fordo's centrifuges will gradually increase in capacity until Saturday morning, when they will produce uranium enriched to 4.5%. This is the maximum enrichment rate to which Iran has limited itself since July, above the 3.67% ceiling set by the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Uranium enriched up to 5% is used as fuel for nuclear power plants, while 20% enriched uranium is used to fuel research reactors. Weapons-grade uranium needs to be enriched to 90% or more. But paradoxically, it is much faster, through leverage, to increase from 5% to 20% and from 20% to 90% than from 0 to 3.67%.
A response to Europes inaction
Tehrans maximum resistance strategy is also aimed at forcing European signatories to the Iran nuclear deal (France, Britain and Germany together witRead More – Source
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This year, Mardi Gras lands on Tuesday, February 17 and Philadelphia is sure to explode with revelers celebrating throughout the week. If you're wondering where to head to find some New Orleans music, food and booze, this list will help you out.
Celebrate with the Mummers on Sunday, February 22 for the second year in a row. Bring the whole family as the Mummers parade down Main Street in Manayunk accompanied by some of the best string bands in the area. Make sure you hang out afterwards to shop, eat and participate in many interactive activities, perfect for adults and children alike. The Mummers are one of Philadelphia's best New Year's Day traditions and this Mardi Gras event will include both the mummers traditional history and New Orleans pageantry.
The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra is playing the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts (Verizon Hall) this Fat Tuesday. The orchestra celebrates and advances the culture and history of New Orleans jazz and is led by New Orleans-born Irvin Mayfield, an accomplished jazz trumpeter and Grammy award-winning artist. This event will take you straight to Bourbon Street with its unforgettable music and performance.
Doors open at 11 a.m. for this Fat Tuesday party with Bennett, Mijo and the Wired 96.5 Street Team. Expect drink specials, prizes and more at this festive event.
The music starts at 8 p.m. for the 31st annual Mardi Gras show at World Café Live. Wild Bohemians once again take the stage to entertain guests with their costumes, stories and danceable tunes. The band's sound originates from Louisiana, playing all sorts of music that derived from the Pelican State, like Cajun, New Orleans jazz, zydeco and dixieland. The Wild Bohemians are made up of more than 30 musicians who play in other bands throughout the year, but come together one night of the year to create an unforgettable Mardi Gras experience.
On February 14, otherwise known as Valentine's Day, XFINITY Live! is celebrating Mardis Gras instead. The party starts at 8 p.m. and features five DJs, bull riding and prizes for wearing beads. Come enjoy drink specials and hurricanes and a live show by the Dan Band (who was in "Wedding Crashers" and "Old School"). XFINITY Live! is an entertainment destination located at the sporting complex, featuring five different bars and themes. This is sure to be the biggest party of the week.


At Oakland University, your unwavering perseverance is matched by our unwavering support. This is where hard work and determination matters. Where adversity doesn't hold you back — it's the foundation that makes you stronger. #ThisIsOU, where you unleash your potential and we ignite your future.
Join our community of 19,000 students who live, learn and work on OU's campus in southeast Michigan. Here you will pursue excellence with 140 undergraduate degree programs that will push you to your highest achievement.
Wednesday, May 22 | 4:30 - 7 p.m.
Receive an immediate admission decision and credit evaluation during our Transfer Student Open House in Macomb County. This event is held at the Macomb University Center in Clinton Township.
Thursday, July 11 | 4:30 - 7 p.m.
Transform your future at our Transfer Student Open House. You'll receive an immediate admission decision and credit evaluation. You'll also learn about general education requirements, transfer credit procedures and financial aid.
Friday, August 2 | 1 - 4:30 p.m.
Find out if you're ready for college at this special event. We'll discuss the college selection process, transitioning from high school to college, and how to finance your education.


