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Think locally, grow locally
At A Place on Earth Farm in Campbellsburg, Carden Willis and Courtney Meade are thinking outside the agricultural box
Photo by Ross Gordon: Carden Willis and Courtney Meade, both 25, followed varied routes to A Place on Earth, the Campbellsburg farm they now manage.
Several years ago, in a PBS documentary about factory farming, a western tomato grower spilled some of the beans about the supermarket buying — and eating — experience. By this time in the show, the viewer had already toured the grower's highly capitalized and mechanized operation, and understood that the grower's relationship with his farm was as a kept man. Even if he had wanted to stop, he couldn't. Profits per unit were slimmer than the tomato skins, and would aggregate into a meaningful sum only by the constant running of the tomato production line.
It's not surprising, then, how the grower described his job. Grow red orbs.
Photo by Ross Gordon
Harvest them. Package them. Get them to market. Get paid. How they tasted, including like nothing but pink water, was beyond the realm not just of his business, but his personal interest. If they happened to taste good, well, that was just a happy accident not relevant to growing red orbs.
In Kentucky, Carden Willis and Courtney Meade are working hard to provide an alternative to that tomato grower's point of view, and to industrial food production itself. As managers of A Place on Earth Farm in Campbellsburg, they're part of the Community Supported Agriculture movement. CSA strives to build
relationships between the growers and consumers of food, and to engender community within that relationship. Currently, there are at least 2,000 CSA farms across the United States, although there appears to be no reliable data about how many
operate in Kentucky.
A Place on Earth Farm is owned by Jim and Debbie Wayne. Jim is a state representative from the 38th district and president of Wayne Corp., which provides employee counseling to local businesses. The Waynes bought the farm in 2000. Although they were aware of the CSA movement at the time, their original intent was "to have a place for urbanites to go, to kind of restore their soul."
"The main thing we wanted to do," Jim Wayne says, "was to have a place set aside that was sacred and that we would work to nurture. That was the broad vision. We wanted to make sure the pastures were restored, the erosion was stopped. It was clear-cut, and so we started planting trees with a master plan to create a forested area, to protect the streams."
The farm became a CSA operation as the Waynes searched for an alternative to growing tobacco. CSA isn't an official organization as such; it's more of a socioeconomic model aimed at improving land and food quality. The movement had a worldwide presence for at least 35 years, including at least 25 in the United States.
On the Saturday I visited A Place On Earth the farm, it looked at first glance like little more than a small, frame
country house and a barn at the end of a dirt road. Even with the weekday employees around, it's not a place that would bustle, but then that's sort of the point. At hand was a working illustration of the inherent simplicity of food-growing. Not to imply that hard work, both physical and imaginative, isn't involved daily. Or that challenges don't emerge one after the other. But it does show, directly and immediately, how much false economy stands between most of us and much of what we eat.
The former tobacco barn is now a tractor shed and chicken house, and a temporary storage room for the knocked down walk-in cooler that Carden picked up at the old Westport Road Kroger. Beyond the barn, about five acres of the farm's 116.5 acres are under cultivation; they supply the 60 families that have joined the venture. Ultimately, the Waynes hope to expand the operation to eight acres and 120 subscribers. The balance of the acreage is in pasture and hay for a beef operation run by another farmer, but still part of the CSA plan.
The day I visited was well before the last frost. Hundreds of vegetable starts were emerging in cell packs on the plastic-sheeted porch and in one of the front rooms of the house. The greenish hue of grow lights leaked from both spaces. In a few weeks, these plants would be placed in the prepared soil to begin another season.
By any measure, A Place On Earth farm is "organic," but not officially so, which is of no concern to these farmers. As Carden and Courtney say in their brochure, "All are welcome and encouraged to come out to the farm and 'certify' for themselves."
Photo by Ross Gordon: Meade, 25, was a Navy brat. She first came to A Place on Earth in 2004, to help with the harvest.
In fact, organic is in many ways old news. The Feds and state governments control the right to certify foods as organic, and that certification includes a mountain of paperwork and an endless succession of hoops and hurdles. And in somewhat the same way that GM and Ford, rather than compete with Swedish engineering and mystique, simply purchased Saab and Volvo, respectively, the giant food processors have already co-opted the concept of organic by requiring identity cards for food, as hollow as that designation ultimately is under that scenario.
Wal-Mart is currently poised to become the nation's largest retailer of organic food, just as it is now the largest retailer of organic milk. There's little reason to think the mega-chain won't pressure its food suppliers to conform to the Wal-Mart way — work the bait-and-switch with suppliers, bend the bounds of reasonable definitions, drive costs down at all costs — or that the definition of organic won't become looser and grayer.
In some ways, organic has gone the way of all natural as a description. All natural never meant much without qualification — sawdust, walnut husks and sand are all natural, after all, but you probably wouldn't want any of it in your cereal. Currently, organic usually does mean just that, but there's more to the idea than a provable lack of pesticides and antibiotics, or, in more recent news, high fructose corn syrup.
A bag of apples might indeed be organic, meeting every formal or implied criteria of the term. But if the apples
Photo by Ross Gordon: The quest at A Place on Earth is synthesis — thought, imagination and intelligence, not just automatic responses.
came from a 1,000-acre spread of complete monoculture, where a couple square miles are devoted entirely to a single crop, and if they were shipped 1,700 miles from Washington State to Louisville, well, hmm … suddenly that warm and fuzzy steward of the Earth, doin' the right thing and feelin' groovy glow becomes a little hard to embrace.
And so Carden and Courtney are far more interested in a different adjective, namely local. Local, by its very meaning, is not and cannot be part of globalization. "I think something that's meaningful to people who are in our CSA," Carden begins, "is they get vegetables … that have dirt on them, or bug holes or whatever. It's real food. The stuff that's bought organic, the people might think they're supporting something like what we're doing. But it's totally not. Somebody growing 1,000 acres of the same crop in the same place, you're not walking through a real field, you're walking through another mono crop industrial agricultural system."
Given the financial stakes, it's no surprise that the term organic was commodified by legislation at both the state and federal levels. This was lobbied for and seen to by the huge food processors, which managed to take something implicit and make it explicit. And it's nothing new. In Kentucky, Jim Wayne helped support a successful 2003 bill, sponsored by Rep. Charlie Hoffman of Scott County, allowing farmers to sell home-processed foods directly to consumers. For decades, this most basic economy, and relationship, had been regulated into unfeasibility under the umbrella of health issues. These issues were legitimate, as with any food processing, but legislation had been too broad. Hoffman's bill established exemptions from existing permit law for home-based operations, requires the Cabinet for Health Services to accommodate unique circumstances, and requires the Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service to run a pilot microprocessing program.
The benefit of a local economic relationship — or the drawback, from another viewpoint — is the elimination of middlemen. Commercial processors, container manufacturers, warehousing companies, transportation providers and big box retailers are removed from the loop of what's grown locally. And if people see organic as something worthwhile and meaningful to purchase, then local takes the concept a step further.
"Organic is a good step to take, for people to go to the store and find a label that says organic," Carden concedes, explaining that official organic is better than nothing. But that's just one piece. "If you're buying something
travels two- or three-thousand miles in terms of oil … and you don't know who grew it and you really don't know the conditions it was grown under," he says, then just organic begins to look like a one-legged stool.
In many ways, small farmers themselves have sawn off the other two legs over the last 50 years.
"What small Kentucky farmers have done," Wayne says, "is they've kind of merged with the dominant culture, which is to say, 'OK, let's all be corporate, let's all get big, let's all buy all this big equipment, let's all go in debt and let's pretend we're ConAgra.' And what happens is, this just does small farms in. Farmers have not trusted their own instincts enough, and their own history and heritage, to do it differently. And that's what we want to show, that you can do it differently and it can be very profitable."
There's a key word: profit. A Place On Earth Farm is a for-profit business. There's a five-year business plan, which Wayne says will provide a comfortable middle-class living for Carden and Courtney. But it's the sort of profit-making that's far more akin to Jefferson than to ConAgra or Archer Daniels Midland, the sort of profits Jefferson most likely imagined as he envisioned America as a nation of small farmers. A profit that exists at the end of the day rather than at the beginning. In that sense, CSA is far more faceted than the weekly farmers' market in the church parking lot — subscribers make a commitment to the growers. If a CSA farm has a bad harvest, people who've bought shares suffer too.
A full share, for a family of four, provides seasonal vegetables from the middle of May to early November and costs $400. That's $16 per week. Or, to put it another way, one large loaded pizza, or a basic haircut, or two movie tickets. Want to trade labor for food? Completely doable. You can buy a full share for $150 plus four hours of work per week.
This definition of commerce makes CSA a counterculture movement, but one countering the present dearth of culture and community, especially in agriculture. By that measure, Carden and Courtney shine impressively. Their lives are not the results of simply slapping a negative sign in front of whatever is. They are not latter-day renditions of Marlon Brando's character in "The Wild Ones," who responded to the question "What are you rebelling against?" with "What've you got?" The quest at A Place on Earth Farm is one of synthesis — thought, imagination and intelligence, not mere automatic reactions.
In that sense, Carden and Courtney — both are 25 years old — offer clear hope for the future. Their quiet enthusiasm is endemic to their characters and emerges as a soft but true force. Each lacks utterly the false and perky enthusiasm of the greeter at the funky-wannabe chain Mexican restaurant.
Carden has a mop of curly blonde hair and glasses I have to work at noticing. He left behind a full scholarship at the University of Chicago after two quarters as an English lit major. From the beginning he was put off by most of those around him, who seemed to be majoring in resume as much as any subject, and who saw a degree from Chicago as a crown jewel.
It would be easy to label Carden a drop-out, but he's not. He's no more of a drop-out than Bill Gates. In a nod to Escher, perhaps, he went from Chicago to the mountains of West Virginia to write a novel about a young man who leaves college to write a novel in isolation. It's called "Love's Scene and Masquerade." He eventually had a few copies printed to give to friends.
Carden did not come from a farming life. He graduated from Ballard, growing up nearby. After Chicago, he followed a girlfriend to Virginia, who took a farm job for lack of any other. Carden left and returned to that farm two or three times, then in 2004 found a job at a CSA farm in Colorado. About a year ago, his e-mails crossed paths with Wayne's, who offered him the job of managing A Place On Earth.
Courtney carries about her the same ascetic aura as Carden. She is without affectation, the diametric opposite of, say, Rosie O'Donnell. A graduate of Transylvania with a degree in Spanish, she went to Belize in 2002 as a Jesuit volunteer, working as a music teacher in a primary school. She was impressed by the simplicity of life in Belize, and sees a simpler life here — a smaller footprint — as a means of justice for others.
As with Carden, she had not known a life of the land. A Navy brat in her younger years, she would come to have
the same sort of suburban high school experience as Carden when her family settled in northern Kentucky.
Courtney first came to A Place On Earth in 2004 to help with the harvest. She was quickly drawn in and moved into the house in the summer of 2005 to co-manage the farm with Carden. Like Carden, she sees herself on the farm for many years, living the change she seeks for our world.
Which may be why A Place On Earth Farm is, above all, a hopeful place on Earth. Somehow it is a spot unsullied by the Jack Abramoffs of the world, a place where one is not so concerned in ways neurotic and Pavlovian about what Google is doing in China or what the NSA is doing here.
"This is a wide open market, so to speak," Wayne notes, "for people who are hungry in more ways than one for organic, chemical-free food."
People who change the world don't ask permission to do so. Curiously, that description applies as equally to Adolph Hitler as it does to Martin Luther King, Jr. And that's just the point. Both Hitler and King first got themselves out of the box. They had this feat in common. But then one set out to control people through fear and submission, while the other sought to free people by hope and action.
Carden, Courtney and the Waynes are out of the box, to the extent they were ever in it. They've changed a piece of land physically and chemically, and for the better, and from that have created a small community. With a combination of tenacity and luck — that pesky little equation of history — this small community, and many others like it, just might spread a better way of life into the larger cultural scheme. "To be in a place and to call it your home," Carden notes, "and to look at it as something forever. … It appeals to me to get to know a place, and I think that's going to be an interesting experience."
Contact the writer at


