The research presented here fills a gap in the congressional literature by documenting the historical institutionalization of the U.S. Senate. After an extensive review of the institutionalization literature in Chapter Two, Chapters Three through Six qualitatively document the Senate's institutionalization over four chronological time periods: 1789-1860; 1861-1900; 1901-1946; 1947-1996. Using both primary and secondary sources, these chapters provide a comprehensive historical analysis of Senate development, covering key aspects such as committees, leaders, personnel and operations. Chapters Seven and Eight chart the Senate's institutionalization in a more systematic manner. Chapter Seven presents multiple indicators for each of four components of institutionalization: adaptability; autonomy; complexity; and coherence. Chapter Eight then models the process of Senate institutionalization. Using ordinary least squares and weighted least squares regression, it tests the model for each component of institutionalization. Political party opposition in the presidency, federal government activity, the Seventeenth Amendment and continuous majority control of the Senate by one political party all prove significant in one or more components of Senate institutionalization. Chapter Nine summarizes the Senate institutionalization process, and suggests how the Senate's post-World War II "transformation" fits into this larger, historical process.


St. Paul Pioneers fans were reminded early and often that, although their defense has sustained a number of injuries this season, they, by no means, have given up.
No, they just keep pressing on.
Defensive lineman Ed Smith, one of the few remaining starters from the beginning of the season, made his presence felt Saturday. It is doubtful the North Bank Bulls offense will forget his name anytime soon.
Just three minutes into the game, Smith recovered a Bulls fumble and ran it back for a touchdown. The extra point made the early score 7-0 Pioneers.
"I just remember Mark [Simmonds] making a tackle. [Then, the ball] fell on the ground. I saw 6, picked it up and ran it in full speed," he said.
On the next Bulls possession, Smith forced Bulls quarterback David Connors out of bounds 23 yards behind the line of scrimmage. No, that's not a typo. The Bulls, obviously, were going nowhere.
The Pioneers were, though, when running back Riza Mahmoud ran 19 yards for another Pioneers touchdown.
Smith was all over the field Saturday, making tackles for a loss, forcing Connors out of bounds and generally making life miserable for the Bulls offense. Those instincts afforded the Pioneers great field position, which they took advantage of when quarterback Cleveland McCoy threw a beautiful strike to receiver Delane Woods. Woods would run the rest of the way to give the Pioneers a 21-point lead at halftime.
Defensive back Lionel Lamarre seemed to be playing on another level, too. Or maybe he was doing it for his friend, defensive back Nate Beulah, who won't be back in a Pioneers uniform this season due to a knee injury.
Lamarre intercepted Connors twice in the second half. Unfortunately, the Pioneers were unable to take advantage.
When it looked like the Bulls might score early in the third quarter, Lamarre stopped them in their tracks when he intercepted Connors in the end zone. Then, shortly after the start of the fourth quarter, Lamarre took the ball away from a Bulls receiver and snared his second interception of the day.
just in front of his outstretched arms.
A miscommunication on special teams led to the only Bulls touchdown, a kick return by Andy Allison.
The Pioneers have a first round bye this weekend. Next Saturday, August 3, they will host the highest remaining seed at Concordia University-St. Paul's Sea Foam Stadium. Hope to see you all there!