I write to you from Richmond, Indiana, home of Friends United Meeting's North American office. This week, FUM's General Board is coming together for its three-times-per-year business meeting. As I write to you about the way God has been working in my life and in the life of Friends in the Great Plains region, I ask you to take a moment to pray for Friends United Meeting. I further request that you continue to hold FUM in prayer. FUM as an organization and as a fellowship of Friends is severely tested at this time, with financial, spiritual and intercultural difficulties that threaten to overwhelm the tenuous unity that Orthodox Friends do have after almost two centuries of schism and contention. We on the General Board need your prayers this week, as we come together to discern the future of FUM. Please pray that Christ's presence be keenly felt here among us, and that we be receptive to our Present Teacher and Lord.
Before I dive into the depths of discernment with Friends in Richmond, I would like to update you about the events of the past few weeks among Friends in the heartland of the United States. Three main events have taken place since I last wrote you: A visit among Friends in Saint Louis; a visit to the Meetings of Manhattan, Topeka, Lawrence, and Kansas City; and Great Plains Yearly Meeting, which met this past weekend at University Friends Meeting, in Wichita. This has been a time of intense activity, spiritual preparation, and discernment.
I spent Sunday, 24 May, with St. Louis Friends Meeting, part of Illinois Yearly Meeting. I enjoyed my visit among Friends in St. Louis, staying with a lovely family from the Meeting who opened their home to me for several days. I was very grateful for their graciousness as hosts and their eagerness to share about their lives and their experiences among Friends in the St. Louis area. My interaction with the Meeting as a whole was limited to a few hours on Sunday morning. Despite the brevity of my visit, I felt that I received some sense of those who were gathered. Their meetinghouse was lovely. It seemed to have been converted from something else, but I was not sure what. I appreciated the meetingroom, which had soaring ceilings and enormous windows that bathed the space in light. The meeting for worship itself was quite grounded ("more than usual," a local Friend told me) and fairly large (by Great Plains standards, anyway). I estimated that there were probably thirty or so in attendance that morning. I was grateful for the chance to visit Friends in St. Louis and for the hospitality that I was shown.
The following weekend, I made another trip to be with Friends in Manhattan, Topeka, Lawrence, and Kansas City. I am always astonished by the joy which I feel when I am among Friends along the I-70 Corridor. I tell them that they are the closest the Great Plains comes to being like "out East" - in this little strip of Kansas-Missouri, Meetings are less than an hour apart! But my joy at being with Friends here comes not from blessings of geography, but instead from the quality of their fellowship and their hunger for God's presence. Friends in Manhattan are doing well, despite the recent loss of two key members who have moved to Virginia. They are presently exploring Quaker understandings of marriage, as two sojourners from the Kansas City area have asked to marry under the care of the Meeting.
I was delighted to see new faces everywhere I went during this trip, and my visit to Topeka was probably the prime example of this. I spent most of my time in Topeka with several members who I had not met before. They gave me a tour of the scenic Potwin neighborhood in Topeka, and we sat together on one family's porch in that neighborhood, getting to know each other better. We talked a great deal about the history of Topeka Meeting, and Friends noted how it had been in decline in terms of membership and energy for the past decade or more. Friends expressed their hope that the Meeting might recover the vitality that it once had, but there was uncertainty as to what form that recovery might take.
I spent Sunday morning with Friends at Oread Meeting, in Lawrence, and I went out to lunch with three Friends from the Meeting after the service. I was sad that more Friends did not feel able to meet with me and share about their Meeting, though I was grateful for the few who did. In Kansas City, at Penn Valley Friends Meeting, quite a few Friends turned out to share a potluck dinner with me at their meetinghouse, and I was very encouraged by our conversation during and following the meal. Friends at Penn Valley Meeting are very earnest and have a hunger to learn more about the wider Quaker world. I was encouraged by their enthusiasm and their thirst for the things of the Spirit. I pray that I may be able to visit them, and all of these Meetings, again in the near future.
As I mentioned in my previous newsletter, I have sought to spiritually prepare myself during these past weeks for the annual sessions of Great Plains Yearly Meeting, which took place 4-7 June. It is as if my entire year had been inclining towards this moment, the yearly meeting being to my year what Sunday meeting for worship is to my week. Yearly Meeting time is a moment to pause and discern with the wider body of Friends what God is calling us to in the coming year. I went into the sessions holding before God my ministry among Friends in this region, and asking God to guide me and Faith as to the next steps in our walk in Christ. As a part of this discernment, there was a review of the past year's ministry with GPYM's Ministry and Counsel. We heard from my Oversight Committee, as well as from representatives from each Monthly Meeting in the Yearly Meeting about how they had experienced my ministry.
