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Team Leader (Development Management)
Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council
Hinckley, Leicestershire
Development Control, Planning
Team Leader, Planner
Central Government, Local Authority
Grade 8, £35,745 up to £39,880 per annum pro rata
37 hours per week on a permanent contract
An opportunity has become available for a dynamic and ambitious person looking to further their career and join a highly motivated professional team committed to delivering quality development outcomes and excellent customer service.
You will be given the opportunity to have a caseload of our more complex planning applications and appeal casework. You'll be involved in a broad range of planning and regeneration projects. In turn, you'll quickly become an important and highly valued member of our management team, managing a team of planners with delegated authority to determine planning applications.
We will look to you for ideas to make our service better and help you capitalise on your interest to work with our local communities and other stakeholders to deliver the council's priorities.
If you feel you can meet this challenge, we would like to hear from you.
For an informal discussion about this exciting opportunity please call Nicola Smith, Planning Manager (Development Management) on 01455 255970.
For an application pack call 01455 255836 quoting reference: C189
Closing date: 17 October 2021.
Interview date: W/C 1 November 2021.
Hinckley & Bosworth ‐ A PLACE OF OPPORTUNITY
Situated at the very heart of England on the border of the East and West Midlands, Hinckley is well connected by major transport links to the cities of Leicester, Coventry and Birmingham and in an ideal location for commuting being close to major transport links of the M1, M6, M69, M42 and the A5.
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To comply with Section 6109 of the Internal Revenue Code, the Office of the Registrar, in conjunction with Student Accounts, will send a communication to current and some former student UB email addresses asking them to take specific action regarding their SSNs/ITINs.
Students will be asked to provide the university Registrar with their SSN or ITIN if we do not have a number on record by completing and submitting our modified W-9(S) form (PDF).
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Ulster Sullivan
Ulster Sullivan Daily Voice serves Fallsburg, Kingston, Liberty, Mamakating, Monticello, New Paltz, Saugerties, Thompson, Ulster & Wawarsing
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Breaking News: New Update: How Much Snow Did You Get? A Look At Totals From Throughout The Region
Calls Made For Firing Of Newly Named Mets Manager After Baseball Cheating Scandal Report
Carlos Beltran Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
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Pace University Coach Named To Head United States Intercolleg...
Newtown HS Football Team Relives State Title Win On NBC, Seve...
Some are now calling for the firing of Carlos Beltran before he even got into the dugout for his first game as New York Mets manager.
Do You Think The Mets Should Part Ways With Carlos Beltran? Yes. No. Don't care.
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Beltran, the former nine-time all-star outfielder who was hired as skipper in November, is in hot water for his role in the Houston Astros elaborate sign-stealing system in 2017 that led to the harshest sanctions levied against an MLB team.
Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred named Beltran in his newly released report, which highlighted the extent that some members of the Astros organization went through to steal signs during their World Series season.
Beltran was the only player named in the report.
A former teammate, Mark Teixeira, who spent three years with Beltran on the Yankees, was on ESPN on Wednesday, Jan. 15, saying that the Mets should remove Beltran from his post, similar to the way Astros owner Jim Craine fired manager A.J. Hinch and General Manager Jeff Luhnow; and how the Red Sox fired manager Alex Cora amid reports of his own sign-stealing during the 2018 season.
"I don't think the Mets have a choice, either. They have to fire Carlos Beltran," Teixeira said on ESPN's "Get Up!" on Wednesday. "The only reason Beltran wasn't punished as a bigger part of this was because of that immunity … It's really a loophole for Carlos Beltran because he retired immediately after that World Series.
"Now this is a guy who, him and Alex Cora were the main culprits," Teixeira, the former first baseman turned ESPN analyst said. "Alex Cora got fired on the spot by the Boston Red Sox.
"The New York Mets are in an impossible situation. There's no way Carlos Beltran – especially in the pressure cooker of New York – there's no way he can be the manager of the Mets.
The Mets have yet to comment on Beltran's status following the release of the earth-shattering report. Beltran told The New York Post in November that he was unaware of any scheme to electronically steal signs, which was later debunked by reporters.
Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen previously said that, "I have no idea if anything did or did not, but at this point I don't see any reason why this is a Mets situation."
On Wednesday, ESPN's Buster Only said that the Mets are "wavering" in their support for Beltran.
Following the reports of sign-stealing, MLB fined the Astros $5 million, docked their first- and second-round picks for the next two years in the amateur draft and suspended Luhnow and Hunch - both now fired - for a year.
National Pizza Week: Here Are Five Of Ulster County's Top Piz...
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Time Frame Changes For First Potential Snowstorm Of New Year
Ulster Sullivan Daily Voice!
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Penn State Coronavirus Info
Info for students, faculty, staff and visitors
Start Here: College Overview
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Departments & Majors
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Credit by Portfolio
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Minors & Certificate Programs
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Summer Camps (Grades 9-12)
Summer Camp Details
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Graduate Programs & Research
Mass Communications (Ph.D.)
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Areas of Academic Strength
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Children, Media and Conflict Zones Lab
John Curley Center for Sports Journalism
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Information Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) Consortium
Institute for Information Policy
Media Effects Research Lab
Newspaper Journalists Oral History Program
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The Prison Journalism Project
Science Communication Program
Jan 7, 2022Faculty member named inaugural Bellisario Professor of Advertising
Dec 14, 2021Penn State public relations program selected as one of five national finalists
Dec 14, 2021Determined, persistent student finishes pursuit of bachelor's degree
Penn State News
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Dr. Andrew Lingwall is a professor of public relations at Clarion University of Pennsylvania. He has been a leader in the development and marketing of online courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels at that institution. He has taught communication courses on Penn State's World Campus for the Bellisario College since 2014.
Prior to joining academia, Lingwall worked as an account executive with Russell & Herder Advertising and PR in Minnesota and as a public relations specialist with Tacoma Community College in Washington state. He was also a news reporter, serving eight years as a freelance features writer with The News Tribune in Tacoma.
Lingwall's research agenda focuses on public relations education and student writing skills in programs of journalism and mass communication. In 2017, he co-authored "The Basics of Media Writing: A Strategic Approach," for SAGE Publications. In 2019, he was selected by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication to be a Scripps Howard Foundation Visiting Professor in Social Media. He worked at ABC-15 in Phoenix to learn social media techniques by shadowing the news team and participating in news events.
Lingwall is passionate about international study and travel. In 2019, he taught a series of graduate seminars in Strategic Communication at Catholic University in Lille, France, and an international public relations course at Universidad de Alcalá near Madrid, Spain. In 2017, Lingwall spent his sabbatical in Aalborg, Denmark, studying public relations education. In 2022, Lingwall plans to travel to New Zealand to study the government's crisis communications messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Get your thinking caps on and make sure to check out all 5 parts of Beth's presentation. Each one contains valuable compensation insights, best practices and some fatal mistakes to avoid.
Have questions about something you've read?


The Nashville-based and Texas-born talent known as Erskin Anavitarte is an artist of many passions. He is a Singer-Songwriter, Diversity Spokesman, Adoption Advocate, and music Co-Producer.
He can captivate an audience through his energetic personality, musical artistry and lyrical truth. Whether across the country or around the world, Erskin's focus is to strengthen ministries, engage the culture and create impactful art.
With culturally relevant singles such as "Black and White" and the upcoming song "Life Matters", Erskin tackles long-standing issues of race and religion in his music. He has recently finished recording his sixth album entitled Love Moves, which upon full release will feature the songs "Grace Made the First Move" and "Only Love". Discover his music on Tidal, Spotify, iTunes, and ReverbNation.
Erskin currently resides in Nashville, TN, with his wife Kelli and their children. Their heart for orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children has led Erskin to become an advocate for the non-profit organization Holt International.
Listen to Erskin Anavitarte now.


Fresh, Well-Written and 100% Original Content Written on ASBESTOS relating to the asbestos industry we will provide title and keywords for each article once bid accepted must be SEO Friendly – Your keyword(s) will be placed in the title, first & last paragraphs and throughout the blog post in a conversational way article must be 0% plagiarism and 100% Copyscape Approved! and Unlimited Revisions - Until we Are Satisfied! Articles, when proofed by our internal team must be posted directly on our blog Articles must be Proofing read and – 0% mistakes in grammar and spelling guarantee!
Articles must contain images and be posted to WIX BLOG.
We have software to detect spun plagiarism so don't bid if that's your way of writing.


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You are delivering four hurricane prep packs to Puerto Rico
By Together Rising | September 20, 2022
Here at Together Rising, we have continued to stand with families and children in Puerto Rico since 2017—investing a total of $472,770—and will continue to stand with them now.
Hurricane Fiona's 85 MPH winds and 27 inches of rainfall has caused catastrophic damage, from mudslides to flooding to an island-wide power outage devastating more than 3 million people. So many communities have worked hard to rebuild since 2017's absolutely devastating Hurricane Maria. Some were still deep in the process. In a matter of just minutes, years and years of progress was decimated.
Urgent relief is so desperately needed right now. That's why you are investing $50,255 in our long-time partner, Direct Relief, to procure and transport four hurricane prep packs.
Image description: The graphic has a blue background with white text that reads, "We have stood with families in Puerto Rico since 2017—investing $472,770—and will continue to stand with them now. You are investing an additional $50,255 to deliver four hurricane prep packs—enough life-saving medicine and supplies for 400 patients for up to five days."
One pack contains enough medicines and supplies to treat 100 patients for up to five days, including vital antibiotics, syringes, basic first aid supplies, and medications. In addition to being both portable and waterproof, these packs were specifically designed to save as many lives as possible.
From treating basic traumas to chronic illnesses, you are delivering urgent relief to families and children devastated by Hurricane Fiona's wrath.
We are deeply grateful for TEAM LOVE, our recurring donors, whose steadfast support is what makes it possible for us to activate quickly to deploy funds to our partners on the ground.