text:
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Tag: consumerism
Posted on 17th December 2014 27th September 2017 by Martin Southwood — Leave a comment
Zombies, Neoliberalism and Nature
The dreadful sound of shuffling feet, and the hideous rattling groans, announce the arrival of the cultural phenomenon of zombie films and games, rich hunting grounds for psychological discovery. In this piece, with my crossbow to hand, I attempt to explore some of the possible figurative responses to the epidemic of zombies in Western culture.
To deprive a gregarious creature of companionship is to maim it, to outrage its nature. The prisoner and the cenobite are aware that the herd exists beyond their exile; they are an aspect of it. But when the herd no longer exists, there is, for the herd creature, no longer entity, a part of no whole; a freak without a place. If he cannot hold on to his reason, then he is lost indeed; most utterly, most fearfully lost, so that he becomes no more than the twitch in the limb of a corpse.
John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids
At the simplest level it has probably been said many times that the zombie infestation of popular media deals with two main implicit themes, dissociation and consumerism.
Humans are a gregarious species that came together because it is easier and safer to hunt and live as a group but, by so doing, began to lose their freedom and wildness. The body psychotherapist Nick Totton called this the neolithic bargain. In dissociative behaviour we see and fear the loss of this group connection: the small signs of acceptance that bind us together, our language, our desire, our compassion. The consumerist theme is political, it is a reflection on the plague of mindless consumers that is a response to late capitalism (witness the UK rioting of 2011). Watching media coverage of looting, legal or otherwise, we are reminded of zombie attacks. "Look at them, they're not human." we say, watching the flat screen TV that we have looted more respectably.
By iterating the principle features of zombie related films and games, as represented in this instance by the first three seasons of AMC's enormously popular television series The Walking Dead, other aspects appear. But first a warning: if you have any intention of watching the series you might want to stop now: there are spoilers ahead!
Key features of The Walking Dead
There is a very sudden and highly contagious infection after which 'normal' life quickly breaks down.
The characters regularly evidence symptoms of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These stages are correctly shown as non-linear. There are also symptoms of trauma and dissociation.
The zombies are ubiquitous, and relentless in their need to devour the flesh of the living.
The explicit narrative is centred on the need for water, food and safety, the physiological building blocks of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Sometimes these needs are compromised by the living dead, at other times by the living.
There is an implicit need for salvation, the hope for which is also regularly dashed.
There is considerable tension between the competing requirements of safety on the one hand and retaining the human capacity to love and belong on the other.
Choices in opposition abound. Take this or that? Include these people or exclude them? Trust her or not? Save his life or abandon him?
The narrative is punctuated by episodes of extremely graphic violence featuring dismemberment, decapitation and disembowelment.
Let's look at these features in the light of contemporary events.
The destruction of 'Normal' life: ideology and managed care
It is clear that life as experienced by current adult generations has changed dramatically in the last seventy years, particularly as a consequence of the development in computing power. In the last thirty years there has also been a shift towards what is described as neoliberalism, meaning a deregulation of markets, an increase in privatisation and a reduction in government oversight. These changes have effectively polarised global cultures.
Polarisation
C. G. Jung developed Heraclitus' concept of enantiodromia (literally, counter running) to explain the tendency in us to manifest the undesirable 'shadow' aspects of our parents. So out of a desire for peace, equality and freedom comes a surge of aggression, inequality and slavery. In this short essay the American therapist Cliff Bostock describes the loss of voice that attends his attempt to lecture from an entrenched position, signalling an urgent need to recognise the compensatory opposite.
Bostock references James Hillman, as do I in these pages, because Hillman recognised that the path we are on excludes the anima mundi, the soul of the world. Hillman argued that psychotherapy has protected sensitive adults from taking action in the world, that their fears and fantasies have become 'managed' rather than given expression through action and protest. Moreover, dissent is now effectively psychopathologised and 'education' teaches compliance (more on this at a later date).
Crisis? What crisis?
In the absence of care for the outer world it has become toxic with crisis: there is financial crisis, economic crisis, crisis in education, housing crisis, fuel crisis, environmental crisis (but, myopically, we have climate 'change'). Small wonder then that the rapacious, tyrannical power of the few has created a world that feels to many broken and desperate, and that existence has become precarious. In the West this is the world of the Food Bank, the last resort before begging, close to the anarchy of doing a 'run' to the abandoned convenience store for supplies, risking the bite of the zombie, much as the impoverished urban dweller will dash to the supermarket, ever wary of the bailiff.
It must be, I thought, one of the race's most persistent and comforting hallucinations to trust that "it can't happen here" — that one's own time and place is beyond cataclysm.
'Disorder' as Symptom
And what of our minds? Experiences are described as 'disorders' in the very title of the psychiatrists' bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). The volume has generated much criticism: first, 'disorders' are not diseases as this article makes clear; second (as this piece explains) there is a lot of money vested in 'treating' so-called disorders, the sale of antipsychotic drugs alone is worth billions. Telling isn't it?
The opposite of 'Disorder' is 'Order' but, as Bostock points out, trying to create balance opens the door to chaos. On the churning sea, desperate to survive, we run to one end of the lifeboat to prevent it capsizing, but in doing so we start an opposite disaster. We run to the middle, but balance is too difficult to achieve, we never seem to get it right. Perhaps by dancing it can be achieved, first one end, then the middle, moving with the action of the waves rather than seeking to fight them, delighting in the peaks and troughs.
Our 'disorders' and 'dis-eases' are also symptomatic of the toxicity prevailing in the culture, the blame projected onto those of us who are merely displaying the symptoms of the true malaise, resulting in a further paucity of imagination and monolithic, monomaniac behaviour.
In my work as a therapist, I saw a rising incidence of difficulty with anger, anxiety and 'depression', and I also felt that many people were in denial of those feelings, preferring to believe that either their mechanical lifestyles are what they chose, or that there were no options – so they might as well get on with it. This is absence of imagination again, but not of the individual so much as the larger society, and there is a terrible cost. Anxiety and depression are medicated, anger is managed. Zombies only want living flesh, they are driven to it, they have no options, not even binary options.
The zombie plague as a symbol of greed and loss
It has been almost 50 years since Elisabeth Kübler-Ross developed her five stages of grieving. She worked with people dying of a terminal illness rather than those who had been bereaved, and subsequent researchers have taken a more expansive view of grieving, while others have denied the five stages entirely, preferring a model of stoic resilience, and setting these two states in opposition. In this piece the psychiatrist Steven Schlozman writes of the trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. He writes that the phenotype is different between characters, but his examples strike me as rather literal. And here it is argued that the series is a critique of individualism, whereas I see the tendency of troubled characters to go out alone as a dramatic staple of the horror genre (no, don't go down into the cellar with just a candle and a frightened look!).
The dominator culture
Nick Totton references the anthropologist Richard Sorenson:
[His] work suggests that once dominator culture arises it spreads like a plague: cooperative, liminal, wild humans are profoundly vulnerable to humans who are closed and aggressive. They literally cannot bear to be around them.
Nick Totton, Wild Therapy, 2011
Another pair of opposites perhaps, but one that is well illustrated by the competing camps of The Walking Dead. There is one notable difference: the cooperative humans are prevented from being in the wild. How similar to current society – there are so few ways to escape from the dominator culture, and it is this that we desperately need.
If I am right in my opinion about the prevalence of anxiety, depression and anger in Western culture, it seems likely that these symptoms are related to the oppression of the dominator class and that they are connected to loss. So what might be lost? According to Jay Griffiths in her book Kith: The Riddle of the Childscape the loss is environmental. She writes that since the enclosures, peasants were funnelled into industry away from the land, and the idea that this rescued a brutish rural population from the miseries of subsistence farming is a myth created by landowners and industrialists. Griffiths too sometimes inhabits the land of opposites, comparing the evils of the modern world to an Arcadian fantasy, but her Romantic passion lights up the heart, and one wants to run into the cool streams, and build the secret dens, of her imagination.
Remains of the last wild passenger pigeon at Cincinnati Zoo
The Sixth Great Extinction
Ecopsychologists suggest that we are all grieving for the other than human, the countless species and the sheer numbers lost. We face a sixth extinction, a wiping out of life on a massive scale. Impossible? Remember the Passenger Pigeon, billions of birds made extinct in 40 years through hunting and deforestation. More recently, the Pyrenean Ibex, extinct in 2000. The Saint Helena olive, extinct in 2003. And not just species, but unimaginable numbers of individuals wiped out through human agency (now scientists are talking of 'de-extinction', of reanimating these species from their DNA).
I think that we carry the knowledge of what we have done as a terrible shame, that our continuing predations on the natural world are also reflected in the zombie herds of The Walking Dead, that bulldoze their way through any obstacle in their need for the flesh of the living, just as we bulldoze our way through the Earth in our need for its resources.
In the first two series of the Walking Dead, the farms and lush countryside of Georgia shimmer in the heat of high Summer, and sweat drips sadly from the noses of protagonists. Winter is mentioned but avoided, and soon we are back in a verdant Spring – but here there is always danger. Behind every tree a zombie may lurk. Down at the stream they are stuck in the mud, and a den is a place to hide in terror from the awful groaning outside.
Does a zombie wait behind the next tree?
In the third season, with the irony signposted in block caps, our heroes set up home in a bleak grey prison that has to be regularly cleared of the undead. Outside, zombies congregate at the prison fences, groping for a way through, as the group struggle between the 'freedom' of the prison (while living in a constant state of anxiety) and the 'safety' of the community run autocratically by the 'Governor'. To what extent do these set pieces reflect our lives? Here we are in opposites again, the fearful grey fortresses of the heart stand in for Independence, while the phoney veneer of the Governor's colony is Dependence. Neither option is attractive and the ground between them, the beautiful forest, is rendered toxic and uninhabitable.
John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids is the prototype here in so many ways, from the hospitalised hero waking to a world turned insane, to the competing camps of survivors, but instead of what Brian Aldiss described as 'cosy catastrophe' (the barely conscious wish for the slate to be wiped clean so that we might create Arcadia) there is next to no comfort, or the comfort is soon violently removed.
Zombies as political metaphor
In the years since George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) the number of films and video games that feature zombies in one form or another has increased in a way that suggests something has been touched in the collective unconscious.
This image shocked audiences in 1968
While certainly not the first film to feature the shuffling horrors, Night of the Living Dead was perhaps the first to capture the popular imagination, hinting at a social commentary of the Vietnam War and of racism in America. In the chart above I have brought together Wikipedia's lists of zombie-themed films and video games, including the television episodes of The Walking Dead to date (2014 is incomplete).
One might have expected to see zombies make an appearance in the eighties, the time of the Thatcher/Reagan axis, but the scale of the infestation twenty years later is surely not accidental, as the consequence of their policies wreak havoc across the world. We are fascinated with our power, appalled and awed at our ability to destroy without remorse, sickened with our own unconscious mania. Fundamentalism can never be far from our minds, whether of the East or West, whether of the vile massacre of schoolchildren in Peshawar by the Taliban or the institutionalised shooting of black people by the police in America.
Zombies as religious projection
In the narrative of The Walking Dead, there is a significant issue (massive spoiler ahead), the philosophical implications of which seem to have gone largely unexplored. The infection (cause unknown, but initially believed to be communicated by being bitten by a zombie) is in fact present in the living, so all those who die become reanimated. This is hugely suggestive of the concept of Original Sin: indeed much of the zombie oeuvre can be seen as the visitation of a biblical plague on to the sinning masses (the word 'plague' is used often in the series), and this underpins the tension between pragmatism and idealism. In another sense the knowledge of infection keeps the living and the undead connected – all opposites need to be similar so that they can be compared.
Depth and Light
Also within the explicit narrative hides, none too well, religious anxiety. In the second season the Christian farmer Hershel tells Rick, our heroic ego, that the plague is a 'correction', but attributes it to nature, unwilling to task his god with responsibility. He keeps his undead family members and erstwhile employees in a hay barn, triggering a particularly violent denouement in which Shane (apparently Rick's shadow self) opens the barn door and, with assistance, destroys the emerging zombies in a hail of gunfire. The last zombie to emerge is Sophia, the girl who the group has been trying to find in the forest for almost the entire season, suggesting that corrupted innocence has been in their hearts all along, just as the infection has been in their living bodies.
Sophia is the 'Light of God' of Gnosticism, the final phase of Jung's anima development, the name that means Wisdom. I wonder if this is unconscious synchronicity or deliberate choice. The zombies, particularly the undead children, represent our fear of the devil, the resurrection of the dead as damnation, hell on earth, the apocalypse, in the form of Satan's daemons. As Hillman remarks, Christianity removed the depth of the Underworld from our psyche, and the possibility of descent and return. Is the character going down alone to the cellar (or the prison basement in this case) a faint remnant of this?
Hatred of the flesh
Zombie flesh invariably looks diseased and rotten. Limbs can be wrenched from the undead (otherwise shown as very strong) with mystifying ease. Penetration of the zombie with bullet or melee weapon results in a fragmentation of flesh and bone that is invariably accompanied with a vile spurt of dark ichor. In particular, we note that the only way to end a zombie's undead existence is by destroying the brain. Zombies are shot in the head with bullets, bolts and arrows. They are impaled through eye sockets with steel pipes; similarly skewered with knives and swords, or into the throat and up through the soft palate. Zombies on the ground have their heads stomped in violent outbursts of disgust, hatred and grief.
A zombie from The Walking Dead
The resurrection defiled
The rotten flesh of the zombie is reviled: a lucky living human who has been bitten may have the infected limb severed so as to prevent 'turning'. Other humans regularly fight with each other, suffering physical trauma, bruising and wounding, even if they are not killed outright. The flesh of the living is almost as tormented as that of the undead. Surely this says more than just a love of the 'gross', more than a schoolboy's delighted disgust at the cartoon popping of an eyeball? For me it represents a hatred of the flesh that is fully consistent with the idea of a corrupt resurrection, the acknowledgement that (as Jung suggested) resurrection is a fantasy, a defence against death. But this is confused with the idea in Christianity of the corruption of the flesh, the blood that is left behind as we resurrect, and that souls become spirit.
Additionally, there is the destruction of the brain, the part of us confused with thinking, as if we think only with our brains, not our hearts or stomachs. Does this sublime organ have to carry the can for all our mistakes? Psychotherapy insists that we feel everything, placing our sensory perceptions into opposition with our thinking. If we think at all it is supposed to be with our Right Brain, not the sinister Leftie (another opposition and a false one at that, as neuroscience has emphatically proven). Therapists are often trained like this, in the good natured but mistaken belief that only their 'clients' stopped thinking then everything would be well with them. Some therapists work with Mind/Body/Spirit, and despite a possible fantasy of holism, this feels more like dancing.
Western Puritanism
There is another very important piece of evidence. Here's author Robert Kirkman talking to Entertainment Weekly about the absence of a sex scene: "That's more of a comment on America as a whole and television's standards and practices than it is on us. It is kind of absurd that in an episode where you see the inside of a bloated, water-logged corpse, you can't see so much as a butt cheek. That's the world we're living in." This show, that so revels in the realistic depiction of blood and viscera, can only imply human sexual relationships.
Perhaps America fears that sex in the apocalypse would be so primal, so aggressive, that we would see something too uncomfortable for us to bear, that we can cheerfully witness the dismemberment of our shadow selves, the rapacious hordes, but that we might faint at the first sniff of our own musky animal sexuality. This is surely a reflection on the spiritual transformation so dear to the fundamentalist West, the hope for which creates a hatred of the Earth, the fleshy, the 'corruptible': in ancient times these are things that would be celebrated, not abhorred.
The End of Days
This is where we find ourselves in the twenty first century. Our comforts are temporary and often delusional, moments of respite in the bleak struggle for survival. Must we destroy the brains of the undead, the bankers, politicians and oligarchs, when they pose a threat, when we are not too busy fighting each other? It's just TV you say – look again at the chart, and perhaps watch the series. Sitting in a café the other day I overheard two women in earnest conversation. One of them talked of her business selling 'critical and strategic thinking skills' and she went on to mentioned a colleague, saying, "Her cognitive processing is somewhat impaired… she is very controlling of her environment."
Breaking out of the prison
Perhaps we are all in Rick's crew now, bunkered down in our prison anticipating nothing better than either the next zombie attack or the wrath of the 'Governor', the superficially ordered community that is ruled by fear, a society without imagination, without choice. I would like to believe that through ritual and a new pantheism we will find better ways to hold our need for control, for power. That we will eventually see through our need to consume at all costs. But perhaps it is too late.
And we danced, on the brink of an unknown future, to an echo from a vanished past.
Category: Psyche
Tags: consumerism, extinction, Grief, grieving, nature, neoliberalism, walking dead, zombies
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text:
Frankfurt Music Prize 2019 goes to Quatuor Ébène
The French Quatuor Ébène string quartet is the winner of the Frankfurt Music Prize 2019. The award is given annually within the framework of the Musikmesse trade fair in Frankfurt and honours personalities who have made a special contribution to the international music scene and culture. The presentation ceremony will be held in St. Paul's Church, Frankfurt, on 5 April 2019.
The Quatuor Ébène string quartet was founded in 1999 at the Boulogne-Billancourt Conservatory in France. The group first came to international attention in 2004 after winning first prize in the string quartet category at the ARD International Music Competition. Subsequently, the ensemble went on to become firmly established on the musical landscape with a reputation for versatility and a repertoire ranging from classic works to interpretations of well-known film soundtracks and pop songs. Over the intervening years, Quatuor Ébène has won numerous international prizes, including the BBC Music Magazine Award, the Gramophone Award, the Midem Classic Award and various ECHO Klassik awards.
The Trustees of the Frankfurt Music Prize acclaim Quatuor Ébène as an outstanding ensemble whose electrifying playing is characterised by passion, complete fidelity to the original works and a simultaneous delight in improvisation. Through their seemingly effortless crossover into the world of jazz, the musicians have succeeded in increasing public awareness of the string quartet as the elite of chamber music, as well as attracting more people, especially younger people, to the concert halls. Moreover, the members of Quatuor Ébène – Pierre Colombet, Gabriel Le Magadure, Marie Chilemme and Raphaël Merlin – also pass on their outstanding skills and expertise to the coming generation of musicians in master classes.
Frankfurt Music Prize
The Frankfurt Music Prize has honoured personalities from the music scene for extraordinary achievements in the fields of interpretation, composition, musicology, teaching and promoting music making since 1982.
Donated by the National Association of German Musical Instruments Manufacturers (BDMV) and Messe Frankfurt, the Frankfurt Music Prize is worth € 15,000. The previous prize winners include Udo Lindenberg, Peter Gabriel, Keith Emerson and Marie-Luise Neunecker. Last year, the Frankfurt Music Prize went to Germany's Bundesjazzorchester (BuJazzO).
The members of the Board of Trustees of the Frankfurt Music Prize of the international Musikmesse Frankfurt are:
The Mayor of the City of Frankfurt
The Chairperson of the National Association of German Musical Instruments Manufacturers (BDMV).
A Member of the Executive Board of Messe Frankfurt
Two representatives of the German Music Council (Deutscher Musikrat)
More about Musikmesse at www.musikmesse.com
Messe Frankfurt is the world's largest trade fair, congress and event organiser with its own exhibition grounds. With over 2,400 employees at 30 locations, the company generates annual sales of around €669 million. Thanks to its far-reaching ties with the relevant sectors and to its international sales network, the Group looks after the business interests of its customers effectively. A comprehensive range of services – both onsite and online – ensures that customers worldwide enjoy consistently high quality and flexibility when planning, organising and running their events. The wide range of services includes renting exhibition grounds, trade fair construction and marketing, personnel and food services.
For more information, please visit our website at:
www.messefrankfurt.com | www.congressfrankfurt.de | www.festhalle.de
Qutuor © Julien Mignot
Frankfurt Music Prize 2019 goes to Quatuor Ébène (pdf, 30 KB)