Finally, Ministry and Counsel considered the future of my ministry in the Great Plains. It quickly became clear that some Friends in the Yearly Meeting were out of unity with my ministry. Some were uncomfortable with their perception of my theology. Some did not see how my work fit into our current model of ministry - there's really not an easy "job description" for what I am engaged in. Some were uncertain of how they felt about free gospel ministry - witness to the Seed of Christ in all people, in the tradition of the Apostle Paul and George Fox. A visiting Friend pointed out that Great Plains Yearly Meeting had a choice: We could stick to our status quo of routine and ritual; or we could embrace an apostolic ministry, which would not fit our current plans, but which would shake us up and call us to deeper faithfulness as a Church. The road that we were on, this Friend insisted, would lead ever downward into stagnation; but the apostolic ministry builds up, even as it challenges our feelings of self-satisfaction and safety.
Friends are deeply grateful for Micah's faithful service among us this past year. Nevertheless, we do not feel able to lend the kind of support that would enable Micah to continue as a released Friend. Our Yearly Meeting simply is not yet at a place where we can corporately affirm an apostolic ministry. With needs so great and laborers so few, it grieves us not to be able to fully take advantage of Micah's willingness to serve among us.
I was initially saddened by this outcome, because I had hoped that Friends would feel led to release me to continue ministry in the Great Plains region. But as it became clear that there was not unity for this, I felt an unexpected joy in my heart. I knew that I had been faithful, and that that was sufficient. I did not (and do not) know what the future holds for me and Faith, but I felt deep certainty in that moment that God's purposes were being worked out in me and that God would provide for tomorrow, just as God is providing for today.
Most of the rest of GPYM was fairly routine, but Saturday evening was remarkable. "The future of GPYM" had been on the agenda for business meeting and was supposed to have been up for discussion during the second-to-last business meeting on Saturday. However, there was so much other business, including the approval of the long-awaited Yearly Meeting Handbook, that business was about to close without discussing our future at all. As the clerk was about to close our sessions, visitor Jonathan Vogel-Borne asked, "what about the future?" The assistant clerk looked at his watch and said, "well, we have two minutes left. Would anyone like to talk about the future?" I was on my feet and at the front of the assembled Body before I knew what I was doing.
I was so grateful for those Friends who were holding me in prayer in that moment, because I was quite disoriented. I just knew that I had to speak to the Body. I tried to calm myself, praying for guidance before I spoke. I told Friends, "I'm going to speak for myself, and I hope that some of God comes out." I told Friends that I was disappointed with them for letting annual sessions slip by without wrestling with our future as a Yearly Meeting. I told them that I was concerned that we have become as formal as the Pharisees or the Christians of George Fox's day, mistaking routine for virtue and form for substance. I told them that I loved them all, and I begged them to humble themselves and open themselves to the presence of Christ in their hearts, to follow that inward guidance. Because the status quo hasn't been working for a long time.
This led to a time of open worship. It was a remarkable time of deep prayer out of which some Friends spoke, encouraging Friends in Great Plains Yearly Meeting not to give up the race, but to press forward in faith. Immediately following that, Friends reassembled downstairs to hear Jonathan Vogel-Borne speak for the third time. Jonathan spoke with reference to Ezekiel and the dry bones, and there was a palpable covering of the Holy Spirit among us, which continued as we returned to open worship. Some gave vocal ministry out of this silence that was distinctly Spirit-led and prophetic. Following this time of deep worship, we continued worship as we sang hymns together.
This was, without a doubt, the most spiritually-active session of Great Plains Yearly Meeting that I have experienced since I first attended in 2004. The air was thickened at times with God's presence, and it was clear that the Holy Spirit was working on us, calling us to greater faithfulness and vision. I do not know what the future holds, but I am at peace. The Day Star shines in the darkness and exposes our strongholds of rebellion. The Lamb's War is underway and Christ's victory is assured. I only pray that we will turn, that we will yield, that we will allow God to shape us into what we were meant to be - a holy people, set apart to do the work of Love in the world.
My summer is looking to be quite intense. I will be in Richmond all this week for General Board meetings. The week after next, I will be helping out with Quivering Arrow Camp, a Friends summer camp for children in Northern Oklahoma, headed up by Brad Wood, pastor of Kickapoo Friends (Mid-America YM). Shortly thereafter I will be leaving Wichita to travel throughout the United States for most of the summer, up until my wedding on September 5th. Among my intended travels are: Evangelical Friends Church - Eastern Region, Northwest Yearly Meeting, and Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative). I also hope to visit Friends in Michigan, and may visit other Friends as way opens.
As for after September 5th - God only knows. Faith and I are in active discernment about where we are going to land after the wedding, but this has still not been made clear to us. We hope that God will let us in on the secret soon. We can wait, though; we know God is at work and has a plan for us, even if we can't see it yet.
I pray that you experience the peace of Christ in your midst and in your hearts as we strive together in the work that God has laid out for us.