Regular Sports Bar visits are good for your health.
Legends was recently the testing ground for some experiments on human happiness. We had the privilege of hosting a very distinguished group of scientists and their research was overwhelming.
Going to a common area to eat and watch sports promotes healthy yelling and screaming which releases endorphins.
Sports Bars have bartenders, bartenders have alcohol, alcohol daily keeps your blood thin, which is good.
When you walk from your car into the bar you burn calories you wouldn't normally burn on your couch.
Raising your arms to cheer for your team is almost a jumping jack and that is exercise, and exercise is good.
Representing your team in a public place is a show of courage (like that BYU fan who came in last week, GO UTES!).
Having someone else cook your food and make your drinks eliminates stress and helps you relax.
It is like being at the stadium except you don't have to pay for parking, or pay $6 for a small popcorn.
Watching multiple teams/sports on multiple screens helps keep you well informed and mentally sharp.
Maybe the most important of all: BEER. Many different brews, bottled, on tap, in a glass, stein, and most importantly in your belly.
Maybe you have more? Submit your ideas and if we like it we will give you a FREE starter for your trouble.


text:
Margaritifera auricularia е вид мида от семейство Margaritiferidae. Видът е критично застрашен от изчезване.

Разпространение
Разпространен е в Испания и Франция.

Регионално е изчезнал в Белгия, Великобритания, Германия, Дания, Италия, Люксембург, Нидерландия, Португалия и Чехия.

Източници

Margaritifera

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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DELUXION
ANDREA PRODUCTIONS
Deluxion acting career took off almost immediately after he began pursuing it. He started his career in the movie industry as an actor and movie director with virtually no acting experience. He made a name for himself on the TV screen acting in film Refugees "Living Victims," and directed his first short film that won 7 International film awards. He hardly had any acting gigs under his belt before finding his way to acting.
Deluxion is born in Sri Lanka, famously described by Marco Polo as one of the finest islands in the world. A degree holder is Alumnus of Skyline Aviation Academy where he acquired Aeronautical Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.) in 2011. He has proven over the years that his hunger for success is insatiable and this has positively affected his career and everyone associated with him.
Well known for his tenacity and passion for movies, photography, music, and aeronautic. He reflects a varied personality including ambition, and the qualities of generosity, unwavering determination to succeed, strong dedication to work, and his goal-oriented personality. All these qualities make him stand out amongst his peers.
Photography is the medium of choice for creative expression, Deluxion is still excited about the power and magic of photography and its ability to capture his unique selective perception of the moment in a form that he can share with others. He has credited photography with offering a positive outlet. He's photographed magazine covers and fashion shoots. Deluxion is a talented Music Artist by an incident. Talking about his passion for music, he is dabbling with the notion that if and when the music takes a more prevalent role in his life, he will likely make a song for his special one.
Deluxion first experience in designing an aircraft model came after college days, a fantastic gift recommended for anyone who is an aviation enthusiast. The success of this model and the experience garner from designing it can be said to have given Deluxion the push needed to acquired pilot license at Legacy Aviation, and as he developed a curious passion as to with regards to flying aircraft.
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Creating a generation of software engineers who master core knowledge and obtain high expertise in two majors: software technique or virtual environment and game development.
The software engineering faculty have maintained a close relationship with influential information technology domestic enterprises and foreign enterprises including Microsoft, Nokia, Fsoft, CSC, VNG, Gameloft, Infonam, Larion, ME Corp, Lac Viet, etc. As a result, students are guaranteed to work in a potential environment after graduation.
UIT game club – gameuit.com: is established at the aim of training and sharing game programming knowledge along with 2D, 3D illustration.
IT creative club – itgroup.org: is established to share new technology applied in software development.


Unidentified armed men kidnapped a US national and her driver in Queen Elizabeth National Park (Western region) on Tuesday, April 2. Officials indicate the assailants targeted a tourism group conducting a game drive on Tuesday evening (local time), abducting two of the six people in the group; the kidnappers have reportedly demanded a ransom of USD 500,000 for the American's release. Security forces have been deployed to the area to pursue the assailants, while authorities have temporarily closed all border crossings along the Uganda-DRC border.
Ugandan police acknowledged a series of kidnap incidents in 2018, including 42 such cases through mid-May. While the government hasn't published annual crime statistics in recent years, monitoring groups report Uganda experienced 24 kidnaps in 2017 and only three in 2014.
Individuals present near the Queen Elizabeth National Park area are advised to monitor developments in the situation and adhere to all instructions issued by the local authorities and their home governments.


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June 29, 2012 |By Photos by Romero & Romero
NIH Awards Grant to Research Aging-Related Disability
Shreveport – The National Institutes of Health awarded a four-year grant totaling more than $1 million to assistant professor Michael Salvatore, Ph.D., of LSU Health-Shreveport. Dr. Salvatore and his research team are testing a theory that the loss of mobility in older adults, known as aging-related Parkinsonism, which is sometimes dismissed as "old age," could be prevented or even reversed. The researchers will study how aging affects neurotransmitter dopamine and its regulating enzyme, tyrosine hydroxylase. They will also test whether exercise and calorie-restriction could change the impact of aging on these molecular targets.
Aging-related Parkinsonism, which is thus far untreatable and can include a cluster of symptoms – ranging from infirmity to the inability to move at all – is associated with a number of injuries from falls and has a major impact on those aged 65 and over.
Though the condition is similar to Parkinson's Disease, Dr. Salvatore speculates that a different area of the brain may be responsible for the problems with locomotion that are seen in Parkinsonism and that a receptor that regulates dopamine production in that area may be lost as we age. The theory will be tested by injecting a growth factor receptor into lab rats, thus replacing the protein that is lost, to see how their mobility is affected.
Ochsner Wins Gold Award for High Standards of Patient Care
New Orleans – Ochsner Medical Center – West Bank Campus was one of only five hospitals in Louisiana to receive the American Heart Association's "Get With The Guidelines" Gold Award, which recognizes success, commitment and higher standard of patient care. The "Get With The Guidelines" program is the hospital-based quality improvement program for the AHA as well as the American Stroke Association; it empowers health care provider teams to treat heart and stroke patients according to the most current guidelines. Hospitals receiving the performance awards have lower mortality rates for heart attack and heart failure patients than other hospitals. This is the third year that Ochsner – West Bank has received the award.
Expansion Underway for Primary Health Services Center
Monroe – Primary Health Services Center in Monroe has received $5 million – the most available under a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services program. The funding will help PHSC, which serves approximately 200 uninsured or poor patients each day, plan for a long-term expansion that will improve services. According to the Monroe News Star, PHSC operates dental, behavioral health, Kid-Med, pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology clinics on its campus on DeSiard Street.


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Google's Just Released The Most Minimalistic Ad Ever To Announce Its New Phone
Posted on September 22, 2016 September 22, 2016 by OfficeChai Team
Major product launches can mean big-budget video ads. There's fancy locations, big-name actors, special effects, the works. But Google's hype ad to launch its new phone is…different.
The ad begins with Google's familiar search box with its blinking cursor. Nothing happens for a bit, but then the search bar starts becoming bloated. This happens over the next 10 seconds or so, and then it hits you – it's become the shape of a phone. Nothing is said, other than a Google logo at the end.
The animation, if you can call it that, consists entirely of a rectangle turning vertical. If you turned this in for your school project, you'd be dealing with a very cross teacher. If you put this on a resume for a job in animation, you'd be laughed out of the room.
But it works. The animation might be simple, but it captures the central idea behind the phone like nothing else. The search bar is quintessentially Google. And it's turning into a phone. It's a phone with all of Google's awesomeness. It's as simple as that.
Less, sometimes, can most definitely be more.
India To Disallow Apple From Selling Refurbished iPhones In India This Is The Full Text Of The Letter IIM Ahmedabad Sent To Flipkart Tim Cook's Charm Offensive Might've Just Failed In India How A Variable Name Change Caused Myntra To Spam Thousands Of Its Users Uber Stops Its Bike Taxi Services In Bangalore The Apple CEO Is On His Maiden India Visit, And We Tell You What's Cooking The Old Meets The New: Flipkart Ties Up With Kirana Stores For Deliveries Receptionist At A UK Finance Firm Sent Home For Not Wearing Heels To Office Some Employers In The UK Provide "Paw-ternity Leave" To Pet Owners Average Mobile User Has 33 Apps On Her Phone; Uses 12 Apps Daily


House Speaker Paul Ryan says he had a good conversation with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, but he had no comment on his possible endorsement. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).
ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION) U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday said he had a good conversation with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, but he had no comment on his possible endorsement of the party's likely nominee. "We had a very good and very productive phone call," Ryan told reporters, referring to a telephone call the two men had Wednesday night.


