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Her Freedom
by Ethel M. Dell
"We have been requested to announce that the marriage arranged between Viscount Merrivale and Miss Hilary St. Orme will not take place."
Viscount Merrivale was eating his breakfast when he chanced upon this announcement. He was late that morning, and, contrary to custom, was skimming through the paper at the same time. But the paragraph brought both occupations to an abrupt standstill. He stared at the sheet for a few moments as if he thought it was bewitched. His brown face reddened, and he looked as if he were about to say something. Then he pushed the paper aside with a contemptuous movement and drank his coffee.
His servant, appearing in answer to the bell a few minutes later, looked at him with furtive curiosity. He had already seen the announcement, being in the habit of studying society items before placing the paper on the breakfast-table. But Merrivale's clean-shaven face was free from perturbation, and the man was puzzled.
"Reynolds," Merrivale said, "I shall go out of town this afternoon. Have the motor ready at four!"
"Very good, my lord." Reynolds glanced at the table and noted with some satisfaction that his master had only eaten one egg.
"Yes, I have finished," Merrivale said, taking up the paper. "If Mr. Culver calls, ask him to be good enough to wait for me. And--that's all," he ended abruptly as he reached the door.
"As cool as a cucumber!" murmured Reynolds, as he began to clear the table. "I shouldn't wonder but what he stuck the notice in hisself."
Merrivale, still with the morning paper in his hand, strolled easily down to his club and collected a few letters. He then sauntered into the smoking-room, where a knot of men, busily conversing in undertones, gave him awkward greeting.
Merrivale lighted a cigar and sat down deliberately to study his paper.
Nearly an hour later he rose, nodded to several members, who glanced up at him expectantly, and serenely took his departure.
A general buzz of discussion followed.
"He doesn't look exactly heart-broken," one man observed.
"Hearts grow tough in the West," remarked another. "He has probably done the breaking-off himself. Jack Merrivale, late of California, isn't the sort of chap to stand much trifling."
A young man with quizzical eyes broke in with a laugh.
"Ask Mr. Cosmo Fletcher! He is really well up on that subject."
"Also Mr. Richard Culver, apparently," returned the first speaker.
Culver grinned and bowed.
"Certainly, sir," he said. "But--luckily for himself--he has never qualified for a leathering from Jack Merrivale, late of California. I don't believe myself that he did do the breaking-off. As they haven't met more than a dozen times, it can't have gone very deep with him. And, anyhow, I am certain the girl never cared twopence for anything except his title, the imp. She's my cousin, you know, so I can call her what I like--always have."
"I shouldn't abuse the privilege in Merrivale's presence if I were you," remarked the man who had expressed the opinion that Merrivale was not one to stand much trifling.
"Well, but wasn't it unreasonable?" said Hilary St. Orme, with hands clasped daintily behind her dark head. "Who could stand such tyranny as that? And surely it's much better to find out before than after. I hate masterful men, Sybil. I am quite sure I could never have been happy with him."
The girl's young step-mother looked across at the pretty, mutinous face and sighed.
"It wasn't a nice way of telling him so, I'm afraid, dear," she said. "Your father is very vexed."
"But it was beautifully conclusive, wasn't it?" laughed Hilary. "As to the poor old pater, he won't keep it up for ever, bless his simple heart, that did want its daughter to be a viscountess. So while the fit lasts I propose to judiciously absent my erring self. It's a nuisance to have to miss all the fun this season; but with the pater in the sulks it wouldn't be worth it. So I'm off to-morrow to join Bertie and the house-boat at Riverton. As Dick has taken a bungalow close by, we shall be quite a happy family party. They will be happy; I shall be happy; and you--positively, darling, you won't have a care left in the world. If it weren't for your matrimonial bonds, I should quite envy you."
"I don't think you ought to go down to Riverton without someone responsible to look after you," objected Mrs. St. Orme dubiously.
"My dear little mother, what a notion!" cried her step-daughter with a merry laugh. "Who ever dreamt of the proprieties on the river? Why, I spent a whole fortnight on the house-boat with only Bertie and the Badger that time the poor old pater and I fell out over--what was it? Well, it doesn't matter. Anyhow, I did. And no one a bit the worse. Bertie is equal to a dozen duennas, as everyone knows."
"Don't you really care, I wonder?" said Mrs. St. Orme, with wondering eyes on the animated face.
"Why should I, dear?" laughed the girl, dropping upon a hassock at her side. "I am my own mistress. I have a little money, and--considering I am only twenty-four--quite a lot of wisdom. As to being Viscountess Merrivale, I will say it fascinated me a little--just at first, you know. And the poor old pater was so respectful I couldn't help enjoying myself. But the gilt soon wore off the gingerbread, and I really couldn't enjoy what was left. I said to myself, 'My dear, that man has the makings of a hectoring bully. You must cut yourself loose at once if you don't want to develop into that most miserable of all creatures, a down-trodden wife.' So after our little tiff of the day before yesterday I sent the notice off forthwith. And--you observe--it has taken effect. The tyrant hasn't been near."
"You really mean to say the engagement wasn't actually broken off before you sent it?" said Mrs. St. Orme, looking shocked.
"It didn't occur to either of us," said Hilary, looking down with a smile at the corners of her mouth. "He chose to take exception to my being seen riding in the park with Mr. Fletcher. And I took exception to his interference. Not that I like Mr. Fletcher, for I don't. But I had to assert my right to choose my own friends. He disputed it. And then we parted. No one is going to interfere with my freedom."
"You were never truly in love with him, then?" said Mrs. St. Orme, regret and relief struggling in her voice.
Hilary looked up with clear eyes.
"Oh, never, darling!" she said tranquilly. "Nor he with me. I don't know what it means; do you? You can't--surely--be in love with the poor old pater?"
She laughed at the idea and idly took up a paper lying at hand. Half a minute later she uttered a sharp cry and looked up with flaming cheeks.
"How--how--dare he?" she cried, almost incoherent with angry astonishment. "Sybil! For Heaven's sake! See!"
She thrust the paper upon her step-mother's knee and pointed with a finger that shook uncontrollably at a brief announcement in the society column.
"We are requested to state that the announcement in yesterday's issue that the marriage arranged between Viscount Merrivale and Miss Hilary St. Orme would not take place was erroneous. The marriage will take place, as previously announced, towards the end of the season."
"What sublime assurance!" exclaimed Bertie St. Orme, lying on his back in the luxurious punt which his sister was leisurely impelling up stream, and laughing up at her flushed face. "This viscount of yours seems to have plenty of decision of character, whatever else he may be lacking in."
Bertie St. Orme was a cripple, and spent every summer regularly upon the river with his old manservant, nicknamed "the Badger."
"Oh, he is quite impossible!" Hilary declared. "Let's talk of something else!"
"But he means to keep you to your word, eh?" her brother persisted. "How will you get out of it?"
Hilary's face flushed more deeply, and she bit her lip.
"There won't be any getting out of it. Don't be silly! I am free."
"The end of the season!" teased Bertie. "That allows you--let's see--four, five, six more weeks of freedom."
"Be quiet, if you don't want a drenching!" warned Hilary. "Besides," she added, with inconsequent optimism, "anything may happen before then. Why, I may even be married to a man I really like."
"Great Scotland, so you may!" chuckled her brother. "There's the wild man that Dick has brought down here to tame before launching at society. He's a great beast like a brown bear. He wouldn't be my taste, but that's a detail."
"I hate fashionable men!" declared Hilary, with scarlet face. "I'd rather marry a red Indian than one of these inane men about town."
"Ho! ho!" laughed Bertie. "Then Dick's wild man will be quite to your taste. As soon as he leaves off worrying mutton-bones with his fingers and teeth, we'll ask Dick to bring him to dine."
"You're perfectly disgusting!" said Hilary, digging her punt-pole into the bed of the river with a vicious plunge. "If you don't mean to behave yourself, I won't stay with you."
"Oh, yes, you will," returned Bertie with brotherly assurance. "You wouldn't miss Dick's aborigine for anything--and I don't blame you, for he's worth seeing. Dick assures me that he is quite harmless, or I don't know that I should care to venture my scalp at such close quarters."
"You're positively ridiculous to-day," Hilary declared.
A perfect summer morning, a rippling blue river that shone like glass where the willows dipped and trailed, and a girl who sang a murmurous little song to herself as she slid down the bank into the laughing stream.
Ah, it was heavenly! The sun-flecks on the water danced and swam all about her. The trees whispered to one another above her floating form. The roses on the garden balustrade of Dick Culver's bungalow nodded as though welcoming a friend. She turned over and struck out vigorously, swimming up-stream. It was June, and the whole world was awake and singing.