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2007 Victory Motorcycles Part 2: The Rest of the Lineup
What's there for women?
By Genevieve Schmitt, Photos by Kevin Wing
We'll start off with the most accessible Victory in terms of price and size when it comes to fitting most women.
The 2007 8-Ball pictured with a 106 cubic inch engine installed, available as an upgrade from Victory dealers. The S&S 106 Kit provides a significant boost in horsepower and torque and is available for all models. Price: $3,450.
The Vegas 8-Ball, priced at $13,999, is a blacked out version of the Vegas, making it about $1,800 cheaper than the Vegas. It has a solo seat and minimalist styling. The 26.5-inch seat height accentuates the low center of gravity feeling of this motorcycle. It's a slim and nimble bike that zips around corners.
Last year's 8-Ball doesn't have black-out wheels like the 2007 model.
Ergonomics and performance are the same as the Vegas, but there is no sixth gear on the 8-Ball. The 100 cubic inch Freedom V-Twin motor with electronic fuel injection powers the bike. New features for 2007 include subtle changes like the swingarm and strut covers now have engine black paint, and black wheels are standard. Plus, there are 197 Vegas accessories that fit the 8-Ball.
The Vegas won Best Cruiser of the Year by several leading motorcycle magazines including Cycle World when the bike was introduced in 2003.
For $15,799 you get a solid cruiser loaded with custom accents. The Vegas provides a smooth ride powered by the 1634cc Freedom V-Twin motor with sixth gear overdrive. A lot of women love this motorcycle because it handles so easily without sacrificing power or style. You get it all with the Vegas. New features for 2007 include a custom-inspired headlight, and a swingarm that's been cast, not forged making it stronger and lighter.
Vegas Jackpot
Victory says buyers of its Jackpot, introduced in 2006, are comparable to buyers of Big Dog and American IronHorse motorcycles.
The mega, supped up version of the Vegas is the Jackpot boasting a fat 250mm tire, flashy graphics, and a raked front end. This is a visually stunning motorcycle, but that 250mm tire is not recommend for non-experienced riders. It's a lot of motorcycle to handle. It comes in six eye-catching color combinations and boasts 152 accessories including a two-up touring seat with backrest. You'll pay $17,499 for this beauty.
The Kingpin is a "confidence inspiring" cruiser. No wonder it's Victory's number one selling motorcycle.
This is the most versatile model in Victory's lineup offering a smooth ride, great power and a large 130mm front tire wrapped around an 18 inch wheel. Pullback handlebars and floorboards give the rider a more relaxed ride than the Vegas. Low valanced fenders give the bike a laid-back cruiser look. If you don't like the new Kingpin Tour, buy this version and accessorize it yourself. A lot of women would rather pick the parts they want from a catalog to suit their style of riding. New features for 2007 include a custom-inspired headlight, and a swingarm that's cast not forged making it stronger and lighter. Two hundred eight accessories can be found for this bike in the 2007 catalog. Price: $15,999.
The Hammer is for younger buyers coming over from the sport market who want a sporty, fat-tired bike, not an "old man's cruiser."
The Hammer is Victory's marriage of sport performance with cruiser style. Inverted cartridge type forks offer smooth handling, and sportbike quality braking come in the form of two 300mm rotors up front. The solo ride can be easily converted to two-up riding with the integrated tail that doubles as a passenger pad. Women used to a sporty ride who want to test the cruiser waters won't be let down by the performance and handling of the Hammer, but know that it's a lot bike because of that big rear tire. New features for 2007 include a custom-inspired headlight and a swingarm that is cast not forged making it stronger and lighter. Price: $16,899.
Ness Signature Series Jackpot
The two Ness Jackpots: the Cory Ness version in the foreground; Arlen Ness in the back.
Arlen and Cory Ness have been part of the Victory design team for several years lending their custom touches to one or two motorcycles each year in a limited edition model. For 2007, the Jackpot gets a style makeover in two different versions: The Arlen Ness version and the Cory Ness version. Expect lots of chrome, billet, diamond-cut engine cylinder fins (that literally look like diamonds shimmering on the edges of the fins), striking paint colors, graphics, and accessories.
A closeup of the diamond-cut cylinder fins.
These models are only available for model year 2007. Both versions retail for $22,999. Perfect for the woman who wants the best, the top-of-the-line, the crème de la crème and has the bucks to buy it. Those shimmering "diamonds" can't be beat!
Visit VictoryMotorcycles.com for more information.
2007 Victory Motorcycles Part 1: The New Models