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Perspectives, insights, and research
All	C&E Perspectives
From the Scholarly Kitchen
Consolidation in Academic Publishing Has a New Target
March 8, 2018 | By Joseph Esposito
Originally published in The Scholarly Kitchen on March 8, 2018
Companies buy other companies at the intersection of strategy and opportunity. For there to be opportunity, the first requirement is a willing seller (hostile takeovers are truly rare and not likely to occur in scholarly publishing). The second requirement is the ability to finance a transaction, which tilts the playing field to the for-profit entities, which have greater flexibility in approaching capital markets. As for strategy, it's important to recognize that companies don't acquire other companies willy-nilly: there has to be a rationale or investment thesis to explain why two entities are worth more together than they are on their own. Both strategy and opportunity have now moved into position for large scholarly and research publishers to consider acquiring college textbook publishers, which would reduce the number of publishers overall and result in much greater industry consolidation. The investment thesis centers on the "inclusive access" business model for textbooks and the place libraries are likely to play in facilitating the advance of that model.
Let's examine the players as they walk onto the field. On the acquiring side we have the large entities that are the focus of so much attention here on the Scholarly Kitchen: Elsevier, Springer Nature, and their ilk. The targets are the Big Five of the textbook world: Pearson, McGraw-Hill Education, et al.
Scholarly/research Publishers College Textbook Publishers
Elsevier Pearson
Springer Nature McGraw-Hill Education
Informa/Taylor & Francis Cengage
SAGE Macmillan Publishers
You can pad out the list of research publishers a bit — add Wolters Kluwer, for example, which is no stranger to mergers and acquisitions — but it would be a stretch because the strategic rationale is not in place, and you could even consider putting Oxford University Press and the American Chemical Society on the list, giving us some not-for-profit participants. But OUP, which is a billion-dollar company, is not structured to do mega-deals, and ACS would have to think hard about leveraging its balance sheet to swallow even the smallest of the college players (Macmillan). There is little room to add names on the textbook side, as the five listed here overwhelmingly dominate the U.S. market, with perhaps 85% of new book sales among them. It is noteworthy that only Wiley appears in both columns, which will invite bankers to pitch the company with a Hollywood-worthy PowerPoint deck, arguing in the morning that it should be a buyer, and in the evening that it should be a seller.
The investment thesis arises from the emergence of inclusive access (which I wrote about here) and the horizontal strategy, as my colleague Michael Clarke terms it, of the large research publishers. In inclusive access institutions take on some of the responsibility for provisioning textbooks for students, and the management of these arrangements increasingly lies with the library. This makes textbooks a new product category — in addition to journals, books, and databases — for publishers that mostly service libraries. In the horizontal strategy, which can only be played by the very largest publishers, the aim is to increase market share with libraries, to the detriment of the many smaller publishers who fight, with diminishing effect, for libraries' attention. For Elsevier to acquire Cengage or McGraw-Hill, the rationale would simply be that this would further increase Elsevier's leverage with libraries. And this in turn would lead small college publishers, just like small journal publishers before them, to seek the embrace of a major publisher, in order to maintain access to the marketplace.
If the name of the game is to have a dominant market share in academic libraries, why don't the major STM publishers simply acquire more commercial journal publishers? They would if they could. The fact is that there are not many publishers left to buy; they have all pretty much been gobbled up already. The major publishers would also like to acquire the programs of society publishers, but for a number of reasons (which may be the subject of another post), societies resist the outright sale of their publications, choosing to license rights to a major partner for a limited period of time (typically 5-7 years) instead.
This is part of the reason that over the last few years mergers and acquisitions activity has moved from making deals for publishers to making deals for workflow and tools providers — because of the availability of commercial properties in this area (e.g., BEPress, Mendeley, colwiz, SSRN). Another rationale for these deals is that these workflow acquisitions typically open up a new revenue stream that does not derive from a library's materials budget, thereby enabling growth in the academic sector without further straining library budgets. With inclusive access of college textbooks, research publishers add revenue that does not come out of the library's budget (typically students pay for the texts when they sign up for a course), but is managed by the library: a perfect set of conditions for consolidation, market dominance, and eventual creeping price increases.
If one deal of this kind were to be consummated, we may see a domino effect. If Wiley moves first, Elsevier and Springer Nature may feel pressure (from Wall Street, if not from their own strategic outlook) to move in this direction, too. Whether a transaction of this kind will pay off is unknown, but the pressure to grow in a mature market makes management teams court big risks. There is, of course, nothing to stop the large college publishers from playing the role of the acquirer — some of these companies are very large — though the strategic reason for such a deal may not yet have arisen for them.
Of course, as big as a deal between, say, Taylor & Francis and Cengage may seem to those of us who toil in the tiny market for scholarly publishing, the upper bound of a deal, or a series of deals, could change drastically if a new category of buyer gets interested in this market. What if Microsoft decides to build out its Microsoft Academic experiment by acquiring T&F on Monday, Wiley on Tuesday, and Springer Nature on Wednesday? That's lunch money for Microsoft. Or if IBM's Watson develops an appetite for primary research? Down the hatch goes Elsevier's unparalleled collection of full-text scientific articles. Heck, Watson is so smart that it could do the deal itself, without the help of bankers or even the approval of the IBM management. We should not assume that the scholarly publishing market as constituted today will be with us forever.
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Joe Esposito is Senior Partner at Clarke & Esposito where he specializes in strategy in the areas of digital media, publishing, and education technology. Joe has previously served as the CEO of three companies—Encyclopaedia Britannica, Tribal Voice, and SRI Consulting See Full Bio
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South Bend, Indiana – Febuary 1, 2019. Industry-leading MES seamlessly integrates with existing OT/IT systems for optimal agility and analytics. Learn More *Full article published by Plastics Machinery Magazine.
Plastic Machinery Magazine has published an article that lists and describes the versatile features of PlantStar. Learn how our system is improving manufacturing quality and cost management. Learn more.


A Spoonful of Spectacular Magic: This week, Team Mousetalgia report on everything Mary Poppins from two events at the Walt Disney Family Museum. At the first event, songwriter Richard Sherman performed his famous songs from the hit film, and told stories about working directly with Walt Disney on the production of the film – and the following week, designer Tony Walton talked about his set and costume designs for the film, and what it was like working with Julie Andrews – who also happened to be his wife. Also, the team talks Poppins in the Park… and more!


* Gordon Corera. Shopping for Bombs. In Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and Rise and Fall of the A.Q. Khan Network. Oxford University Press, 2006. pp. 241-251.
* Global Trends and the International Non-Proliferation Regime. In Joseph Cirincione, Jon Wolfsthal, Miriam Rajkumar (eds.) Deadly Arsenals: Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002.
* Vladimir Orlov. A Labyrinth with no Walls. Russia in Global Affairs. March, 25, 2013.
* White Paper "Ten Steps Toward a Weapon of Mass Destruction-Free Zone in the Middle East". PIR Center, 2013.
* White Paper: "Towards Nuclear Disarmament: NPT Article VI and Implementation of the 2010 Review Conference Decisions". PIR Center, 2014.
* Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report. U.S. Department of Defense, February 2010.
* Vladimir Dvorkin, Alexei Arbatov. Missile Defense: Confrontation and Cooperation. Carnegie Endowment for International Piece. Moscow, 2013.
* David Hoffman. The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy. Anchor, 2010.
* Anatoly Antonov. Long-Range Precision-Guided Conventional Weapons: Implications for Arms Control and Strategic Stability. Speech at the joint meeting of members of the Centre russe d'etudes politiques and the Trialogue Club International. April 21, 2013.
* Andrei Zagorski. Conventional Arms Control in Europe: is there a Way Out of the Stalemate? Russia: Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security. IMEMO Supplement to the Russian Edition of the SIPRI Yearbook 2012. 164-174 pp.
* African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty [Treaty of Pelindaba]. Opened for signature on 11 April 1996.
* Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone [Treaty of Semipalatinsk]. Opened for signature on 8 September 2006.
* South-Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone. Opened for signature on 6 August 1985.
* Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone [Treaty of Bangkok]. Opened for signature on 15 December 1995.
* Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America [Treaty of Tlatelolco]. Opened for signature on 14 February 1967.
* Nuclear Tipping Point: Documentary Film. Nuclear Security Project, 2010.
* Alexei Obukhov. Nuclear Weapons and Christian Ethics. Security Index (International Edition) No. 2 (82), Fall 2007.
* Roland Timerbaev. Nuclear-Weapon-Free-World: Ways of Moving Ahead. Security Index (International Edition) No. 2 (87), Spring 2009.