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MMO MMORPG News·Articles·FireFall: Official Launch Coming This July
FireFall: Official Launch Coming This July
Games in this article: FireFall
Red 5 Studios, Inc. announced today that Firefall, the dynamic open-world MMO shooter, will officially launch on July 29, 2014 and will be available for the PC platform through Steam and Firefall.com. Firefall showcases a true AAA MMO experience with fast-paced combat, action-packed missions and quests, and a beautiful, vibrant world that has been expanded for launch with two new continents full of content and multiple story-driven instances.
"We designed a game with an extremely passionate and talented team," said James Macauley, CEO of Red 5 Studios. "But Firefall wasn't complete until we were able to incorporate the invaluable feedback from our enthusiastic community during the beta period. Firefall is as much their game as it is ours."
Players begin their journey in Firefall as an ARES pilot, an elite operative contracted by the Accord to reclaim Earth by leading the fight against an invading race known as the Chosen. Outfitted with military-grade battleframes, players will be able to collect equipment and materials to customize and strengthen their arsenal of weapons and abilities, while experiencing Firefall's rich lore and engaging content.
Firefall features campaign missions and exciting quests as well as dynamic events that appear throughout the world, offering players new experiences throughout as they embark on their adventure. As players explore the vast open-world from New Eden to Devil's Tusk, they will encounter unique dynamic events, such as melding-fueled tornadoes, crystite meteor showers and Chosen incursions, which will bring new and exciting challenges to their Firefall experience. In addition to all of the PVE content, Firefall also features a large open-world PVP continent, where players can test their shooting skills and tactical abilities against other players to control outposts and resources in this hostile environment.
Firefall will be available completely free-to-play, with opportunities for cosmetic and convenience upgrades. Special Firefall Launch Packs are also available for purchase, which will include items ranging from the exclusive multiplayer vehicle to a digital soundtrack and a concept art-book. For more information about the digital content packs and early access, visit www.firefall.com
Firefall Launches Update 1.6
Firefall has launched update 1.6, bringing a host of new content to the game. New in 1.6 is Jetball, a new Arena PvP mod...
Firefall Update 1.3: War in the Amazon Available Today
Red 5 Studios announces the release of Update 1.3: War in the Amazon for the MMO shooter, Firefall. This update introduce...
MMO Holiday Event Guide 2014
It's time for candles, snow, sleigh bells, mistletoe, reindeer, and all the other holiday trappings that make Winter so festive...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Mary Margaret Rita PARKINSON: passed away in her sleep April 15, 2005 in Langley Memorial Hospital. Rita was predeceased by her husband Ron Parkinson (2001) and daughter Marilyn Boyd (1991). Nan will be deeply missed by her daughter Donna (Bill) Pope; grandchildren Chris (Tammy) Pope, Ron ( Alison) Pope, and great grandchildren: Braeden, Morgan and Avery Pope. Rita leaves behind many family and friends. A celebration of Rita's life will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made out to the Canadian Cancer Society.


Encourage the Man of Faith in Your Life!
Based on Jeremiah 17 and what it means to be a man of faith, these devotions look at ten great leaders of the Bible and their defining characteristics.
Each reflection includes a challenge for today's man on growing as a man of faith, which you can detach and share with a special father, son, husband, brother, uncle, grandfather, or colleague for a special occasion, birthday, or graduation.
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Our mission at The Fellowship is to build bridges of understanding between Christians and Jews. You can access more of our booklets by clicking this link.