text:
Issue 22, 2015
Thermoresponsive release of viable microfiltrated Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) for precision medicine applications†
Zheng Ao,a Erika Parasido,b Siddarth Rawal,a Anthony Williams,a Richard Schlegel,b Stephen Liu,b Chris Albanese,b Richard J. Cote,a Ashutosh Agarwal*ac and Ram H. Datara
a Department of Pathology, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL 33136, USA
E-mail: A.agarwal2@miami.edu
b Departments of Oncology and Pathology, and the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown University Medical Center, USA
c Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Miami, USA
Stimulus responsive release of Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs), with high recovery rates from their capture platform, is highly desirable for off-chip analyses. Here, we present a temperature responsive polymer coating method to achieve both release as well as culture of viable CTCs captured from patient blood samples.
You have access to this article
Supplementary information PDF (1045K)
https://doi.org/10.1039/C5LC01024A
Lab Chip, 2015,15, 4277-4282
Author version available
Download author version (PDF)
Thermoresponsive release of viable microfiltrated Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) for precision medicine applications
Z. Ao, E. Parasido, S. Rawal, A. Williams, R. Schlegel, S. Liu, C. Albanese, R. J. Cote, A. Agarwal and R. H. Datar, Lab Chip, 2015, 15, 4277
DOI: 10.1039/C5LC01024A
If the material has been adapted instead of reproduced from the original RSC publication "Reproduced from" can be substituted with "Adapted from".
[Original citation] - Reproduced by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) on behalf of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the RSC
[Original citation] - Reproduced by permission of the PCCP Owner Societies
[Original citation] - Reproduced by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) on behalf of the European Society for Photobiology, the European Photochemistry Association, and RSC
[Original citation] - Reproduced by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry
Zheng Ao
Erika Parasido
Siddarth Rawal
Richard Schlegel
Stephen Liu
Chris Albanese
Richard J. Cote
Ashutosh Agarwal
Ram H. Datar