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"The Put it in the Books Show" presents #MetsCrushMonday: Cory Oswalt
Gem Tablak March 18, 2019 March 18, 2019 #MetsCrushMonday, Mets 2019
Oswalt, by no means should be unfamiliar to the fan that stuck it through a difficult 2018 season. The San Diego native was drafted by the New York Mets in the seventh round of the 2012 June Amateur Draft. The righty is a sinker ball pitcher with a fastball that tops out at 94 MPH and has a slider and change-up that needs more work.
Oswalt spent seven seasons in the Mets Minor League organization, pitching exactly 500.0 innings with a 3.64 ERA while striking out 431 batters or 7.9 and walking 2.2 every nine innings. His Minor League record is also quite an impressive one, he went 41-22 over his seven seasons riding the busses.
Oswalt made 12 starts for the Mets during the 2018 season, debuting on April 25th, and I think 99% of the fans would agree when I say Oswalt was rushed to the Major's and was put in a very pressure filled situation. One could say, "well, seven years of MiLB time is enough time to prep". Well, for a lot of players, it is, but there's also just as many players down there that need to hone their skills until they feel it's been perfected, pitchers especially. Oswalt clearly is the latter, to where he just needed some more time to work on his pitches.
In 64.2 innings, he went 3-3 with a 5.85 ERA while giving up 69 hits and 42 earned runs, striking out 45. However, this spring, Oswalt reported to camp in what seemed to be better shape than he was in during the last season.
Maybe it's because he looks and feels betters, maybe he's just determined to prove that 2018 was a fluke that he deserves consideration to be apart of the best rotation in Major League Baseball. However, it's transitioning itself into his play his Spring. He's only pitched 5.1 innings but he's struck out seven and he's keeping runners off the bags with a .075 in his three games pitched.
The 6″5′ righty is fighting for a spot in the bullpen to where he would primarily pitch in long relief or jump in for one of the regular 5 starters in short notice for a spot start, for whatever the reason may be. Like I said about Bashlor last week, I think we'll be seeing quite a bit of Oswalt during the season but it would be a great, great thing if we didn't.
#MetsCrushMonday, Cory Oswalt, LGM, Mets, MLB, New York Mets
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About Sentia
William Wheelan - CEO/Founder
William is a native New Yorker and a graduate of Regis High School. He holds a B.S. in Theater and a B.A. in Comparative Literary Studies from Northwestern University and a certificate in College Counseling from UCLA Extension. His career as a tutor spans over a decade and includes in-depth preparation for not only the SAT but also the SSAT, ISEE, ACT, LSAT, and GRE.
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Karen has been working with students and families in New York and Boston for almost ten years to develop plans for success on the SSAT, ISEE, ACT, SAT, SATII Subject Test, GRE, GMAT and LSAT as well as in academic subject areas. In addition to sharing her test content expertise, Karen also prepares students for campus visits and interviews.
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Loach (pictured, foreground) doesn't need fantastic sound tracks or the latest and greatest special effects to make a thoroughly enjoyable film, nor indeed does he need to put the biggest movie stars in all his roles. That could distract from what he is trying to do, which is tell the stories, not of the great movers and shakers of the world or the great events, but of the salt-of-the-earth common man raging against a machine that is often impossible to beat, and struggling to do so in obscurity.
It's not surprising that Loach has used Irish themes in two of his films over the past nine years, for who has a longer history of raging against the machine of nearly invincible colonialism and injustice than the Irish. In this case, the one doing the raging is Jimmy Gralton, born and raised in a small village in County Leitrim, and returning in 1932 after 10 years in New York, having being driven out during the aftermath of the Irish War of Independence.
Much of Gralton's trouble had centered around the community hall he built on his parents' land, Pearse-Connolly Hall, and his leadership of local land agitation in support of evicted tenant farmers. In June 1922, with Irish Provisional Government forces attempting to arrest him, he fled to New York. He returned when his brother died and his mother needed him, mistakenly thinking that with Eamon de Valera having gained power, things there would be better.
Gralton's just an ordinary man, punching above his weight in taking on the Catholic establishment and its soon-to-be established "special position" in de Valera's socially conservative government, and he knows it. But in doing that, he's following in a long Irish tradition going back to the leaders of the United Irishmen, the Young Irelanders, the Fenians, and those who went out during the Easter Rising.
For those who know the early history of the labor movement in the United States, Gralton is also a fine example of the socially progressive archetype found among Irish-Americans. The Irish were in the forefront of the fight for working people in the United States, exemplified by the likes of Terence Vincent Powderly, son of Irish immigrants and one of the leaders of the 19th century Knights of Labor; the tiny dynamo from Cork, labor leader Mary Harris "Mother" Jones; Peter Maguire, a first-generation Irish-American who co-founded the American Federation of Labor; and Kerry-born Mike Quill, a veteran of the Irish War of Independence and a founder of the Transit Workers Union in New York City in 1934. These people, like Gralton, could not watch the powerful take advantage of the weak and not take action.
Gralton resists the urge to fight back against power of the Church and state at first, hoping to just be a farmer on his mother's land, but his principles eventually have him acceding to local pressure to reopen the hall, especially from the younger people in the area. Soon, in addition to the "sin" of teaching locals about jazz and "indecent" dances from America in his hall, he's also involved again in advocating for dispossessed tenant farming. The church, local land owners and the government were not pleased.
When the local priest, Father Sheridan, begins to rail against him from the pulpit and attempts to pressure people to stay away from his hall, Gralton confronts him face to face in an attempt to find a compromise. But the priest knows that he has no need to compromise, and Jimmy knows it, too. On one side was all the power of the Church and the government, and on the other was just one man, who had nothing but the absolute moral belief that he is right. "I will come along and listen to you and your trustees," says the priest, "once you have brought me the title deeds to the hall, and have them transferred over to Holy Mother Church." Gralton then knows there is no hope of compromise. "You do listen," he says,"but only when we're on our knees."
It put me in mind of the words of Church reformer Martin Luther, hundreds of years before in his own confrontation with the same institution: "Here I stand; I can do no other." Gralton can "do no other" than to continue the fight until he is ultimately beaten by the overwhelming power of Church and state.
And in this he finally gets the grudging respect of even his priestly nemesis, who tells his taunting enemies to be quiet as Gralton is being taken away by the Garda. "Show the man some respect! He has more courage and decency than all of you put together," Father Sheridan tells them.