You can either come along to us in Manchester city centre, or if you haven't the time or are along distance away from us, you can post your suit, trouser or jacket alterations or repairs to us.
First of all you need to either ring me up on 0161 8327678 or email me and discuss your alteration or repair. You can even send pictures to me at michael@thesuitdoctor.co.uk so I have a better idea of what the repair or alteration is and i can let you know the process I will go though. I can also give you an approximate quotation for what's needed.
If you don't have a camera or time to take and send pictures, you can still send them direct to me without the email contact.
If sending your suit, trousers or jackets please enclose full contact name, address, phone number and a short message of what you would like to be done to your clothing.
Payments can be made by credit or debit card over the phone or by sending a cheque with your clothing for the amount agreed in principal over the phone or email, if you can't send any pictures in regards to repair work, then I can only quote once I have seen the job, if your not happy with the quote, I will return the clothing for the postage cost.
As all work can differ from time to time prices can vary, but with in regards to alterations the prices are pretty much fixed at those shown on the price list page.
Please make all cheques payable to James Personal Tailor.
Turn around time for alterations and repair work by post, can be as little as a week.
We will definitely get all work returned to you within two weeks from receiving the item.
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What will happen if I don't like the repair work carried out?
The Suit Doctor has proven the best possible results for all suit types and problems. We guarantee every effort will be made to repair your suit, trousers or jackets as best possible, however due to the nature of the repair method we are not responsible for disagreement on results.
We strongly recommend you look at which type of repair work you would like before your choice, be it a discreet repair work, near invisible repair work, or a patch repair etc… all will be discussed with you over the phone or by email prior to the work being carried out.
Some materials, rips and holes don't repair as well as others, they all differ slightly from job to job. Some are nearly completely invisible and some are more visible than others. All will be discussed with you before any work is carried out.


text:
Q: Python List of Dictionaries to new Dictionary or List Pardon the noob question, I am new to Python.
I am working with a list of dictionaries:
dataset = [
    {'id':1,'dateCollected':'2021-03-02','orders':7},
    {'id':2,'dateCollected':'2021-03-03','orders':8},
]

.... this goes on for 50 records ....
I would like to a make a for loop that iterates through every dictionary in the list and adds certain key-value pairs to a new dictionary.
For Example:
match_history_data = {}

for i in dataset:
    match_history_data['DateCollected'] = i['dateCollected']
    match_history_data['Orders'] = i['orders']

print(match_history_data)

results in:
{'DateCollected': '2021-03-03', 'Orders': 8}

I would like the result to be:
{'DateCollected':'2021-03-02','Orders':7},
{'DateCollected':'2021-03-03','Orders':8}

This works how I want it to, but only for the first iteration in the for loop. How do I get around this so that it goes thru all the records in 'dataset', and creates the new list or dictionary?

A: You're creating a new dictionary, match_history_data and then just setting the same entries 'DateCollected' and 'Orders' over and over again. Each iteration of your for loop is just overwriting the same entries.
What you want is a list of new dictionaries:
match_history_data = []

for item in dataset:
    match_history_data.append(
            {"DateCollected" : item["dateCollected"],
             "Orders" : item["orders"]})

You can achieve this in a neater fashion using a list comprehension:
match_history_data = [{"DateCollected" : item["dateCollected"], "Orders" : item["orders"]} for item in dataset]

A: How about this
match_history_data = [{"DateCollected":x["dateCollected"], "Orders":x["orders"]} for x in dataset]

A: What you have right now overwrites a single dictionary as your loop through the original list of dictionaries, since keys are unique in dictionaries. What you need to is another list to which you can append the new dictionaries during each iteration to a separate list.
For example
new_list = []

for i in dataset:
    match_history_data = {}
    match_history_data['DateCollected'] = i['dateCollected']
    match_history_data['Orders'] = i['orders']
    new_list.append(match_history_data)

If you don't want to preserve the original list, you can simply drop the id key in each dictionary.