It's the start of December and it's definitely time to decorate the house, although I have been sneaking in a few items here and there - cheeky I know!
1. The piece de resistance is our beautiful tree from Pines and Needles, its 6ft which is bigger than me and looks beautiful. As I am a very busy lady I got the tree delivered and a mini tree also came complimentary which was a lovely surprise, lets hope it last till Christmas Day!.
For delivery, tree and stand it was £90 from Pines and Needles.
2. Advent calender from Lindt is the perfect way to start Christmas with little balls, bears, bunnies and something is hiding behind door 24.
Another advent calender is a classic from Cadbury dairy milk with a Santa picture that looks like it's been sewed on - too darn cute.
3. This wooden reindeer is the perfect accessory for your selves and beautifully handmade.
4. Another one from Spana is this adorable robin, if you dont have smothing soft and cudderly on your tree it needs updating quickly.
5. These stocking decorations are a perfect addition to any tree with little bells on the end. from £3.50, from Timea Sido on Swanky Maison.
6. These ceramic snowflake decorations light up any Christmas tree.
£10, from Karen Hilton Designs on Swanky Maison.
7. Classic quaint sitting snowman will fill you with festive cheer.
Only £4.31 from Country Baskets.


text:
Q: Removing index.php?p=page from URL - No redirect, No error I am having some trouble removing index.php?p=XXX from my URL's. Previously, if I were to navigate to a different page, I would go to mywebsite.com/index.php?p=about. I have added the following code to my .htaccess:
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,}\s/+index\.php\?p=([^\s&]+) [NC]
RewriteRule ^ /%1? [R=301,L,NE]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.+)$ /index.php?p=$1 [L,QSA]

This code works as expected, changing mywebsite.com/index.php?p=about to mywebsite.com/about, but my pages are not redirecting to the document at all. It changes the URL but doesn't redirect.
In my header file (for my navbar) I have the following:

About

I have tried changing that around but no luck as of yet...
Any ideas on what is happening here?
Thanks!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Early Access Release This is a game about a girl trying to find another human in a dystopian world overrun by biomachines. It's a lonely and evocative game about exploring the unknown and overcoming obstacles to see what is left. In the world, there is no hope for those left behind. You'll need to face your own limitation as a human being and also face the consequences of the mistakes of humanity. Features: A dark and mysterious narrative; A gloomy, vast and interconnected city to be explored; Non-linear exploration; Detailed scenario with thorough pixel art and animations; Slow-paced, methodical gameplay; A good amount of weapons and tools; Ambient music with some experimental tracks.


text:
Q: Collection of Enums in TypeScript I work with Vue.js, so the question concerns Vue components specifically. There are instances in my code where I would like to compare something to an enum. This works fine in the script portion of the .vue file, but not the html portion, meaning this:
<template>
    <v-app>
        {{MyEnum.EnumMemberOne}}
    </v-app>
</template>

would cause an error: [Vue warn]: Property or method "MyEnum" is not defined on the instance but referenced during render. ...
So I have to do this in my script to have access to my enum:
import {MyEnum} from "@/types";

@Component({
    components: {}
})
export default class App extends Vue {
    myEnum = MyEnum;
}

Then I can simply refer to my enum using myEnum within the html portion. Not too annoying, but my problem is that I'll have many enums, and I don't want to have to manually create variables for each enum in each component.
So what I would like to do is basically have a collection of enums, so that no matter how many enums I have and no matter which enums I actually want to use in each component, they're all available.
So in my types.ts file (where I define all interfaces and enums), I'd like to do something like this:
export enum MyEnum1 {
    EnumMemberOne,
    EnumMemberTwo,
}

export enum MyEnum2 {
    EnumMemberOne,
    EnumMemberTwo,
}

export interface EnumCollection {
    MyEnum1: MyEnum1;
    MyEnum2: MyEnum2;
}

So that in every component, I can just do this: enumCollection = EnumCollection;
And use it in the html portion like this:
<template>
    <v-app>
        {{enumCollection.MyEnum1.EnumMemberOne}}
    </v-app>
</template>

Is that possible? If not, is there a better way to "collect" all possible enums in one place?

A: I needed something similar but I wanted all enums in their own file so there is a Constants file that bundles them all into one:
in Constants.ts:
export * from '@/app/constants/MyEnum1';
export * from '@/app/constants/MyEnum2';
export * from '@/app/constants/MyEnum3';

in MyEnum1.ts, MyEnum2.ts, etc:
export enum MyEnum1 {
    EnumMemberOne,
    EnumMemberTwo,
}

somewhere in my main file:
import { createApp }       from 'vue';
import { App as VueApp }   from 'vue';
import * as constants      from '@/app/constants/Constants';

// ....

const vueApp:VueApp<Element> = createApp(AppVue);

vueApp.config.globalProperties.const = constants;

// ....