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In this section: Coronavirus (COVID-19) | Drugs
Coronavirus (COVID-19) | Drugs
CDER's Work to Protect Public Health During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency
Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program (CTAP)
Bioequivalence Studies for Submission in ANDAs during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Clinical Trial Conduct During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Compounding Activities | COVID-19
Drug Shortages Response | COVID-19
Fraudulent Activity and Unlawful Sales of Unapproved and Misbranded Drug Products | COVID-19
Import of Drugs for Potential COVID-19 Treatment
Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Drug Inspections | COVID-19
Registration and Listing Assistance for Non-Traditional Manufacturers of Hand Sanitizer and Related COVID-19 Drugs
Stakeholder Engagement | COVID-19
Emergency Preparedness | Drugs
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is working in many ways to protect our nation's public health during the COVID-19 public health emergency. Our Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), responsible for the regulation of drug therapies, engages in many activities to support much of the FDA's work during this unprecedented time.
CDER's key priorities during this public health emergency include:
Making safe and effective drugs to treat COVID-19 patients available as soon as possible
Monitoring the nation's supply of medicines and taking action to mitigate or prevent drug shortages
Working to help ensure the health of all patients
Below summarizes CDER's actions towards achieving these critical goals.
Making safe and effective drugs for COVID-19 available as soon as possible
Recognizing the urgent need for safe and effective drugs, CDER is working closely with researchers to accelerate the study of potentially beneficial drugs to treat COVID-19. Some of these drugs are already approved by FDA for other conditions, while others are experimental. Our goal is to help these researchers generate evidence to determine which proposed drugs are safe and effective.
Our actions include:
Launching a new FDA Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program to:
Expedite the regulatory review process for therapeutics in clinical trials for COVID-19 including review of clinical trial protocols and development programs
Accelerate development and publication of guidance for industry on developing drugs to treat and prevent COVID-19, including two detailed guidances: one to provide general considerations for meeting requests for drugs in development and another to assist with the clinical development of drugs with direct antiviral activity or immunomodulatory activity
Establish a single point of contact to facilitate COVID-19 product development reachable at: COVID19-productdevelopment@fda.hhs.gov, where a multidisciplinary team provides advice to sponsors and other parties with the intent of moving a promising therapy into clinical trials as rapidly as possible
Collaborate with industry and academic groups working together to advance potential therapies
Utilize regulatory flexibility in the review of manufacturing specifications during product development to facilitate scale-up of manufacturing capacity
Evaluating newly identified safety signals associated with the use of repurposed drugs to treat COVID-19 patients.
Some key measures of progress to date:
On October 22, 2020, FDA approved the first treatment for COVID-19 in certain populations, the antiviral drug remdesivir.
More than 350 trials have been reviewed by FDA.
Issuing more than 22 guidance documents for industry related to therapeutic development since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak
Expediting, when necessary, Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) for potential drug and biological therapies.
Received more than 1,400 expanded access requests to support access to therapies with the potential to help patients.
Monitoring the nation's supply of medicines and taking action to alleviate or prevent shortages
The public health emergency is placing extraordinary demands on our nation's drug supply. CDER is working to address drug shortages and to proactively prevent future shortages of needed drugs. We are conducting this work in close collaboration with manufacturers, compounders, distributors, health care professionals, health care associations, and the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) and government counterparts such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), and state regulators. We are also working to enable new suppliers of critical products to safely supply the market.
Our actions to-date include:
Monitoring the quality and security of the nation's drug supply chain
Monitoring potential disruptions across the drug supply chain, expediting new guidance to bolster drug supply (including manufacturing and inspections), and proactively working with manufacturers to evaluate supply chains and exercise appropriate regulatory discretion(s), without compromising safety
Actively monitoring potential shortages of medicines – using a combination of methods – and working collaboratively to make sure shortages don't impede patient care
Providing registration and listing assistance for companies who want to provide critical products – to help ensure FDA knows the manufacturers and sources of drugs during the pandemic
Offering temporary regulatory flexibility for certain critically needed drugs compounded by outsourcing facilities and non-outsourcing facilities for hospitalized patients with COVID-19, and for the compounding and manufacturing of alcohol-based hand sanitizer during the COVID-19 pandemic
Issuing new guidance to help reduce risk when pharmacies are not able to obtain standard equipment used in drug compounding
Monitoring imported products and taking action to ensure active pharmaceutical ingredients and medicines sourced from abroad are appropriate for patients and access to such products is not delayed unnecessarily
Innovating CDER's facility assessment approach given the reduced ability to conduct on-site inspections to help ensure continued drug quality and support approval of new drugs to treat a range of conditions
Taking action against sellers of fraudulent products for the treatment or prevention of COVID-19, including issuing more than 99 warning letters and alerting consumers to risks associated with these products
Working to keep potentially harmful drugs out of the U.S. by issuing warning letters to internet pharmacies offering for sale unapproved and misbranded drugs that claim to prevent, cure or treat COVID-19
Issuing a guidance noting that legal requirements related to certain product tracing and product identification activities, and wholesale distribution, do not apply to qualifying distribution activities during the emergency
Approving, as of October 27, 2020, more than 300 manufacturing supplements (requests by manufacturers to modify their manufacturing methods) for generic and brand name products, often to change their supply chain, process, or facility, to help ensure adequate supply
Prioritizing the assessment of generic drug submissions for products that could help address COVID-19 in recognition of the public health emergency
Launching a range of surveillance studies using the Sentinel system to monitor drug usage during COVID-19 – both to deepen understanding of COVID-19 and to strengthen safety surveillance of the overall drug market
Some key measures of progress to-date:
Assisting new and established manufacturers producing alcohol-based hand sanitizers and ethanol for use in hand sanitizers: Since March 1, 2020, about 3,000 new hand sanitizers manufacturers have registered with FDA
Since January 1, 2020, CDER fielded more than 49,000 inquiries from the general public, including health care providers, consumers and manufacturers, regarding medications; this included more than 16,000 specifically related to COVID-19
Continuing outreach to over 90 manufacturers relating to manufacturing capacity and supply chain for both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 treatments
Warned consumers they should not use over 200 hand sanitizer products with serious safety concerns, including contamination with toxic ingredients, sub-potent levels of alcohol, or labeled with false, misleading, or unproven claims.
While the COVID-19 public health emergency requires intense focus across the health care landscape on the acute needs of patients infected with COVID-19, CDER maintains a continuing commitment to the full scope of its public health mandate in the interests of all patients. CDER continues critical activities related to:
safeguarding against unsafe drugs
maintaining surveillance of the safety of all prescription and over-the-counter drugs
reviewing applications to investigate or market new and generic drugs
engaging with industry in numerous ways to ensure clinical research for a range of diseases continues
In short, CDER has kept a keen focus on balancing our COVID-19 priorities with our other critical work needed to protect the health of the American public.
Rapidly responding to drug developers regarding changes they are making to help keep non-COVID-19 related clinical and bioequivalence trials on track and promote patient safety, including issuing and updating a key guidance on the conduct of clinical trials during this public health crisis and a dedicated email (clinicaltrialconduct-COVID19@fda.hhs.gov) for stakeholder inquiries, which we have utilized to regularly update the guidance
Continuing critical review and approval work to help ensure that safe and effective treatments for patients with other diseases can still be delivered
Continuing our ongoing assessment, surveillance, compliance and pharmaceutical quality efforts across every product area, and continuing to work with drug manufacturers to help ensure safe, effective and high-quality drugs for the American public
Helping to ensure access to cost saving drugs and other needed medications through continued review and approval of generic drugs and biosimilars
Making available for public viewing, as part of the regulatory process, a standard memorandum of understanding addressing certain distributions of compounded drug products between the FDA and states
Warned companies illegally selling unapproved cannabidiol (CBD) products with false claims of being able to treat medical conditions, including opioid addiction and reminded consumers of the dangers of using unapproved products to treat conditions or diseases with existing, approved treatment options
Requiring labeling changes for the widely-used prescription and over-the-counter nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), which include aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, diclofenac, and celecoxib. These changes include new product information to explain that if women take the medications around 20 weeks or later in their pregnancy, the drugs can cause rare but serious kidney problems in the unborn baby, which can lead to low levels of amniotic fluid (the protective cushion surrounding the unborn baby) and the potential for pregnancy-related complications.
As of October 22, 2020, CDER has approved more than 42 novel drugs and therapeutic biologics (those never before approved or marketed in the U.S.), including the first treatment for COVID-19, the first drug therapy to treat patients with Ebola virus, many innovative therapies to treat a variety of cancers, a first treatment for thyroid eye disease, a new drug to treat patients with growth hormone deficiency, a new treatment for multiple sclerosis and a new therapy for Cushing's disease.
Approved more than 558 generic drug applications since January 1, 2020, including at least 53 "first generics."


Takegawa SuperHead Bore Up Kit xr/crf100 (115cc/Stage-3/plated cylinder) (THIS IS OFFICIALLY THE LAST kit available as Takegawa has discontinued this kit.
We carry "most all" of the Takegawa parts & accessories line.
If you do not see it, we just might not have it loaded onto our site yet or we can order it for you!