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You may define as many Context elements as you wish, nested within a Host element in conf/server.xml. Each such Context MUST have a unique context path, which is defined by the path attribute. In addition, you MUST define a Context with a context path equal to a zero-length string. This Context becomes the default web application for this virtual host, and is used to process all requests that do not match any other Context's context path.
In addition to nesting Context elements inside a Host element, you can also store them in individual files (with a ".xml" extension) in the appBase directory for a Host. See Automatic Application Deployment for more information.
The description below uses the variable name $CATALINA_HOME to refer to the directory into which you have installed Tomcat 4, and is the base directory against which most relative paths are resolved. However, if you have configured Tomcat 4 for multiple instances by setting a CATALINA_BASE directory, you should use $CATALINA_BASE instead of $CATALINA_HOME for each of these references.
Set to true to have explicit settings in this Context element override any corresponding settings in the DefaultContext element associated with our owning Host. By default, settings in the DefaultContext element will be used.
Set to true to allow this context to use container servlets, like the manager servlet.
NOTE: This flag MUST NOT be set to true when using the deprecated HTTP 1.1 connector as it will disable checks that protect against mal-formed requests resulting in JSP source code disclosure.
This boolean flag indicates if the resources may be cached. It defaults to true. If set to false, this flag overrides the cached attribute of any contained Resources element.
The level of debugging detail logged by this Engine to the associated Logger. Higher numbers generate more detailed output. If not specified, the default debugging detail level is zero (0).
Logger - Configure a logger that will receive and process all log messages for this Context. This includes application messages logged via calls to ServletContext.log().
You can declare the characteristics of the resource to be returned for JNDI lookups of <resource-ref> and <resource-env-ref> elements in the web application deployment descriptor. You MUST also define Resource Parameters for the same resource name, to configure the object factory to be used (if not known to Tomcat already), and the properties used to configure that object factory.
This element is used to configure the resource manager (or object factory) used to return objects when the web application performs a JNDI lookup operation on the corresponding resource name. You MUST define resource parameters for every resource name that is specified by a <Resource> element inside a <Context> or <DefaultContext> element in $CATALINA_HOME/conf/server.xml, and/or for every name declared in a <resource-ref> or <resource-env-ref> element in the web application deployment descriptor, before that resource can be successfully accessed.
Resource parameters are defined by name, and the precise set of parameter names supported depend on the resource manager (or object factory) you are using - they must match the names of settable JavaBeans properties on the corresponding factory class. The JNDI implementation will configure an instance of the specified factory class specified by calling all the corresponding JavaBeans property setters, and then making the factory instance available via the JNDI lookup() call.
If you need to specify the Java class name of a factory class for a particular resource type, use a <parameter> entry named factory nested inside the <ResourceParams> element.
The name of the resource being configured, relative to the java:comp/env contxt. This name MUST match the name of a resource defined by a <Resource> element in $CATALINA_HOME/conf/server.xml, and/or referenced in a <resource-ref> or <resource-env-ref> element in the web application deployment descriptor.


text:
Country Singer Brit Taylor Has 3 Dogs, 4 Goats, 10 Chickens, and a Cat — and Wants More Pets
Americana songstress Brit Taylor fondly remembers the days she spent as a little girl on her papaw's farm in McDowell, Kentucky, surrounded by everything from llamas to ostriches.
Taylor also spent many an early morning with her father, joining him as the sun came up to feed their own animals, including a slew of dogs and miniature ponies.
From an early age, she knew, when she grew up, that she too wanted to fill her life with animals.
But she never envisioned having this many.
"I wish I could take them all in," Taylor, 32, tells PEOPLE. "I wish I could give all of these animals places outside to run and find places where they could all get out of the cold and out of the heat."
Currently, Taylor has three dogs, one three-legged cat, 10 chickens, and four goats named after some of music's most legendary figures, including Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris.
The Kentucky native's love for animals not only comes from time spent on her papaw's farm but also her own rescue work. In 2016, Taylor rescued her first pony.
"I had read about the likelihood of an orphaned pony surviving without a mom, and that the best idea was to get them another farm animal, so that's how I got into goats," the singer/songwriter says of how her big family of pets started. "I bought the horse … a goat. That horse is now on a much bigger farm with kids. And so, it was a happy story, but you can't have just one goat because they're herd animals. I mean, she would just scream bloody murder because she was alone."
Brit Taylor
Credit: Natia Cinco
So, Taylor had no other choice; she had to get herself another goat.
"I found another girl, and she had baby goats," she shares of how her number of pets continues to grow.
In 2017, having so many furry friends comforted Taylor as she faced the most painful year of her life, dealing with the death of her beloved dog Ali and the demise of her first marriage.
But those days are firmly behind her.
As Taylor basks in newlywed life with new hubby Adam Chaffins at their nearly four-acre "mini-farm" home just outside of Nashville, the couple is also getting used to taking care of their growing brood of animals together.
Credit: Brit Taylor
"I don't think I could do what I do in my professional life if I didn't have all the animals and the responsibilities here at the farm," says Taylor, who released a deluxe version of her current album Real Me this past summer. "It's how I relax and how I ground myself and how I give myself a break from everyday life. And it doesn't feel like a chore at all. It's just something that I not only have to do but what I want to do. Mornings are my favorite time of the day because I get to go see everybody."
And luckily, Chaffins loves their animal menagerie just as much as she does.
Brit Taylor Opens Up About Finding Love Again Following Divorce: 'He's the Best Guy'
"I remember when we first started dating, one of the things that he loved was when I would baby talk to all my animals like they were my little children," Taylor says. "I remember we were walking back from the shed, and I told him we'd never not have animals."
Taylor's heart is too big not to have animals, especially when they just show up on her stoop.
"That's how I got my cat," Taylor says of her three-legged feline named Loretta — after the iconic Loretta Lynn. "She just kind of showed up here."
What makes these animals even luckier is that they are usually the ones who get to hear Taylor's songs first.
"That's where I get all my song ideas," says Taylor — who hopes to add miniature donkeys to the mix next year — of her inspiring property. "I know people hate pulling weeds, but it really is my favorite task. It grounds me and clears my head like nothing else. And that's when you can hear the muse because I don't feel like songs come from me. They come from outside of me, and they just land on me. And if my mind is so busy with all these thoughts, I can't hear them. And so, when I'm gardening and when I'm feeding my animals and when I am hauling hay, I can hear the muse better."
カテゴリー: CelebrityNews | タグ: Chickens, Country, Goats, SingerTaylor, Wants | 投稿日: 11/23/2021 | 投稿者: loh
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> The format is the same of .deb packages, only the extension changes.
see any reason why they can't be regular Debian packages.
> file conflicts with replaces.
Excellent, thank you.  That's certainly my intention.
>> provide symbols for the same binary.
> makes package relationships between ddebs and normal packages easier.