"It's better than the entire London season put together," she murmured to herself, as she presently came drifting back.
A whiff of tobacco-smoke interrupted her soliloquy. She shook back her wet hair and stood up waist-deep in the clear, green water.
"What ho, Dick!" she called gaily. "I can't see you, but I know you're there. Come down and have a swim, you lazy boy!"
There followed a pause. Then a diffident voice with an unmistakably foreign accent made reply.
"Were you speaking to me?"
Glancing up in the direction of the voice, Hilary discovered a stranger seated against the trunk of a willow on the high bank above her. She started and coloured. She had forgotten Dick's wild man. She described him later as the brownest man she had ever seen. His face was brown, the lower part of it covered with a thick growth of brown beard. His eyes were brown, surmounted by very bushy eyebrows. His hair was brown. His hands were brown. His clothes were brown, and he was smoking what looked like a brown clay pipe.
Hilary regained her self-possession almost at once. The diffidence of the voice gave her assurance.
"I thought my cousin was there," she explained. "You are Dick's friend, I think?"
The man on the bank smiled an affirmative, and Hilary remarked to herself that he had splendid teeth.
"I am Dick's friend," he said, speaking slowly, as if learning the lesson from her. There was a slight subdued twang in his utterance which attracted Hilary immensely.
She nodded encouragingly to him.
"I am Dick's cousin," she said. "He will tell you all about me if you ask him."
"I will certainly ask," the stranger said in his soft, foreign drawl.
"Don't forget!" called Hilary, as she splashed back into deep water. "And tell him to bring you to dine on our house-boat at eight to-night! Bertie and I will be delighted to see you. We were meaning to send a formal invitation. But no one stands on ceremony on the river--or in it either," she laughed to herself as she swam away with swift, even strokes.
"I shouldn't have asked him in that way," she explained to her brother afterwards, "if he hadn't been rather shy. One must be nice to foreigners, and dear Dickie's society undiluted would bore me to extinction."
"I don't think we had better give him a knife at dinner," remarked Bertie. "I shouldn't like you to be scalped, darling. It would ruin your prospects. I suppose my only course would be to insist upon his marrying you forthwith."
"Bertie, you're a beast!" said his sister tersely.
"We have taken you at your word, you see," sang out Dick Culver from his punt. "I hope you haven't thought better of it by any chance, for my friend has been able to think of nothing else all day."
A slim white figure danced eagerly out of the tiny dining-saloon of the house-boat.
"Come on board!" she cried hospitably. "The Badger will see to your punt. I am glad you're not late."
She held out her hand to the new-comer with a pretty lack of ceremony. He looked more than ever like a backwoodsman, but it was quite evident that he was pleased with his surroundings. He shook hands with her almost reverently, and smiled in a quiet, well-satisfied way. But, having nothing to say, he did not vex himself to put it into words--a trait which strongly appealed to Hilary.
"His name," said Dick Culver, laughing at his cousin over the big man's shoulder, "is Jacques. He has another, but, as nobody ever uses it, it isn't to the point, and I never was good at pronunciation. He is a French Canadian, with a dash of Yankee thrown in. He is of a peaceable disposition except when roused, when all his friends find it advisable to give him a wide berth. He--"
"That'll do, my dear fellow," softly interposed the stranger, with a gentle lift of the elbow in Culver's direction. "Leave Miss St. Orme to find out the rest for herself! I hope she is not easily alarmed."
"Not at all, I assure you," said Hilary. "Never mind Dick! No one does. Come inside!"
She led the way with light feet. Her exile from London during the season promised to be less deadly than she had anticipated. Unmistakably she liked Dick's wild man.
They found Bertie in the little roselit saloon, and as he welcomed the stranger Culver drew Hilary aside. There was much mystery on his comical face.
"I'll tell you a secret," he murmured; "this fellow is a great chief in his own country, but he doesn't want anyone to know it. He's coming here to learn a little of our ways, and he's particularly interested in English women, so be nice to him."
"I thought you said he was a French Canadian," said Hilary.
"That's what he wants to appear," said Culver. "And, anyhow, he had a Yankee mother. I know that for a fact. He's quite civilised, you know. You needn't be afraid of him."
"Afraid!" exclaimed Hilary.
Turning, she found the new-comer looking at her with brown eyes that were soft under the bushy brows.
"He can't be a red man," she said to herself. "He hasn't got the cheek-bones."
Leaving Dick to amuse himself, she smiled upon her other guest with winning graciousness and forthwith began the dainty task of initiating him into the ways of English women.
She was relieved to find that, notwithstanding his hairy appearance, he was, as Dick had assured her, quite civilised. As the meal proceeded she suddenly conceived an interest in Canada and the States, which had never before possessed her. She questioned him with growing eagerness, and he replied with a smile and always that half-reverent, half-shy courtliness that had first attracted her. Undoubtedly he was a pleasant companion. He clothed the information for which she asked in careful and picturesque language. He was ready at any moment to render any service, however slight, but his attentions were so unobtrusive that Hilary could not but accept them with pleasure. She maintained her pretty graciousness throughout dinner, anxious to set him at his ease.
"Englishmen are not half so nice," she said to herself, as she rose from the table. And she thought of the stubborn Viscount Merrivale as she said it.
There was a friendly regret at her departure written in the man's eyes as he opened the door for her, and with a sudden girlish impulse she paused.
"Why don't you come and smoke your cigar in the punt?" she said.
He glanced irresolutely over his shoulder at the other two men who were discussing some political problem with much absorption.
With a curious desire to have her way with him, the girl waited with a little laugh.
"Come!" she said softly. "You can't be interested in British politics."
He looked at her with his friendly, silent smile, and followed her out.
"Isn't it heavenly?" breathed Hilary, as she lay back on the velvet cushions and watched the man's strong figure bend to the punt-pole.
"I think it is Heaven, Miss St. Orme," he answered in a hushed voice.
The sun had scarcely set in a cloudless shimmer of rose, and, sailing up from the east, a full moon cast a rippling, silvery pathway upon the mysterious water.
The girl drew a long sigh of satisfaction, then laughed a little.
"What a shame to make you work after dinner!" she said.
She saw his smile in the moonlight.
"Do you call this work?" She seemed to hear a faint ring of amusement in the slowly-uttered question.
"You are very strong," she said almost involuntarily.
"Yes," he agreed quietly, and there suddenly ran a curious thrill through her--a feeling that she and he had once been kindred spirits together in another world.
She felt as if their intimacy had advanced by strides when she spoke again, and the sensation was one of a strange, quivering delight which the perfection of the June night seemed to wholly justify. Anyhow, it was not a moment for probing her inner self with searching questions. She turned a little and suffered her fingers to trail through the moonlit water.
"I wonder if you would tell me something?" she said almost diffidently.
"If it lies in my power," he answered courteously.
"You may think it rude," she suggested, with a most unusual attack of timidity. It had been her habit all her life to command rather than to request. But somehow the very courtesy with which this man treated her made her uncertain of herself.
"I shall not think anything so--impossible," he assured her gently, and again she saw his smile.
"Well," she said, looking up at him intently, "will you--please--let me into your secret? I promise I won't tell. But do tell me who you are!"
There followed a silence, during which the man leaned a little on his pole, gazing downwards while he kept the punt motionless. The water babbled round them with a tinkling murmur that was like the laughter of fairy voices. They had passed beyond the region of house-boats and bungalows, and the night was very still.
At last the man spoke, and the girl gave a queer little motion of relief.
"I should like to tell you everything there is to know about me," he said in his careful, foreign English. "But--will you forgive me?--I do not feel myself able to do so--yet. Some day I will answer your question gladly--I hope some day soon--if you are kind enough to continue to extend to me your interest and your friendship."
He looked down into Hilary's uplifted face with a queer wistfulness that struck unexpectedly straight to her heart. She felt suddenly that this man's past contained something of loss and disappointment of which he could not lightly speak to a mere casual acquaintance.
With the quickness of impulse characteristic of her, she smiled sympathetic comprehension.
"And you won't even tell me your name?" she said.
He bent again to the pole, and she saw his teeth shine in the moonlight. "I think my friend told you one of my names," he said.
"Oh, it's much too commonplace," she protested. "Quite half the men I know are called Jack."
And then for the first time she heard him laugh--a low, exultant laugh that sent the blood in a sudden rush to her cheeks.
"Shall we go back now?" she suggested, turning her face away.
He obeyed her instantly, and the punt began to glide back through the ripples.
No further word passed between them till, as they neared the house-boat, the high, keen notes of a flute floated out upon the tender silence.
Hilary glanced up sharply, the moonlight on her face, and saw a group of men in a punt moored under the shadowy bank. One of them raised his hand and sent a ringing salutation across the water.