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Mainlandization: An overview of Communist Party attempts to control and assimilate Hong Kong
Mainlandization preceded the Umbrella Movement. Since then, the Party has stepped up and expanded it.
Oct 15, 2017·27 min read
The primary dynamic of the current political situation in HK is a contest between Party-driven mainlandization on the one hand and democracy and self-determination movements on the other. The current article examines mainlandization. A following article will look at the self-determination movement.
Make no mistake about it: Communist Party-driven mainlandization is the biggest existential threat facing Hong Kong.
"Mainlandization" means attempts by the Communist Party and its allies to exert greater control over HK politically, economically, socially and culturally, with the objective of assimilating it and integrating it into the mainland as much as possible before the end of the 50-year "one country, two systems" period in 2047.
Before the Umbrella Movement of 2014, the Party already had a plan to achieve that. Indeed, the fake suffrage it attempted to implement in 2014 and 2015, against which the Umbrella Movement was a reaction, was a key part of that plan. The Party has not taken HK people's defeat of fake suffrage lightly. Its main response has been to speed up mainlandization and expand it into areas where it had previously made few inroads. It appears to believe that if the changes come fast and furious, shock-and-awe style, HK will simply be overwhelmed and "hostile elements" will not have the strength to withstand them all. Its strategy is to transform every aspect of governance and society while preserving the veneer of allowing HK institutions to continue to exist as before.
Below is an overview of various aspects of mainlandization, divided according to sector of society. The sectors are
· Government, civil service, Legco and police
· Cross-border abductions
· Mega-infrastructure projects
· Demographics and tourism
· Business and the economy
· Civil society (the United Front)
· Media and the book industry
· Education
· The judiciary and rule of law
The overview ends with education and the judiciary because these are the areas which, prior to the Umbrella Movement, had been the most resilient in withstanding mainlandization, and for that very reason, they are ones into which the Party and HK government have invested major effort in the post-Umbrella period.
This overview is not exhaustive; much more could be said about each area as well as about other areas not covered here. It is primarily intended to map just how pervasive the mainlandization of HK is and to show a pattern of imposition: Perhaps if one looks at one or two manifestations of mainlandization, one may not see the aspect of imposition, but take the manifestations as a whole, and it's hard to ignore.
If, after reading, you feel Armageddon's upon us, the overview has achieved its intended effect. But none of the ways the Party is trying to make HK more like the mainland are irreversible. Many of the Party and HK government's attempts to mainlandize are encountering strong resistance. Meanwhile, democracy and self-determination movements continue to develop. Weighing the balance between mainlandization and democratization, the conclusion is HK is up for grabs. But the threat of mainlandization needs to be seen for what it is and strategically and systematically countered.
Government, civil service, and police
(including both executive and legislative branches, excluding the judiciary; for the latter, see below)
The Communist Party's failure to implement fake suffrage was monumental. It would have given it a permanent stranglehold over the formal political system with no legal obligation to implement any further changes. But even without fake suffrage, its control over the HK government is nevertheless greater than ever.
The Chief Executive and her political appointees act as little more than proxies of the Party, especially when it comes to issues which the Party sees core interests. It is hard to recall a case in which the HK government differed with the Party, even when it appeared the interests of the HK people and the Party were at odds. Recent examples of the lockstep routine include co-location for the express rail link, the Party's Basic Law interpretation over oath-taking, a new mainland law on the national anthem which the Party intends to insert into an annex of the Basic Law to give it legal effect in HK, and Party agents' abductions of Lee Bo and Xiao Jianhua in HK and their spiriting across the border. On all these matters and others, the HK government simply adopts the Party line. A memorable nadir was the 2016 annual policy address by former Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying in which he mentioned the Party's "One Belt One Road" initiative 48 times, a project in which HK people have next to zero interest. He sounded like a ventriloquist's dummy in an unintentionally comic performance, but he illustrated perfectly the relationship between Party and HK government.
A relatively non-corrupt, efficient and unpoliticized civil service has been one of HK's saving graces, but since the Umbrella Movement, the government has increasingly used various agencies and departments to further the Party's agenda, largely through denial of services and facilities to perceived enemies. The Leisure and Cultural Services Department banned the pro-independence HK National Party and the localist Youngspiration from the Victoria Park New Year's Market on ludicrous "public safety" grounds and refused to publish a line in the bio of a theater director from Taiwan that said she had gone to Taipei National University of the Arts. The Companies Registry continues to refuse to register the pro-democracy self-determinationist political party Demosistō more than a year after it applied, without giving any reason. It also rejected the application of the National Party. Before the 2016 Legislative Council election, as the nomination period was about to open, the Electoral Affairs Commission suddenly demanded that prospective candidates sign a new additional form pledging fealty to the Basic Law, in particular Article 1, which asserts that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is an inalienable part of the People's Republic of China. The EAC's returning officers then proceeded to disqualify half a dozen potential candidates on political grounds having to do with their unsubstantiated and uncontestable suspicions that the applicants would not uphold Article 1.
Legco started low and is getting lower. With only half of its 70 seats filled through free and fair elections according to principles of universal suffrage and the fact that it is hardly a legislative body in that members cannot introduce any legislation which costs government money, it was hardly a paragon of democracy to begin with. But now it is apparently to be scrubbed of any elected representatives with political views deemed unacceptable by the Party. Of course, there are the infamous cases of the six pro-democracy Legco members, elected with 183,236 votes total, who were disqualified after the National People's Congress Standing Committee interpretation of the Basic Law on oath-taking in November 2016. In addition, the HK government has brought six criminal cases against five elected pro-democracy Legco members for statements made and actions taken as part of their work in Legco: Cheng Chung-tai was convicted of desecrating the PRC and HKSAR flags; Long Hair was acquitted of misconduct in public office and is awaiting trial for contempt of Legco; Kenneth Leung is being personally sued by former CE Leung Chun-ying for defamation; and Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching await trial for unlawful assembly outside a Legco chamber. This pattern represents a new trend: previously, the HK government left Legco's matters to Legco to sort out, whether oath-taking or disciplinary issues. Its interventions are unprecedented attacks on the little democracy HK has, and indeed on the concept of representative government and the will of the people.
The police force has more links than ever with its mainland counterparts, and both top officers and ordinary officers go to the mainland in greater numbers and more frequently than ever. Since the Umbrella Movement, the police force has become more insulated than ever from accountability, and there is still exceedingly deep distrust of the force on the part of a great many HK citizens. (A recent conversation: Me: "When it comes down to it, police officers are just ordinary people, like most everyone else." Interlocutor: "Maybe, but when they're ordered to shoot you, they'll shoot. So whose side are they on?") Upwards of a third of its 28,705 officers were used to guard both Zhang Dejiang and Xi Jinping during their respective 2016 and 2017 visits to HK. This number far exceeded that needed to address legitimate security concerns. Their primary purpose was to protect the Party leaders from encountering protest by HK people or any other "embarrassing" situations. Both during the Umbrella Movement and since, in lieu of viable solutions to political problems, they have been used as the guard dogs of the regime. And they have been impotent in pursuing potential crimes in which Party agents are implicated (see below).
Cross-border abductions
This is an entirely new category of mainlandization that has arisen since the Umbrella Movement. Prior to the abduction of Lee Bo in December 2015, few people thought the Party would be so brazen as to kidnap people off the streets of HK and transport them to the mainland. Indeed, even though it involved a single individual, no other event has so damaged people's confidence in "one country, two systems" and protections of civil rights as Lee Bo's kidnapping.
And then it happened again, this time to the mainland tycoon Xiao Jianhua staying at the luxury Four Seasons hotel. This abduction didn't excite nearly as much alarm, perhaps because it was seen as an internal Party matter, Xiao being a politically well-connected businessman. But it should have, coming so soon after Lee Bo's abduction. Until then, some might have argued Lee Bo was a one-off, perhaps even a "mistake", but after Xiao Jianhua, it's clear that when the Party feels the need, it will not allow something as inconsequential as the law to prevent it from abducting people in HK.
Just as alarming as the actions of Party agents in HK has been the utter incapacity (or perhaps lack of will) of the HK government and police to do anything about them. In neither Lee Bo's nor Xiao Jianhua's case did the police so much as even determine that a crime had been committed, nor did they get to the bottom of what exactly occurred. So HK people are left with the prospect that the government and police either can or will not protect them even within HK, let alone elsewhere (HK permanent resident Gui Minhai, the bookseller kidnapped by the Party in Thailand, has been held incommunicado in detention without trial for over a year). Of course, it all depends on who's doing the kidnapping: By contrast, when the Bossini clothing heiress was kidnapped in HK in early 2015, HK police worked closely with mainland police to apprehend the suspects, and by the middle of 2016, nine kidnappers had been tried in Shenzhen and one in HK.
Mega-infrastructure projects
These include the HK-Macau-Zhuhai bridge, the rail link to connect HK to the mainland express rail system, and related to that, the plan to "co-locate" mainland immigration authorities at the express rail terminus in HK. To this can be added the annex to the Palace Museum in Beijing, an entire museum in its own right to be built at the West Kowloon Cultural District, where the express rail link terminates. All of these projects were initiated by the Party and implemented by the HK government with minimal participation or approval by HK people. They are enormously expensive, unnecessary, and largely unwanted.
The transport links are meant to integrate HK more closely with the mainland. The vision is of a Pearl River Delta mega-city with Shenzhen and Zhuhai. Ultimately, HK is to be rendered virtually indistinguishable. The expenses of the HK portion of the projects are borne for the most part by the HK government, mostly through tax and land sales revenues (the bridge partly through loans and the museum capital expenses entirely through donation from the HK Jockey Club).
The express rail link was originally estimated to cost HK$39.5 billion. Then the cost rose to $65 billion, and now, most recently, to $84.42 billion, more than double the initial estimate. Seven years after the HK government got initial approval for funding from a Legco dominated by Party allies, it finally announced its agreement with the Party for a co-location arrangement, according to which mainland immigration authorities will be allowed to operate in HK, in direct contravention of Basic Law Article 18. Prior to this agreement, it did not consult the people of HK and says it won't now either, apart from moving a non-binding Legco motion. Thus, the project has become the Party's Trojan horse, introducing mainland law enforcement to HK.
The cost of the main section of the HK-Macau-Zhuhai bridge is unknown, though announced to have gone over the initial estimate of HK$17.74 billion, with HK contributing $7.62 billion. In addition to that, HK will spend $48.5 billion on the HK section of the bridge infrastructure.
So, just on those two projects, a minimum of HK$140.54 billion from HK government coffers for primarily Party priorities whose purpose is to link HK closer to the mainland.