text:
Chad:Campaigning for justice
In a report published today, entitled Chad: The Habré legacy, Amnesty International underlines precisely why the Senegalese authorities should immediately hand over Hissein Habré for trial.
The report catalogues the thousands of extrajudicial executions, 'disappearances', arbitrary detentions and acts of torture that took place during the Habré administration (1982 - 1990). It includes detailed testimony from former prisoners, some of whom alleged the direct participation of Hissein Habré in acts of torture. The report also calls for those responsible for violations during the Habré administration to be brought to justice.
Many of the violations described in the report were carried out by members of the Direction de la Documentation et de la Sécurité (DDS), Directorate for Documentation and Security, a unit that was used to terrorize the Chadian population at home and abroad. It is in the DDS headquarters in N'Djaména that many of the thousands of political prisoners who ' disappeared ' after their arrest are thought to have died - killed by torture, starvation or extrajudicial execution. Despite the thousands of detentions, not one political prisoner was tried by a court of law during the Habré administration.
'It is inconceivable that Hissein Habré was not aware of what was happening at the DDS,' said Amnesty International. 'Legal documents show that Hissein Habré, who created the DDS four months after coming to power, was directly responsible for its operation. DDS officers reported to Hissein Habré on a daily basis. Moreover, numerous prisoners and former DDS agents claim that Hissein Habré was involved in the selection of prisoners, taken from their cells at night, never to return. Other prisoners were detained, tortured and killed at the presidency.'
In addition to violations committed in detention, thousands of extrajudicial executions were carried out, often during counter-insurgency operations. In 1984, for example, hundreds of unarmed civilians and former combatants who had surrendered their arms were extrajudicially executed in a wave of killings in the south of the country by forces under the command of the current president of Chad, Idriss Déby, who was then Army Chief of Staff.
No one has yet been tried, in Chad or elsewhere, for any of these crimes; crimes which were furthermore carried out with the complicity of foreign countries, especially France and the United States, who armed, financed and trained the Chadian security forces, including the DDS. This impunity coupled with continued military support, led, despite early hopes for genuine change, to further serious human rights abuses by the government of Idriss Déby and by various armed opposition groups. These violations continue to this day and are also documented in Amnesty International's report.
President Wade's public declaration on 27 September 2001 that he is prepared to allow the extradition of Habré to face trial in a third country capable of organising a fair trial raised hope that justice will finally be done. Amnesty International welcomes his declaration, on condition that the former Chadian president would receive a fair trial and would not be at risk of torture or the death penalty in the country to which he was extradited.
'The governments of Chad and Senegal, and the international community should respect their moral and legal obligations and act together to ensure that those responsible for gross human rights violations in Chad are brought to justice,' Amnesty International said.
More specifically, Amnesty International is calling on the:
Senegalese authorities to prevent Hissein Habré from leaving the country, other than under the terms of an extradition order, and - as a further indication of their commitment to international justice - to incorporate the Convention against Torture into their national legislation;
Chadian authorities to collaborate with those seeking to bring Hissein Habré to justice, by allowing thorough and impartial investigations to be carried out and by ensuring that witnesses and investigators are protected from intimidation, arrest and attempts on their lives;
international community to support and facilitate efforts to bring Hissein Habré and his collaborators to a court of law to answer the charges against them; offer Chad's justice system technical and material assistance to strengthen its capacity to investigate past and future violations and to support and promote national and international non-governmental organisations working for the protection of human rights.
On 3 February 2000, in Dakar, Senegal, Hissein Habré was indicted on charges of having 'knowingly aided or assisted X in committing crimes against humanity, acts of torture and barbarity'. However, in March 2001, after lengthy legal battles, the Senegalese Court of Cassation ruled that Senegal had no jurisdiction to try the former Chadian president, because although it has ratified the UN Convention against Torture, the Convention has never been incorporated into domestic legislation. The Court of Cassation ruled that the courts therefore did not have the jurisdiction to try a foreign national for crimes committed abroad.
However, despite disappointment at this ruling, the campaign for justice in Chad continues. Since the lodging of a legal complaint in January 2000 by victims of the atrocities perpetrated under the Habré government, there has been real hope that Hissein Habré might at last be brought to justice. A campaign to this end was launched by an international coalition of human rights groups, the International Committee for the Trial of Hissein Habré, which has supported the legal action in Senegal, and subsequently in Belgium, where a complaint against Hissein Habré is under investigation, and in Chad, where 40 individual and two collective complaints against members of the DDS, accused of acts of torture, are also being investigated.


text:
namespace MainProject
{
	using System;
	/*
		display characteristics (size and number of colors).
	*/
	public class Display
	{
		private double displaySize;
		private uint colors;

		// Problem 2. Constructors
		public Display(double size, uint numberColors) : this (size)
		{
			this.Colors = numberColors;
		}

		public Display(double size)
		{
			this.DisplaySize = size;
		}

		// Problem 5. Properties
		public double DisplaySize
		{
			get { return this.displaySize; }

			set
			{
				if (value < 0)
				{
					throw new ArgumentException ("Display size must be a positive number.");
				}
				this.displaySize = value;
			}
		}

		public uint Colors
		{
			get { return colors; }

			set
			{
				if (value < 0)
				{
					throw new ArgumentException ("Number of colors must be a positive number.");
				}
				this.colors = value;
			}
		}

		// Problem 4. ToString
		public override string ToString()
		{
			return string.Format("[Size = {0}, Colors = {1}]", DisplaySize, Colors);
		}
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Photo Shoot: Behind the Scenes!
We've been quite busy with the launch of the new publication... but there's much more to come! Here's a quick update.
A recent exhibition celebrated the wide-ranging body of work and eclectic sensibilities of artist Christopher Holbrook.
Any photographer will tell you that getting the perfect image is the result of being in the right place at the right time. Jim Burnham is no different.
Photographer Natalie Jackson O'Neal captures the visual rhythms of jazz in her "Straight, No Chaser" photo series.
Peoria artist Elizabeth Davis sheds her layers to reveal her painting process.
On November 27, 2018, the Peoria City Council recognized 40 Leaders Under Forty with a proclamation for its 25th anniversary. Many cities around the country now have similar programs, but Peoria's was one of the very first.
Discover the benefits of mindfulness.
We asked our 2018 class of 40 Leaders Under Forty about the causes they hold near and dear to their hearts, the people who have inspired them, and what they would bring to Peoria if they could.
The 40 Leaders Under Forty class of 2018 had some surprising revelations—from unusual hobbies and things they wish they would've done differently, to coping with loss and working through stressful situations.
"The Most Famous Eagle That Ever Wore Feathers"
The eagle perched atop The Shaft was a depiction of Old Abe, who appeared in many battles of the Civil War and was legendary for screaming and spreading her wings at the Confederate troops.


Blog So close and yet so far.
I've got another #DeadChuck coming out soon, but in the meantime, I'm taking a little trip back in time.
It was the summer of 1992, and I was a recent college grad, hell-bent on becoming the next Berkeley Breathed or Jim Unger. The comic strip I developed was called J.D. Spam and the Rowdies, and the name is almost as embarrassing now as the artwork – yech! Maybe one day I will dig up some of that old stuff and post it. Or not.
Anyway, it was set in a run-down college dorm, not too dissimilar from Pardee Hall from my college days. And of course, no dilapidated student residence would be complete without a highly sarcastic, philosophical rodent who lived in the basement. I named him Fitzpatrick because I liked the name, and I feverishly submitted sample after sample to all of the major syndicates for several years.
I even hand-made my own Fitzpatrick coffee mug that still sits on my desk. He liked to play paddlecat.
After endless rejection letters, I decided to phase out the college motif and replace it with something more mainstream, thinking maybe Doonesbury had the corner on the "started on a college campus" storyline. I changed the setting to suburbia, where Fitzpatrick was a thorn in the side of Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner (I can't recall their names) and their cat. Fitz become this mashup that was one part Garfield, one part Three Stooges, and one part something else.
It was early in 1995 and I was working at a financial firm, writing client letters on the various ups and downs of stocks and bonds, because nothing says "creative guy who wants to draw cartoons for life" like writing about the yield-to-maturity of the long bond. Anyway, one day, out of the blue, our office administrator pulled me out of a meeting and told me that there was a phone call for me… someone by the name of Jay Kennedy.
Jay Kennedy… Jay Kennedy. Think, Downs. Why does that name some familiar?
OH! THAT Jay Kennedy! He was only THE Managing Editor for King Features, one of the biggest cartoon syndicates in the world!* He HAD to be calling about my most recent submission. This was it! I still remember that feeling, like purpose and opportunity had crashed together to create destiny! I was so excited! I was going to get to do what I loved for my JOB! How cool was THAT?
If I was confident and optimistic between the ears, I was nervous as hell on the phone. He was such a polite guy. He really liked my artwork (I had been practicing!), but he wasn't that hot on my storyline. He didn't like that Fitzpatrick was so acerbic and occasionally physically abusive to others in the strip. Maybe this is why I love Pearls Before Swine so much… Stephan Pastis' Rat is everything I wished I could have figured out Fitzpatrick to be.
Anyway, Mr. Kennedy asked me if I could rethink my angle. Could I do something more like Bloom County? A little more political? I said I would try, and thanked him for the call. At 26, I didn't know enough about politics. I didn't exactly "pay attention" in Civics classes, and honestly I wasn't mature enough to figure out how to seize this opportunity before me. Most cartoonists never get more than a form rejection letter, and I was fortunate enough to get a phone call with advice on what I needed to do in order to make the work more marketable. I responded with the professional equivalent of making the motorboat sound with your finger and lips.
To pass the time and keep my drawing hand fresh, I ended up making Fitzpatrick an advocate of my favorite computer, the Apple Macintosh. Thinking about this some 20-plus years later, I wonder what might have been had I responded differently. Of course, I stayed at the financial firm for a few years, and Apple's stock price was only about $1.25 back then. I think that if I put as much money into 1995 Apple stock as I spent on mailing cartoon submissions, I'd probably be doing ok.
Eventually, I got a gig drawing Fitzpatrick the Mac Rat for Mac Today (Thank you @ScottKelby), and it led to some additional opportunities with Mac Addict and Insanely-Great.com (Thank you Mike Flaminio @insanely_great). I've posted some of those old Mac cartoons below. You have to remember, this was the mid 90s, and the Mac vs PC debate was almost as hot as Trump vs Hillary. I was (and still am) squarely in the Mac camp, and while these jokes probably don't age well, I still have a soft spot for Fitzpatrick.
Remember when the clouds would tile?
One of my favorites – all visuals and no words.
I sent Fitz and his sidekick to the Microsoft offices. This was when you couldn't delete the Explorer icon from the desktop.
The resolution here is poor but "cloudage" still cracks me up. Windows could take forever to load.
OK, cheap laugh. But these things were so cool looking!
I don't know who this kid is.
Not very funny, but Apple's penchant to selectively omit certain features persists to this day.
I always thoughts PC users followed the crowd.
Some people didn't like this. Newton was expensive.
This was when Fitz started to show his more sinister ways.
PCs were always locking up.
I hope Bill drove a nicer car than this.
I didn't like this campaign at first, but it grew on me.
I have a buddy who works for a virtual PC company. Back in the 90s, that was the last thing a Mac user wanted.
Another visit to Microsoft, with another PC-bashing joke.
*Sadly, Mr. Kennedy passed away in 2007. In the early 2000s, I was attending a licensing trade show in New York, and learned that he was on the floor in the King Features booth. I wanted to stop by and introduce myself, just to see if he would remember me. I missed him by 10 minutes.