Hilary nodded and turned aside. There was annoyance on her face--the annoyance of one suddenly awakened from a dream of complete enjoyment.
Her companion asked no question. He was bending vigorously to his work. But she seemed to consider some explanation to be due to him.
"That," she said, "is a man I know slightly. His name is Cosmo Fletcher."
"A friend?" asked the big man.
Hilary coloured a little.
"Well," she said half-reluctantly, "I suppose one would call him that."
"I believe you're in love with Culver's half-breed American," said Cosmo Fletcher brutally, nearly three weeks later. He had just been rejected finally and emphatically by the girl who faced him in the stern of his skiff.
She was very pale, but her eyes were full of resolution as they met his.
"That," she said, "is no business of yours. Please take me back!"
He looked as if he would have liked to refuse, but her steadfast eyes compelled him. Sullenly he turned the boat.
Dead silence reigned between them till, as they rounded a bend in the river and came within sight of the house-boat, Fletcher, glancing over his shoulder, caught sight of a big figure seated on the deck.
Then he turned to the girl with a sneer:
"It might interest Jack Merrivale to hear of this pretty little romance of yours," he said.
The colour flamed in her cheeks.
"Tell him then!" she said defiantly.
"I think I must," said Fletcher. "He and I are such old friends."
He waited for her to tell him that it was on his account that they had quarrelled, but she would not so far gratify him, maintaining a stubborn silence till they drew alongside. Jacques rose to hand her on board.
"I hope you have enjoyed your row," he said courteously.
"Thanks!" she returned briefly, avoiding his eyes. "I think it is too hot to enjoy anything to-day."
The tea-kettle was singing merrily on the dainty brass spirit-lamp, and she sat down at the table forthwith.
Jacques stood beside her, silent and friendly as a tame mastiff. Perhaps his presence after what had just passed between herself and Fletcher made her nervous, or perhaps her thoughts were elsewhere and she forgot to be cautious. Whatever the cause, she took up the kettle carelessly and knocked it against the spirit-lamp with some force.
Jacques swooped forward and steadied it before it could overturn; but the dodging flame caught the girl's muslin sleeve and set it ablaze in an instant. She uttered a cry and started up with a wild idea of flinging herself into the river, but Jacques was too quick for her. He turned and seized the burning fabric in his great hands, ripping it away from her arm and crushing out the flames with unflinching strength.
"Don't be frightened!" he said. "It's all right. I've got it out."
"And what of you?" she gasped, eyes of horror on his blackened hands.
He smiled at her reassuringly.
"Well done, man!" cried Dick Culver. "It was like you to save her life while we were thinking about it. Are you hurt, Hilary?"
"No," she said, with trembling lips. "But--but--"
She broke off on the verge of tears, and Dick considerately transferred his attention to his friend.
"Let's see the damage, old fellow!"
"It is nothing," said Jacques, still faintly smiling. "Yes, you may see it if you like, if only to prove that I speak the truth."
He thrust out one hand and displayed a scorched and blistered palm.
"Call that nothing!" began Dick.
Fletcher suddenly pushed forward with an oath that startled them all.
"I should know that hand anywhere!" he exclaimed. "You infernal, lying impostor!"
There was an elaborate tattoo of the American flag on the extended wrist, to which he pointed with a furious laugh.
"Deny it if you can!" he said.
Jacques looked at him gravely, without the smallest sign of agitation.
"You certainly have good reason to know that hand rather well," he said after a moment, speaking with extreme deliberation, "considering that it has had the privilege of giving you the finest thrashing of your life."
Fletcher turned purple. He looked as if he were going to strike the speaker on the mouth. But before he could raise his hand Hilary suddenly forced herself between them.
"Mr. Fletcher," she said, her voice quivering with anger, "go instantly! There is your boat. And never come near us again!"
Fletcher fell back a step, but he was too furious to obey such a command.
"Do you think I am going to leave that confounded humbug to have it all his own way?" he snarled. "I tell you--"
But here Culver intervened.
"You shut up!" he ordered sternly. "We've had too much of you already. You had better go."
He took Fletcher imperatively by the arm, but Jacques intervened.
"Pray let the gentleman speak, Dick!" he said. "It will ease his feelings perhaps."
"No!" broke in Hilary breathlessly. "No, no! I won't listen! I tell you I won't!" facing the big man almost fiercely. "Tell me yourself if you like!"
He looked at her closely, still with that odd half-smile upon his face.
Then, before them all, he took her hand, and, bending, held it to his lips.
"Thank you, Hilary!" he said very softly.
In the privacy of her own cabin Hilary removed her tatters and cooled her tingling cheeks. She and her brother were engaged to dine at Dick's bungalow that night, but an overwhelming shyness possessed her, and at the last moment she persuaded Bertie to go alone. It was plain that for some reason Bertie was hugely amused, and she thought it rather heartless of him.
She dined alone on the house-boat with her face to the river. Her fright had made her somewhat nervous, and she was inclined to start at every sound. When the meal was over she went up to her favourite retreat on the upper deck. A golden twilight still lingered in the air, and the river was mysteriously calm. But the girl's heart was full of a heavy restlessness. Each time she heard a punt-pole striking on the bed of the river she raised her head to look.
He came at last--the man for whom her heart waited. He was punting rapidly down-stream, and she could not see his face. Yet she knew him, by the swing of his arms, the goodly strength of his muscles,--and by the suffocating beating of her heart. She saw that one hand was bandaged, and a passionate feeling that was almost rapture thrilled through and through her at the sight. Then he shot beyond her vision, and she heard the punt bump against the house-boat.
"It's a gentleman to see you, miss," said the Badger, thrusting a grey and grinning visage up the stairs.
"Ask him to come up!" said Hilary, steadying her voice with an effort.
A moment later she rose to receive the man she loved. And her heart suddenly ceased to beat.
"You!" she gasped, in a choked whisper.
He came straight forward. The last light of the day shone on his smooth brown face, with its steady eyes and strong mouth.
"Yes," he said, and still through his quiet tones she seemed to hear a faint echo of the subdued twang which dwellers in the Far West sometimes acquire. "I, John Merrivale, late of California, beg to render to you, Hilary St. Orme, in addition to my respectful homage, that freedom for which you have not deigned to ask."
She stared at him dumbly, one hand pressed against her breast. The ripple of the river ran softly through the silence. Slowly at last Merrivale turned to go.
And then sharply, uncertainly, she spoke.
"Wait, please!" she said.
She moved close to him and laid her hand on the flower-bedecked balustrade, trembling very much.
"Why have you done this?" Her quivering voice sounded like a prayer.
He hesitated, then answered her quietly through the gloom.
"I did it because I loved you."
"And what did you hope to gain by it?" breathed Hilary.
He did not answer, and she drew a little nearer as though his silence reassured her.
"Wouldn't it have saved a lot of trouble," she said, her voice very low but no longer uncertain, "if you had given me my freedom in the first place? Don't you think you ought to have done that?"
"I don't know," Merrivale said. "That fellow spoilt my game. So I offer it to you now--with apologies."
"I should have appreciated it--in the first place," said Hilary, and suddenly there was a ripple of laughter in her voice like an echo of the water below them. "But now I--I--have no use for it. It's too late. Do you know, Jack, I'm not sure he did spoil your game after all!"
He turned towards her swiftly, and she thrust out her hands to him with a quick sob that became a laugh as she felt his arms about her.
"You hairless monster!" she said. "What woman ever wanted freedom when she could have--Love?"
Two days later Viscount Merrivale's friends at the club read with interest and some amusement the announcement that his marriage to Miss Hilary St. Orme had been fixed to take place on the last day of the month.
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The passing of a Titan
The iconic co-creator of Marvel Comics, Stan Lee, has passed away at age 95 following a bout with pneumonia and ongoing issues with his vision. He was rushed from his Hollywood Hill home via an ambulance into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he then passed away.
Alongside the visionary Jack Kirby, Lee went on to solidify a legacy with created characters such as The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Black Panther, The Incredible Hulk, the X-Men, Iron Man and, of course, The Avengers.
Following the loss of his wife Joan last year, Lee began to battle disputes within his own company POW! Entertainment, suing the execs in charge for $ 1 billion USD for fraud before dropping the suit a week later. It was also rumored that the comic book legend was the victim of elderly abuse on behalf of his caretakers and close family.
Lee is survived by his daughter, J.C., whose stated "My father loved all of his fans. He was the greatest, most decent man."
There will never be another Stan Lee. For decades he provided both young and old with adventure, escape, comfort, confidence, inspiration, strength, friendship and joy. He exuded love and kindness and will leave an indelible mark on so, so, so many lives. Excelsior!!
— Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) November 12, 2018
Thank u Stan Lee for everything.
— TRAVIS SCOTT (@trvisXX) November 12, 2018
Damn… RIP Stan. Thanks for everything. pic.twitter.com/TMAaDJSOhh
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) November 12, 2018
RIP @TheRealStanLee He made everyone feel like a kid in his presence no matter what your age. pic.twitter.com/JYeWXq8iKb
— Jim Lee (@JimLee) November 12, 2018
Thank you Stan Lee for making people who feel different realize they are special.
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) November 12, 2018
Rest in peace, Stan Lee. The many worlds of imagination & delight you created for humanity will last forever.
No one has had more of an impact on my career and everything we do at Marvel Studios than Stan Lee. Stan leaves an extraordinary legacy that will outlive us all. Our thoughts are with his daughter, his family, and his millions of fans. #ThankYouStan #Excelsior!
— Kevin Feige (@Kevfeige) November 12, 2018
Category: Hidden Messages November 12, 2018
Tags: Marvel ComicsStan Lee
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A $550-per-hour coach is helping Sound Transit's chief get along with his employees
Originally published August 17, 2018 at 6:00 am Updated August 20, 2018 at 9:07 am
Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff was hired for his get-things-done style, but employees have complained about his communication style. Enter Andrea Luoma of Port Angeles, doing business as Accomodare Consulting.
Mike Lindblom
Seattle Times transportation reporter
Sound Transit is paying a management coach $550 per hour to help Chief Executive Officer Peter Rogoff get along better with his employees.
The sessions are part of the "leadership-development plan" that elected officials on the transit agency's 18-member board required March 1 after members disclosed that Rogoff underwent internal investigation of alleged profanity, verbal aggression and sexism toward agency staff.
Rogoff makes $328,545 including this year's 5 percent inflation raise, but he was denied a performance bonus because of the turbulence.
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Five months later, board members haven't given a public account of his progress. Soon they will have to discuss whether to renew his expiring three-year contract.
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His leadership mentor is Andrea Luoma of Port Angeles, with Accomodare Consulting, according to a work agreement obtained by The Seattle Times through the state open-records act.
Her going rate is $550 per hour, up to a maximum of $35,000 through Dec. 31. She cites a worldwide clientele, including large hotels and Visit Seattle.
The stakes couldn't be higher to develop a CEO who runs on all cylinders and attains regional prestige.
Puget Sound-area and federal taxpayers are spending $90 billion over a quarter-century to build and operate a three-county transit network, featuring eight rail extensions passed by voters in 2016.
Seattle enjoys the nation's fastest-growing transit demand, including a 6 percent gain this past year in Sound Transit train boardings. But runaway inflation, a cumbersome planning process and community requests for more Seattle tunnels are placing future timelines at risk.
Luoma has met weekly with Rogoff, said agency spokesman Geoff Patrick. This goes further than her proposal, which allowed for online and phone sessions.
Rogoff was also required to take a Conversational Intelligence C-IQ test in the spring and fall to measure progress, says an April 2 memo signed by Board Chairman Dave Somers, Snohomish County executive.
And the CEO has undergone four monthly sessions with a board committee of Everett Councilman Paul Roberts, Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus and Steilacoom Mayor Ron Lucas, as directed in the March 1 board vote.
These meetings are squeezed into Rogoff's normal schedule, which lately includes trips to Washington, D.C., lobbying for a critical $1.1 billion grant to build the delayed $3.2 billion Northgate-Lynnwood line. It's one of 17 projects nationally where the Trump administration has delayed funds that Congress authorized.
Rogoff also received a lei and welcoming audience Aug. 3 in Hawaii, where he reassured supporters that the Honolulu Elevated Rapid Transportation elevated-rail project will be transformative as in Seattle, where daily ridership on Link passed 80,000 boardings this year.
King County Executive Dow Constantine and a headhunting firm recruited Rogoff in late 2015 for his analytical skills and knowledge of megaproject funding, as a congressional staffer and former federal transit administrator. The choice elicited virtually no board or public scrutiny, as Constantine called him a superior candidate. But staff complaints about his personal style trickled into the human-resources department almost immediately.
"I think we were having some cultural seasickness," said board member John Marchione, the Redmond mayor. The board expected Rogoff to add urgency and move faster in creating the regional network, he said.
But soon Rogoff offended some employees, because of what the investigator and board members deemed a confrontational "East Coast" style, which contrasted with the patient tone of retired CEO Joni Earl. Rogoff used profanity and vented that "people around here are so [expletive] lazy."
A clearer explanation might be Rogoff's background rising through hierarchies in the nation's capital. The improvement plan speaks to this, ordering him to listen and build relationships while "moving away from relying on position power to accomplish agency objectives."
In her consulting offer, Luoma said passion isn't enough, and clients need alternative ways to communicate and build enthusiasm in their teams. "Neuroscience is providing the most cutting-edge insights, tips and tools previously unknown and certainly never taught," she wrote.
Luoma was picked after interviews with about eight bidders, said Patrick, the Sound Transit spokesman. She hasn't replied to requests for comment.
Rogoff "doesn't wish to comment ahead of the conclusion of the board's process," Patrick said. Most complaints are now more than 2 years old, and Patrick said none have arisen this year.
Rogoff mentioned in a March 1 statement, "My workplace demeanor in early 2016 was the wrong approach. I take full responsibility for it."
Friction is commonplace between new CEOs and the organizations they join, said C.B. Bowman, CEO of the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches. The skills that propel hard-charging people to the top aren't necessarily the skills to stay there, she said.
"The head of Google received coaching. Most successful people in the C-Suite are being coached." It's a burgeoning field, with 30,000 practitioners of varying skill levels nationally, she estimates.
An hourly fee of $550 would be normal for top-tier coaching, she said. But Sound Transit should have prepared Rogoff for the agency's culture at the outset, she said, instead of waiting so it comes off as remedial work.
New employee surveys rate Rogoff higher than before, said Marchione, an agency board member. "Peter's been very responsive, and more connecting to the staff, over time," he said.
Marchione also praised the CEO for disclosing bad news early about Lynnwood and Federal Way project-cost increases, a stressful task that requires staff collaboration.
"Be hard on the problem, not on the people," Marchione said. "That's where I think I've seen Peter grow the most. He's still focused on the big projects at hand, and developing soft skills."
In other consulting deals, the North Seattle firm MacDonald Boyd was paid $2,400 a day in 2016-17 to coach Rogoff at times, while he and chief of staff Rhonda Carter launched an internal "change leadership team" in an executive shake-up.
And former Seattle Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis — nicknamed "The Shark" for swimming through murky government process — is under a two-year contract at $250 an hour and a limit of $99,995 total to provide strategic and political counseling.
Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com.


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Topics Achievements and history (1)Analyses and assessments (3)- Food security analysis (VAM) (2)Cash transfers (5)Climate action (5)- Climate and food security analyses (3)- Safe Access to Fuel and Energy (SAFE) Initiative (1)Country Capacity Strengthening (3)Disaster risk reduction (1)Emergencies (6)Food Assistance (2)Food Assistance for Assets (1)Food systems (2)Gender equality (6)- Information Technology and Telecommunications in Emergencies (FITTEST) (1)Nutrition (13)- HIV and tuberculosis (5)Resilience building (1)School feeding (5)- Purchase for Progress (1)Social Protection and Safety Nets (6)Supply chain (1)- Procurement (1)Zero Hunger (2)
Country India (2)Indonesia (2)Iraq (1)Kenya (1)Malawi (1)Mozambique (1)Philippines (1)South Africa (1)South Sudan (1)Uganda (1)Zambia (1)Zimbabwe (1)
Publication source Country offices (4)Divisional (3)External/Not WFP (1)Global (8)Regional (2)
Publication type Analyses assessments and case studies (1)Books and papers (115)Brochures and Factsheets (1)Manuals and guidelines (1)Reports (3)- Country reports (1)Series (2)Visuals (2)
Year 2020 (8)2019 (5)2018 (7)2017 (5)2016 (1)2015 (2)2014 (2)2012 (11)2011 (9)2010 (10)2009 (14)2008 (6)2007 (4)2006 (9)2005 (4)2004 (6)2003 (3)2002 (2)2001 (2)2000 (1)1999 (2)1998 (2)
50 years of WFP India: Partnership for Change
WFP's journey in India has been a long and successful one. It has been fortunate to witness significant positive changes in the food and nutritional security status of people, and substantial efforts made by the Government to address malnutrition. This coffee table book, therefore, puts together this five decades-long journey in India through memoirs and more.