Now you can use const.xxx in any template anywhere in your app:
<template>
    <v-app>
        {{const.MyEnum1.EnumMemberOne}}
    </v-app>
</template>

PS: The above code is from a Vue3 project, but something similar should also work for Vue2


One of the reasons we share our lives with dogs is to enjoy their company - while they help us loosen our grip on this no-nonsense, career-driven world. Once you and your canine pal have serious training (for obedience, basic good behavior, and so on) under the belt, you can take the edge off by injecting the whole training process with some fun tricks and games.
Tricks and games are open to dogs of all sizes, shapes, and ages. Every dog can learn to do something they'll enjoy. A Poodle, for example, can learn to dance. A retriever needs to fetch. Bichon Frises love their parlor tricks. Huskies want to pull a sled, herders love to herd, and so on. As for you, the dog owner, you need to be sure your pooch knows who's in charge. You need to be the trainer, not the trained, before you and your dog can move on to tricks and games.
Sharing your life with a dog shouldn't be a militaristic venture, selfishly designed around what you want your dog to do. Owning a dog is about joining two different species, two different spirits, in a way that will make the world better for both.
ils:.b18436171|Book|Books||English|IDG Books Worldwide,||xxiv, 257 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.


text:
Corporate Teams
SMPH Teams
100% Raised. 100% Stays.
The Ride Scholars
UW Carbone Cancer Center
Still Rocking It After Cancer
June 14th, 2019 | Rob Kelly
Paul West made a living in the 1970s and 80s playing keyboards in bands in Texas that covered pop, country and rock hits of the day. He toured the country for a while but eventually took a different path at around age 30. He got married, had two children, went back to school and got his PhD in chemistry. Still, his love of performing never left him.
He wound up in living in Arena, Wis., leading science research projects as a director of bionanalytical chemistry for a Madison biotech company. In 2012, after a 25-year hiatus from music, he joined—The Retro Specz, a classic rock cover band that plays 40 to 50 shows per year. "We play at festivals, bars, weddings—whoever will have us. We just rock it out. Summers are particularly crazy. I'm getting a little old for this," he says with a laugh.
In the summer of 2016, at age 62, his music and his life had to be put on hold during treatment for, and recovery from, a cancer arising at the back of his tongue. He was diagnosed earlier that year after he couldn't shake the sensation of something stuck in his throat. A swallow study—a test that uses X-rays and barium to capture the motion of the throat and esophagus while swallowing—indicated a swelling at the base of his tongue. A CT confirmed the presence of a one-inch tumor that tested positive for human papilloma virus (HPV). Fortunately, it had not metastasized.
"I was unhappy, and I was worried, especially when I was first diagnosed. I think if I were younger, I would have been more upset about it," West says. "Of course I was upset, and my family was upset and crying a little bit after diagnosis. But I was 62. I've had a great life."
West underwent treatment at UW Carbone Cancer Center, which included radiation therapy and chemotherapy (cisplatin, to help the radiation work better). He had difficulty with treatment. The cisplatin caused a low white blood cell count. The radiation made eating impossible, which disrupted his electrolyte levels, causing severe weakness and light-headedness. Four weeks into his seven-week treatment, West was admitted to University Hospital, where he stayed for 10 days. He continued radiation therapy but had to stop chemotherapy. He had a feeding tube installed to allow him to get adequate nutrition and hydration. He also suffered from extreme fatigue as a result of the radiation and spent the summer of 2016 on his basement couch. "Imagine the worst flu of your entire life. You know that feeling that you just can't get out of bed—like you've been hit by a truck? It feels kind of like that.
"As I went through the chemo and radiation and felt like I was going to die, I got more emotional. I was all screwed up," West says. "When my wife would have to go to work, I would be begging her not to go. I said, 'Please, I don't want to die today' and she was like, 'You're not going to die.' And I said, 'Well, I feel like I am.'"
He and his wife managed his complicated treatment regimen. "Treatment completely destroys your daily routine and is exhausting. You're up half the night changing feeding bags or taking meds—wake up at 2 a.m. to take this med, wake up at 4 a.m. to take this one," West says. "Having someone to help is really important for both physical and emotional support. I had my wife to help me—we've been together 35 years. She was great. She put up with all this stuff."