The Palace Museum annex in HK is the result of a secret agreement between the HK government and the Party. The discussions between the Party and the HK government regarding co-location were also secret, but at least the HK public was informed they were going on. In the case of the museum, no one knew about it until it was announced. Astonishingly, not even the board of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, itself a government agency, was informed of the agreement until after it had been made, let alone given any say in the matter. The site where the Palace Museum annex will be built was originally intended as a major performance venue. That idea was scrapped after the government said it had not been able to procure funding. But it had no problem funding the HK Palace Museum: Part of the secret agreement was that HK$3.5 billion in capital would be provided by the HK Jockey Club. Since it is a non-governmental entity, the HK government does not have to seek approval for funding from Legco, and there is therefore even less public oversight of the project than of the other two major infrastructure projects. It is unclear who will administer the museum, but it will presumably involve mainland government agencies given that the collection it houses will continue to belong to the Palace Museum in Beijing. Apart from the entirely opaque decision-making process, many object to the concept of Chinese-ness foisted upon HK by the Palace Museum annex at a time when fewer HK people than ever identify themselves as Chinese, 21 percent overall and only 3 percent of young people. What, after all, does the Palace Museum have to do with HK? It is as if the Party were planting its assertion that HK is Chinese right in the middle of the city, on the site of the HK government's largest ever cultural initiative. The West Kowloon Cultural District was originally intended to put HK on the global map culturally. The Palace Museum annex subverts that outward-facing intention, instead emphasizing Chinese culture.
According to HK government statistics, from 2003 to 2014, 828,000 mainlanders settled in HK, about 11 percent of the overall population, 63,000 new arrivals every year. Mainland immigration is by far the biggest contributor to population growth in a city with one of the lowest birth rates in the world. The vast majority of these mainland immigrants arrive through the One-Way Permit Scheme, which has the intended purpose of family reunification, but the Party, not the HK government, has control over who comes; indeed, final approval is given by the Ministry of Public Security. The process has no transparency, and little is known about how it is determined who exactly comes.
HK is an immigrant city par excellence. Virtually everyone came here from somewhere else (mostly China) within the last century. But many feel that the post-handover immigrants are different and represent an attempt by the Party to change the demographic composition of HK to one more favorable to Party rule. Prior to the 1997 handover, the brunt of mainland immigration to HK occurred before the 1970s. Only after the handover was an official policy to facilitate immigration in large numbers from the mainland implemented. In the past, many immigrants fled the mainland due to political turmoil or famine, and therefore tended to have at the very least an ambivalent attitude towards the Party, but post-handover immigrants appear to be apolitical or inclined to support the Party, not necessarily actively but because the mainland's is the only political culture they've ever known. Political docility probably comes top of the list of the Party's desired attributes in its subjects. It is unclear the extent to which the Party has recruited recent mainland immigrants to participate in United Front organizations (see below). Indeed, little is known of them in general.
In addition to immigrants, over 40 million mainland tourists visit HK every year, more than five times the size of HK's population, enough to have a decided impact on the cityscape. This number has risen from 4 million per year in 2003, due not least of all to HK government efforts to reorient the economy towards mainland tourism. This has driven up retail property prices, turning central shopping areas into meccas for global luxury brands and displacing many smaller locally owned businesses. Because of the tourists and the immigrants, Putonghua is heard with increasing frequency on the streets of many central areas and in neighborhoods and public housing estates where recent immigrants are clustered.
Business and the economy
Since the handover, HK's business elites have had a cozy relationship with the Party, which regards them as a major ally. After it ruled out genuine suffrage in HK in 2014, it expected trouble, and so it summoned 70 tycoons, lead by Tung Chee-hwa, the HKSAR's first Chief Executive and a tycoon himself, to Beijing to remind them of the importance of loyalty. The Umbrella Movement erupted a week later. The tycoons stood by the regime throughout. Both the HK General Chamber of Commerce and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce are allied with the Party and have supported Party political initiatives and spoken out against pro-democracy initiatives, all in the name of business advocacy of course.
These days, however, the sands are quickly shifting beneath the tycoons' feet. The Party is shunting them aside in favor of mainland companies, many Party-owned or with close links to the Party. According to a Reuters report, "Chinese companies are consuming ever bigger chunks of the city's key sectors including real estate, finance, power, construction and the stock market." "Seven developers — controlled by Hong Kong's richest men — used to win 45 per cent of all residential land sites sold in the city as recently as in 2012. That ratio halved to 22 per cent by [2016]…. Mainland Chinese developers won about one plot out of every three on sale through government tender in 2016." Mainland banks account for 40 percent of retail bank branches in HK, and mainland companies for over 60 percent of market capitalization on the Hang Seng Index, compared to 20 percent in 1997. In 1997, all top 10 companies on the Hang Seng were HK companies; now 6 of 10 are mainland companies, and 4 of those Party-owned. Last year, 92 percent of all initial public offerings were from the mainland. Especially after the 2008 global financial crisis, when the Party injected large amounts of liquidity into the mainland economy to offset the downturn, money sloshing over the border has been one of the main causes of an increase in property prices that's put the goal of owning a home far out of the reach of most people and made HK the least affordable housing market in the world.
That HK's economy has become increasingly dependent on, linked to and colonized by the mainland's is not entirely due to the gravitational pull of the latter due to its sheer size. It has been driven by government policy on both sides of the border. The economy is the area of mainlandization where the Party faces the least resistance, and this is to due to the fact that most businesspeople either support or don't dare object to it while HK government officials refuse to use the mechanisms at their disposal to regulate it.
HK could promote a more diverse economy, by both supporting local initiatives and facing outward toward East and Southeast Asia and beyond, positioning itself not as "a China growth derivative" as one market analyst put it but as a regional hub. A developed, post-industrial economy, HK is well-placed to be a regional leader in environmentally friendly urban design. As a city with an English-language heritage and solid universities, it could also be a regional education hub.
Civil Society (the United Front)
The term United Front (統一戰線) refers to the various organizations in HK aligned with the Party and used by it to further its interests. This includes loyalist political parties, the Federation of Trade Unions, the Heung Yee Kuk of New Territories rural committees, and so-called "patriotic" associations often named after the places in China from which their founders originally came. These groups have an especially strong presence in lower-income and working-class parts of the HK, for example, the public housing estates. The Party is attempting to extend its tentacles all the time: Derek Lam of Demosistō recently reported, "Of Hong Kong's six major religions, five are already firmly under the control of the Chinese Communist Party."
The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong is the largest political party in HK. Since HK has no law on political parties (they are registered as companies in the Companies Registry) or on their funding, they are required to divulge only their income, not their funding sources. This allows parties to receive funding in complete secrecy. To get a sense of both sources and size of funding, one can only look at the tip of the iceberg: At the DAB's annual fundraising auction in 2014, it raised HK$68.38 million, with some of it coming from HK tycoons purchasing auctioned calligraphy and paintings made by Party officials working in HK — a perfect illustration of how the combination of tycoons, Party officials and United Front organizations works. This was in contrast to $2.8 million and $2.35 million raised, respectively, by the pan-democratic Democratic and Civic Parties at their auctions. The DAB's total income for 2008 to 2014 was HK$460 million. This money is largely used to maintain a permanent presence in as many parts of the city as possible, especially lower-income areas, which in turn function as its vote banks.
As much as anything else, the United Front is meant to promote a Party-friendly environment. Many UF groups are known for their low-cost banquets and excursions for the elderly in parts of the city where there are few other affordable entertainment options. The FTU is known for its adult education classes. People who avail themselves of these opportunities tend to be disproportionately older and relatively uncritical of the Party.
UF members and supporters are also mobilized when needed. For example, on the last day of the week-long student strike in September 2014 which eventually lead to the Umbrella Movement, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, a government agency, denied the main venue in Tamar Park where the strike took place to Hong Kong Federation of Students, though it had already been there for three days, and gave it to the Federation of HK Guangxi Community Organizations, an archetypal UF group, to celebrate October 1, though that was still five days away. The United Front is also the primary pool for rent-a-crowd mobilizations when the Party thinks showing a street presence will be of some benefit in projecting an image of a "divided" city. There have been numerous cases of pro-Party "demonstrators" being paid stipends and provided with meals and transportation to attend events. A classic example occurred in the lead-up to the Umbrella Movement, when in August 2014, several thousand were mobilized to march against the movement's threat of civil disobedience. Out of that arose the infamous interview in which one marcher, when asked why she was there, simply answered in shaky Cantonese, "Shopping."
The United Front's biggest challenge is recruiting the next generation. Its membership skews elderly, and most HK young people despise the Party. Recent mainland immigrants (see above) may be its most promising replenishment pool. Its efforts at appealing to the young often take bizarre and maladroit forms such as the Hong Kong Army Cadets Association, of which the wife of former CE Leung Chun-ying is "commander-in-chief".
As Christine Loh put it in her 2010 book, Underground Front, HK is the only place in the world where the ruling party is underground. That continues to be the case — it's everywhere and nowhere all at once. It wants to be the air you breathe.
Media and book industry
The HK media is widely regarded by both journalists themselves and the public to practice substantial self-censorship. Freedom of the press is seen as increasingly threatened. It is unusual to come across criticism of the Party's top leaders in the mainstream press, or for that matter, even of the Party.
The Party owns outright its low-circulation mouthpieces, Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung Pao. There is a number of other news outlets considered pro-Party, either due to their ownership or their editorial stance or both. There are two reputable neutral daily newspapers, Ming Pao and low-circulation Hong Kong Economic Journal. One of Ming Pao's editors, Kevin Lau was nearly hacked to death in a cleaver attack while walking on the street in 2014. Another was fired in 2016, supposedly for business reasons, to the outrage of the Ming Pao Staff Association and much of the public. Apple Daily is the only explicitly pro-democracy daily. During the fight for genuine suffrage in 2014, it suffered cyberattacks on its website, its distribution center was picketed by Party supporters, its newspapers were destroyed at pick-up points, and its owner, Jimmy Lai, had his electronic communications hacked, his house firebombed, and was physically attacked by Party supporters at the Admiralty occupation. The biggest English-language daily, South China Morning Post, was bought in 2016 by Alibaba, which has close ties to the Party. It announced it purchased SCMP to, among other reasons, provide a better image of China to the world. Even before that, its editor in chief, Wang Xiangwei, was a mainlander and a representative to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Its owner at the time, pro-Party tycoon Robert Kuok Hock Nien, consulted the Liaison Office before appointing Wang.
While television has always been the least diverse medium, with the fewest outlets, new digital t.v. ventures briefly gave some hope of more variety. One of these was ViuTV which had a show titled "Travels with Rivals". It had invited Billy Fung, the former head of the HKU Student Union and an advocate of HK independence, and Wang Dan, the 1989 student leader in Beijing, to appear together on a trip to Japan. But after the pair debated HK independence at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, ViuTV suddenly cancelled the show.
Apparently, word had come down from above that no substantive discussion of HK independence, especially by its advocates, could be allowed on television. The largest free television station in HK, TVB, has long been criticized as having an editorial board that hews far too close to the Party line. Indeed, its nickname within the pro-democracy movement is CCTVB, combining the name of the Party broadcaster, CCTV, with TVB. It is owned by mainland media mogul Li Ruigang through a nearly impenetrable web of business relationships and company structures apparently in breach of HK government regulations restricting ownership of HK broadcasters by non-HK entities.