Achievements and history India
Rural Women and Girls: 25 years after Beijing – Critical Agents of Positive Change
This document highlights key facts as well as some good practices from the members of the United Nations Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality (IANWGE) in the thematic areas of education; food security and nutrition; health; access to and control over land and other productive resources; leadership, decision-making and public life; social protection and services; care and domestic work; gender-based violence; and resilience in the context of climate change and fragility.
Climate and food security analyses Gender equality Nutrition Resilience building Social Protection and Safety Nets
WFP Occasional Paper series
Occasional Papers are prepared by various WFP offices as background or reference materials ultimately leading to discussions around policy and programme activities.
Cash transfers Climate action Nutrition School feeding Social Protection and Safety Nets
The Cost of Hunger in Africa series
The Cost of Hunger in Africa study estimates the social and economic impacts of child undernutrition and provides evidence supporting investments in human capital for sustainable development in African countries.
Analyses and assessments Nutrition School feeding
COVID-19 Policy Brief: Why does Food Security and Nutrition Matter in Social Protection Responses to Systemic Shocks in the Southern African Region? - October 2020
Climate and food security analyses Nutrition Social Protection and Safety Nets Malawi Mozambique South Africa Zimbabwe
Re-imagining School Feeding - A High Return Investment in Human Capital & Local Economies
Re-Imagining School Feeding: A High-Return Investment in Human Capital and Local Economies was developed by the World Food Programme and the editorial team of Disease Control Priorities and published by the World Bank. This book seeks to share the latest child-centered evidence showing how well-designed school feeding programs can promote human capital development in low- and middle-income countries, especially as part of a cost-effective essential package of interventions for school children and adolescents.
Analyses and assessments School feeding
Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM) Recipe Book
The Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM) Recipes is a supplementary material for the rehabilitation of MAM, developed by WFP in collaboration with the academe and key government agencies.
Nutrition Philippines
RBC Regional Advocacy Brief: Nutrition-Sensitive Social Protection
The RBC 'Regional Advocacy Brief: Nutrition-Sensitive Social Protection' is a call for action advocating for nutrition-sensitive social protection, supporting the most vulnerable population in our region.
Nutrition Social Protection and Safety Nets
Meeting needs and empowering people
WFP's cash-based food assistance in Uganda.
Cash transfers Food Assistance Uganda
Handbook for the Production of Extruded Fortified Rice Kernels
A readily available handbook answering key questions related to the effects of extrusion technology on the fortification of rice kernels.
SAFE Initiative
WFP's SAFE (Safe Access to Fuel and Energy) initiative adopts a multi-faceted approach to meet the energy security of beneficiaries worldwide through sustainable-energy related activities, enhancing lives and protecting both people and the environment. The following publications highlight the aims and facts of the initiative.
Safe Access to Fuel and Energy (SAFE) Initiative
LL3: Living Level-3 South Sudan
The 48-page graphic novel offers a snapshot of what life is like for one family in South Sudan. The crops have turned brown and brittle, the well has run dry, and they have gone four months without substantial food.
Emergencies South Sudan
LL3- Living Level-3 Iraq
Step into the world of Leila, a humanitarian worker for the World Food Programme (WFP) who is the central character in a new film exploring hunger and fear in Iraq. Leila was deployed to Iraq in the summer of 2014 when so-called Islamic State (IS) militants took over the city of Mosul.
Emergencies Iraq
Human(itarian) Capital? Lessons on Better Connecting Humanitarian Assistance and Social Protection
2018 - ED Circular - Protection from Harassment, Sexual Harassment, Abuse of Authority, and Discrimination
Occasional Paper 25 - Social Protection and the World Food Programme
2018 - Bridging the Gap - Engaging Adolescents for Nutrition, Health and Sustainable Development
2018 - World Food Assistance - Preventing Food Crises
In just the past few years, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people around the world who are trapped in food crises. Conflict, climate-related disasters and overall instability and insecurity are the main factors for why 124 million people in 51 countries were in food crisis in 2017, up from 108 million in 48 countries in 2016. This report builds on datasets and analytical approaches that were first introduced in World Food Assistance 2017: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead. This year's report quantifies how short-term events and long-term factors influence the outbreak and intensity of food crises. Examining these phenomena through the lens of WFP's food assistance expenditures sheds unique insight into both drivers and deterrents of food crises.
Kenya - Transfer values
This paper seeks to examine the current transfer values of Kenya's tax-financed social security schemes and assess whether they are set at an appropriate level.
Cash transfers Kenya
2018 - Achieving Zero Hunger in Republic of Korea


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Liberal Democracies In Retreat
The following is a rather gloomy, but likely accurate view of the future of the World order for decades to come and the retreat of the United States as a strong world leader.
Liberalism in Retreat
The Demise of a Dream
By Robin Niblett
The liberal international order has always depended on the idea of progress. Since 1945, Western policymakers have believed that open markets, democracy, and individual human rights would gradually spread across the entire globe. Today, such hopes seem naive.
In Asia, the rise of China threatens to challenge U.S. military and economic hegemony, as Beijing seeks to draw American allies such as the Philippines and Thailand into its political orbit. In the Middle East, the United States and its European allies have failed to guide the region toward a more liberal and peaceful future in the wake of the Arab Spring and have proved powerless to halt the conflict in Syria. Russia's geopolitical influence has reached heights unseen since the Cold War, as the country attempts to roll back liberal advances on its periphery.
But the more important threats to the order are internal. For over 50 years, the European Union has seemed to represent the advance guard of a new liberalism in which nations pool sovereignty and cooperate ever more closely with one another. But today, as it reels from one crisis to the next, the EU has stopped expanding. After the British vote to leave the bloc last June, it will probably shrink for the first time in its history.
Across the ocean, the U.S. commitment to global leadership, which until now has sustained the order through good times and bad, looks weaker than at any point since World War II. The Republican president-elect Donald Trump ran on an explicitly "America First" platform, pledged to renegotiate U.S. trade deals, praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, and called into question U.S. commitments to NATO. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama's "rebalance" to Asia has struggled to take off. Beijing has wasted no time in laying out its own vision for a more integrated Eurasia that may exclude the United States and in which China will play the leading role.
Over the past half century, as other political systems have crumbled, the liberal international order has risen to face its challenges. Yet so long as the economies of its leading members remain fragile and their political institutions divided, the order that they have championed is unlikely to regain the political momentum that helped democracy spread across the globe. Instead, it will evolve into a less ambitious project: a liberal international economic order that encompasses states with diverse domestic political systems. In the short term, this will allow democracies and their illiberal counterparts to find ways to coexist. In the longer term, providing it can adapt, liberal democracy is likely to regain its supremacy.
LIBERALISM ON TOP
In the aftermath of World War II, Western policymakers, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom, set out to build a global system that would ensure that they would never repeat the disastrous failures of international cooperation of the interwar period. The architects of the system sought to promote not just economic development and individual fulfillment but also world peace. The best hope for that, they contended, lay in free markets, individual rights, the rule of law, and elected governments, which would be checked by independent judiciaries, free presses, and vibrant civil societies
Over the past half century, as other political systems have crumbled, the liberal international order has risen to face its challenges.
At the heart of the order were the Bretton Woods institutions—the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank—and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which became the World Trade Organization in 1995. Underpinning all these institutions was the belief that open and transparent markets with minimal government intervention—the so-called Washington consensus—would lay the foundation for economic growth. Guided by these principles, U.S. economic, military, and diplomatic support helped Germany and the other nations of Western Europe, as well as Japan, recover from the destruction of World War II.
Western policymakers were confident that transitions to open markets would inevitably lead to the spread of democracy. On many occasions, they were proved right. Liberal democracy has gradually expanded across Europe, Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa, especially since the end of the Cold War. According to the U.S. nonprofit Freedom House, the number of democratic governments increased from 44 in 1997 to 86 in 2015, accounting for about 68 percent of global GDP and 40 percent of the world's population.
As the order expanded, a new liberal idea gained ground: that governments that mistreat their populations and foment instability in their neighborhoods forfeit their sovereign right to rule. The International Criminal Court, which encroaches on sovereignty in the name of justice, was established in 1998. One year later, British Prime Minister Tony Blair laid out his doctrine of liberal interventionism in Chicago, declaring that, in a world of growing interdependence, "the principle of non-interference must be qualified in some important respects." In 2005, the UN General Assembly endorsed the "responsibility to protect," the concept that when a state fails to prevent atrocities, foreign governments can intervene to do so. In an ascendant liberal international order, the fundamental Westphalian principle that sovereign governments have the right to control their internal affairs—the principle that underlies international law and the UN—increasingly depended on governments' adhering to Western standards of human rights. The liberal order seemed to be setting the rules for the entire international community.