West also praises his treatment team, especially Dr. Randy Kimple, his radiation oncologist at the UW Carbone Cancer Center. "Randy told me, 'I want you to get this many calories a day, so make it happen. You have to do this.' He's a great a doctor—very nice and a cool guy—but he's tough too," West says. "Every time I go see Randy, I'm like, 'Dude, thank you. I appreciate everything you've done for me. You saved my life.'
"The whole UW Health system is great. My wife and I have been thinking about retiring down South, and I always think about the quality of the medical care. We've got UW here. I wonder if I had lived somewhere else if I would have survived.
"UW research faculty and personnel are highly motivated and they're on the cutting edge. I think that's important when it comes down to patients like me. They have a more innovative attitude, whereas if you're treated where they're not also doing research, you might not have that."
West cites the Accuray TomoTherapy radiation therapy technology used to treat him as an example of a University of Wisconsin innovation that has improved cancer treatment. This system uses CT imaging to ensure precise targeting to deliver the maximum dose to the tumor while sparing healthy tissue.
Research funding is an essential part of innovation. As a scientist, West knows firsthand how expensive research can be and how difficult it can be to obtain funding. While most research funding comes from government agencies, private funding is also important, he says. "When you have funding from the government, sometimes there are more strict requirements, and that is not always conducive to very innovative and creative research. You can be a little more creative with private funding."
A growing source of funding for UW cancer research is The Ride, a cycling event that has raised nearly $1 million in its first three years. West sees The Ride as a great way to generate funding for innovative research to improve treatment outcomes and lessen treatment side effects. Perhaps most importantly, he says it can build community among cancer patients, their families, and the general public and raise awareness about treatment and prevention. He's a strong advocate of educating the public about getting vaccinated to prevent HPV infection— now the leading cause of cervical, head and neck, anal, vulvar and penile cancers.
Three years after his diagnosis, West is doing well. He is "semi-retired" and does some analytical chemistry consulting work. He is also back with the band. "They wanted me to come back and kept my spot open for me. They're really great people. We get along really well and have a good time," he says.
West continues to have some lasting side effects from treatment, including lymphedema in his throat, some salivary gland malfunction, changes to his sense of taste, jaw cramps and gustatory perspiration—nasal discharge and sweating when he eats spicy food. But he has come a long way since completing treatment.
"I know my throat is never going to be same," West says. "When I first went back to play with the band, I couldn't sing some of the parts I used to sing. I'm not a lead vocalist, but I sing a lot of harmonies and I couldn't hit some of the high notes. But as the years have gone by, I can actually hit the notes. My vocal range was a measure of how my healing was going. One day, a member of the band heard my range improve and said, 'Whoa, you can hit that one again!' That's pretty cool."
Made Possible By Our Generous Sponsors
Sponsor The Mission
© 2022 The Ride
A 501(C)(3) Nonprofit Mission
Wisconsin Institute For Medical Research
1111 Highland Avenue WIMR 3157 Madison, WI 53705


If you are setting up a new company, a new business partnership or a joint venture, Ormrods can ensure that all the legal aspects of the company formation are smoothly conducted.
There are many different, and often complex, areas of company and corporate law, but whether you are going it alone with a smaller business, working together on a collaborative project, or committing to a franchise agreement, you can rely on our legal expertise to help you.
Geoff Ormrod has a wealth of experience in assisting clients to set up their companies. He also advises on buying and selling businesses, as well as dealing with employment law and litigation arising out of internal director and shareholder disputes.
Please feel free to browse through this section of the website which covers the key areas of company law.
Alternatively you can call Geoff on 01253 861032 or email him to talk through your requirements or to arrange a free initial consultation.