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Two more books by Sanders
FORTHCOMING FROM FORTRESS PRESS:
Comparing Judaism and Christianity: Common Judaism, Paul, and the Inner and the Outer in Ancient Religion Paperback – July 1, 2016
by E. P. Sanders (Author)
Few scholars have so shaped the contemporary debate on the relation of early Christianity to early Judaism as E. P. Sanders, and no one has produced a clearer or more distinctive vision of that relationship" as it was expressed in the figures of Jesus of Nazareth and Paul the apostle. Gathered for the first time within one cover, here Sanders presents formative essays that show the structure of his approach and the insights it produces into Paul's relationship to Judaism and the Jewish law. Sanders addresses matters of definition ("common Judaism," "covenantal nomism"), diversity (the Judaism of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Diaspora), and key exegetical and historical questions relative to Jesus, Paul, and Christian origins in relationship to early Judaism. These essays show a leading scholar at his most erudite as he carries forward and elaborates many of the insights that have become touchstones in New Testament interpretation.
I noted this one here as forthcoming on 1 March, but it seems to be running a little late.
The following was originally published in 1992. This is a paperback version.
Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63BCE-66 CE Paperback – May 1, 2016
In this now-classic work, E. P. Sanders argued against prevailing views regarding the Judaism of the Second Temple period, for example, that the Pharisees dominated Jewish Palestine or that the Mishnah offers a description of general practice. In contrast, Sanders carefully shows that what was important was the "common Judaism" of the people with their observances of regular practices and the beliefs that informed them. Sanders discusses early rabbinic legal material not as rules, but as debates within the context of real life. He sets Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes in relation to the Judaism of ordinary priests and people. Here then is a remarkably comprehensive presentation of Judaism as a functioning religion: the temple and its routine and festivals; questions of purity, sacrifices, tithes, and taxes; common theology and hopes for the future; and descriptions of the various parties and groups culminating in an examination of the question "who ran what?" Sanders offers a detailed, clear, and well-argued account of all aspects of Jewish religion of the time.
Both seen on Facebook. Another recent book by Sanders was noted here.
"The Canaanites who loved Pharaoh" at the Israel Museum
CANAANITE WATCH: The Canaanites who loved Pharaoh, on display at the Israel Museum. Jerusalem's latest grand-scale exhibit reveals an unlikely, world-changing exchange of rituals and objects in ancient times (Jessica Steinberg, Times of Israel).
It was Sunday morning, day two of "Pharaoh in Canaan: The Untold Story," the latest grand-scale exhibit at the Israel Museum, and it was busy in the galleries of the exhibit.
Groups of visitors sat on their portable folding chairs listening to museum guides in the far corners of each gallery, or walked around clutching audioguides, gleaning information about the exhibit, which explores the cross-cultural exchange that took place between Egypt and Canaan during the second millennium BCE.
There's a lot to learn.
While there is an overwhelming sense that the Egyptians were superior to the Canaanites in their use of better materials and finer artisan work, the Canaanites appeared to appreciate it all, showing that in their rougher copies — whether in the statues, coffins or crude pottery — or in the efforts they made to import Egyptian goods to their own shores.
The exhibition is mostly of artifacts, but epigraphy is not entirely neglected:
The end of the exhibit brings another video, this one about the alphabet, the most enduring contribution of the Canaanites, as their hieroglypic drawings, called the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, became the basis of today's alphabet.
A lasting contribution to society? Clearly. Perhaps even more than the Egyptians.
The Canaanite alphabet
PHOENICIAN WATCH: UW Religion Today: The Alphabet: The Heritage of the Canaanites (By Paul V.M. Flesher).
When Christians think about the Canaanites, it is usually to recall their supposed disappearance after the Israelites conquered their land in the 13th century B.C. The Canaanites were supposedly one of the many small peoples of the Mediterranean world who vanished without a trace during the great movements of peoples at this time.
There are two things wrong with this picture. First, the Canaanites did not disappear, but instead became one of the dominant nations of the time. Second, they amalgamated into the Roman Empire many centuries later and left a legacy that remains with us today: namely, the alphabet.
It's important to know these things.
Coinage of the Phoenicians
PHOENICIAN WATCH: CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series – Coinage of the Phoenicians.
A SEMITIC PEOPLE, the Phoenicians developed remarkable proficiency in shipbuilding, seafaring and trade, as the prophet Ezekiel (lived c. 622 – 570 BCE) observed[1]. Phoenicians invented the alphabet[2], which their Greek neighbors and trading partners adopted and transmitted to us. In turn, they acquired the idea of coinage from the Greeks, and the coins of the half-dozen Phoenician city-states give us a window into their history and beliefs.
With video. And with a number of biblical connections proposed.
Judaeo-Provençal
THE UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS LIBRARY, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS: Translation of the liturgy into Judaeo-Provengal [Provençal] (i. e. Provengal in Hebrew characters). At the end, there is a register of the Montel family, 1587-1614. 14th century manuscript.
Because Judaeo-Provençal is a thing. Apparently.
Seen on Facebook. For some similarly exotic Judeo/Judaeo-thises and thats etc., see here, here, here, here, here, and here, and links
Was Jesus really nailed to the cross?
EASTER IS COMING: Was Jesus really nailed to the cross? (Meredith J. Warren, The Conversation). The Gospel of John (20:25) is the earliest source to assert this explicitly, although (not noted in the article) Luke 24:39-40 (40 may be secondary) imply there was something notable about the resurrected Jesus' hands and feet, presumably nail scars. But these sources were written long after the event and we don't know what actually happened.
Some past posts dealing with the macabre structural mechanics of crucifixion by nailing are here, here, here, here, here, and here.
"Ben Hur" the new movie
CINEMA: The official trailer for the new Ben Hur movie is now out:
Background on the new production is here and links.
"Ben Hur" score
ORCHESTRA AND CINEMA: Police drummer Stewart Copeland revives 1925 'Ben-Hur' with a 'big ass orchestra' (John Horn and Robert Garrova, The Frame - 89.3 KPCC).
While Stewart Copeland may be best known as the guy playing percussion behind Sting in The Police, his music talents go far beyond the eighties supergroup. For his latest project he dug the 1925 silent film "Ben-Hur" out of cold storage at Warner Bros. so he could compose music to it. Copeland performs his score live with a huge orchestra while the movie screens behind the musicians.
The multi-instrumentalist recently performed the score live with the Pacific Symphony at the Valley Performing Arts Center in Northridge in a KPCC In Person event that's part of the downSTAGE series.*
The Frame's John Horn spoke with Copeland at the event. The conversation began with Copeland explaining that the origin of this idea didn't include the movie at all. He was hired to write the music for a "Ben-Hur" arena show with actors, horses, chariots...the works.
There is a brief video excerpt of the performance in the article (YouTube link here).
Background on the 2009 live O2 arena show (in Aramaic and Latin) is here, here, here, here, here, and here. I'm not sure I even knew that there was a 1925 silent Ben Hur movie.
Metatron Monarch Medallion
ARCHANGEL METATRON WATCH: 'La Femme': Sprawling exhibition captures diversity, talent of women artists (JOHN D'ADDARIO, New Orleans Advocate).
If you're looking for a definitive statement on what it means to be a female artist in New Orleans in 2016, "La Femme" won't be the place to find it.
But this sprawling exhibition at the New Orleans Arts Center on St. Claude Avenue in the Bywater offers so many engaging examples of art by women in and around the city that such statements are beside the point.
Curated by New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation Executive Director Don Marshall, "La Femme" includes work by more than 120 artists, each of whom is represented by between one and four works in the show. You don't have to do much math to realize there's a lot to take in.
Among the 120 are "Muffin Bernstein's hypnotic butterfly mandalas." It happens that one of her mandalas is the first item featured in the article's slide show, with the caption "Muffin Bernstein, "Metatron Monarch Medallion" (photo credit, John D'Addario):
This appears to be a two-dimensional projection of a Metatron's Cube (on which more here and here) made of monarch butterflies, which is something different. I lived in New Orleans for three years and learned that it has a very active and talented artistic community who put on great shows and exhibitions.
Two hidden chambers in Tut's tomb?
TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Scans of King Tut's Tomb Reveal Evidence of Hidden Chambers. Excited by the new find, Egyptologists say they may have finally found the remains of famed Queen Nefertiti; 'it could be the discovery of the century' (Brian Rohan Mar/AP). Mamdouh el-Damaty, the Egyptian antiquities minister, continues to promote the possibility that there are hidden chambers in the tomb of King Tutankhamun. At the end of November, in a story I missed, it was reported that scans made by a Japanese team seemed to indicate this ("90%") and that they were being subjected to further analysis. That said, Minister of State for Antiquities Zahi Hawass was very skeptical. It seems that the analysis has come back, and it reportedly indicates that there are two hidden chambers in the tomb and that they may contain metal and organic material.
This is potentially exciting, but I want to see the results published in a peer-review journal before I take it too seriously. As I said a few posts back on this story: "I am unqualified to evaluate the usefulness of the various technologies currently being applied to the question of hidden chambers in Tut's tomb, and I have no opinion about the question. Time and further testing will tell. I am following the reports to highlight that we're not at the point where technology allows us to have the conversation at all."
Background here and links.
Fischer on textual criticism and computers in 1970
ETC: Fischer's Prescience in 1970 on the Use of Computers for Textual Criticism (Peter Gurry).
Still more on the two new inscribed seals from Jerusalem
EPIGRAPHY AND PHILOLOGY: Iron Age Seals from Jerusalem (RT, Religion and Literature of Ancient Palestine). A philological commentary on the two recently discovered Hebrew seals. Background here and links.
Anton, Fifty Shades of Talmud
OKAY, I GUESS SOMEONE HAD TO DO THIS: Sex in the Talmud uncovered in different 'Shades' (Jonathan Kirsch, Jewish Journal).
In "Fifty Shades of Talmud: What the First Rabbis Had to Say About You-Know-What" (Banot Press), Anton draws on her own deep knowledge of Jewish history and writing, as well as her sly sense of humor, to open our eyes to "texts that sound more like they belong in a locker room than in a seminary." The irony that suffuses her book is spoken aloud: "[A]ccording to the Torah … a Jewish man is both obligated to have sex, under certain circumstances, and forbidden to have sex, under other circumstances," she explains. "This means the talmudic rabbis had to use their prodigious intellects to determine those precise circumstances — how, when, where, with whom?"
Of course, this is hardly the first time that Anton has pushed the envelope on matters of gender in Jewish tradition. She is beloved by her many readers for the award-winning novels in the "Rashi's Daughters" trilogy and, more recently, the "Rav Hisda's Daughter" series, both of which extract the mostly hidden female offspring of ancient Jewish sages from obscurity and bring them fully and dramatically to life on the printed page.
And given that someone had to do it, I guess I'm glad it's Maggie Anton and not someone else. I have been following stories on her novels for the last decade, and she does seem to have made it her business to become well informed on such matters. For past posts on her novels, see here and follow the links. For more on the Hebrew words for penis and vagina (the question of which, not surprisingly, come up in this review), follow the links.
Why circumcision?
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Do Jews Circumcise Their Sons? In First Temple times, almost all the region's peoples were circumcised, which indicates that the roots of the practice lie deep in prehistory (Elon Gilad, Haaretz). The article concludes:
Looking further into the past
So it seems that Jews circumcise their sons because their ancient Semitic forebears did, but why did they start circumcising in the first place? These ancient Semitic people didn't write, so we can't know what they were thinking, but we can speculate.
Since circumcision was carried out on the sexual organ, and probably at puberty, we can assume they thought it would improve fecundity.
Indeed, fertility is exactly what is promised Abraham by God in return for circumcision.
But where would these ancient Semitic people get the idea that cutting their foreskin off would improve fertility?
The answer may be from their farming habits. Archaeological evidence shows that the farming of grapevines and olive trees was spreading through the region during this period. These plants require regular pruning to increase yields. Maybe some ancient Semitic sage came up with the idea that if pruning vines increases yields, why not prune penises too?
In fact, there is evidence in the Bible that the ancient Hebrews tied circumcision to pruning "And when ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall count the fruit thereof as uncircumcised [literally: ye shall foreskin their foreskins]: three years shall it be as uncircumcised [literally: foreskins] unto you: it shall not be eaten of" (Leviticus 19:23).
If this is all true, Jews circumcise their sons because an ancient tribe converted an agricultural innovation into a questionable method to increase male fertility, and later a small group of their descendants bestowed this practice with a national meaning, which endures to this day.
Interesting article that is rife with speculation, but within a plausible range. One detail: in linguistic terms, Arabic is a South Semitic language, different from both East Semitic (Akkadian) and West Semitic (Hebrew, Aramaic, and related). Ethiopic is also South Semitic, as is Old South Arabian. The isogloss that separates out South Semitic is the "broken plural" (or "pattern replacement") of the noun.
On the (probably fake) Maadana seal etc.
EPIGRAPHY AND POLITICS: The Trouble With the Maadana. Could an Israeli national symbol be a fake? (Daniel Estrin, The New Republic).