But over the past decade, buffeted by financial crises, populist insurgencies, and the resurgence of authoritarian powers, the liberal international order has stumbled. According to the political scientist Larry Diamond, since 2006, the world has entered a "democratic recession": the spread of individual freedom and democracy has come to a halt, if not retreated.
The greatest danger comes from within. The system's leading powers are facing sustained domestic political and economic uncertainty. More than 25 years of stagnant median wages in the United States and parts of Europe have eroded the credibility of elites and the appeal of globalization. The opening up of economies to ever more trade, investment, and immigration has increased total national wealth, but it has not translated into local gains for large segments of society. The lax financial regulation that preceded the 2008 financial crisis and the bank bailouts that followed it have shattered people's faith in government, and the Great Recession undermined their support for open capital markets, which seemed to benefit only a narrow global elite.
Trump's victory, the decision by a majority of British voters to leave the EU, and the rise of populist parties in both the prosperous north and the poorer south of Europe represent visible symptoms of this deep unease with globalization. So, too, does the collapse in popular support in the United States and the EU for expanding international trade, whether through the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the United States or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership in Europe. In a 2014 Pew Research survey, 87 percent of respondents in developing economies agreed that trade benefits the economy, whereas around half of all respondents in France, Italy, and the United States said they believed that trade destroys jobs and lowers wages.
Across Europe, resistance to deeper political integration has grown. For the past 60 years, the willingness of the EU's member states to pool their sovereign power in supranational legal structures provided a benchmark for other countries that sought to cooperate more closely in their regions. As the political scientist Simon Serfaty put it in 2003, Europeans had transformed their systems of political governance from city-states to nation-states to member states. Now, this process has ground to a halt—and it may well reverse.
The British vote to leave the EU will likely prove an outlier: the United Kingdom joined the European Economic Community, the EU's predecessor, only in 1973, 16 years after its founding; the United Kingdom has a long history of Euroskepticism; and it opted out of the single currency and the Schengen area of open borders. Other countries will probably not follow the United Kingdom out of the EU. But few European leaders appear willing to continue relinquishing their countries' sovereignty. Many European states have rejected EU requests that they accept a quota of refugees. The richer members of the eurozone are refusing to pool their financial resources in a common deposit insurance scheme to ensure the long-term viability of the single currency. Today, many European politicians are demanding more national sovereign control over the application of existing EU laws and the design of new forms of integration.
Few European leaders appear willing to continue relinquishing their countries' sovereignty.
In this context, the hope that the EU might provide a template for liberal regional integration elsewhere seems increasingly lost. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, South America's Mercosur, the African Union, and the Gulf Cooperation Council remain mechanisms for only limited political and economic cooperation among governments. China and Russia, meanwhile, have used this period of Western self-doubt to modernize their militaries and assert their regional and geopolitical interests. They have built institutions, including the Eurasian Economic Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, that have helped them coordinate and legitimize a parallel political order that challenges Western norms of democratic governance and that rejects any external interference in support of human rights.
AMERICA IN RETREAT
For the past seven decades, the United States has provided the security umbrella under which the liberal international system has flourished. But today, the United States is more inward-looking than at any point since World War II. After the costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the chaos that followed the intervention in Libya, Obama has recalibrated the United States' international role, consistently encouraging allies in Europe and the Middle East to take greater responsibility for their own security. In his presidential campaign, Trump twisted this argument into an explicitly transactional bargain: the United States should become a mercenary superpower, protecting only those countries that pay, so that it can focus on making itself great again at home. In so doing, he ignored the hard-won lesson that investing in the security of U.S. allies is the best way to protect the United States' own security and economic interests. How exactly Trump will govern, however, remains unclear.
Rightly or wrongly, the United States' allies, from Europe to Asia, now fear that the superpower may no longer be an engaged and committed partner. These fears come at a dangerous time. A Europe hobbled by institutional and economic weakness is more vulnerable to the diverse forms of pressure that Russia is currently applying, including financial support for European populist parties and threatening military maneuvers on NATO's eastern borders. Despite Russia's own economic weakness, Putin's advocacy of a new European order based on cultural and national sovereignty appeals to Europe's increasingly vocal nationalist parties, from the UK Independence Party to France's National Front and Hungary's Fidesz, whose leader, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has publicly advocated building an "illiberal state."
Many of the United States' other allies and democratic partners around the world are also on the back foot. Japan and South Korea are struggling to manage the twin challenges of aging populations and economies that are overly dependent on exports, and his-torical antagonisms prevent them from presenting a united front to promote liberal democracy in their region. Large emerging-market democracies, such as Brazil, India, Nigeria, and South Africa, have so far failed to overcome entrenched obstacles to sustainable economic growth and social cohesion. And the perception that U.S. global power is waning and that the Washington consensus does not guarantee economic progress has bolstered strongmen in countries as diverse as the Philippines, Thailand, and Turkey, who have undermined the institutional checks and balances that underpin liberal democracy.
POT, KETTLE
Of course, supporters of the liberal international order have long displayed an inconsistent commitment to its principles. The United States and its allies may have generally promoted respect for the rule of law and liberal governance within their borders, but the dominant objective outside them has been to protect Western security and economic interests, even if doing so damaged the credibility of the liberal international system.
The United States has often acted unilaterally or selectively obeyed the rules of the international order it promotes. It invaded Iraq under a contested legal mandate, and the U.S. Congress has refused to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, among numerous other multilateral conventions and treaties. And in 2011, the British, French, and U.S. governments stretched their mandate—granted by UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which authorized all necessary measures to protect civilians in Libya—when they helped overthrow Libya's leader, Muammar al-Qaddafi. And various Western governments have condemned Russia and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for indiscriminately shelling civilians in Syria while simultaneously supporting Saudi Arabia's bloody campaign in Yemen.
The United States' allies, from Europe to Asia, now fear that the superpower may no longer be an engaged and committed partner.
Small wonder, then, that the West's opponents have interpreted calls to enlarge the liberal international order as an excuse to expand Western political power. Putin sounded this theme in October, at the annual conference of the Valdai Discussion Club, when he accused the United States of promoting globalization and security "for itself, for the few, but not for all." It is also unsurprising that the world's principal multilateral institution, the UN Security Council, remains frozen in the same old standoffs, riven by disagreements between China and Russia, on the one hand, and France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, on the other. As a result, liberal attempts to reform the concept of state sovereignty, such as the introduction of the notion of the responsibility to protect and the establishment of the International Criminal Court, have failed to acquire international legitimacy—take, for instance, the ongoing failure to stem the violence in Syria and the announcements in October by the governments of Burundi, Gambia, and South Africa that they will withdraw from the court. Even the Internet, which promised to foster a more liberal international order by empowering individuals instead of governments, is now increasingly dominated by ideological polarization over national firewalls, surveillance methods, and privacy violations.
KEEPING ORDER
Do these challenges herald the end of the liberal international order? Probably not. Established liberal democracies remain resilient. Whatever domestic challenges they may face, from inequality to unemployment, they approach them from a position of strength compared with emerging-market countries, many of which boast high levels of GDP growth but have yet to make the transition from export- and investment-led growth to consumption- and innovation-driven growth. Western democracies are designed to allow the people to vent their frustrations and refresh their political leadership. Their economies operate in a relatively dynamic, transparent, and open manner, which fosters innovation. These qualities allow their political institutions to recover legitimacy and their economies to regain momentum. On the other hand, centrally controlled or illiberal countries, such as China and Russia, have yet to prove that their political systems will survive the economic transitions they are undertaking.
Still, liberal democracies cannot postpone difficult political decisions any longer. They need to fix themselves first if they are to sustain their liberal international order. They must boost productivity as well as wages, increase work-force participation even as new technologies eliminate old jobs, integrate immigrants while managing aging societies, and, in Europe's case, evolve from centrally funded welfare states to more locally governed welfare societies, in which regions, cities, and other municipalities control a greater share of tax income and so can tailor the provision of social services to local needs. Liberal governments can rise to these challenges, whether by investing more in education, improving physical and digital infrastructure, or modernizing regulations that stifle entrepreneurship and growth in the service sector. These may seem like modest steps. But the appeal and, indeed, the survival of a liberal inter-national order depend on its ability to deliver returns to the societies within it that are superior to any alternative.
If the liberal world can get itself back on track, and does not itself turn to protectionism, it will likely find that the non-Western rising powers, China chief among them, will want to sustain the existing international economic order of relatively open markets and free flows of investment. After all, only through continued integration into the global supply chain of goods, services, people, and knowledge can emerging markets meet the aspirations of their growing middle classes. As the scholar G. John Ikenberry noted in his 2011 book, Liberal Leviathan, the United States and China—the two powers that will most likely determine the future of world order—may both refuse to compromise on their core principles of domestic governance and national security, but they can best coexist and prosper within a liberal international economic order.