text:
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is the Snr. Digital Marketing Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa at CM.com. She is passionate about digital marketing and customer experience. She is dedicated and committed to enhancing the CM.com brand locally using strategic marketing campaigns via various channels.
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text:
Home / News / Mazda MX-5 Miata News
Mazda MX-5 Miata News
Preview: 2022 Mazda MX-5 Miata gains handling technology
Viknesh Vijayenthiran December 16, 2021
Mazda's current MX-5 enters its seventh year on the market with a few updates.
Mazda confirms electrification for next MX-5 Miata
Mazda's next MX-5 Miata due around the middle of the decade will feature some form of electrification, the automaker has confirmed.
Viknesh Vijayenthiran June 24, 2021
100th Anniversary Special Edition Mazda MX-5 Miata celebrates a century of business, 60 years of cars
Mazda has only built cars since 1960, but the 100th Anniversary Special Edition MX-5 Miata celebrates the company's century of doing business
Stephen Edelstein June 30, 2020
Mazda expands list of first-generation MX-5 Miata reproduction parts for U.S.
Mazda offers more than 1,100 reproduction parts for the first-generation MX-5 Miata.
Byron Hurd October 29, 2019
The Hellcat-swapped Mazda Miata lives and rips a massive burnout
Remember the YouTuber working on a Mazda Miata with a Hellcat engine swap? It runs, and it's alive and well. YouTube channel KARR posted two video updates of the pint-sized beast in action, and it's something pretty remarkable, to say the least. It started with a standard NB-generation Mazda MX-5...
Sean Szymkowski June 9, 2019
An extra 143 2019 Mazda MX-5 Miata 30th Anniversary Editions headed to US
An additional 143 2019 Mazda MX-5 Miata 30th Anniversary Edition models are coming to America and buyers on the waitlist will get them.
Sean Szymkowski May 15, 2019
LS swaps are so last week: Shop drops Hellcat into Mazda MX-5 Miata
Sean Szymkowski March 3, 2019
Swapping a monstrous engine into a smaller car is nothing new. Swapping a 6.2-liter supercharged V-8 known to most as the Hellcat into a Mazda MX-5 Miata, however, is. That was YouTube channel KARR's most recent project, which Motor1 first reported on last week, a project that went rather swimmingly despite all of the work required. The channel documented the entire process in a four-part video series and the amount of effort required to make the Miata Hellcat come to life is rather intense. Yet, it's oh so satisfying to see the engine stuffed under the hood. The MX-5 Miata used is an...
Gone in 14(thousand) seconds: 2019 Mazda MX-5 Miata 30th Anniversary edition sells out in hours
It took just four hours for the 2019 Mazda MX-5 Miata 30th Anniversary Edition to sell out. All 500 cars are spoken for in the United States, the brand announced this past Saturday. Mazda shared the metrics it witnessed as the car's fans flooded a special website to place their orders for the...
Sean Szymkowski February 12, 2019
2019 Mazda MX-5 Miata 30th Anniversary Edition celebrates 30 years of spritely fun
This year, the beloved Mazda MX-5 Miata turns 30, and to mark the Japanese roadster's birthday Mazda has introduced the 2019 MX-5 Miata 30th Anniversary Edition. The debut took place on Thursday at the 2019 Chicago Auto Show, which was fitting considering it was at the same show back in 1989 that...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran February 7, 2019
1990 Mazda MX-5 Miata: 100 Cars That Matter
Small roadsters were a dying breed in the 1980s. A decade earlier, tiny British and Italian sports cars darted across Europe and America, but by 1989, most were history. It was up to the 1990 Mazda MX-5 Miata to rekindle their spirit. Mazda took a decades-old concept and smartly updated it with the...
Sean Szymkowski January 31, 2019
2019 Mazda MX-5 Miata first drive review: The sports car Mazda intended
The new Mazda MX-5 Miata we got in the U.S. in 2016 wasn't really the car it was supposed to be. According to Mazda North American Operations manager of vehicle dynamics Dave Coleman, Mazda wanted to use a 1.5-liter 4-cylinder engine worldwide. Pushback from the U.S. allowed installation of...
Dan Carney August 13, 2018
2019 Mazda MX-5 Miata: More power, higher redline
It's finally official. Mazda on Wednesday upped the zoom-zoom baked into its MX-5 Miata for 2019. This fall, when the 2019 MX-5 Miata hits dealerships, it will boast 181 horsepower—a 17 percent increase over 2018, Mazda said. A number of engineering upgrades allowed for this increase in...
Jeff Glucker June 20, 2018
Mazda reveals updated MX-5 Miata with more power, features
Mazda's MX-5 Miata is a perennial favorite that just gets better with each successive generation. The car is into its fourth generation and still manages to maintain the spritely driving feel of the original, despite being significantly safer and more advanced. The fourth-gen model, an ND to all the fans, was introduced for 2016. As it approaches the midway point in its life cycle, new details have emerged on some substantial updates for the car. The updates, which apply to both the regular model and the MX-5 Miata RF, have been announced for the Japanese market. They are expected to be...
Report: 2019 Mazda MX-5 Miata to get 181 horsepower
Everyone's favorite low-horsepower sports car is getting an update for 2019. The refreshed Mazda MX-5 Miata is nearly here and it's becoming clear that more power is on the menu. According to Road & Track, the 2019 Miata will produce 181 horsepower and 151 pound-feet of torque. That's a hefty...
Jeff Glucker April 10, 2018
Is Mazda giving the 2019 MX-5 Miata more horsepower?
The Miata is a delightful machine that is the poster child of the slow-car-fast mindset. Every auto enthusiast loves it, but a fair contingent of the car's fans also agree that it wouldn't hurt to have a bit more horsepower. It appears that the Japanese automaker is listening because the 2019 MX-5...
Jeff Glucker March 2, 2018
This wild off-road Mazda Miata isn't afraid to get dirty
The Mazda Miata has traditionally been tasked with one duty: to provide a pure driving experience. However, someone decided to get a little dirty to create the cutest, angriest off-roader we've ever seen. This off-road Miata was spotted at a recent Cars and Coffee event in Minneapolis and...
Sean Szymkowski October 20, 2017
Evolution of virtue: How Mazda Miata became purist's sports car
The Mazda Miata remains a go-to choice for those seeking a no-frills driving experience today. Over four generations, the Miata may have gained and lost various facets of itself, but it's always been a fun-to-drive sports car on a budget. But, where did it all begin? Thanks to Donut Media, we have...
Watch an incredible time-lapse teardown of a Mazda MX-5 Miata engine
Apparently, Peter Gabriel is getting into the wrenching game. At least that's what this video has us reminiscing about. Gabriel, for those youngsters among us, is the musician who utilized stop-motion animation (among other art forms, including claymation) to create to the memorable "Sledgehammer"...
Jeff Glucker September 29, 2017
Mazda MX-5 Miata design proposals reveal what could have been
Sean Szymkowski August 24, 2017
Everyone's favorite example of slow car that begs to be driven fast almost looked a little different from the production Mazda MX-5 Miata on the road today. The brand itself recently released a slew of images that show a handful of design proposals for what would become the fourth-generation—or ND as it's known to enthusiasts—MX-5 Miata. When every final sketch was looked over, Mazda decided on two designs to choose from: one from Japan and one from the United States. The Japanese proposal featured retro-style lines and channeled the original MX-5 Miata. The American proposal was...
Mazda launches Miata NA restoration program, but only for Japan
It's hard to believe it's been nearly 30 years since the first Mazda roadster, which would be dubbed the NA generation, debuted. A lot has happened in that amount of time, and like many older cars, the original Mazda MX-5 Miata has become a rarer breed. Mazda of Japan wants to restore the magic...
Sean Szymkowski August 7, 2017
Koenigsegg's test driver lapped the 'Ring in 7:49.74 in a Miata
What's quicker than a Lamborghini Murcielago, Ford GT, and BMW M4 around the Nürburgring? None other than a Mazda Miata, believe it or not. Well, it's not a stock Mazda Miata, but the feat is pretty spectacular nonetheless. Koenigsegg's test driver, Robert Serwanski, recently took to The Green...
Sean Szymkowski July 25, 2017
2017 Mazda MX-5 Miata RF first drive review: the Miata coupe (targa?) we've always wanted
As soon as sports car fans discovered the Miata was a fantastic roadster, some started asking for a stylish coupe version. That was probably a couple days after the first Miata hit the street in 1989. I'd argue that the 2017 MX-5 Miata RF answers that call. Coupe, roadster, or targa? The latest...
Kirk Bell May 9, 2017
Mazda goes with sexy and sinister for MX-5 concepts at SEMA
Mazda impressed us at the 2015 SEMA show when it unveiled a lightweight speedster concept based on its fourth-generation MX-5 Miata, which at the time was just hitting the market. On Tuesday at the 2016 SEMA show, Mazda unveiled an evolved version of its MX-5 Speedster concept that's been...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran November 2, 2016
Here's a look at how the Mazda MX-5 RF roof operates
The 2017 Mazda MX-5 RF is the targa-topped Miata that some fans of the car have been hoping would come to light. Not everyone is excited about the cut-up coupe, but there are some enthusiasts that prefer a real roof over their heads and this MX-5 delivers just that. How does that folding hardtop...
Jeff Glucker October 18, 2016
First Drive Review: 2022 Bentley Flying Spur Hybrid deftly substitutes electrons for cylinders
Rivian patents telescoping and folding tailgates, designs tailgate step
Morgan Plus Four LM62 celebrates Le Mans victory