The only other pro-democracy journalism can be found in online-only media outlets. These are the main sources of news for many HK people, especially young people.
The Party's Liaison Office is HK's biggest owner of book distributors and retailers. It has an 80 percent market share and owns 51 bookstores. It appears to have deliberately camouflaged its ownership: It owns Guangdong New Culture Development, which in turn owns New Culture Development HK, which in turn owns Sino United Publishing Group, which in turn owns Commercial Press, Joint Publishing, and Chunghwa, three major bookstore chains. Several reports have documented the chains' censorship of books on "sensitive" political topics, such as the Umbrella Movement, which are not presented from the Party's point of view. Like Li Ruigang's ownership of TVB, this ownership structure is apparently in violation of HK law, in this instance Basic Law Article 22.
Post-Umbrella, the Party and HK government have put significant effort into exerting greater control over universities. Their lesson from the Umbrella Movement was that, since students played a central role, more attention had to be given toward better "educating" them. Universities have been relatively free spaces in HK society, and up to the Umbrella Movement, the Party had made few substantial inroads there. Post-Umbrella, universities have become key battlegrounds.
In his first annual policy address after the Umbrella Movement, in January 2015, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying criticized the HKU Student Union magazine, Undergrad, for publications on self-determination, self-reliance and HK people deciding their own fate. The attack was tantamount to a veiled declaration of war against pro-democracy forces on university campuses.
Upon the request of the government's Education Bureau, the HKU governing council, dominated by government appointees, made repeated attempts to punish Benny Tai and the HKU Public Opinion Programme for conducting the OCLP referendum in June 2014 in which nearly 800,000 people voted for real universal suffrage, this in spite of the fact that the HKU administration under vice-chancellor Peter Mathieson had already cleared Tai of any wrongdoing. Benny's been singled out for attack in Party-owned newspapers and, most recently, by pro-Party Legco member and Lingnan University governing council member Junius Ho, who in a rally dedicated to driving Benny from the university also said independence advocates should be killed.
The Party and HK government have pressured public university governing councils to play a more pro-government role. The Chief Executive is nominal chancellor of all public universities. By tradition, this role has largely been ceremonial. Leung Chun-ying used it to drive his political agenda, for example by appointing Arthur Li head of the HKU council over the objections of large numbers of students, faculty and alumni. Li compared students who participated in the Umbrella Movement to Cultural Revolution Red Guards, The head of HKU, Peter Mathieson, resigned prematurely, supposedly because of the attraction of an academic post elsewhere, but one couldn't help but think the constant political interference from above must have been stifling. His own governing council, which appointed him, blocked his preferred candidate for pro-vice-chancellor, Johannes Chan, who was head of the HKU law faculty and also happened to be Benny's boss and pro-democracy himself. Thus, during Mathieson's whole tenure, he was never allowed to put his own leadership team in place.
Resistance to the political interference has been strong, with calls to end the CE's position as chancellor of all public universities and for diversification of university councils. This has headed off greater incursions, at least for the time being. But as has been seen in the recent controversy surrounding the appearance of HK independence banners on campuses in the first week of the school year, the pressure has chilled university administrations into falling into lockstep with the Party line and students know they will likely be punished for making political statements to which the Party takes exception (in particular, for advocating independence — tellingly, the banners appeared anonymously). Much circumstantial evidence suggests that professors consider the "sensitivity" of an issue when deciding whether or not to pursue research, organize conferences and teach it. The Party's effort to control universities is a long-term project. The ultimate aim is to get universities to practice more extensive self-censorship similar to the media.
The Party's efforts to mainlandize secondary and primary schools are long-standing. In 2012, a large campaign by a coalition of civil society groups forced the HK government to all but scrap its about-to-be-implemented Moral and National Education subject, the impetus for which was a statement by then Party General Secretary Hu Jintao that HK had to foster "a strong sense of national identity" amongst young people. The subject was regarded as brainwashing by the pro-democracy movement, for which the government's climb-down was a significant victory, but the government has said that it still intends to introduce elements of national education into the school system through a variety of avenues, and there are frequent protests against introduction of new materials, such as those meant to promote the Party line on the Basic Law or, most recently, a booklet intended to promote Chinese identity.
Language is a political battleground in Hong Kong. Cantonese is widely considered central to Hong Kong identity. There is persistent controversy surrounding the HK government's long-standing policy, going back to 2003, of promoting the teaching of Chinese in Putonghua, even though there is no scientific research that shows HK children learn Chinese better in Putonghua than in Cantonese, the native language of 90 percent of them. While the decision is ultimately left up to individual schools, HK government efforts to promote teaching Chinese in Putonghua had by 2015 resulted in 72 percent of government-funded primaries and 37 percent of government-funded secondary schools teaching Chinese in Putonghua. Some, especially secondaries, have recently switched back to Cantonese after becoming disillusioned with the results of teaching Chinese in Putonghua. But given government backing, the pressure to teach Chinese in Putonghua is bound to continue.
Judiciary and rule of law
Along with education, the judiciary and rule of law were seen, prior to the Umbrella Movement, as the other area of HK society which had largely buffered itself from mainlandization. But since the Umbrella Movement, the judiciary's come under heavy pressure and there are signs that it is changing in ways that only Party loyalists can see as positive.
While most of HK responded with varying degrees of shock and indignation to the White Paper on HK issued by the Party in June 2014 (it provoked a backlash days before OCLP's scheduled referendum on genuine universal suffrage), the legal community in particular was up in arms since the White Paper characterized the HK judiciary as an "administrative" body that had to cooperate with other parts of the HK government and be "patriotic". Lawyers, who were not given to street protest (indeed, this was only their second since the handover), demonstrated by holding a silent march dressed in black suits from HK's High Court to its Court of Final Appeal. To the legal community, the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law were sacrosanct.
Since, then, the Party has pushed HK to fulfill to its vision of the judiciary articulated in the White Paper. The HK government originally planned to use prosecutions of the more than 1,000 arrested during the Umbrella Movement to test judicial independence, but the majority of its cases were so weak, it never got far with that plan, prosecuting upwards of 250 people and getting convictions of around 85. The Party and HK government labelled the whole movement "illegal", but they couldn't prove that in the courts.
Then along came their godsend, the Chinese New Year 2016 clashes in Mong Kok between police and protesters. If there's anything the generally conservative judiciary abhors, it's violence by non-state actors. The HK government's been aggressively prosecuting Mong Kok defendants and getting a much higher percentage of convictions than usual as well as long prison sentences of three years each for "rioting". This seems to have shifted the priorities of at least some in the judiciary away from paying due regard to civil rights and toward "deterrence", a word that's crept into many decisions as if implanted there.
With newfound confidence, the HK government appealed the community service sentences of 15 activists (and suspended sentence of one) in two separate cases, one related to the Umbrella Movement, one preceding it, and got prison sentences for all 16, ranging in duration from six to thirteen months. This, even though the crime committed by all 16 was the nonviolent unlawful assembly, and most sentences for this crime in recent years have ranged from fines to three weeks to three months in prison. Both High Court judgments made reference to "violence", though the crimes of which the 16 were convicted did not involve violence. Parts of the judges' rulings sounded politically biased, referring to "unhealthy trends in society" (civil disobedience and what they saw as disrespect for the law) and again invoking "deterrence" to justify the much harsher-than-usual sentences. It was hard to avoid the conclusion that HK now had its first full-fledged political prisoners, serving prison sentences not based on the nature of their crime but on the lead judge's views on the "health" of society. It was as if these defendants were being held responsible not for unlawful assembly but for the "unhealthy trends in society". None of the judges mentioned the "unhealthy trend" of HK still being denied universal suffrage in contravention of both international and HK law.
Probably the single most damaging act against the independence of the judiciary has been the NPCSC's interpretation of the Basic Law, handed down in the midst of an on-going court case brought by the HK government against Legco members Baggio Leung and Yau Wai-ching over their Legco oath-taking. The interpretation was retroactive since it supposedly only clarified what was stated in 1997, in clear contravention of a basic judicial principle that new laws should not be applied retroactively. It all but compelled the High Court judge to decide in favor of the HK government and disqualify the two from Legco. For the second time in less than three years, the law community marched against the interference. But the HK government wasn't done there. Flush with its success, it applied to the High Court to disqualify four more elected members of Legco, and the High Court gave them the boot as well. An unelected government, with the indispensible help of a dictatorship's ruling, was using the High Court to kick democratically elected representatives out of office.
Whatever else may be said about the High Court's disqualification of six elected Legco members, it is clear that it has not protected the rights or interests of voters, and therefore has failed to protect the few, highly circumscribed democratic rights HK people enjoy, deciding that a dictatorship's edict has far greater legal weight. Indeed, one of the most troubling aspects of rule of law in HK has been the inability to hold those who most egregiously refuse to follow the law accountable. In continuing to deny universal suffrage in line with international law and standards to the people of HK, the Party and HK government are in breach of the Basic Law, yet there is virtually no legal recourse to justice in regard to this breach which deprives an entire population of a basic human right. There is the great irony that those protesting the denial of that right have been convicted and imprisoned while those who continue to deny that right are above the law. What does that say about the state of rule of law in HK?
The overall effect of the many manifestations of mainlandization outlined here is a crisis of public confidence in the "one country, two systems" policy and the supposed guarantee to HK of a "high degree of autonomy" in all matters except those related to defense and foreign affairs. There is widespread public distrust of the HK government, the police, the Party, and, increasingly, of other institutions such as the judiciary and university administrations.
Some might argue that closer ties between a country, such as the PRC, and its newly incorporated territory, such as HK, are both inevitable and normal. But the pattern mapped out here shows not closer cooperation but imposition. And the whole point of "one country, two systems" and a "high degree of autonomy" was that such imposition should not occur.
A substantial number of HK people have concluded not only that "one country, two systems" isn't working properly but that it really no longer exists and the Basic Law has failed HK. One increasingly hears phrases like "one country, one-point-five systems" which will eventually lead to one country, one system. More HK people feel compelled to look for other solutions, whether self-determination or full independence, as the only means of preserving what they thought had been promised to them and protecting and achieving their basic rights.
This article is the third in a 5-part series on the Umbrella Movement three years after its beginning in September 2014. The first article is "Why I wrote 'Umbrella', a 600-page account of the Umbrella Movement"; the second, "The Umbrella Movement after three years: So much accomplished, and much still to do", and the third, "Three years on, the Umbrella Movement fallout determines Hong Kong politics today".
Kong Tsung-gan is the author of Umbrella: A Political Tale from Hong Kong. He envisions a day when September 28 will be HK's national day and "Raise Your Umbrellas" its national song.
Mainlandization
Chinese Communist Party
Imperfect Reality
D Abboh in P.S. I Love You