It is in the West's interests, therefore, that China's economic development continue smoothly. U.S and European markets for goods, services, and infrastructure should remain open to Chinese foreign direct investment, as long as Chinese companies abide by U.S. and European rules on security and transparency and the protection of intellectual property. European countries should take the same approach with Russia, on the condition that Russian companies abide by EU rules. A mutual commitment to the liberal international economic order would help Western governments and their illiberal counterparts keep open other avenues for cooperation on shared challenges, such as terrorism and climate change, much as China and the United States have done over the past several years.
Western democracies are designed to allow the people to vent their frustrations and refresh their political leadership.
Meanwhile, European governments and businesses should take part in the Chinese-led effort to connect Northeast Asia with Europe across the Eurasian continent, a component of a series of regional infrastructure projects known as the Belt and Road Initiative. In 2016, the volume of global trade stagnated for the first quarter and then fell by 0.8 percent in the second. This reflects an ongoing structural decline in the growth rate of trade, as emerging markets, such as China, make more of their own products and developed countries bring some production back onshore. Against this backdrop, ramping up investment in infrastructure that can connect the thriving coastal areas of Asia to its underdeveloped hinterlands and then to Europe could create new opportunities for economic growth in both the liberal and the illiberal worlds. Rather than challenge such initiatives, the United States should support Western-led regional and multilateral financial institutions, such as the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Asian Development Bank, as they join forces with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank (set up by the BRICS countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) to pursue projects that are in every country's economic interest while adhering to environmentally and financially sustainable principles.
Similar cooperation will be harder to build with Russia. Russia's system of centralized and opaque political and economic governance makes deeper integration incompatible with the EU's market and rules-based system, and NATO members have begun a much-needed upgrading of their military readiness in the face of recent Russian provocations. EU and NATO tensions with Russia will likely persist, even if Trump's election heralds a change in U.S.-Russian relations. Still, the Chinese initiative to build new ways of connecting the Eurasian economy could provide an alternative way for the United States and Europe to engage with Russia.
The countries that built the liberal international order are weaker today than they have been for three generations. They no longer serve as an example to others of the strength of liberal systems of economic and political governance. Autocratic governments may therefore try to establish an alternative political order, one governed by might rather than by international laws and rules.
But liberal policymakers would be wrong to urge their countries to hunker down or resort to containment. An extended standoff between supporters of a liberal international order and those who contest it may accidentally lead to outright conflict. A better approach would be for liberal countries to prepare themselves for a period of awkward coexistence with illiberal ones, cooperating on some occasions and competing on others. The international political world will remain divided between liberals and statists for the foreseeable future, but both sets of countries will depend on a liberal international economic order for their prosperity and internal security. Time will tell whose form of government is more resilient. If history is any guide, liberal democracy remains the best bet.
Posted in American and International Economies, Foreign Policy, New Ideas, Politics, Terrorism | No Comments »
A Few Brief Notes About Heart Attacks For a Lay Audience
When I was first in the practice of cardiology, a heart attack was a fearsome problem. Our tools for handling it were primitive especially in light of what we know about the process and its management with today's technology. Over the years, the understanding of coronary artery disease, coronary thrombosis, lipids, etc. have blossomed along with a greater and greater sophistication in dealing with a heart attack. In addition, with time, research, and the burgeoning of our tools, the understanding of the variability in the presentation of heart attacks have led to an increased capability in handling such cases.
Despite our new technology, a major element in cardiac diagnosis for over a century has been, and still is, the electrocardiogram invented in 1903 by Willem Einthoven, a Dutch physiologist. It remains today a critical tool in much of cardiology, including in the diagnosis and management of heart attacks. The alterations in the EKG during a heart attack can help assess the possible severity of the attack and possibly the prognosis.
What exactly is a STEMI Heart Attack?
A STEMI is a full-blown heart attack caused by the complete blockage of a heart artery. A STEMI heart attack is taken very seriously and is a medical emergency that needs immediate attention. STEMI stands for ST elevation myocardial infarction. "ST elevation" refers to a particular pattern on an EKG heart tracing and "myocardial infarction" is the medical term for a heart attack. So STEMI is basically a heart attack with a particular EKG heart-tracing pattern.
When someone is being evaluated for chest pain the EKG tracing is done as soon as possible to help see if it's the heart. An ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is a combination of symptoms of chest pain and a specific STEMI EKG heart tracing. The EKG has to meet what is called STEMI criteria to make a correct diagnosis, just like an NSTEMI will provide another set of specific diagnostic criteria. The EKG also provides information as to which part of the heart the blocked artery is supplying, for example an anterior vs. a posterior STEMI vs. an inferior STEMI. An anterior STEMI is the front wall of the heart, and the most serious. A posterior STEMI is the back wall of the heart. An inferior STEMI is the bottom wall of the heart.
What Happens to the Heart?
In a heart attack there is sudden rupture of an unstable part of the wall in a heart artery (coronary artery). This leads to a build up of clot in an attempt to heal it. However this clot formation results in total blockage of the artery. Unfortunately, this total blockage leads to loss of blood supply to the heart beyond that point. The heart muscle stops working within minutes of this and dies within minutes to hours unless the artery can be opened up and illustrates what is the primary goal in tratment –––– to rescue as much heart muscle as possible. For this reason every minute from the onset of a heart attack is absolutely critical. Often the patient doesn't make it to the hospital due to sudden death due to a malignant heart rhythm. For those that leave it too long to get help or for those in whom the heart attack isn't treated, the heart muscle dies and is replaced by a non beating scar.
The most important part of any STEMI treatment protocol is to get to the hospital as quickly as possible, so basically to call 911 immediately!!! In a STEMI, an artery is blocked and treatment centers on opening this up as quickly as possible. The preferred way to do this is by performing something known as an angioplasty and stent placement. In this procedure the artery is opened up working through a small tube passed into the heart either from the wrist or the groin. In some cases this cannot be performed quickly enough (less than 90-120 minutes) because of being too far away from a hospital equipped to do these things, and in order to avoid a significant delay in any treatment, clot busting drugs are used. Unfortunately these clot busters are not as good since they are less likely to open the artery and are also associated with bleeding complications. However, they are better than no treatment at all. So sometimes we have to use them.
In addition to this, a number of other treatments are used. Painkillers such as morphine are required to settle down pain and reduce anxiety. Oxygen is administered to those who are breathless or have heart failure. EKG monitors are attached so that potentially lethal arrhythmias such as ventricular fibrillation or even less dangerous but still significant arrhythmias such as inappropriate sinus tachycardia or atrial fibrillation with a rapid heart rate can be identified and treated. Blood thinners such as heparin, aspirin and other platelet inhibitors (clopidogrel/ticagrelor) are used to improve outcomes and prevent more heart attacks.
Post-STEMI Recovery
Educating patients and their families is one of the most critical aspects of care after a STEMI. Several new medicines are started after a heart attack, several of which may be needed lifelong. Patients need to be sure they take the medications prescribed to have a benefit. I'll address these briefly later. Stopping smoking is essential. It's important patients follow up with their doctors. Drugs should be used to control blood pressure. After a STEMI patients will be enrolled in cardiac rehabilitation that is a program they should attend on a regular basis. This involves exercise, addressing questions such as time of return to physical activities and dietary concerns. Following these things after the STEMI is arguably as important as treating the STEMI itself.
What exactly is a Non-STEMI Heart Attack
As previosly indicated, ST refers to the ST segment, which is part of the EKG heart tracing used to diagnose a heart attack. NSTEMI stands for Non-ST segment-elevation myocardial infarction. Nevertheless, a NSTEMI is still a type of heart attack, although presenting in a somewhat less acute manner than a STEMI. A myocardial infarction is, of course, the medical term for a heart attack.
How is a NSTEMI diagnosed?
In addition to signs such as chest pain, a heart attack is diagnosed mainly two ways. First is a blood test that shows elevated levels of certain markers of heart damage such as cardiac troponin. Secondly is by looking at the EKG heart tracing. As we have already shown, if there is a pattern known as STsegment-elevation on the EKG, this is called a STEMI, short for ST elevation myocardial infarction. If there is elevation of the blood markers suggesting heart damage, but no ST elevation seen on the EKG tracing, this is known as a NSTEMI, a non ST segment elevation myocardial infarction. A NSTEMI may be associated with other EKG changes such as ST segment depression. Often looking at the EKG helps us to locate the area of the heart that is affected.