Since we are registered and purchased QFS tool for our product automation. I would like to know, do you have any Framework Tool in your organization.
As you all know, STAF (Software Test Automation Framework runs on QTP, WR etc tool). Do you have similar framework or not ?
•STAF is an automation framework intended to make it easier to create and manage automated testcases and test environments.
•STAF externalizes its capabilities through services. A service provides a focused set of functionality, such as Logging, Process Invocation, File Manipulation, Resource Pools, Semaphores, Events, etc.
•STAFProc is the process that runs on a machine, called a STAF Client, which accepts requests and routes them to the appropriate service. These requests may come from the local machine or from another STAF Client on a remote machine. Thus, STAF works in a peer environment.
•STAX is an execution engine for STAF which can help you thoroughly automate the distribution, execution, and results analysis of your testcases.
•STAX provides support for parallel execution, user-defined granularity of execution control, support for nested testcases, the ability to control the length of execution time, and the ability to monitor STAX jobs.


In honor of Men's Health Week, we are pleased to present a guest post by PatientsLikeMe member tiredoftired, a young man who has been living with major depressive disorder since 2007. Don't miss this moving essay about how Mike Wallace's passing earlier this year impacted and inspired him.
As I was driving to therapy on an April afternoon, I heard a news report that Mike Wallace, an original host of the television show 60 Minutes, had passed away. I was intrigued when the short segment highlighted Wallace's accomplishments in his battle with depression. I was only somewhat familiar with the show, but it was obvious from the report that he had a decorated career as a journalist and his professional accomplishments could have easily taken the full slot. Having struggled with depression myself, I felt compelled to investigate his life further.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with his work as I was, Wallace was a pioneer of the newsmagazine format, which shaped journalistic television. He was a pit bull of a correspondent; with his aggressively confrontational approach, he posed direct questions that others were too afraid to ask, often leaving the subject shaken. Wallace interviewed some of the most eminent, and even fearsome, people and did not hold back on his interrogation-like technique.
There is no shame in depression: Wallace constantly repeated that depression does not signify an emotional weakness. The pain, inability to cope and despair are unfathomable to those who have not experienced depression. It is not a sadness that is surmountable by sheer willpower. Aside from reassuring sufferers that their pain and disabilities were justified, it comforted them by seeing someone well-respected using his high-profile position to dissolve social stigma.
There is no shame in asking for help: The stigma can prevent people from seeking help and make them embarrassed that, unlike others, they are unable to push through sadness themselves. Wallace said that the single most important thing you can do is to go and talk to someone. He stressed that it is impossible for one to handle alone, and he encouraged people to seek therapy and take medication, as well as emphasizing the importance of social support from family and friends.
You are not alone: During depressive episodes, Wallace often talked to two close friends that also experienced depression. By talking to those who could truly empathize, he felt comforted and validated. Not only was he reassured that what he was feeling was normal, they were able to give him valuable insight and ideas.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel: Wallace's friends also gave him hope. He saw that they had been through the darkness of depression and survived. And he passed along that message to others. As bad as it seems now, he told people, look at how he emerged from that same prison and went on to live a happy, productive life.
Mike Wallace has inspired me to perpetuate these messages and give others the same comfort and hope he gave me. Depression is a real medical illness and pursuing treatment is nothing to be embarrassed about. With the help of mental health professionals and a strong support system, we have the ability to fight through the darkness. By doing that, we can do more than just survive – we can build productive and meaningful lives.
Learn more about Mike Wallace's struggle with depression in this candid CBS interview from 2006. Also, if you're living with depression yourself, we invite you to join PatientsLikeMe's depression community and connect with more than 11,000 others like you.


All beings are created by just the whisper of your voice.
Your providence governs our steps.
You have made this clear to us and if we deny it we make you out to be a liar.
You lead us to flourish despite our desire to cast ourselves into ruin.
We are wretched and unable to change our steps toward destruction.
That we might find in him music, light, nourishment, and all other graces that produce eternal joy.
But known to us in Jesus.
Possess our minds with the grandeur of Your perfections.
And in the enjoyment of it nothing can make us miserable.
And never let us cease to respond to Your gospel invitations.
This entry was posted in Valley of Vision and tagged God's good pleasure, Puritan prayers, Valley of Vision, Valley of Vision Redux. Bookmark the permalink.


Think big geospatial data—very big geospatial data. When people dream up digital worlds of interactive 3D, virtual reality, and augmented reality, they often overlook the next step: dealing with massive amounts of data. Civil Maps, a relatively young company, has decided to slay some big data dragons. Civil Maps CEO, Sravan Puttagunta, has an image-processing background and has done extensive research building large-scale, real-time vision-processing systems for automatic content recognition. The algorithm he developed is currently deployed in about 30 million smart televisions.


Due to weather conditions, Dare County offices will open at 11 a.m. on Friday, October 12. The Dare County Clerk of Courts office will open at 11 a.m. today. Dare County District Court scheduled for today will begin at 11 a.m. There will be no residential trash collection in Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo and Avon today due to water on roadways. Commercial pickup will occur as planned, contingent on water in the roadways.


DIY: Fence Cleaning and Staining For fences that need a make-over, here's how. Here are a few tips. A power washer and a good coat of oil stain is all that's needed to refinish your fence. Removing Stubborn Dirt Power washers are powerful. Nothing can stand the water pressure that a power washer delivers. It can blast sticky materials out of the wood. But it can also damage the wood. The use of the proper sprayer tip and spraying technique is highly recommended.
Used correctly, the power sprayer works well to your advantage. This helps later in the application of the wood stain.
Power washing is the best way of cleaning an old fence. It is important to choose the right tip and test the pressure of the spray before aiming it on wood. Don't be 'trigger-happy' with a power sprayer. You can quickly learn how to use a power washer even if it's your first time to use one. First clear the surface of the fence of anything that can block the spray, like loose plants. Since you can't avoid getting wet in the process, wear the right kind of clothes. Spray the power washer evenly across the surface of the fence boards. The boards will brighten as the pressure of the spray passes each section. You only need to clean the wood a little with the use of a power sprayer. Repair Jobs You may now see the extent of damage that your fence has suffered and what kind of repairs you need to do. If you have broken or split boards, you can repair it with waterproof wood glue. Instead of nails to attach loose joints, you might want to use rustproof screws. Turnbuckle supports can be used to straighten up the fence gate. Use wood preservative where your fence touches the ground. The bottom that touches the ground is the first area of the fence that rots. The natural blend of the wood's color can be enhanced by using semi-transparent oil stain. Wood stains contain pigments that add a blend of color to the wood's natural shades. Let the Fence Dry Completely After cleaning, let the fence dry completely. This takes 1 – 3 days depending on weather conditions. Some kinds of wood take on deeper shades of color over time. You can use toned sealers if you do not want to add color to your fence. Coat the wood with sealer using a paint roller. Let the sealer be absorbed by the wood as much as it can. Brush the sealer into the wood after the sealer has been applied by the paint roller. Give attention to corners and hidden creases when applying sealer. Be careful not to leave lap marks, as they show uneven and unsightly shades on finished jobs. Hire Professionals If you are not up to cleaning and staining a fence yourself, you can contact service providers to do the work for you. Depending on the extent of the work needed to be done, appropriate fees are charged.


Perched on a clifftop in the beautiful north of the island, this is an attractive two storey house with amazing sea views, just 300 metres from the luxury hotel La Hacienda. With the sea to one side, it is surrounded by its own private Mediterranean garden of nearly an acre and is the ideal property for families who want to be close to the excitement of Ibiza, while enjoying the sea and the countryside in one of the very few natural protected areas in the island away from the crowds. Sea views are stunning, with fantastic views to Cala Benirras, legendary for its sunsets.
The swimming pool has spectacular views and a large Jacuzzi ideal for relaxing in the evening watching the sunset over the bay. The garden has two separate dining areas and a solarium. Around the area there are several top restaurants, beaches and calas just 10 minutes driving, heliport 200 away from the villa. The main village of San Miguel is 10 minutes driving where there can be found plenty of shops and supplies.
The inside has been beautifully furnished, there is a spacious sitting room and a separate dining room on the ground floor with access to the garden and a fully equipped modern vitro-ceramic kitchen, with microwave oven and dishwasher. There is a small library/office with working facilities on the upper floor, with patios and terraces looking out to the sea. Facilities include central heating and separate air conditioning in every room, satellite TV, two TV sets, two CD stereos (one on each floor), DVD player and WI-FI internet connection. It has a separate washing room with a washing machine in the boiler room.
There are 5 double bedrooms each with en-suite bathrooms and under floor heating.


3. Siziness; thickness of fluids; viscidity; a term used in the humoral pathology.
Slowness; delay; slugishness. – Arbuthnot.
Siziness thickness of fluids; viscidity; a term used in the humoral pathology. – Coxe. Quincy.
Tenacity; viscidity, as of fluids.


14 karat rose gold stacking ring featuring a bezel set round white Diamond 0.33ct, with a polished, hammered shank, in a finger size 6.5.
18 karat yellow gold stacking ring featuring a bezel set pear shaped white Diamond 0.19ct, with a polished, hammered shank, in a finger size 6.5.
18 karat yellow gold solitaire ring featuring a bezel set oval deep yellow Diamond 0.31ct, with a polished hammered finish, in a width of 1.5mm and a finger size 6.5.
18 karat yellow gold solitaire ring featuring a bezel set round top light brown Diamond 0.20ct, SI clarity, with a polished hammered finish, in a width of 1.5mm and a finger size 6.5.
14 karat rose gold solitaire ring featuring a bezel set round light brown Diamond 0.15ct, with a polished hammered finish, in a width of 1.5mm and a finger size 6.5.
14 karat rose gold solitaire ring featuring a bezel set pear shaped pinkish brown Diamond 0.19ct, with a polished hammered finish, in a width of 1.5mm and a finger size 6.5.
14 karat rose gold solitaire ring featuring a bezel set oval yellow Diamond 0.22ct, with a polished hammered finish, in a width of 1.5mm and a finger size 6.5.
18 karat yellow gold ring featuring a cushion cut magenta Sapphire 0.89ct flanked by two pear shaped Diamonds 0.17ctw and with a high polish, in a finger size 6.5.
14 karat yellow gold bead ring featuring an oval bezel set Tsavorite 0.45ct in a finger size 6.5.


What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss?
From the film "No Country For Old Men", comes Javier Bardem as the ruthless Anton Chigurh. The Coen brothers sought to cast someone "who could have come from Mars" to avoid a sense of identification. Empire.com ranked him #46 in their list of the 100 Greatest Movie Characters Of All Time, praising the look on his face when he strangles a cop with his own handcuffs. When American novelist Cormac McCarthy wants to throw a dark character at you, it's a safe assumption that you're not going to be able to get them out of your head for a good, long while – if ever. With the kind of unholy relentlessness usually reserved for horror icons, the hired killer has an almost supernatural ability to track his prey, and is rather short in the mercy department, preferring to leave the tough decisions to a coin toss. And that bowl cut is utterly terrifying.
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By Dylan Johnson
New facilities, new culture as ECU football spring practice begins
December 3, 2018 is a day ECU head football coach Mike Houston says he will remember vividly for the rest of his life. It's a day he says he would call "ground zero" for ECU football.
ECU had just ended its season with an embarrassing 58-3 loss to NC State on December 1. Former head coach Scottie Montgomery was fired days before the game on November 29 and defensive coordinator David Blackwell stood in as interim head coach for the game. Needless to say, the Pirates were in transition. Houston was hired on December 2 by newly-hired Athletics Director Jon Gilbert. Then came "ground zero".
"I'll never forget the faces of the young men in our program and looking in their eyes. To be honest, they were lost at that point in time," Houston told reporters, according to ecupirates.com.
ECU football is set to begin spring practice Friday morning and has a ways to go in order to improve a program coming off of three consecutive 3-9 seasons. But a lot has already happened in the three-plus months Houston has been on the job.
What Houston must do with the football program is similar to what ECU men's basketball head coach Joe Dooley had to do when taking over that program, which has been mired in mediocrity for years, almost a year ago. Dooley had to reset everything about the program and needed to instill a new culture and way of going about things on a day-to-day basis.
Houston has already seen many improvements to the ECU football facilities, on top of the big renovations being done to Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium that are set to be finished this summer. Many will remember how Dooley added to the men's basketball practice gym, notably putting in a banner in the rafters that says "Are you next?" hanging next to banners marking ECU NCAA Tournament appearances along with phrases of the program.
For Houston and the football team there are several culture-setting phrases around the facilities. There is the wall that reads "Core Values" in gold letters, followed by a list that reads; high character, inspirational work ethic, mental and physical toughness, fundamentally sound & disciplined, passion and intensity, relentless pursuit of perfection. It ends with "your last name is ECU" in gold letters at the bottom.
Another wall marked with "Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared, men of character are remembered and trusted!" There is "Today I will give my all to ECU" and "Your last name is ECU". There is another decorated wall but this one with an image of the AAC football championship trophy accompanied by a quote from legendary NFL coach Chuck Noll, saying "Champions are champions not because they do anything extraordinary but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else."
Another wall reads "A champions checklist: commitment, consistency, accountability, positive attitude, healthy lifestyle, be coachable, no shortcuts, great teammate: bring one with me, self-motivated: inspirational work ethic. Apply this list daily." Finally, a team goal board with ECU's 2019 opponents and several boxes to check, including "win: score more points than the opponent, fewer penalties than our opponent, win the kicking game, win the field position battle, win the p.o.c., and win the turnover battle."
Houston said that just as things look better physically inside the facilities, things with the program are in a much better place than on December 3.
"As we start tomorrow preparing for the 2019 season, there is a bright future ahead for East Carolina football. Is it going to be an easy road? Absolutely not. There are going to be tough times. There is no doubt. But you have a group that is committed to making sure we get the task done, that we accomplish the goals that we set out. Some of those we have already accomplished. But there is still a lot of work to do. Now is it going to translate overnight to exactly what we want? No. It is going to take time.
"But I can promise you that as I stand here today, I could not be more excited about anything as I am about this program, the young men in this program, the support that we have from the athletic administration, the support we have from campus. Jon Gilbert has been everything that you could ever want in an athletics director as far as how he has treated me and how he has supported our program since we've started. I'm ready to get out there and start practicing," Houston said.
Luckily, Houston has experience with this. Houston has had success stepping in at every stop along the way, from Lenoir-Rhyne, The Citadel, and James Madison, he's done this before.
Resetting the culture is an interesting practice that involves Houston getting everyone to do things in a new way, while respecting tradition and trying to raise the program to past success and glory.
That begins in spring practice with a new touch by removing the logos from helmets for spring practice.
"All of our players will earn the right to have the Jolly Roger on side of their helmet this spring. They will earn the right to represent our program. Because it is a privilege and an honor to be a member of this football program and to represent East Carolina University. It's very important to me that our players understand that and they embrace that. We need to get back to establishing what that's going to represent." Houston said.
Houston said ECU has not yet received word from the NCAA on Nate Harvey. Harvey is attempting to get an extra year of eligibility. The Pirates would surely welcome Harvey, the AAC defensive player-of-the-year. Houston said Harvey is preparing to play football next season regardless, just not sure where that will be at yet.
Houston said he will know closer to the Purple-Gold spring game on April 13 how the format of the game will work. Houston is not sure yet if it will be a true game or just offense versus defense, but there will definitely be competition and a winner and loser.
Houston's starting from scratch goes as far as saying that every position has a competition this spring (probably not counting Holton Ahlers spot at quarterback), from giving young players a chance to telling program returners that their spots still must be earned. No depth chart set in stone right now.
The players have been hard-at-work during the offseason in the weight room with coach John Williams. The coaches have prepared the players for the much more intense and physical style of play Houston wants to see on the field in the fall. The Pirates will really get introduced to their new style of physicality at around 8:45 a.m. on Monday morning according to coach Houston, when they incorporate a new drill called "Inside Run."
"Inside Run is a drill that is going to be the backbone of our program and it is not going to be for the faint of heart. We are going to be a physical football team on both sides of the ball. We're going to practice in a manner to prepare ourselves to play on game day,"
Filed Under: 252 College Game Day, College Football, ECU PIRATES, The Drive