One July day in 1993, a senior curator at Israel's national museum in Jerusalem approached a glass display case accompanied by a security guard. It was off-hours, and the museum was empty. On a little stand inside the vitrine was a tiny object bathed in light: a brownish, scarab-shaped stone about the size of a fingernail. If you bent down in front of it and squinted, you could make out an exquisite drawing of a twelve-stringed lyre, carved into the stone. Underneath the lyre, a two-line inscription in ancient Hebrew read: "Belonging to Maadana, daughter of the king."
The artifact was identified as the signet of a princess from the biblical Kingdom of Judah, and it was dated to the seventh century B.C.E., when the Jewish First Temple is believed to have stood in Jerusalem. Her identity was a mystery; there is no mention of her in the Bible, and the seal does not name her royal father. Hundreds of ancient Hebrew seals have been unearthed in Israel since the nineteenth century. They are carved oval stones, sometimes as small as pebbles, which their owners would wear as amulets or stamp into small pieces of clay, leaving an imprint that would seal a document. To find an inscribed Hebrew seal or a seal impression, called a bulla, was to come face to face with an autograph of someone who lived in ancient Judah. Some of these seals and bullae even bore the names of people mentioned in the Bible—mostly marginal characters like Shevanyahu and Yaazanyahu, but also more prominent ones, like Berekhyahu, son of Neriyahu, the scribe of the prophet Jeremiah.
The seal remained on display for 13 years, until that day in 1993, when the security guard unlocked the glass case and the curator pinched the seal between her gloved fingers and dropped it into a small container the size of a ring box. She also removed the enlarged diagram of the seal propped up in the display case. The guard accompanied the curator down to the museum's basement storage facility, where she pulled open the glass doors of a tall wooden cabinet and placed the Maadana inside.
It was done quietly. The curator made no note of it on the seal's registry card, the little index card that logged its display history. No announcement was made. It never went back on exhibit at the museum. It was removed amid allegations that the Seal of Maadana was a fake.
The issue of the Maadana seal, which is widely accepted to be a fake, is really just the opener for a long and rambling, but interesting, article on the Israeli antiquities market, the problem of forged epigraphic antiquities, and the Israel Forgery Trial. In the mid-1980s, the Maadana seal was used as the template for a Israeli half-skekel coin that is still in circulation. Whether that makes the image on the seal "an Israeli national symbol" is, I suppose, a matter of opinion. As Joseph Lauer commented in his e-mail on the article, it's not as if it's the menorah or the Star of David.
Background on the Israel Forgery Trial is here and links. And for more on forgeries of Hebrew seals and inscriptions, see here and links.
60th anniversary of "The Ten Commandments"
CLASSIC CINEMA: DeMille's 'The Ten Commandments' still the Biblical epic master class (Jim Dixon, Examiner.com).
Fathom Events, Turner Classic Movies and Paramount Pictures invite you to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Cecil B. DeMille's epic film The Ten Commandments (1956) when it returns to select cinemas nationwide for a special two-day event on Sunday, March 20th and Wednesday, March 23rd.
The script, by Æneas MacKenzie, Jesse L. Lasky, Jr., Jack Gariss, and Frederic M. Frank, was based partly on The Bible, but filled in the blanks in Moses' life by incorporating material from several books, as well as the works of the ancient historians Philo of Alexandria, Josephus and Eusebius. The results were a speculative but compelling drama about two young men, Rameses (Yul Brynner) and Moses (Heston), raised together in the royal household, at odds over the princess Nefretiri (Anne Baxter), a ward of the Pharaoh Seti who must marry his successor. The movie opens, however, with a rapid succession of scenes adapted fairly literally from the Biblical Book of Exodus, with the infant Moses (played by Charlton Heston's newborn son Fraser) being placed in a basket to float down the Nile, in attempt to avoid an infanticide holocaust by the reigning pharaoh who fears the birth of a messianic leader from among the Hebrew slaves and being discovered, and raised, by a daughter of pharaoh.
The Bible does not enlighten us on how Moses discovered his true ancestry, but in the hands of DeMille's writers it's the stuff of great soap opera. Nefretiri, who's head-over-heels for Moses, murders an old family retainer (Dame Judith Anderson) who knows the truth and is going to spill the beans when it looks like Moses is going to ascend to the throne, and then spills her guts to Moses. Exodus records that the adult Moses eventually kills an Egyptian slave master who was smiting a Hebrew, and that's pretty much the case in the movie. He then saves the life of stonecutter Joshua (John Derek) from the whip of vengeful Master Builder Baka (Vincent Price), killing Baka in the process. In the Bible, Moses flees Egypt. In "The Commandments," he's banished. In both, he later encounters a burning bush through which he hears the voice of God, ordering him to return to Egypt to demand freedom for the slaves.
Charlton Heston may be the only actor who's had to play a character who unexpectedly finds himself face-to-face with God in two separate movies: as the title character in "Ben-Hur," being force-marched to a living death as a galley slave, Heston is given water by Jesus Christ, whose face is never seen by the audience. He plays it pretty much the same in both films: an appropriate mixture of awe and incomprehension.
The same director had released an earlier film with the same title in 1923, but in this case the remake was far better than the original. They knew how to make 'em back in those days.
Past posts on the 1956 movie are here, here, and here.
Indiana Jones hobbles back
OH JUST HANG IT UP: Spielberg, Ford to reunite for fifth 'Indiana Jones.' Film to be released in July 2019; 73-year-old actor set to reprise iconic role as adventure-seeking archaeologist ("Agencies"/Times of Israel).
Much as I loved the first three Indiana Jones movies, especially the first, the fourth was a travesty and I just try to forget it exists. The franchise is exhausted and so is Mr. Ford. Let it go! Hollywood seems almost entirely to have lost the ability to produce anything new and creative and instead keeps serving up increasing ill-advised warmed-over remakes and geriatric sequels. Bah!
Russian airstrikes near Palmyra
PALMYRA WATCH: Russian airstrikes near Palmyra as Syrian troops advance. Watchdog group says Islamic State positions near ancient city bombarded to help latest Assad regime offensive (AFP). So this is one place to which that Russian pullout does not extend. As far as I have been able to find, Russian airstrikes were last active in the area in early November of 2015.
Background on the whole sad story of Palmyra is here with many links.
Jerusalem syndrome in Zedekiah's Cave?
OH DEAR: US 'treasure hunter' arrested in Jerusalem cave. Tourist apparently suffering 'Jerusalem syndrome' found after illegally spending a night in Zedekiah's Cave to dig for ancient treasure (Arutz Sheva).
A US tourist has been arrested after spending a night in a cave below Jerusalem's Old City in what may have been a search for ancient buried treasure, police and media reports said Tuesday.
The tourist was found on Friday after spending the night in Zedekiah's Cave, also known as Solomon's Quarries, a 20,000-square-meter area beneath what has come to be known as the Muslim quarter of the Old City.
There is a cycle of legends around Zedekiah's Cave, and some involve treasure. This is not the first time, even in recent history, that someone has gone poking around there looking for treasure. But, people, don't do that! It's just a story.
More on "Jerusalem syndrome" is here and links. Background on Zedekiah's Cave is here, here, and here. Zedekiah is also associated with the hiding of Temple treasures in The Treatise of the Vessels but, although this text refers to "the Spring of Zedekiah" as a hiding place (IX), it does not mention Zedekiah's Cave.
Christians and Jews in pre-Islamic Arabia
EPIGRAPHY: Before Islam: When Saudi Arabia Was a Jewish Kingdom. The discovery of the oldest-known pre-Islamic Arabic writing in Saudi Arabia, from ca. 470 CE, evidently caused some consternation, given its Christian and Jewish context (Ariel David, Haaretz).
This is a long and interesting article that is hard to excerpt. In brief: some recently discovered Arabic lapidary inscriptions at Bir Hima in Saudi Arabia, written in the old Nabataean (Nabatean) script, date themselves to c. 470 CE and mention a number of names. The iconography of the inscriptions is explicitly Christian. It is possible that the named people were martyrs, killed in a persecution by the Jewish Himyarite kingdom based in Yemen, a persecution we know of from other sources. This kingdom fell to Christian invaders from Aksum in Ethiopia in 500 CE. There was a Himyarite revolt in 522 led by a man named Joseph (Yusuf) and there is reference to him in another new inscription. A Yemenite Jewish community, arguably descended from the Himyarite kingdom, were transported to Israel in 1949-1950 in Operation Magic Carpet.
Now a few excerpts:
In 2014, researchers from a French-Saudi expedition studying rock inscriptions in southern Saudi Arabia announced they had discovered what could be the oldest texts written in the Arabic alphabet. But they did so very quietly, perhaps because the context of the texts is something of an embarrassment to some.
The dozen or so engravings had been carved into the soft sandstone of the mountain passes around Bir Hima – a site about 100 kilometers north of the city of Najran, which over millennia has been plastered with thousands of inscriptions by passing travelers and officials. Conveniently, at least two of the early Arabic petroglyphs that were discovered cited dates in an ancient calendar, and expert epigraphists quickly calculated that the oldest one corresponded to the year 469 or 470 CE.
The discovery was sensational: the earliest ancient inscriptions using this pre-Islamic stage of Arabic script had been dated at least half a century later, and had all been found in Syria, which had suggested that the alphabet used to write the Koran had been developed far from the birthplace of Islam and its prophet.
According to the report, the Arabic text, scrawled on a large rectangular stone, is simply of a name, "Thawban (son of) Malik," followed by the date.
Underwhelming? Well, there is the matter of the large, unmistakably Christian cross that decorates the head of this inscription. The same cross systematically appears on the other similar stelae dating more or less to the same period.
According to Christian chroniclers, around 470 (the date of the Thawban inscription), the Christians of the nearby city of Najran suffered a wave of persecution by the Himyarites. The French experts suspect that Thawban and his fellow Christians may have been martyred. The choice of the early Arabic script to commemorate them would have been, in itself, a powerful symbol of defiance.
This pre-Islamic alphabet is also called Nabatean Arabic, because it evolved from the script used by the Nabateans, the once-powerful nation that built Petra and dominated the trade routes in the southern Levant and northern Arabia before being annexed by the Romans in the early 2nd century. Used at the gates of Yemen, this northern alphabet would have stood in sharp contrast to the inscriptions left by Himyarite rulers in their native Sabaean.
"The adoption of a new writing signaled a distancing from Himyar and a reconciliation with the rest of the Arabs," the French researchers write in their report. "The inscriptions of Hima reveal a strong movement of cultural unification of the Arabs, from the Euphrates to Najran, which manifested itself by the use of the same writing."
The Jewish and Christian background to the rise of Islam is a cutting edge area of research that is being followed up, for example, by the Enoch Seminar. Some other recent relevant posts are here, here, here, and here.
There's more on the Nabataean script (ancestral to the Qur'anic Arabic script) here. More on the Himyarite kingdom and its conflict with Axum is here. There are many past posts on the ancient kingdom of Axum and the city's more recent history. See here, here, here, here, and links. The kingdom of Sheba and the legendary Queen of Sheba are also mentioned in the article. See some of those posts just cited in the last sentence, as well as here and links for background.
Vamosh, The Scroll
A NEW NOVEL: [BLOG] The Scroll: A Masada Survivor's Fate Told through a Real Archaeological Find (Miriam Feinberg Vamosh, Breaking Israel News).
The premise of this novel involves the fusion of two first-century Jewish texts via a Talmudic passage. It's a creative mixture that shouldn't be taken too seriously, but it sounds like a promising basis for a good story.
Daf Yomi: the next tractate
MICHAEL SATLOW: A Detached Kiddushin. The historical context within which to read the Talmudic discussions of kiddushin. (TheGemara.com).
Abstract: In antiquity, marriage by Jews and non-Jews alike was a natural process, not defined solely by a single legal moment. Through the requirement of kiddushin, the rabbis revived an ancient institution known in the bible as Erusin (אירוסין), imbuing it with a binding legal significance despite apparent public disinterest. How should we understand the rise of rabbinic kiddushin? What exactly did the rabbis have to gain in its establishment?
The end of b. Gittin
THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Divorce Court. In this week's 'Daf Yomi,' Talmudic sages explore the grounds for divorce and in so doing reinforce ethical leniency and humane interpretation over strict constructionism.
This week, Daf Yomi readers came to the end of Tractate Gittin, after three months of studying the laws of divorce. During that time, we've learned in overwhelming detail about the document, the get, that effects divorce under Jewish law: how it is to be written, signed, delivered, and witnessed. We've also followed the rabbis' discussions of conditional divorces, probing the kinds of conditions that can legally be included in a divorce settlement, such as monetary payments, child-custody agreements, and limitations on the right to remarry.
But it is only in Gittin 90a, on the very last page of the tractate, that the Talmud addresses what one might have imagined should be the first question of all: What are the grounds for divorce? ...
Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links. My comments at that link are also relevant for this week's column.
Producers of "Of Kings and Prophets" defend their work
TELEVISION: "OF KINGS AND PROPHETS" PRODUCERS—A CHRISTIAN, A MUSLIM AND A JEW—REFUSE TO SANITIZE THE BIBLE (REZA ASLAN, BILL COLLAGE AND ADAM COOPER, Religion Dispatches).
We assumed we might be met with some resistance from Biblical literalists, as there is always the chance when dealing with religious material that faith-based audiences might negatively react to our interpretation of scriptural inconsistencies.
Surprisingly though, the most vitriolic criticism has not come from faith-based viewers, but from secular media outlets and bloggers, many of whom argued that the war, violence and brutality depicted in the show would alienate religious viewers. Clearly, these reviewers are unfamiliar with the Bible.
Refreshingly, those who count themselves among the "faithful viewership" have largely embraced the show, commending it for its willingness to look at issues of faith in more than simplistic black and white terms. The world of the Old Testament, as described in the Bible, is often brutal and violent—a world where slavery and rape were the victor's prerogative, and genocide was an accepted approach to foreign policy. The faithful know this better than anyone.
The reviews I've seen imply that the sex and violence have been ladled on, but I haven't seen any episodes myself so I don't know whether that criticism is justified. The biblical text certainly provides ample material for both.
Background here and links
Aramaic love affair
ARAMAIC WATCH: The inspiring passions of others — witnessed on a train, a riverbank (Ron Grossman, Chicago Tribune).
Not long ago, I found myself in a New York subway car, looking over the shoulder of a little old man hypnotically focused on a school notebook. Occasionally, he would add a marginal note in the same script that filled every line of every page. His concentration wasn't broken even when the train lurched to a stop, the motorman announcing there was a problem on the tracks.
Something seemed familiar about his determination to shut out the rest of the world except for whatever he was concentrating on. I couldn't recall where I'd encountered it, but I seldom miss an opportunity to parade my learning. So I said that one or two letters looked like Hebrew. Were they?
"No," he replied. After a pause, he said they were close relatives of the Hebrew alphabet. "Are they Aramaic?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied. This time there wasn't any follow-up. His curiosity wasn't aroused by my knowing the relationship of Hebrew to Aramaic, a language Jesus spoke but is now virtually extinct. So I noted that Aramaic is still used for Jewish religious documents but written in Hebrew characters. It is still spoken in a few villages in Lebanon and Syria but written in Arabic.
With that, a dam broke. "Why would someone write Aramaic in another alphabet?" he exclaimed. "It has its own, a beautiful one!" His face turned beet red, as if he was on the verge of a stroke.
I realized that I was in the presence of a great love affair.
Never mind that the old man's suit had shiny patches from too many ironings. He was like a knight in shining armor devoted to his lady fair, a long-dead language. That might seem goofy to many of us. But we may never experience a passion as intense as his.
I pity those who never do.
On the Deuteronomist
THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:
Who Invented the Deuteronomist – and Why?
Even if Moses was considered to be the author of the Pentateuch for centuries, awareness that the first five books of the Old Testament should be seen as a unified, complex literary work has always been present to some degree. With the emergence of Biblical Criticism at the beginning of the 18th century, scholars endeavoured to provide a more systematic explanation for the irregularities evident in this literary complex. Relatively early in this process, scholars drew attention to the unique place that the book of Deuteronomy occupies within the Pentateuch, particularly on account of its characteristic language, style and theology.
See Also: The Deuteronomist's History (Brill; Lam edition, 2015).
By Hans Ausloos
Professor of Old Testament
F.R.S.-FNRS / Université catholique de Louvain
Nothing can ever be simple, especially in Pentateuchal criticism. More thoughts on its current state are here and here.
Data-mining parallel passages
JOURNAL OF DATA MINING AND DIGITAL HUMANITIES:
Identification of Parallel Passages Across a Large Hebrew/Aramaic Corpus
Avi Shmidman1, Moshe Koppel2, Ely Porat3
1 Department of Hebrew Literature, Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and Dicta: The Israel Center for Text Analysis
2 Department of Computer Science, Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and Dicta: The Israel Center for Text Analysis
3 Department of Computer Science, Bar-Ilan University, Israel
We propose a method for efficiently finding all parallel passages in a large corpus, even if the passages are not quite identical due to rephrasing and orthographic variation. The key ideas are the representation of each word in the corpus by its two most infrequent letters, finding matched pairs of strings of four or five words that differ by at most one word and then identifying clusters of such matched pairs. Using this method, over 4600 parallel pairs of passages were identified in the Babylonian Talmud, a Hebrew-Aramaic corpus of over 1.8 million words, in just over 30 seconds. Empirical comparisons on sample data indicate that the coverage obtained by our method is essentially the same as that obtained using slow exhaustive methods.
approximate matching; fuzzy matching; text reuse
HT the Talmud Blog on Facebook. Oddly, I can find no listing of this article on the journal's website.
Ancient port hub at Corinth
UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGY: Archaeologists Find Monumental Piers in Partially Sunken Harbor City of Corinth. Secrets of Byzantine harbor-building found by Danish and Greek archaeologists in Corinthian port of Lechaion, a trading hub for over a thousand years (, Haaretz).
Underwater excavations of the ancient city of Corinth have uncovered monumental piers and evidence that the sunken port of Lechaion's functioned as a booming trading hub for over a thousand years.
Ancient sources speak of Corinth as a wealthy trading center with a mixed population of Greeks, Romans, and Jews. According to the Greek Scriptures, it was in the Corinth synagogue that the Apostle Paul preached, sparking some controversy among its members. Now, recent underwater excavations by a team of Danish and Greek archaeologists have uncovered the infrastructure of a major harbor, and evidence of vibrant maritime activity spanning the 6th century BCE to the 6th century CE.
"Lechaion is one of the most important harbor towns of antiquity, and what makes Lechaion so special is that it had been in virtually continuous use for more than a thousand years from around 600 BC until the late 6th/early 7th century AD," says Dr. Bjørn Lovén from Copenhagen University and co-director of the underwater excavations of Lechaion. "We hope that we will be able to understand how Lechaion and other harbors developed over this wide span of time."
The underwater excavators have been exploring the harbor for two years. The recent discoveries include two monumental piers constructed of ashlar blocks along with a smaller pier, two areas of wooden caissons, a breakwater, and an entrance canal leading into Lechaion's three inner harbor basins.
Gold coin of Augustus
IAA PRESS RELEASE:
A Hiker Found an Extremely Rare Gold Coin almost 2,000 Years Old
The Hiker turned it over to the Israel Antiquities Authority and will be awarded a certificate of appreciation for good citizenship. Apparently only one such coin has been found in the world
The famous British Museum possesses an ancient gold coin that until now was apparently the only one of its kind known in the world – a coin that bears the image of Emperor Augustus and was minted by Emperor Trajan. This coin, from 107 CE, was part of a series of nostalgic coins that Emperor Trajan minted and dedicated to the Roman emperors that ruled before him.
A surprising random discovery by Laurie Rimon, a member of Kibbutz Kefar Blum, who was hiking with friends in the countryside, uncovered the "identical twin brother" of this rare coin – the second such coin of its kind now known to exist.
During a recent trip to the eastern Galilee a group of veteran hikers, including Laurie, arrived at an archaeological site. Suddenly Laurie discerned a shiny object in the grass. When she picked it up she realized it was an ancient gold coin. The group's guide, Irit Zuk-Kovacsi contacted the Israel Antiquities Authority with the help of archaeologist and veteran tour guide Dr Motti Aviam, and within two hours an IAA representative joined the group of hikers in the field. Laurie turned the rare find over to him admitting, "It was not easy parting with the coin. After all, it is not every day one discovers such an amazing object, but I hope I will see it displayed in a museum in the near future".
The press release is reprinted at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs website here. Cross-file under Numismatics. Video here:
"Hill of Evil Counsel" slated for development
ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTROVERSY: Luxury complex threatens ancient site on Jerusalem's Hill of Evil Counsel Plan to build hotel, high-end apartments on one of last remaining unspoiled ridges surrounding Old City opposed by residents, archaeologists (Times of Israel).
Two well-known Jewish investors are planning to build a hotel and luxury housing on one of the most important sites in Christianity — the Hill of Evil Counsel — and archaeologists warn the plan could endanger centuries of Jerusalem's history.
American financier and philanthropist Michael Steinhardt and David Sofer, a London-based Israeli businessman, recently purchased a 110-year lease to the roughly one-hectare (2.5-acre) site from the Greek Orthodox Church. Initial drawings, presented to the Jerusalem planning authorities, provide for more than 10,000 square meters (108,000 square feet) of hotel, residential apartments and undefined "public buildings," leaving little room for green space.
The hill, situated in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor just south of the Old City, is where Christians believe Jewish High Priest Caiaphas and his advisers decided to betray Jesus to the Romans.
Muslims associate the hilltop with Saladin's general Abu Tor (Father of the Bull) who, according to legend, rode into battle against the Crusaders from the hill on the back of a white bull. He is believed to be buried in a shrine that still stands in the neighborhood. About a century ago, the Greek Orthodox Church cemented its claim to the hill by building a high wall that left the shrine just outside.
Archaeologist Shimon Gibson of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, who is currently co-directing a dig on Mount Zion, thinks the landscape should be preserved.
"Around the Old City, you have various places connected with the Gospels, but they've all been built upon. There are very few sites like this that are open, available and from which you can get a broad view of the Old City of Jerusalem," he said.
'I think it's important that one can look across and see Mount Zion, where the House of Caiaphas was situated, and the room where tradition says the Last Supper took place'
"Archaeologists will say 'Here's a site, we'll excavate it, we'll extract information, and then modern construction can take place.' But in this case, it's a different matter," said Gibson. "I think it's important that one can look across and see Mount Zion, where the House of Caiaphas was situated, and the room where tradition says the Last Supper took place, and then further to the left where Herod's Palace was, with the praetorium, where the trial of Jesus took place…"
Archaeologist Gabriel Barkay, who heads the Temple Mount Sifting Project, said, "There is no doubt that there are ancient remains here. Some of them are known to us; most of them are as yet unknown."
Was Jesus buried?
JAMES MCGRATH: Josephus and the Burial of the Crucified.
Biblical manuscripts at Cambridge exhibition
AT THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY: Codex Bezae on Display Now (Peter Gurry, ETC). That's great, but perhaps of greater interest still to PaleoJudaica readers, the Nash Papyrus is also on display at the same exhibition. Plus many other treasures from various earlier and later eras.
Joosten interviewed
WILLIAM ROSS: LXX SCHOLAR INTERVIEW: DR. JAN JOOSTEN.
Early Armenian inscription
ARMENIAN WATCH: Mosaic with Bible inscription found in Adana (asekose.am).
A 120-square-meter mosaic with a quotation from the Bible in Armenian has been recently found in Turkey's Adana province. It reads, 'The wolf and the lamb will feed together, the lion will eat straw like the ox and dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy on my holy mountain, says the Lord'
A new mosaic inscribed with quotes from the Bible has been discovered in the southern city of Adana during excavations jointly undertaken by the Culture and Tourism Ministry's Cultural Heritage Department and the Provincial Directorate of Museums. The 120-square-meter mosaic was found on private property located in the Karlık neighborhood of Adana's Sarıçam district. According to archaeologists, the Eastern Roman-era mosaic dates back to between the fifth and sixth centuries A.D.
The emphasis is in the original. The inscription is a paraphrase of Isaiah 11:6-9 and Genesis 3:14, going with the animal theme of the mosaic:
The mosaic features 16 different animal figures including a snake, lion, sheep, leopard, wolf, goat and bull. Wild and domestic animals are portrayed as sleeping and being fed together or eating each other's food.
This is a quite remarkable discovery, providing a biblical paraphrase written very shortly after the invention of the Armenian alphabet in the early fifth century (see here and here). Other past posts on the Armenian language are collected here and links, and also here and here. Cross-file under Epigraphy.
Akhnaten
OPERA: Akhnaten LONDON English National Opera 3/4/16 (George Hall, Opera News).
ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA has done well by Philip Glass. Back in 1985, ENO became the first U.K. company to stage one of his operas—Akhnaten, then just one year old. ENO followed up with the first European performance of The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 in 1988, Satyagraha in 2007, and the UK premiere of The Perfect American in 2013.
In return Glass has proved to be good box-office for ENO. ...
Akhnaten is a fine example of Glass's most elevated operatic style in that it comprises more a sequence of rituals than a narrative in the traditional sense. In Tom Pye's monumental, multi-level sets and Kevin Pollard's gorgeously colorful and extravagantly complex costumes, each scene became sharply etched in the visual memory. Extra fascination was provided by the involvement of the ten-strong skills ensemble Gandini Juggling, whose director, Sean Gandini, choreographed its various complex routines, one of the most spectacular of which saw the audience applaud during the music itself—a rare event in any contemporary opera. (Juggling is apparently illustrated on the walls of some ancient Egyptian tombs.)
A libretto mainly sung in ancient Egyptian, ancient Hebrew and Akkadian (an extinct tongue long spoken in Mesopotamia) is clearly intended less for instant communication than for color and atmosphere, but the role of the Scribe—a character left out, incidentally, of ENO's 1985 staging, but here taken with firmness and clarity by bass Zachary James—provided a useful narrative framework with his periodic Anglophone pronouncements.
A performance of Akhnaten (in Boston) was last noted here.
"The Canaanites who loved Pharaoh" at the Israel M...
Still more on the two new inscribed seals from Jer...
Producers of "Of Kings and Prophets" defend their ...