Treatment of Non STEMI Myocardial Infarction
In addion to the EKG, part of the way of diagnosing a NSTEMI is by a blood test called troponin that is indicative of heart damage. Although the troponin test is great in that it does not miss heart attacks, it is not specific for heart attacks alone. Once the patient's problem is diagnosed as a NSTEMI, the treatment strategy will typically include an echocardiogram to look at heart muscle functioning. Initially, blood-thinning agents will be given such as aspirin and the blood thinner heparin. These medicines have been proven to improve outcomes in patients with NSTEMI. There may be other medicines given such as a beta-blocker or nitrates. Many patients will then go for a heart catheterization. This test involves injecting dye into the heart arteries to look for blockages. In the case of severe blockages, treatment in the form of a stent or multiple stents may be required. Sometimes there are so many blockages that bypass surgery is advised.
Prognosis after a NSTEMI
A NSTEMI IS a heart attack, so the treatment of that applies here as well. Medicines are prescribed that have been proven to save lives in the long term for heart attack sufferers. Depending on factors such as symptoms and heart function, a number of medicines may be prescribed. Lifestyle changes and modification of risk factors are key in preventing recurrence. It is important for smokers to stop smoking. Blood pressure control and control of diabetes are key. A post-heart attack exercise plan should be incorporated into a daily lifestyle if possible. Often NSTEMI patients will be sent to cardiac rehab to receive education on the important of exercise and begin a program in a supervised environment.
Common Medicines Prescribed After a Non STEMI or STEMI Myocardial Infarction
Aspirin, antiplatelet agents, Beta-Blockers, ACE-Inhibitors and Statins are often prescribed.
STEMI vs NSTEMI – Which is Worse?
The bottom line is that both are bad. STEMI is seen as more of an immediate emergency because there is a known total occlusion of a heart vessel that needs opening urgently. In terms of long-term outcomes, they have equal health implications. Patients with NSTEMI often have other illnesses such as ongoing critical illness, diabetes, kidney disease, and other that means they have a generally high risk over the long term. Both STEMI and NSTEMI need aggressive treatment over the short and long term.
Posted in On His Own Writing, Other Topics, Science | No Comments »
Super Spiral Galaxies Amaze Astronomers
This is a magnificent article on a most astonishing force of nature and helps point out how infintely infinitessimal we all are, even our Milky Way Galaxy, in this strange Universe in which we survive for less than a micromillisecond of time.
A new breed of giants raises questions about how the biggest galaxies arise
By Ken Croswell on December 8, 2015
Sporting a double nucleus, the super spiral galaxy CGCG 122-067 in the constellation Leo emits roughly eight times as much visible light as the Milky Way.
They're big, they're bright, they're beautiful—and they shouldn't even exist, at least to our current astronomical knowledge: gargantuan spiral galaxies that make our giant Milky Way seem downright modest. Spirals are supposed to be small fry compared to the greatest giant ellipticals, which are football-shaped swarms of stars thought to be the universe's biggest and brightest galaxies. But now a search across billions of light-years has snared a rare breed of "super spiral" galaxies that rival their giant elliptical peers in size and luminosity, raising questions over how such behemoths are born.
"I was really surprised," says Patrick Ogle, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology who discovered the super spirals earlier this year. Ogle looked for them by analyzing the NASA Extragalactic Database, an online compendium of galaxy information. He examined nearly 800,000 galaxies within 3.5 billion light-years of Earth, ranking them by luminosity—in particular, by how much visible light they radiate. Astronomers designate the characteristic luminosity of big galaxies with the symbol L*, which is pronounced "L star" and roughly corresponds to the brightness of our own Milky Way.
Galaxies much brighter than L* are extremely rare, and are typically ellipticals. Nevertheless, such powerhouses do exist, and the brightest galaxy in Ogle's sample shone with a luminosity of 20 L*. Sure enough, it was a giant elliptical galaxy in a galaxy cluster.
But as Ogle's team reports in work submitted to The Astrophysical Journal last month, three percent of the most luminous galaxies they found are actually spirals. "They look like normal spiral galaxies, but until you quantify how far away they are, you don't realize how big and bright they are," Ogle says. "I think that's probably why people didn't notice them before." His sample shows 53 spiral galaxies with luminosities between eight and 14 L*. The largest super spiral, located in the constellation Hercules, possesses a disk of stars 440,000 light-years across, four times the size of the Milky Way's stellar disk.
"These things are really rare," Ogle says. Super spirals only pop up once in every billion cubic light-years of space, so astronomers have to look a long way to see any. Whereas the best-known giant elliptical galaxy, M87 in the Virgo cluster, is 54 million light-years from Earth, the closest super spiral galaxy in Ogle's sample is 1.2 billion light-years distant. Because of their great distance, these galaxies look blurry in current images; the Hubble Space Telescope has not yet imaged them to reveal their full beauty.
William Keel, an astronomer at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa who was not affiliated with the research, says he knows of only one remotely comparable galaxy: the equally large but less luminous UGC 2885, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Perseus. "One [galaxy] is a pet rock; ten is a statistical sample," Keel says. With more than fifty super spirals now known, astronomers hope to learn how these enormous entities arose.
"That's the biggest puzzle," says Debra Elmegreen, an astronomer at Vassar College not involved with the discovery of the super spirals. "Why are they there? Why aren't they already ellipticals?" Elliptical galaxies can grow huge because they often occupy the busy centers of galaxy clusters, where they gobble other galaxies. Spiral galaxies prefer quieter, less populous neighborhoods; moreover, galactic collisions usually disrupt the delicate spiral galaxies and transform them into amorphous ellipticals.
Still, even normal-sized spiral galaxies can outshine their giant elliptical counterparts in star formation, which mostly occurs in a spiral galaxy's gas-and-dust-packed arms. The super spirals are no exception, and are prodigiously producing stars by converting between five and 65 solar masses of gas into suns each year. For comparison, the Milky Way's rate is just two solar masses a year. Spirals can sustain their star-making over eons by grabbing additional gas from intergalactic space. As a galaxy grows more massive, however, that infalling gas crashes in so fast it heats up to tremendous temperatures that inhibit star formation. So a spiral galaxy should only get so big. Yet, somehow, the super spirals keep on growing.
One clue to their origin may come from the finer details of their architecture. Four out of fifty-odd super spirals have double nuclei, suggesting that each of the four arose from the merger of two smaller spiral galaxies. Normally a spiral-spiral merger makes an elliptical galaxy, but if two spirals approach each other just right—with their disks parallel and both spinning the same direction—the pair can join forces to create an even larger spiral galaxy. In support of this idea, two of the super spiral galaxies harbor bright quasars at their centers. A quasar lights up when gas plummets into a galaxy's central supermassive black hole, a process often triggered by a galactic merger.
Ogle says the super spirals will eventually fade over billions of years as they run out of gas and cease star formation. He suspects each will become a so-called lenticular galaxy, a cross between a spiral and an elliptical: Like a spiral galaxy, a lenticular has a disk of stars, but like an elliptical galaxy, it has too little gas to give birth to any more, and lacks spiral arms. Long before the super spirals suffer this fate, however, an armada of telescopes is sure to scrutinize them to settle once and for all how these beautiful objects managed to grow to such colossal proportions.
Posted in New Ideas, Science, Uncategorized | No Comments »
The Political Follies Continue
As I and many others predicted, the election of either Trump or Clinton would produce chaos in our country. Well, here are a few present and future issues to provide headaches and headlines over the next four years.
After President Obama and Hillary Clinton definitively stated that the election was fair and absent of any significant corruption in November, the administration, the New York Times, Washington Post, and all the other left wing media outlets are indicating that the Russians intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just undermine the confidence in the electoral system. The CIA is indicating that the Russians provided Wikileaks with thousands of hacked e-mails from the Democratic National Committee and others, and further alleged that this was part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton's chances.
So, could all this proceed in the following manner: Democrats declare the election should be nullified, putting pressure on the Electors to change their votes and deny Trump the 270 electoral votes required to win, throwing the election into the House of Representatives where either the Republican House votes to elect Trump (thus allowing Democrats to proclaim that the Republicans have elected an illegitimate president) or with enough votes from Republicans abandoning Trump in the House giving the election to Hillary. Well, folks, is that enough chaos for you? I hope my predictions are wrong. But hold on, the voyage might be rough in the next few months.
/But, in the meantime, I am going to add a few posts, which are not political, but might be interesting to some of the very few who visit my site.
Posted in corruption, New Ideas, On His Own Writing, Politics, The Media | No Comments »


Sr. Lending Officer - San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles surrounding areas.
Maintain a thorough understanding of state and federal laws and regulations related to credit union compliance including bank secrecy and anti-money laundering laws appropriate to the position.
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