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More than 250,000 boys and girls have been adopted from other countries by American parents since 1989 (Immigrant Visas Issued, 2006). Most of these children have experienced prenatal risk factors (low birth weight, prematurity, lack of medical care and/or exposure to drugs, alcohol, tobacco), as well as risk factors associated with institutional care (growth and developmental delays, medical problems and/or lack of individualized attention) (Gunnar, Bruce, & Grotevant, 2000; Jenista, 2000; Johnson, 2002; Miller, 2005a). As a consequence, internationally adopted children frequently experience a complex array of developmental, medical, and behavioral issues (Hjern, Lindblad, & Vinnerljung, 2002; Miller, 2005b; Rutter et al., 1999; Tizard, Cooperman, Joseph, & Tizard, 1972; Tizard & Hodges, 1978; Tizard & Joseph, 1970; Verhulst, Althaus, & Versluis-den Bieman, 1990a, 1990b, 1992; Verhulst, Versluis-den Bieman, van der Ende, Berden, & Sanders-Woudstra, 1990; Versluis-den Bieman & Verhulst, 1995). Nevertheless, most of them exhibit remarkable catch-up growth and development within months after arriving home.
Parents who adopt internationally are generally recognized as an extremely devoted and committed group, who literally "go to the ends of the earth" to form their families. As with other types of adoptions, prospective parents frequently wait for months or even years to complete their international adoptions. Procedural delays and setbacks are common in international adoptions, due in part to the complex requirements of U.S. and foreign government bureaucracies.
Throughout the process, significantly, there are multiple opportunities for agencies to appraise and educate the prospective parents. Parents who adopt in any way, for instance, must undergo a "home study" by a licensed adoption agency to meet legal requirements. Home studies are conducted by trained social workers, in part to obtain comprehensive information about the personal lives, child-rearing beliefs, and psychological preparedness of prospective adoptive parents. Because international adoption is a long and intensive process, agencies often have the opportunity to assess prospective parents under diverse and stressful conditions.
depression" is becoming more widely recognized and may even be more common than postpartum depression (Foli & Thompson, 2004). Whether postadoption depression contributed to these fatalities is unknown. However, the deaths of these children remind us that traveling a long distance to adopt a child does not prevent a susceptible parent from becoming abusive.
deal with the reality of adoptive parenthood compared to what had been anticipated. Adoption agencies, in particular, must be vigilant about looking for red flags indicating families in crisis as they complete their mandated postplacement reports and visits. All professionals involved with internationally adopted children and their families must be alert to the warning signs and must be willing to decisively intervene—as early as possible—to protect the children.
Foli, K. J., & Thompson, J. R. (2004). The post-adoption blues. New York: Rodale.
Gunnar, M. R., Bruce, J., & Grotevant, H. D. (2000). International adoption of institutionally reared children: Research and policy. Developmental Psychopathology, 12, 677-693.
Hjern, A., Lindblad, F., & Vinnerljung, B. (2002). Suicide, psychiatric illness, and social maladjustment in intercountry adoptees in Sweden: A cohort study. Lancet, 360(9331), 443-448.
Immigrant visas issued to orphans coming to the U.S. (2006). Available at: http://travel.state.gov/adopt.html.
Jenista, J. A. (Ed.). (2000). International adoption [Special issue]. Pediatric Annals, 29(4).
Johnson, D. E. (2002). Adoption and the effect on children's development. Early Human Development, 68(1), 39-54.
Lewis, R. J., Cole, D., & Williamson, A. (2003). Review of health and social services in the case of David and Samuel Briggs. Craigavon, UK: Department of Health, Social Services, and Public Safety.
McCarthy, P. (2006, June 28). Neglect charges added to assault suspect. Bridgeton News, p. 1.
Miller, L. C. (2005a). The handbook of international adoption medicine. New York: Oxford University Press.
Miller, L. C. (2005b). International adoption, behavior, and mental health. Journal of the American Medical Association, 293, 2533-2535.
Morton, T. D. (2005, August). Lost in America. Lawrenceville, GA: Child Welfare Institute.
Castle, J., Groothues, C., et al. (1999). Quasi-autistic patterns following severe global privation. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 40, 537-549.
Sector, C. (2005, November 17). Boy's death may halt U.S. adoption. ABC News. Available at http://abcnews.go.com/International/US/story?id=755137&page=1.
Tizard, B., & Hodges, J. (1978). The effect of early institutional rearing on the development of eight year old children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 19(2), 99-118.
Tizard, B., & Joseph, A. (1970). Cognitive development of young children in residential care: A study of children aged 24 months. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 11(3), 177-186.
Van Sack, J. (2002, October 21). Police say man killed family, self. Boston Globe, p. 81.
Verhulst, F. C., Althaus, M., & Versluis-den Bieman, H. J. (1990a). Problem behavior in international adoptees: I. An epidemiological study. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 29(1), 94-103.
Verhulst, F. C., Althaus, M., & Versluis-den Bieman, H. J. (1990b). Problem behavior in international adoptees: II. Age at placement. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 29(1), 104-111.
Verhulst, F. C., Althaus, M., & Versluis-den Bieman, H. J. (1992). Damaging backgrounds: later adjustment of international adoptees. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 31(3), 518-524.
Verhulst, F. C., Versluis-den Bieman, H., van der Ende, J., Berden, G. F., & Sanders-Woudstra, J. A. (1990). Problem behavior in international adoptees: III. Diagnosis of child psychiatric disorders. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 29(3), 420-428.
Versluis-den Bieman, H. J., & Verhulst, F. C. (1995). Self-reported and parent reported problems in adolescent international adoptees. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 36(8), 1411-1428.
Laurie C. Miller, MD, established the International Adoption Clinic at New England Medical Center in 1989. She is an associate professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine and is the author of The Handbook of International Adoption Medicine (2005), Encyclopedia of Adoption (with C. Adamec, 2006), and more than 70 peer-reviewed articles in pediatrics.
Wilma Chan, BS, graduated from Tufts University in 2003, after majoring in child development and biology. She worked as a research assistant in the International Adoption Clinic program at New England Medical Center for 3 years. She is currently a second- year medical student at Tufts University School of Medicine.
Robert A. Reece, MD, is clinical professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine. He has been the chair of the Child Abuse Section of the American Academy of Pediatrics and has served on the executive committees of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, Prevent Child Abuse (America), and the National Children's Alliance. He is the editor of three editions of Child Abuse: Medical Diagnosis and Management, the editor of Child Abuse Treatment, and is the executive editor of the Quarterly Update.
Linda Grey Tirella, OTR/L, MS, MHA, has worked at the International Adoption Clinic as a developmental therapist since 2001. She has specialized training in sensory integration disorders and 18 years experience as a therapist in the public schools working with children with developmental disabilities.
Authors' Note: Address correspondence to Laurie C. Miller, MD, Box 286 NEMC, 750 Washington St., Boston, MA 02111; phone: 617-636-4285; e-mail: lmiller1@tufts-nemc.org.
We thank Thais Tepper and Daniel and Elizabeth Case for helpful discussions and bringing some of the details of these cases to our attention.
Submitted by Niels on Thu, 2010-04-15 14:59.
In the context of inter-country adoption, counting seems to be a problematic issue. We already demonstrated that the statistics of sending and receiving countries hardly ever match. The same can be said about abuse fatalities in inter-country adoption. Articles are written and assumptions made upon the perceived number of fatalities, but a proper counting rarely takes place.
The above article claims 18 such fatalities happened between 1996 and 2007, while a recount show that 25 foreign adopted children died due to abuse or neglect during that time period.
The literature on fatalities of foreign adopted children, usually focuses on the Russian cases, and tries to seek an explanation for the abuse/neglect in the conditions of Russian orphanages.
The overemphasis on Russian adoptions contributes to the miscount. The above article missed counting 7 cases, only one of them a Russian case. Two Chinese cases were missed. One Guatemalan, one Honduran, one Indian, and one Vietnamese case was missed.
The chosen bracket (1996-2007), also leads to an overemphasis on Russian cases. When we look at a larger time range (1955-2010), it becomes apparent that there are not two, but six Chinese fatalities; that there were four El Salvadoran fatalities prior to 1996; that five Guatemalan children died at the hands of their adopters, not two; that ten South Korean children were killed by their adopters.
Looking beyond the Russia-biased time frame, it becomes evident, that Russian children are still overrepresented among the fatalities, but not by such wide margins as commonly stated. The ratio of fatalities between Chinese and Russian is not 1:7 as the above article suggests, but 1:3.
Better counting and expanding the time bracket shows that not 14 out of 18 fatalities relate to Russian children but 18 out of 49.
While still being the biggest source of fatalities, Russian specific factors can no longer be used as an explanatory factor. Often institutionalization is mentioned as the main contributing factor to the abuse, but when Russian cases make up less than half of the total number of cases, Russian institutionalization can no longer be the only factor.
Several countries in the following list, don't have institutionalization Russian-style. South Korea, for example, usually places healthy infants, yet at least 10 South Korean children (six separate cases) died at the hands of their adopters. Guatemala also placed mostly healthy infants, yet there are five cases of fatal abuse or neglect of Guatemalan children.
So far, the reason for fatalities has been sought in early childhood trauma/damage. With Russian cases dominating the fatality count, the blame for the abuse can be laid with the children and the orphanages they come from.
This line of reasoning was already dubious. The United States adopted about as many children from Russia as the rest of the world combined, yet there is only one fatal abuse case of a Russian child outside the United States. Only that figure shows the problem is much less the result of Russian orphanages than it is a problem of the American adoption system.
The recount presented here shows, that Russia is not the exceptional outlier it is presented to be. The United States of America is the exceptional outlier. The US, imports approximately half of the children placed for adoption internationally, resulting in 49 fatal abuse cases. The rest of the world imports the other half of the children placed for adoption internationally, resulting in 3 fatal abuse cases.
The same pattern emerges when looking at the much larger number of non-fatal abuse cases. Again the United States is responsible for the vast majority of cases, hundreds of American cases versus a handful of cases outside the US.
If there is any factor responsible for the number of abuse fatalities of foreign adopted children, it has to be sought within the American adoption system. The commercial nature of the American adoption system, could very well be that factor.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2011-03-22 19:07.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2011-03-22 19:09.
I hope they rot away forever!!!
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2011-03-22 23:10.
There are other cases that never hit the media or the AP's were not charged with a crime, but kids are dead none the less. There are also quite a few internationally adopted children who are "missing" and none of the authorities (State or Federal) seem to know or care where they are. The goal of the system is to get them adopted and move on. Case closed.
Submitted by Niels on Wed, 2011-03-23 00:46.
What you say is very true and is part of a much bigger problem.
When an adoption is finalized, the responsibility of outside parties (agencies, federal or state government) stops and parental rights take over. As a result, some adopted children end up living with families like that of Tom and Debra Schmitz, other children end up missing for years, while adoption subsidies continue to be paid. Foreign authorities keep complaining about missing post-placement reports.
Some authorities and adoption service providers will be glad their responsibility ends as quickly as possible, other's seem to be annoyed with the fact they cannot properly monitor placements. Yet the fact remains, proper post-adoption monitoring is legally impossible. This is not just true in the US, but is an issue in almost all countries.
Despite the fact that many cases probably fly under the radar, many do get reported in the news (otherwise we wouldn't have such an extensive archive of abuse cases). The vast majority of cases relate to the US, which makes me wonder: is the abuse problem of adopted children in the US so much bigger than in other countries, or are other countries so much better brushing things under the carpet?
Submitted by La Ronda (not verified) on Wed, 2011-03-23 11:16.
Countries like Guatemala do not require PP studies, even though some agencies do charge APs a fee for doing one, some agencies do not even visit the child after they arrive in the US. So those PP studies just wind up in a file with the agency.
So many biomothers will never know what happened to their children. I doubt that those that voluntarily relinquished and those that were coersed or kidnapped... ever imagined that their child would be murdered... or...missing... or....the adoption dissolved... or ...their child trafficked using Yahoo parent groups, using the new term "rehoming".
Were the mothers of Ena, Joshua, Nathaniel, Guatavo, Jackson and others whose adoption were dissolved ever told where their children are and what their fate ultimately was? Answer: NO!
There is NO accountability people! Open your eyes.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2011-03-23 18:16.
Some countries make PAP's sign a form stating they allow officials to visit the child at any time in their new country. I signed this agreement. The fact is most of the kids adopted internationally retain their first citizenship until age 18. So far, country officials have only visited children who's parents voluntarily agree to such meetings and it is usually hosted by large adoption agencies to show officials how well the children are doing. It would be interesting if someone were to put this to the test and see how it stands up legally. It kind of reminds me of so-called legally enforceable open adoption agreements in California. If the AP's refuse to comply, what is the court really going to do?
Submitted by Kerry on Wed, 2011-03-23 21:46.
It would be interesting if someone were to put this to the test and see how it stands up legally. It kind of reminds me of so-called legally enforceable open adoption agreements in California. If the AP's refuse to comply, what is the court really going to do?
Compliance would have to come from the adoption agency, as well, wouldn't it? Meaning, each agency, even the small mom-and-pop adoption shops involved in ICA would have to provide information needed by sending-country officials.
Considering how quickly a small adoption agency can go belly-up (or tank -- choose your euphemism for closing), how can agency compliance be guaranteed?
Also, let's not forget, those likely to agree to such an agreement are adopting for decent reasons, and more than likely NOT (closet pedophiles) planning on sexually abusing or sexually exploiting the child "saved" from foster/institutional-care.
Submitted by Teddy on Wed, 2011-03-23 23:49.
Unless Korea has changed: The child has dual citizenship upon arriving in the USA. Once the child has been formally adopted here in the states, you send a copy of the new birth certificate to Korea; then Korea cancels the citizenship of the child. Supposedly, when the child arrives in the USA, and the adoption is either finalized, or the child is re-adopted here in the states, the child automatically becomes a citizen. Most AP's go ahead and do the paperwork for the formal citizenship which entails a ceremony and a certificate, and costs around $400.00.
VietNam requires a yearly report from the AP's, including pictures, until the child is 18. But if the AP's opt not to do this, there are no repercussions for them; it falls on the agency to say whatever it takes to appease the sending country. Not only a disrupted adoption, but divorce, CHILD ABUSE etc., could cause this situation. I've heard a SW explain it this way, "We know what they want to hear."