text:
Woodlake man convicted of assaulting a peace officer
Sheyanne N Romero
Visalia Times-Delta
A Woodlake man is facing prison time after a Tulare County jury found him guilty of assaulting an officer.
The defendant was also under the influence when the assault took place and had prior DUI convictions, prosecutors said.
This week, a jury convicted 23-year-old Derek Renteria of felony assault on a peace officer, felony evading a peace officer, misdemeanor DUI, and misdemeanor resisting arrest.
MORE: Tulare County man charged in fatal DUI hit-and-run
Renteria had two misdemeanor DUI convictions and three prior driver's license suspensions, as well as a 2014 misdemeanor hit-and-run conviction.
"Our police officers and deputies risk their lives daily in order to keep us safe. Criminals who commit crimes against police officers are a danger to all of us," said District Attorney Tim Ward. "It demonstrates a wanton disregard for society, authority, and the rule of law."
The case stems from Renteria's arrest last year.
In May 2016, a Woodlake officer spotted a car just after 7:30 a.m. driving in circles near Castle Rock Street and Katelyn Lane. The car was speeding, less than a mile away from Castle Rock Elementary.
When the officer tried to stop the car — driven by Renteria — the driver sped toward the officer in an attempt to hit him, prosecutors said.
The officer swerved to avoid a possible collision.
Police took chase, running stop signs and driving upwards of 50 mph through the residential neighborhoods.
When a tire blew out, Renteria fled the car on foot into a nearby field. After a brief foot chase, Renteria was arrested, but not before fighting with the officer.
MORE:Teens take Tulare police on chase through town
It was later discovered that Renteria had spent the prior night and early morning drinking with friends.
The case was investigated by the DA's Crimes Against Police Officer Unit and officers with the Woodlake Police Department.
In May, Ward announced the formation of the unit. Three prosecutors make up the unit with the help of a criminal investigator.
Victim services also provide support to officers who are victimized in the line of duty.
When the unit was formed, there were roughly 88 cases of misdemeanor and felony crimes committed against police officers being prosecuted, including four cases of attempted murder, officials said.
"There is no level of tolerance for the idea that it should be part of a deputy or police officer's job to be assaulted in the line of duty," Ward said. "Cases, where an officer or deputy is a victim of a crime, will take a higher priority than ever before in this office."
Sentencing is set for next month at Tulare County Superior Court in Department 10. Renteria faces up to 5 years in prison.
'Worst-of-the-worst' DUI offenders targeted in Tulare County
Tulare woman charged in fatal DUI
Second victim of suspected Tulare DUI collision dies


This Saturday you have the opportunity to seek out the best style advice from our very own senior fashion editor, Arabella Greenhill and MTV presenter Louise Roe at the Stylistpick Pop-up.
Earlier this week the Stylistpick Pop-up opened at shopping mecca Westfield, West London. For those of you who aren't familar with the concept, Stylistpick is a new way of shopping online for accessories.
Members complete a quiz to establish their style and then every month receive a brand new virtual showroom curated by Stylistpick stylists who recommend looks they are sure you'll love.
It is also home to Cheryl Cole's capsule shoe collection, which fans have been snapping up.
Now this Saturday March 4, you have the opportunity to pick the fashion brains of Marie Claire's senior fashion editor Arabella Greenhill and fashionista Louise Roe.
Arabella will be on hand to offer her amazing style advice and her best tips for achieving the perfect spring/summer look.
Arabella will be available from 4-6pm this Saturday.
Shoppers will also be able to purchase the Stylistpick mainline collection of shoes, bags and jewellery priced at £39.95.