Nothing encapsulated the OTT exuberance of the Roaring Twenties quite like F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic, The Great Gatsby. This is not just a compilation of some wonderful quotes from the novel, but an ode of sorts to the fine authorship of the master himself.
F. Scott Fitzgerald began working on this concept in 1923, but discarded much of his earlier material, which made its way into one of his short stories. Also, even though Gatsby is considered to be a quintessential American story, Fitzgerald wrote it while he was living in France.
Baz Luhrmann's opulent outing in last summer's The Great Gatsby is probably the only interaction that most youngsters had with this literary classic. While the merits of the movie can be dissected another day, the real hero of this story remains Fitzgerald's unfettered and sublime prose.
Delicate, heart-wrenching, and vividly honest to the core, the narrative of the novel is its soul. Fitzgerald weaved a wonderful tale of heartbreak against the backdrop of the Roaring Twenties―a time when priorities bent towards the practical, and wealth always scored over love.
The novel's narrator, Nick Carraway is a young man from Minnesota goes to New York to build his life, after being educated at Yale and fighting in World War I.
Nick is Daisy Buchanan's cousin, and is instrumental in rekindling the romance between her and Jay Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is told entirely through Nick's eyes; his thoughts and perceptions mold and paint the story.
◉ "I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth."
◉ "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired."
◉ "So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight."
◉ "He hadn't once ceased looking at Daisy, and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs."
◉ "And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer."
◉ "Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known."
◉ "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."
◉ "It's a great advantage not to drink among hard drinking people. You can hold your tongue, and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don't see or care."
◉ "The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain."
◉ "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter―tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning―So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
◉ "For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened - then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk."
◉ "His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him."
◉ "A stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words."
◉ "Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply."
◉ "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy―they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
◉ "I hope she'll be a fool―that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."
◉ "Ah," she cried, "you look so cool."
◉ Their eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space. With an effort she glanced down at the table.
◉ You always look so cool," she repeated.
◉ "Do you ever wait for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always wait for the longest day of the year and then miss it!"
◉ "It makes me sad because I've never seen such―such beautiful shirts before."
◉ "And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy."
◉ "They'll keep out of my way," she insisted. "It takes two to make an accident."
◉ "Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead."
◉ "I've been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library."
◉ "And what's more, I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time."
If Baz Luhrmann's Gatsby is the only one you're acquainted with, these words should have provided enough juice to reach out for Fitzgerald's original―read it and be mesmerized.


text:
<?php

namespace App\Models;

use Carbon\Carbon;

/**
 * @property int $id
 * @property Carbon $created_at
 * @property Carbon $updated_at
 */
class TransactionPeriodicityDaily
	extends Model {

	/**
	 * @var array
	 */
	public $dates = [
		'created_at',
		'updated_at',
	];

	/**
	 * @return \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Relations\MorphToMany
	 */
	public function transaction() {
		return $this->morphToMany(Transaction::class, 'transaction_periodicity');
	}

	/**
	 * @inheritDoc
	 */
	public static function getCacheConfiguration(): array {
		return [
			'tags' => [
				'Finances',
				'Finances.Transaction',
				'Finances.TransactionPeriodicity',
			],

			'flush-tags' => [
				'Finances.TransactionPeriodicity',
			],
		];
	}

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub