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Archive for September 21st, 2010
THE 1989 ROMANIAN REVOLUTION AS GEOPOLITICAL PARLOR GAME: BRANDSTATTER'S "CHECKMATE" DOCUMENTARY AND THE LATEST WAVE IN A SEA OF REVISIONISM, Part One
Posted by romanianrevolutionofdecember1989 on September 21, 2010
posted byLillymill, translated by Shenanigan 87 at youtube.
(submitted for CIA PRB Clearance February 2005, cleared March 2005)
THE 1989 ROMANIAN REVOLUTION AS GEOPOLITICAL PARLOR GAME: BRANDSTATTER'S "CHECKMATE" DOCUMENTARY AND THE LATEST WAVE IN A SEA OF REVISIONISM
By Richard Andrew Hall
Disclaimer: This material has been reviewed by CIA. That review neither constitutes CIA authentification of information nor implies CIA endorsement of the author's views.
Please Note: This article is not to be cited, reproduced, translated, or used in any form without the acknowledgement and permission of the author.
Richard Andrew Hall holds a BA from the University of Virginia (1988) and a PhD from Indiana University (1997). He joined the CIA in September 2000 and served as a Romanian Political Analyst from October 2000 to April 2001. Since October 2001, he has worked as an analyst on issues unrelated to eastern Europe. He published extensively on the Romanian Revolution and its historiography prior to joining the Agency, including the Romanian journals "22" and "Sfera Politicii" in 1996, "East European Politics and Societies," in 1999, and "Europe-Asia Studies" in 2000. He can be reached for comment on this series at hallria@msn.com.
***Dedicated to the memory of Ilinca Zarifopol Johnston, a radiant spirit, who called me mormoloc (tadpole) and surdulica (little deaf one), and withstood my earnestness as a first-year Romanian and graduate student to help me translate my first articles from the Romanian press about the Revolution.***
Part 1: Opening Moves
–Any history is in fact two histories: the history being told and the history of the period in which it is being told. The recording of the past is always to some extent prisoner to the present in which it is recorded.
Take revisionist histories of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. Such accounts generally insinuate that, at the very least, senior US officials had foreknowledge of the attacks and cynically did nothing to prevent them, or, even more diabolically, elements of the US government and political and economic elites launched the attacks against their own people in order to pursue an insatiable thirst for power and riches. True, such revisionist suspicions exist across the globe—including in the United States—but they have gained greater mass media exposure and notably sizable (if still minority) popular interest and acceptance in some countries more than others.
Revisionist theories of the September 2001 attacks appear to have found their most vocal proponents in France and Germany. The most prominent and influential of these revisionist accounts are probably those of the French author Thierry Meyssan ("The Horrifying Fraud") and former (West) German Cabinet minister Andreas von Bulow ("The CIA and the 11th of September, International Terror and the Role of the Secret Services") (for summary and analysis of these accounts see, for example, "Wall Street Journal," 29 September 2003, "New York Times," 22 June 2002, and "The Washington Post," 21 July 2002).* It must be pointed out that, according to public opinion surveys, the extreme contentions and accusations lobbed by Meyssan and von Bulow are rejected by overwhelming majorities of the populations in both these countries, and co-nationals from across the political spectrum have heavily criticized their revisionist theories (Reuters, 11 September 2003; "New York Times," 22 June 2002). These theories are neither inevitable nor even representative of political, media, intellectual, or public opinion in these countries. Nevertheless, we are left with the questions of why these two European countries and why now?
The history of these countries and of their relations with the US and the historical political culture of their intellectual and media elites surely play a role. However, it is also clear that the contemporary global geopolitical condition and intellectual and political climate in France and Germany are at work. The books of Meyssan and von Bulow reflect the "zeitgeist" in which they are written: the perception and reality of the disparity of power between the United States and the rest of the world, fear and resentment of American hegemony, and suspicion of the motives driving American foreign policy. Just as the 11 September 2001 attacks are somewhat difficult to imagine happening 15 years earlier—when the bipolarity of the Cold War still prevailed—so it is difficult to imagine the depth of suspicion of US leaders and the broad toleration and acceptance of these revisionist theories in the Western Europe of 15 years ago.
A NEW WAVE OF FRANCO-GERMAN REVISIONISM GREETS THE 1989 ROMANIAN REVOLUTION
Such recent Franco-German revisionism has not been confined to the events of the 21st century, however. It is also being projected back into the events of the late 20th century. A new school of Franco-German conspiracy theory about the Romanian Revolution of December 1989 has developed in the last few years. Film director Susanne Brandstatter's "Checkmate" documentary about the overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu—broadcast for the first time on the Franco-German channel "TV Arte" in late February 2004—is probably the best exposition of this new school. Appearing as it did, during the year that marked the 15th anniversary of the Revolution, the film prompted much publicity and discussion in Romania.
Reflecting on the biggest events of 2004 in the daily that "broke the story," "Jurnalul National," journalist Marina Constantinoiu recalled:
"[It all began when] I merely reprinted an article/commentary about this interesting film that had been published in the online TV supplement of the French weekly 'Le Nouvel Observateur.' The next day 'the madness' started. There followed a torrent of reactions, the telephones at the newspaper were ringing off the hook, with all kinds of people expressing their agreement or disagreement with the documentary's claim, some even bringing proof to support one or the other versions. 'Jurnalul National' prompted a true national debate, starting from a simple television documentary." ("Jurnalul National," 30 December 2004).
Although undoubtedly engaging in the same kind of self-interested media hype as Constantinoiu, it is telling of the impact of the documentary that the night after the TV Arte broadcast, Hungarian Television devoted a show to discussing a film that the host described as "having even before its screening already provoked a wave of reactions across the globe" (Magyar Televizio 1, 2004). During the program, a Hungarian reporter in Bucharest relayed Romanian reaction as the film was broadcast for the first time on Romanian television.
Brandstatter's film, the coverage it provoked in the French, Romanian, and Hungarian media, the debates it sparked, and its comparison with previous investigations of the Revolution are the subject of this paper. Although the conclusions of Brandstatter's film reflect contemporary geopolitical relations, her methodology of investigation continues a long tradition in both foreign and Romanian studies of the December 1989 events, and the content of the film is heavily reliant upon claims and allegations that have circulated for years—many back to 1990—in Romania.
The conclusions of Brandstatter's film are consistent with and probably reflect the broader contemporary trend of ascribing a seemingly limitless propensity and capacity for manipulation and skullduggery to the United States. At the same time, however, the content of the film is a product of enduring and perhaps intensifying trends that are characteristic of so many explorations of the Romanian Revolution and that are specific to the case itself. In other words, the film is a reflection of a longtime, deeply-embedded historical debate on the Revolution within Romania—and, to a lesser extent, abroad—as interpreted through the prism of contemporary geopolitical relations.
CONJUGATING CONSPIRACY: HE CONSPIRES, THEY CONSPIRE, YOU CONSPIRE…
Susanne Brandstatter's "Checkmate" documentary is a reformulation of the longstanding KGB-CIA "Yalta-Malta" theory of Ceausescu's overthrow. That Brandstatter's is not a solitary perspective is demonstrated by the claims of the French researcher, Catherine Durandin, during 2002-2003. Brandstatter's film caused a flurry of commentaries and analyses in the French, Hungarian, and Romanian media—somewhat funny, as journalists and intellectuals in and from Romania routinely maintain that common citizens are exhausted by and disinterested in investigations of the December 1989 events, and that "The Revolution doesn't sell." The Brandstatter-Durandin school argues that Ceausescu's overthrow was primarily the work of the CIA, with various Western security services and the Hungarians—although still communist at the time, nevertheless working in concert with the West—fulfilling a secondary role. The KGB is said to have participated, but had only a bit part. Even in Romania, some commentators who did not seriously entertain this thesis until now, appear to have been swayed by the film—a testament to its seductive presentation and power.
This is all just a little ironic—given that in late 2003 a large swath of the Romanian media and intelligentsia hastened to declare that "new revelations" by Soviet-era Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky had once and for all put to rest the controversy over "what really happened in December 1989." While on a visit to Romania in November 2003, Bukovsky stated in passing that, on the basis of his access to KGB documents in the early 1990s, he could maintain unequivocally that the KGB masterminded and stage-managed the Romanian Revolution—as it did, he claimed, the collapse of communism throughout Eastern Europe in 1989. Despite the fact that Bukovsky began making these allegations as far back as 1990—thus, before his access to the archives—for those in Romania who have long-advocated this thesis, Bukovsky's words were received as gospel and as definitively closing the book on the investigation and understanding of the December 1989 events. The so-called "Bukovsky Scandal"—for much of 2004 it had its own separate link on the webpage of "Ziua [The Day]," the daily that launched it—erupted again in the spring, summer, and fall of 2004 with a new flood of articles and exchanges, but virtually no new details to back up Bukovsky's claims.
But the Brandstatter-Durandin CIA-engineered coup theory is even more ironic when you consider the previous wave of Franco-German conspiracy theories—which cornered the market in 1990 and has had a profound and enduring imprint upon how the events of Ceausescu's overthrow have been studied and understood since. Those theories maintained the exact opposite of the Brandstatter-Durandin argument in terms of the weighting awarded to foreigners in the December 1989 coup: that Ceausescu's overthrow was primarily the work of the KGB and other East European security services—the Hungarians acting at the behest of Moscow—with the CIA and Western security services playing at best a limited, purely (dis)informational role. The first wave of Franco-German conspiracy theories might not have had such a lasting—and I would argue, destructive—impact had it not been awarded credibility and promoted by prominent Romanian intellectual and academic emigres in the West. I personally can attest to this impact, for it was the prism provided by the latter in the English language that heavily shaped my views of the December 1989 events until conducting dissertation research in Romania in 1993-1994.
In essence, what I argue here is that one cannot understand the latest wave of Franco-German revisionism sufficiently without placing it in the context of prior historiography of the Revolution, especially revisionist historiography. Likewise, one cannot understand the Romanian historiography of the Revolution accurately without understanding the revisionist historiography of Romania's communist security service, the Securitate, and how it has infected and weaved its way into the broader Romanian historiography. Finally, one cannot understand the deleterious effects of the first wave of Franco-German conspiracy theory on scholarly understandings in English without understanding the role émigré Romanian intellectuals played in relaying and legitimizing it.
"REVISIONISM" OR…WHEN EVERYTHING TURNS OUT TO HAVE BEEN AN ILLUSION
Revisionism has been a central and prominent feature of the historiography of the December 1989 Revolution. I should clarify what I mean by "revisionism" here. My definition of "revisionism" is necessarily broad because it is outcome-based rather than process-based. Although important, the causes of revisionism are not and should not be what defines it. Revisionism is certainly not bad, illegitimate, or incorrect by definition. Some revisionism turns out to have been well-grounded and proved right, some not. But to attribute or define revisionism in terms of some intentional agenda to obfuscate the truth or disinform is not only to vastly oversimplify human behavior, it is self-serving and self-deceiving at the same time, and does not help in understanding the phenomenon. Whereas "others" start from a premise or conclusion and then decide to produce an account that advocates it, "we" research and arrive at conclusions. It is true that the former exists—and plenty of those examples will be highlighted in this series—but the sources of revisionism are a lot more complex. Many "revisionists" merely interpret events through their prism of preexisting beliefs and understandings and do not intentionally arrive at the conclusions they do. What is important, however, is that their conclusions are still "revisionist" in that they substantially "revise" the initial understanding(s) of an event.
Not all events lend themselves equally well to "revisionism." The overthrow of Ceausescu does so precisely because of the striking uniformity of interpretations at the time of the events, a situation highlighted well by Verdery and Kligman in an article authored in November 1990 (Verdery and Kligman, 1992, pp. 118-119). To me, indicative of this were the chaotic events of 12 January 1990—three weeks after Ceausescu's overthrow on 22 December—when demonstrators with no doubt as to the existence of "terrorists," the name given to presumed Ceausescu loyalists during the December bloodshed, chanted "Death to the terrorists!" The besieged party-state bureaucrats who succeeded Ceausescu hastened to restore the death penalty for presumed "terrorists" (no longer under the immediate pressure of the crowds, they would renege on this promise the following day). In other words, those on either side of the fundamental post-Ceausescu political barricade agreed on the question of the existence of the "terrorists" (more on this critical issue later in this series).
Perhaps the best example of the existence and influence of revisionism upon understandings of Ceausescu's overthrow comes from a comparison made by Vladimir Tismaneanu of the comments by the famous contemporary historian of Central and Eastern Europe, Timothy Garton Ash, immediately after the December 1989 events and ten years later.
"Reflecting on the December 1989 events in Romania, Timothy Garton Ash wrote: 'Nobody hesitated to call what happened in Romania a revolution. After all, it really looked like one: angry crowds on the streets, tanks, government builldings in flames, the dictator put up against a wall and shot [Ash 1990, p. 20].'…However, ten years afterward, Ash would write: 'Curiously enough the moment when people in the West finally thought there was a revolution was when they saw television pictures of Romania: crowds, tanks, shooting, blood in the streets. They said: That—we know THAT is a revolution, and of course the joke is that it was the only one that wasn't.' (Ash, "Conclusions," in ed. Antohi and Tismaneanu, 1999, p. 395)." (Tismaneanu 2003, p. 230, p. 323 n. 115)
That the idea of a "coup d'etat" or a "stolen revolution" came only later—i.e. was revisionist—is also demonstrated by Veronica Szabo's intriguing study of a Romanian collection of graffiti on the walls of the center of Bucharest where demonstrations took place: "There is however, one scenario of the revolution which is not consistent with the data examined here, and that is the 'hijacked revolution scenario'" (Szabo, "Handwriting on the Wall," p. 6). As Szabo notes, the significance of the data set is its thoroughness (141 graffiti entries), its unobtrusive collection process, and the fact that it "was simultaneous rather than retrospective (the collection took place during the revolution)" (p. 4).
RUMORS OF A REVOLUTIONARY DOCUMENTARY
Long before its broadcast on the Franco-German TV Arte channel on Wednesday, 25 February 2004, the "Checkmate" documentary by Austrian filmmaker Susanne Brandstatter was creating a buzz. Meeting the filmmaker by chance in Berlin in late November 2003, Gabriela Adamesteanu, the editor of Romania's well-known cultural and political weekly, "22," conducted an interview of Brandstatter with bated breath and eager anticipation of the upcoming premier of the film (Adamesteanu, 2004). Coming in the pages of "22," which has frequently hosted interviews and articles through the years alleging that the December 1989 events were a Soviet-led coup d'état, Brandstatter's thesis that the events were primarily a CIA-led coup appeared somewhat out-of-place. Nevertheless, a coup is a coup is a coup to some extent, and although Adamesteanu asked Brandstatter leading questions on the Soviet role, and Brandstatter did not deny a KGB role, the interviewer was clearly seized with excitement about the film.
Five days before the broadcast of the film, Vincent Jauvert summarized the documentary's main thesis on the Internet site of the French daily "Le Nouvel Obervateur:" "Nicolae Ceausescu was not overthrown by his own people, but by the CIA" ("Le Nouvel Observateur," 20 February 2004). In his article, Jauvert gave a sneak preview of what was to come in the film: admissions by Miklos Nemeth (the communist Hungarian Prime Minister at the time of the events in 1989), former CIA officials, and French intelligence officials, and an allegation that one of the key players in the December events, Romanian Army General Victor Athanasie Stanculescu, had been a Hungarian spy. The Romanian daily "Jurnalul National" relayed Jauvert's descriptions three days later and, on the day before the film's premier, presented a lengthy interview with Brandstatter under the headline: "The CIA and KGB shook hands in Bucharest" ("Jurnalul National," 24 February 2004). Anticipation was so great that the chief editor of "Jurnalul National," Marius Tuca, devoted his one-hour television show on the Antenae 1 Television Station on 23 February to the still-unseen documentary, with Stanculescu in the studio and Brandstatter participating by phone (Bucharest Antena 1 Television).
BACKGROUND TO BRANDSTATTER: "OLD EUROPE," "NEW EUROPE," AND HISTORY AS CONTEMPORARY GEOPOLITICAL WISHBONE
Brandstatter's thesis of the Romanian Revolution as a CIA-led coup in conjunction with other interested intelligence services did not appear out-of-the-blue. Catherine Durandin, a French academic with a more substantial background in Romanian studies, argued the thesis on French television and in "Le Monde Diplomatique" in 2002 (Verluise, 2003). Durandin gives the KGB a larger role in the guiding of the December events than Brandstatter, but remains convinced that it was for the most part a CIA operation. In her statements in 2002 and 2003, she claimed that the CIA "currently controls Romania." How does Durandin know about the CIA's alleged guiding role in the December events? According to her: because she has had access to secret CIA documents that confirm it—documents that she appears to claim she saw in the preparation of her 2002 book entitled "The CIA at War," which is an exposition of CIA misdeeds and skullduggery through the years (Durandin, 2003).
In early 2003, Durandin took to the French airwaves, presenting her revelations on France-3 Television under the title, "Incontrovertible Proof." Durandin stated:
"the events of December [1989] in Bucharest were the consequence of a secret accord between Moscow and Washington….The CIA penetrated the highest echelons of the Romanian power structure at the very time 'the frustrated Gorbachevites [of the Communist Party]' were converted by the CIA." (The Sunday Herald, 2003)
In an intriguing article by Gabriel Ronay in the "The Sunday Herald (Glasgow)" on 30 March 2003, in the second week of the American invasion of Iraq—"French Accuse US of Masterminding Fall of the East Bloc"—Ronay noted the presence on the program of former DGSE (French external intelligence service) "secret agent" Dominique Fonveille, and Christian Harbulot, Director of France's School of Economic Warfare. Ronay speculated that this was designed to "give weight" to Durandin's allegations, especially in light of the fact that one of Durandin's principal sources was General Francois Mermet, the influential Director-General of DGSE. Ronay offered that, in the wake of nasty exchanges between President Jacques Chirac and Romanian President Ion Iliescu and Prime Minister Adrian Nastase over Romania's letter of support for US policy toward Saddam Hussein—which by this time had translated into the US-led military attack to remove Hussein from power—"the timing of it [Durandin's documentary] and the political intent appear to be rather obvious."
Ronay also reported on the brief furor that broke out among among some journalists and intellectuals in Romania in response to Durandin's televised contentions. The biggest outcry was predictably from sharply pro-Western journalists and intellectuals, especially those who have long argued that the December 1989 events were a KGB coup—with the corresponding role of the Western security services minimal to non-existent—and that Romania continues to be controlled not by CIA agents, but by former or even present Russian agents. In other words, views that are 180 degrees at variance with those propounded by Durandin.
Despite Durandin's acknowledgement that there was also KGB "intervention" in the December 1989 events, her emphasis on the CIA role was naturally what caused a stir in Romania. In his dispatch, Ronay referenced an article in the daily "Ziua" entitled "The CIA is running Romania!" ("Ziua," 24 March 2003). The author of the article, Dan Pavel, noted appropriately that Durandin's claims were worthy of Albiciade—the pseudonym used by the former Ceausescu court bard, until recently leader of an ultranationalist political party, and surprise runner-up in the 2000 presidential elections, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, in his weekly "Romania Mare [Greater Romania]." Pavel's reasoning for refuting Durandin's thesis that the CIA engineered Ceausescu's overthrow and was still running the show was hardly complimentary: "the CIA does not have analysts or influence agents capable enough to understand the chameleon-like Romanian political class," so how, he asks, could it possibly have manipulated Romanian events as Durandin alleges?
Those steeped enough in the literature on the Revolution (see Hall 1997, Hall 1999, and Hall 2002) know, however, that the allegations of a CIA role are only one half of the "Yalta-Malta" scenario Albiciade routinely advocates. [That the KGB plays a central and defining role in the "national communist" version of Ceausescu's overthrow, propagated by the likes of "Albiciade," is not solely a personal view —see Siani-Davies' description of it in Siani-Davies, 2001]. What Pavel fails to admit is that the writings of Albiciade also contain the overwhelming majority of the cherished claims he and like-minded journalists and intellectuals marshal to demonstrate that the December 1989 events were a Soviet-engineered coup. The cold, hard reality of it all is that it is simply far easier to ridicule the clunky and simplistic anti-American cant of Albiciade, than to acknowledge and attempt to explain the embarrasing similarity of their views on the role of the KGB in December 1989 with those of former Ceausescu regime elements, especially the former Securitate. The latter has two possible outcomes: either the former Securitate is telling the truth on these issues—a possibility that cannot be dismissed out of hand—or it is lying and Pavel and his colleagues have swallowed some of the Securitate's biggest tall-tales.
The circumstances surrounding the unveiling of Brandstatter's documentary in February 2004 thus mirror those of Durandin's television appearance roughly a year earlier. Echoing Ronay, Gheorghe Bratescu wrote in an article entitled "Budapestian Enigmas" on the on-line journal "Clipa":
"The question is a classic one, that is 'Cui prodest?' all this, more specifically in Romanian, who does the French-German documentary benefit? It is clear that this is the subtle propaganda of the French and German policy of sanctioning Romania for Romania's steadfast support of the United States [with regard to the Iraq war]. Therefore the documentary tries to 'demonize' the Romanian people, by presenting them to French and German spectators as marionettes of the American administration, who in 1989 [supposedly] were already concentrating their entire diplomatic and intelligence/espionage arsenal on making Romania the pawn of their long-term influence in Central and Eastern Europe…The appearance of the 'Checkmate' documentary, now in 2004, is not accidental. It unambiguously serves the electoral campaign for the European Parliament [June 2004], with dozens of candidates campaigning on an anti-American platform and on slowing the admission of some countries from the East of the continent into the European Union, espcially Romania, considered an American 'Trojan Horse,' a theme advanced often in the French press." ("Clipa," 11 March 2004).
*It is doubtful that Usama Bin Ladin's most direct claim of credit to date for the 11 September 2001 attacks in his 29 October 2004 video will cause revisionists to reassess their views—although it further undermines the credibility of their allegations.
Adamesteanu, G., 2004, interview with Susanne Brandstatter, "Sah-mat. Strategia unei revolutii [Checkmate. Strategy of a Revolution], in "22," (Bucharest), no. 721, 30 December 2003-5 January 2004, web edition, http://www.revista22.ro.
Ash, T. G., 1990, The Magic Lantern (New York: Random House).
Ash, T. G., 2000, "Conclusions," in Antohi, S. and Tismaneanu, V. (eds.), Between Past and Future: The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath (New York: Central European University Press).
Bucharest Antena 1 Television, 2030 GMT 23 February 2004 in FBIS, 24 February 2004.
"Clipa On-line," 2004, web edition, http://www.clipa.com.
Durandin, C., 2003, "Le CIA en Guerre [The CIA at War]" (Paris: Grancher) .
Hall, R. A. 1997, "Rewriting the Revolution: Authoritarian Regime-State Relations and the Triumph of Securitate Revisionism in Post-Ceausescu Romania," (Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University).
Hall, R. A., 1999, "The Uses of Absurdity: The Staged War Theory and the Romanian Revolution of December 1989," in "East European Politics and Societies," Vol. 13, no.3, pp. 501-542.
Hall, R. A., 2002, "The Securitate Roots of a Modern Romanian Fairy Tale: The Press, the Former Securitate, and the Historiography of December 1989," Radio Free Europe "East European Perspectives," Vol. 4, nos. 7-9.
"Jurnalul National," (Bucharest), 2004, web edition, http://www.jurnalul.ro.
"Le Monde," 2004, web edition, http://www.lemonde.fr.
"Le Nouvel Observateur," 2004, found at http://www.confidentiel.firestream.net.
MTV 1 (Magyar Televizio 1), 2004. "Csutortok este [Thursday Evening]," 26 February at http://www.icenter.hu.
"New York Times," 2002.
Reuters, 2003.
Siani-Davies, P., 2001, "The Revolution after the Revolution," in Phinnemore, D. Light, D. (eds.), Post-Communist Romania: Coming to Terms with Transition (London: Palgrave), pp. 1-34.
Szabo, V. 2002, "Handwriting on the Wall," at http://users.ox.ac.uk/~oaces/conference/papers/Veronica_Szabo.pdf
"The Sunday Herald," (Glasgow), 2004, found at http://lists.econ.utah.edu.
Tismaneanu, V., 2003, Stalinism for All Seasons (Berkeley: University of California Press).
Verdery K. and Kligman G., 1992, "Romania after Ceausescu: Post-Communist Communism?" in Banac, I. (ed.), Eastern Europe in Revolution (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), pp. 117-147.
Verluise, P., 2003, interview with Catherine Durandin, "La 'revolution' de 1989 [The "revolution" of 1989]," at http://www.diploweb.com.
"Wall Street Journal," 2003.
"The Washington Post," 2002.
"Ziua" (Bucharest), 2003, web edition, http://www.ziua.ro.
My thanks in particular to the libraries at Babes-Bolyai University (Cluj) and Indiana University (Bloomington) for the use of their collections in the process of researching and writing this series.
This article was originally prepared for submission to Radio Free Europe's online publication "East European Perspectives (EEP)," where I previously published on the topics of Securitate revisionism (2002) and nationalism in late-communist Hungary and Serbia (2003). Due to shifting priorities, RFE is reducing its coverage of Romania and plans to discontinue EEP. EEP provided a forum for younger scholars such as myself, as well as for scholars from central and eastern Europe, and it will be missed. My thanks to Dr. Michael Shafir for providing that opportunity.
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Hello, I'm Doctor Jannine Krause and today I'm going to talk about Cortisol and how it's important to get your cortisol in check as part of your owners manual creation. What's the big deal with cortisol? Well, cortisol is a natural hormone in the body. It's not the devil until of course we provoke it a little bit by having these responses to stress. Cortisol naturally is there to help wake us up and to put us to sleep. It gently rises overnight and peaks at 8 am, and then ski slopes down and about that 3 to 4 O'Clock time frame it starts to really drop and then it levels off and then comes back up and wakes us up again. And so I like to think of cortisol in its normal state it just puts us to bed and wakes us back up, however, in someone who is stressed it can reek havoc. It can wake us up in the middle of the night. It can wake us up at 3 am and not allow us to go back to sleep. It can also cause issues in the middle of the day. And so it might be the cause for anyone that has that between 2, 3, 4 O'Clock slump during their day. That can often be a really steep drop in cortisol levels, and that can cause alot of issues with mood, hunger and can even cause you to overeat when you get home or hit up that snack bar at work or go by the candy jar up at the front desk at work. It's amazing what cortisol can do to us for lack of a better term it sometimes for me is known as the crazy hormone. Cortisol is also connected to increasing in belly fat with stress, and so another big issue in terms of getting your cortisol in check. Now what do I mean when I say get your cortisol in check? Well it means making sure that we can create patterns for our body to be able to keep that good slope up to that 8 am and then the nice gentle slope down. So basically, getting cortisol back in its normal rhythm, being released in its normal rhythm. One of the big things you can do to help with cortisol release is making sure that your keeping yourself hydrated. Why? Because if your not well hydrated, your body sees that as a stressor, and so what it does is it releases more cortisol. We create more body fat the more cortisol we have and the more dehydrated we are. And so one big thing to think of when your thinking about trying to get in that little extra amount of water during the day. Now another big thing to think about with cortisol is that it is directly connected to what we eat. A lot of people will wake up in the morning and have a sweet breakfast, and I don't mean sweet like awesome, I mean sweet like a bar or a scone or a doughnut. Lots of sugar, lots of carbs. Any sugar, any carbs its going to rise cortisol a little bit. Your almost better off skipping breakfast. I know, I know I said it. You might be better off if you're going to just grab for something just super sweet like those Cocoa Puffs for breakfast because anything that is super sweet spikes your blood sugar and cortisol follows along with it and then after that you get a big drop in energy and a big drop in cortisol afterwards. And so a lot of people who are grabbing the sugary snacks or they're going by Starbucks and grabbing the venti blah blah blah Frappuccino something or other with all kinds of fancy stuff in it. Carmel, latte you name it, lots of calories, lots of sugar. That's putting your cortisol way up here. Then you spend all day forgetting about drinking water, oh my gosh! Lots of belly fat storage, but also you set yourself up for this roller coaster all day long of ups and downs of your blood sugar. Another big thing that I've found causing issues for folks is that we've been told diet wise to balance our blood sugar we need to eat every two to three hours or every three to four hours. And I'm guilty of even telling folks that for a very long time because it seemed like it worked, However, the caveat is that it depends on what someones eating. You can't just eat every two to three hours a little bit of sugar item. That makes cortisol do this. You've got to balance it. And so for breakfast theres got to be a good amount of protein with some good fat and I will have resources on my website showing you how to balance these foods out. Now that protein plus the carbohydrate that balances but just a little good fat balances it even better. Carbohydrate on its own, cortisol goes way the heck up here. You don't want to do that. So first thing in the morning I actually recommend making sure you have a very good amount of protein with a good amount of carb and a good amount of the good fat and you'll see some resources on the website. Then lunchtime same thing. Dinner time making sure you have some good carbohydrates at dinner. Don't do the trick where it says 2pm, 3pm, no more carbs. I'm even guilty of telling people that and guess what? For years I was waking up at 4, 5 in the morning and I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on. As soon as I started to add in a little bit of carbohydrate and I'm not talking about copious amounts of ice cream or you know a whole bunch of like 3 cups of rice, I'm talking about a half a cup, quarter to a half a cup of something at night just to help to keep those cortisol levels in check overnight so they don't rise to fast. I've seen it with a lot of patients what we do is we check their blood sugars first thing in the morning. Blood sugars will drop if we have a little bit of carbohydrate in the evening. It even works for diabetics it even works for my folks who are pre diabetic. The big thing is just looking at what type of carbohydrate. I'm not talking about eating something that is like Laffy Taffy. That goes in that's like mainlining sugar. I'm talking about something that is whole grain, something that digests a little bit slower. And so, nevertheless, looking at cortisol and how it affects your body is a huge thing. The other side of this is how you react to stress. Are your stress levels causing your cortisol to do the roller coaster throughout the day. Are you getting spikes in your blood sugar. Maybe you get stressed and you go and run out to the vending machine at work to go get some chips. Or go get a candy bar. Your stressed, cortisol goes up here. Let's face it. I'm raising my hand right now. I totally have stress ate and that is also a negative factor for creating the roller coaster with cortisol. So, some of the big things to do here to get your stress under control. how do you do that? breathing. It's free and it's great to just take a moment and relax. You can take a big breath in, 5 count in, 5 count out. Do that 5 times and that will help you to reset your nervous system. And so literally an inhale counting in to 5 and exhale counting out. Feels kind of weird to do that but I'm telling you do that 5 times, do it 10 times. See how you feel afterwards. It's literally telling your brain up here, bears not chasing me it's all good. That bear is far far away. That will help to balance your cortisol levels. It'll help to put you in check. It's a great trick to do to if you are a stress eater and get nervous and the food starts to go in. Do that breathing. It'll help you out to get that cortisol under wraps. The other thing that I recommend. Is taking breaks and doing absolutely nothing. For folks who are multi taskers, that might be a little odd, but really taking the time to relax, take walks. Smell the roses. That will help to get your cortisol under wraps as well. And so one of the big things to keep in mind here just to kind of wrap things back in is that protein for breakfast. No carbs by themselves. Little bit of carbs in the evening for dinner so that you can sleep through the night. Work on breathing and take time to smell the roses. That will help you to balance your cortisol and that's a key component to check in on creating your owners manual. I'm Doctor Jannine Krause. Stay tuned for my next episode. Thanks for watching.


Victoria A.F. Camron is a freelance writer and editor who has contracted with New Hope Network since 2015. She regularly compiles the Natural Innovation Today newsletter, and helps with Natural Retail Today and [email protected], as well as other postings, as needed. She also served as interim content director for Delicious Living for a short time in 2016. Before working as a freelancer, she spent 17 years in community newspapers in Longmont, Colo., and St. Charles and Wheaton, Ill. She is a Colorado native and a graduate of Metropolitan State College of Denver.
In other popular news, Dollar Tree announced plans to close up to 390 Family Dollar stores, Amazon might be expanding its grocery brick-and-mortar business and Smith's says no to Visa credit cards.


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Canada Goose Teams Up With Bill Nye for a More Sustainable Style
Sustainability is a deed not a word.
Writer Claudia Cusano
Last month, in the lead-up to Earth Day, companies of all stripes made announcements on their sustainability practices—and the messaging was loud. A few weeks on, and for those same companies, it's back to regular programming. There are those in the fashion landscape, however, that take the approach of the late Alber Elbaz: "Loudness has become the new cool, and not only in fashion, you know. I prefer whispering."
For a few years now, Canada Goose has been putting out signals at a lower decibel with regard to its sustainability commitments, all the while making headway on its sustainable policies and practices. "We believe that sustainability is not just a tactic, but an essence that must permeate every department and be embraced by every employee," announced Dani Reiss, Canada Goose CEO, back in 2019 when the Canadian outerwear outfitter officially wove sustainability into the company's mandate. "We made a commitment to undertaking and addressing specific and pressing social, economic, and environmental challenges and attached goals and timelines to each. We knew we wanted to do more than just react to change. We wanted to drive it."
The fashion industry is responsible for 10 per cent of the world's carbon emissions. The main driver? Fast fashion. Clothes are manufactured by low-paid workers in underdeveloped countries, making for lengthy supply chains to accommodate the desire for cheap clothing delivered quickly. All this combined—along with the desire to have up-to-date styles each season—has contributed to making the clothing industry the massive polluter it is. Sustainable manufacturing seems to finally be getting its due, and companies like Canada Goose have built business models making and selling clothing that lasts.
Canada Goose is adapting to a sustainable future and has recently named Bill Nye, a leading voice in the scientific community and an environmental advocate, its sustainability adviser. Nye got kids interested in science with his popular TV show Bill Nye, the Science Guy during the 1990s. His wide-eyed enthusiasm propelled a generation of young scientists now combatting climate change and engineering medical breakthroughs. Now, with the Canada Goose team, Nye is talking about PFMs—preferred fibres and more sustainable materials.
At a virtual round table, Nye stressed the urgency for global change, saying the world needs to act now, while praising Canada Goose for addressing environmental and social concerns with what he called forward-thinking targets to be achieved by 2025. "The hardest thing for people to understand or really embrace, or accept, is that everything that each and every one of us does affects everybody else on Earth. We all share the air—there is nobody alive that isn't breathing," Nye said. "Along this line, everything we do in manufacturing, of anything, especially in the garment industry, affects everybody in the world. So if I understand it, what we're doing at Canada Goose is providing products that are sustainably produced and they are something that people want to buy."
In progress toward its 2025 sustainability goals of keeping the planet cold and its people warm, Canada Goose introduces two new commitments. The first is to transition 90 per cent of its materials to PFMs, recycled and organic fibres defined as sustainable alternatives to conventional materials, specified by the Textile Exchange. The second new commitment is to ensure that 100 per cent of its packaging be sustainable across manufacturing, direct-to-consumer, and marketing operations. In terms of actionable progress, Reiss confirms his company "has already successfully measured and published our carbon footprint for direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and has already achieved carbon neutrality for company operations."
As Nye observed, "Not only is the world getting warmer, the world is getting warmer fast. It's the rate, everybody. It's not that the world didn't used to be warmer in ancient dinosaur times—it's the speed at which things are changing that is alarming, and that's why I so admire Canada Goose for going, 'we are not going to do this in 15 years, we're going to do it in five years, six years.'"
The Canada Goose Standard Expedition Parka, the company's most sustainable parka to date.
The Standard Expedition Parka, which debuted in January, is Canada Goose's most sustainable parka to date; its design generates 30 per cent less carbon and requires 65 per cent less water during production compared to the Expedition Parka, as it's made from 100 per cent recycled nylon, alongside a blend of recycled polyester and organic cotton. The greige colourway is un-dyed, thus limits chemical use in the finishing as the material is left in its raw state. The Standard Expedition is the also the first-ever Canada Goose product with reclaimed fur and meets the global Responsible Down Standard.
Canada Goose is proof a sustainable roadmap can be profitable. "In my lifetime, climate change has been met with inertia. People do not want to accept that big changes are coming and that big changes have to be made," Nye said. "But the people that work for industries that are skeptics, those people are aging out, they are dying. Science moves, one funeral at a time. The younger generation is not going to put up with the contrarianism of the generation before them. The discoveries, the science, is obvious, and whether you are a professional textile scientist or a clothing designer of a supply chain analyst, this generation is aware of climate change now."
Canada Goose is designing for generations, not seasons. Let's hope others catch on.
The World of WearableArt
ArtSpring 2010
Lacoste Latticework
DesignAutumn 2009
By The Namesake's Journey to a Toronto Bricks-and-Mortar Studio
Canadian Designer Olivia Rubens Is at the Forefront of Sustainable Fashion

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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San Mateo, Calif. – June 19, 2012 – Guavus Inc., a leading provider of big data analytics solutions that enable service providers and enterprises to make intelligent and timely decisions, today announced that Mark Crovella has joined the company as chief scientist. A global authority on data analytics, Crovella is also a professor of computer science at Boston University.
"Guavus is incredibly honored by Mark's commitment to helping us continue our tradition of leadership and innovation in big data analytics," said Anukool Lakhina, founder and CEO of Guavus. "Mark is a true visionary whose guidance will be invaluable as we scale and enrich our architecture to accommodate the exponentially rising demand for timely and continuous analytics systems."
Crovella has been a Professor of Computer Science at Boston University since 1994. From 2003-2004 he was a Visiting Associate Professor at the Laboratoire d'Informatique de Paris VI (LIP6). He received a BS from Cornell University in 1982; he also earned an MS from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Rochester. The owner of five patents, Crovella co-authored Internet Measurement: Infrastructure, Traffic, and Applications (Wiley Press, 2006) and authored more than one hundred papers on networking and computer systems.
As Chief Scientist, Crovella is also an integral part of Guavus's Technology Advisory Board, whose anchor members include Technicolor Chief Scientist Christophe Diot and University of Maryland Darnell-Kanal Associate Professor of Computer Science, Nick Feamster. The board's primary responsibility is to keep Guavus at the forefront of a rapidly evolving data science landscape.
"While some companies only offer pieces of analytics technology for niche deployments, Guavus has a truly horizontal and comprehensive approach to mastering the global big data opportunity across markets," said Crovella. "With a stable of tier-one clients and several more on deck, Guavus has steadily risen to the challenge of creating proven solutions for tackling the challenges associated with analyzing data so businesses can make smarter, timely decisions to gain a competitive edge. As chief scientist, my aim is to help Guavus bring to market even more innovative solutions as additional industries look to take advantage of big data to transform their business."
Founded in June 2006, Guavus has been built from the ground up to unlock the value of operational, sensor and network generated big data and reduce the economic and technology risk associated with deploying a traditional business intelligence solution. Guavus big data analytics solutions, which are based on pioneering patent-pending technology, include the Guavus Reflex ™ platform integrated with a suite of analytics applications that enable intelligent and timely decision-making. Two of the top three mobile operators and backbone carriers in the United States utilize Guavus big data analytics solutions to control costs, maximize profits and deliver an enhanced end-to-end customer experience. The company is headquartered in San Mateo, CA with research and development offices in Gurgaon and Ahmedabad, India. For more information please visit us on Facebook,LinkedIn or Twitter.


As a nerd, I find it easy to appreciate the appeal of crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter. They give us the chance to make quirky projects come to life, and we get a little incentive thrown in to make us feel special. A good Kickstarter campaign will put some effort into the incentives, as they are a big reason for people wanting to part with their cash for something they may have to wait years to receive.
Here are a few Kickstarter projects I've backed in recent years.
A documentary about the worst controller ever made? I'm in. My participation landed me a free T-shirt, as well as a copy of the film too.
I don't know what discharge ink is, but I know I want a T-shirt with a Power Glove on it.
This one hit its target, so now I just have to wait for the project to be completed.
All I need now is another house so I can have some wall space to display this beauty!
Beautiful aren't they? After much deliberation I settled on a Tron sign, and again, now I just need a bigger games room so I can hang it.
This one isn't on Kickstarter anymore, as its original campaign was funded before I found out about it. It later showed up on Fanbacked, looking for "Finishing funds" so I hopped on the bandwagon then.
It's a documentary about the infamous "Superman Lives" movie that never came to pass in the 90's. Directed by Tim Burton and starring Nic Cage as the Man of Steel, it would have featured some controversial aspects that make most fans glad it never went anywhere.
I first heard about Superman Lives in An Evening With Kevin Smith, where he tells some funny tales about working on the movie with possibly insane producer Jon Peters. I can't wait to find out more when this documentary is finished and released.
This time I went for the signed DVD option, and I'll also have my name in the credits, which is cool!
And now my latest pledge, backed just last night! A documentary about Back To The Future and its lasting legacy. I don't expect to learn much new, but it's always nice to see a fresh take on my favourite film and its sequels. They have participation from all the key players - the two Bobs, Christopher Lloyd, Michael J. Fox and many other cast and crew, as well as Secret Cinema footage from last year. And it's all to be released in 2015, a key year for fans!
My reward, other than a digital download of the film, is a signed print of the awesome alternative poster shown here. It's by Andrew Heath, an artist known for awesome artwork with nerdy, pop culture influence. Seriously, I'm going to get on Rightmove and source a house with bigger walls immediately.
This documentary hasn't finished funding yet, so you can still get involved if you're interested. I don't think it will have any trouble hitting its target personally, and there are many other awesome incentives to tempt you to part with your cash.


Johnny began his career in the metrology world by joining the United States Air Force as a precision measurement equipment laboratory troop right out of high school. He specialized in the RF/Microwave and aircraft test set equipment areas. After a year in a contract lab manager position, Johnny took a position that moved him back home to Cleveland with then Dynamic Technology Inc. (DTI). From 2005 to 2012, he serviced equipment in the RF/Microwave area but also added flow, dimensional and high voltage/high power knowledge to the DTI team.
Shortly after DTI was acquired by Trescal, Johnny transitioned to the position of Sales Account manager for the Trescal Cleveland lab, eventually growing to cover the geographic region including the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and Western New York. Johnny has also been instrumental in the application and implementation of the CRM system and processes for Trescal US, all while completing his Master of Business Administration degree.
Johnny is appreciative of the ability to grow within Trescal through solving problems for both internal and external customers. While Johnny's path may be a bit different in transitioning from an operational to a business related role, it shows that growth within Trescal is available and encouraged, even in a non-traditional route.


The message controller reads the values from connected PLC(s), evaluates programmed conditions, and sends to connected marquee(s) messages which satisfy conditions for display. This is all done without making any changes to PLC ladder logic. The TSM Message controller supports a variety of PLC communication protocols allowing it to communicate with most of the popular PLCs available in the market. These include serial protocols like Modbus, DF1, DH485 EZ etc, and network protocols such as Ethernet/IP, Modbus TCP/IP and GE SRTP.
The Message controller can drive one or multiple marquees. A single marquee can be driven using a 9-pin RS232 port on the message controller. Multiple marquees can be connected on the Ethernet port, or on serial port using a 232 to 422 converter. The Message Controller is housed in a compact, industrial grade plastic ventilated housing and is intended for indoor use only. It has a steel back plate with 4 mounting holes that can be used to mount the controller on the rear of the marquee or at a remote mounting panel location.


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B&B del Villaggio
Via Morandi 7
21046 Malnate
bbdelvillaggio@gmail.com
Featuring free WiFi throughout the property, B&B del Villaggio offers accommodations in Malnate, just 27 miles from Milan.
Every room includes a flat-screen TV. Every room is fitted with a shared bathroom with a bathtub and bidet, with bathrobes provided. Extras include free toiletries and a hairdryer.
You will find a shared lounge at the property.
You can play tennis, ping-pong and darts at this bed and breakfast, and the area is popular for golfing and biking. Lugano is 15 miles from B&B del Villaggio, and Como is 10 miles from the property. The nearest airport is Malpensa Airport, 14 miles from B&B del Villaggio.


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Q: SQL sp_addextendedproperty issues Good afternoon,
I have a table called assurance.SelfService_Patients with around 23 columns, 22 of which I want to add metadata too, in order to explain what each column is.
At the moment I am struggling with the syntax. I have attempted the following:
EXEC sp_addextendedproperty
     @name = N'SPLV'
    ,@value = N'The SPL version that the dataset belongs to. A new SPL version typically runs every week on a Tuesday.'
    ,@level0type = N'Schema', @level0name = 'assurance'
    ,@level1type = N'Table',  @level1name = 'SelfService_Patients'
    ,@level2type = N'Column', @level2name = 'SPLV'

go

This runs successfully but I would have expected it to populate the properties of the table, (when you right click, properties, extended properties it still shows blank)
I would have also expected the following to extract something rather than a blank result:
select *
from sys.extended_properties
where name = 'SelfService_Patients'

Where am I going wrong please, it's incredibly frsutrating.
Regards,
Andrew.

A: You are querying by the name of the property which is not what you want. You either need to use the property name like this.
select *
from sys.extended_properties
where name = 'SPLV'

Or what I suspect is you want to view all the extended properties defined on a specific table. You need to look at major_id for this.
select *
from sys.extended_properties
where major_id = OBJECT_ID('assurance.SelfService_Patients')

This is all pretty clear in the documentation. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/system-catalog-views/extended-properties-catalog-views-sys-extended-properties?view=sql-server-ver15

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


2018 Grand Jury member, Gonzalo Palavecino is an associate creative director originally from Chile with more than 10 years of advertising experience. In 2013, Gonzalo left Chile for Dubai in search of education and new experiences. Before joining Ogilvy & Mather Chicago in 2014, he worked for BBDO Dubai, BBDO Chile and Y&R Santiago.
Gonzalo's experience in different markets was fundamental in his decision to settle in Chicago — one of the most diverse and cosmopolitan cities in the United States.
Prominent clients he has worked with include: Pepsi, Corona, Wrigley, Aspirin, Snickers, Blackberry and Glade, and his work has been awarded in some of the world's most important festivals, including Cannes Lions, Lia, Clios, ACD and AD&D.
Gonzalo Palavecino: If you want something, you'll make time for it.
Gonzalo Palavecino: Since this is my first time being a judge, I'm open to learning anything and everything. Hopefully, I can come back a fresh vision.
Gonzalo Palavecino: Gender equality. I hate the way that advertising is approaching it. Equality should not be a trend. Equality should be something present in our lives every day. It's dangerous for brands to use it as a strategy to sell more products.
Gonzalo Palavecino: One Chicago. A campaign created in support of immigrants here in Chicago. It was so awesome give something back to people who have the same dream that I have.
New York Festivals: In 3 words or less, what do you think about 6 seconds commercials?
Gonzalo Palavecino: I don't know.
Gonzalo Palavecino: What it's like to have a mustache, from la "Comu" Argentina.
Gonzalo Palavecino: I don't know, but I will love to see clients and agencies more like business partners.
Gonzalo Palavecino: Never give up.
Gonzalo Palavecino: Emerson Navarrete, probably the best art director from Chile.
Gonzalo Palavecino: Anything but advertising, from cooking to taking random short trips.
Gonzalo Palavecino: Michael Jackson's Thriller.
What movie or book best depicts the theme of your life?
Gonzalo Palavecino: Be Stupid: For Successful Living.


Crevalle is excited to announce a new dealer to our list to our amazing dealer network. Gulf Coast Boating Centers in Foley, AL has officially joined our dealer list. Just like the current team of dealers, Gulf Coast Boating Centers is a next level service provider. They have won numerous awards for their excellent customer service. Gulf Coast will have the following 2019 models at their Foley location by the end of February: the 26 Bay, the 26 Open, and the 24 Bay. For those in the nearby Foley area, we encourage you to check them out, you will not be disappointed!
For more about Gulf Coast Boating Centers, check out their website below.


There's always been a mysterious beauty to trains.
Films portray them as full of love found and lost, bad guys fought and beaten, and new lives started far away from prying eyes.
Then there's Vern's expletive scream as he and his friends try to beat a train as they walk over a 100-foot-long river crossing.
What Hollywood doesn't always show is the deadly aftermath that can come from tempting roughly 15,500 tons of unstoppable metal careening along the rails.
Last year in Illinois, 21 people died in collisions with trains at railroad crossings. Another 25 people were killed because they were trespassing on railroad property, most commonly walking along rails.
That put the state at third in the nation for rail-related deaths.
To combat that, state officials are getting help from such groups as the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, Illinois Commerce Commission, Illinois Department of Transportation, Illinois Farm Bureau, Illinois Operation Lifesaver, Illinois Sheriff's Association and the Illinois Truck Enforcement Association to draw attention to the dangers that exist around railroads.
Part of that will be a push by Illinois State Police to watch for drivers and pedestrians who violate the law.
It is against the law to stop a vehicle on the railroad tracks or to stop a vehicle anywhere within the highway-rail grade crossing — typically marked by white stop lines on the pavement in advance of the crossing.
Railroad companies try to ensure tracks are kept safe through the use of everything from flashing lights to protective stop arms. But too many people still think they can beat a train, whether in a vehicle or on foot, and ignore the warnings. According to Illinois Operation Lifesaver, more than 50 percent of all collisions occur at crossings with active warning devices.
Drivers are not alone, either. Pedestrians often feel they can walk around warning gates and have plenty of time to make it across the tracks safely. That's sometimes a deadly assumption.
Even maintaining a supposedly safe distance from a train, people run the risk of being hit by the portion of the train that hangs over the tracks — that's about three feet on each side — or being hit by loose straps that sometimes hang from the sides.
Motorists and pedestrians can be fined for not following the law and crossing anywhere but a designated public crossing. Walking on the tracks or on their rights-of-way is trespassing as well as dangerous — even more so when walking along trestles or over railroad bridges.
Railroad tracks also create an optical illusion of sorts that makes it hard to accurately judge the distance and the speed of an approaching train. And remember that it can take a fully loaded train miles to stop even if it sees a potential problem on the tracks ahead of time.
Following the law around trains and railroad tracks can help preserve the magic, while avoiding the tragic.


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Tag Archives: steps
Easy Steps To Nasa Of Your Goals
Up to now, this wasn't a concern however soon it will be when our Moon enters the tide-amplifying a part of its cycle. In this sense, it is probably going that Advertisements can be able to assist the astronomical neighborhood in the transition from print-primarily based to digital publishing by offering resolving companies for astronomical bibliographies and related assets. In this context, we hope to leverage the extensive deployment of XML-based mostly functions to generalize and prolong the companies at the moment offered to our collaborators and users. So far as the issue of bibcode decision, it is evident that a better approach to having site-particular settings can be to permit real-time decision of bibcode identifiers based on the choice of the person customers and the current availability of relevant assets. The availability of such a big body of scanned publications allows us to pursue some important targets via using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) know-how: the creation of full-textual content documents and the extraction of summary and quotation data from them. Lastly, part 6.Three discussed how elevated collaboration and inter-operability amongst data providers can lead to the creation of a more built-in environment making better use of information discovery and digital publishing technologies.
By using the incremental replace options of rsync when mirroring a new set of index information, the whole quantity of knowledge being transferred is of the order of 38% (250MB vs. Current implementations of the rsync algorithms additionally enable partial switch of files, which we found useful when transferring the massive index information utilized by the search engine. Search engine to offer higher retrieval capabilities. Retrieval capabilities to the scientific group at giant. Whereas most publishers of scientific journals have been in a position to create electronic variations of their journals comparatively rapidly soon after the explosion in popularity of the net, only a few of them have taken advantage of the brand new capabilities that the expertise has to offer, specifically the likelihood to create hyperlinks between online documents and related sources. Why do air site visitors controllers should be below 31? Although we didn't hear a lot about folks strolling on the moon after Neil Armstrong took his stroll, there have been different missions since the 1969 moon landing, and the last particular person to stroll on the moon was Gene Cernan in 1972. Astronauts introduced seismographs to a go to to the moon. Whether it's SpaceX making headlines by launching Starlink satellites to offer wi-fi for the world or sending astronauts to the Worldwide House Station (twice!) or the unexpected delight of watching Comet NEOWISE journey across the sky, there have been some inspiring causes to keep gazing up all 12 months long.
However before astronauts mixed gasoline-cell runoff into their Tang, NASA wanted to first run it by means of a filter to kill any doable waterborne bacteria. Initially, the computation of static links at publication time doesn't permit for the chance that one of many works cited within the reference part could develop into available at a later date (e.g. if the protection of the literature has been extended or if a extra accurate decision of the reference is later carried out). The issue of linking a reference to an occasion of the document it refers to may be seen as a two step process (Caplan & Arms (1999)): (1) decision of a reference string into a doc identifier; and (2) resolution of the document identifier into a number of URLs. Whereas reference and object linking has as we speak become extra commonplace (Hitchcock et al. The Doc Object Identifier (DOI, Paskin (1999)), which has been proposed by a global consortium of publishers, holds the promise of changing into the universal identifier suitable for naming digital objects.
The extraction and OCRing of vital document fragments similar to abstracts and references is at the moment an ongoing course of which holds great promise (Data). Nonetheless, the current indexing mannequin has been developed to work nicely with a homogeneous set of bibliographic knowledge with little variation in document length and content material mannequin; extending the scope of our databases to incorporate the complete-text of articles might therefore require a brand new approach to your entire structure behind the indexing and search engines like google and yahoo. The Advertisements has already extended the use of the bibcode identifier in alternative ways to account for the existence of electronic-only publications (Data), however it's turning into more and more tougher to map new document identifiers right into a model that was designed to describe printed material only. Text extracted from a reference part is analyzed by packages making use of pure language processing strategies to establish the person works cited in the article and add them to our quotation database. The problem of providing a unified search mechanism across datasets is being tackled both within the individual disciplines (Heikkila, MCGlynn & White (1999); Fernique, Ochsenbein & Wenger (1998); Murtagh & Guillaume (1998)) and on the architectural stage (Schatz (1997)). A proposed solution to this drawback is the creation of federated companies composed by "clustering" the combined assets and search capabilities of a number of unbiased knowledge centers.


The most difficult shot in golf is a straight shot; even a tour pro rarely tries to hit it.
They hit draws and fades instead because it's a lot easier to produce a good result with those shots. The key to mastering these shots is to use the proper mechanics, which will have you hitting more fairways and greens. Practice the tips below, and see your scores come tumbling down.
At the address position, adjust your grip by turning your hands slightly to the left (right-handed golfers). This produces a weaker grip that causes the hands to be less active during the swing.
Next, take a slightly open stance so you can promote an outside-in swing. On your backswing, restrict your shoulder turn (feel as though you are lifting the club to the top of the backswing with your hands high above your head) causing a more upright swing than normal.
This position will result in a steeper plane, which will hold the face slightly open upon impact. From this position, rotate your left hip and shoulder to the left feeling the lower-body leading the hands and arms through the swing. Don't allow the hands to release; let the back of your left hand swing to the follow through position. Finally, finish with the hands high having your right shoulder fully rotated through the swing.
• Rotate your hands to the left on the grip.
• Swing more with your body and shoulders.
• Hold the face open upon impact; no release of the hands.
At address position, adjust your grip by turning your hands slightly to the right. This produces a stronger grip, which causes the hands to be more active during the swing. Hitting a draw comes from a more rounded plane, so you need to start by closing your stance.
Next, make a full shoulder turn on the backswing; make sure you get the left shoulder behind the ball at the top. From this position, swing the club from the inside (focus on hitting the inside of the back of the ball upon impact). The draw is an arms and hands-driven swing highlighted by less body movement and an active rolling of the hands (release) through impact.
The back of the left hand should be turned down, facing the ground, after impact, which promotes closing the clubface through the impact zone.
• Rotate your hands to the right on the grip.
• Swing from the inside using your arms and hands.
• Rotate the club face over through impact; release the hands.
Nice article. Could you comment on the ball position for each of the shots you described?


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There is no strict format to write a casual letter. The cover letter format is only 1 facet. Observe that the next business letter format is laid out so it's not difficult to read. Used in our everyday lives, an official business letter format has become really important to businesses in specific. For example, John Doe Manager When writing a formal letter for company, application letter for occupation, bank applications, and other formal letters, it's very important that it should adhere to a suitable format. There's no typical worldwide-accepted format printed by way of a government bureau. There's a normal format which all official letters don't have any matter the subject issue.
Letters are among the earliest modes of communication employed by humankind. A business letter is a principal kind of communicating in the market world. Since all business letters aren't formal, a formal company correspondence is written for an official purpose only. Overall block style business letters have an official look, however they might be used in informal small business situations along with formal ones.
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Download our templates now so you are knowledgeable about the particular components of proper letters. Formal letters are among the explanations for why schools, corporations, and other sorts of organizations are in a position to perform its dreams and targets successfully. Your formal letter should contain supporting statements which will further help elaborate the goal of the letter.
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Design of resume plays an essential role in getting you noticed. Additionally, the details will probably differ dependent on the position applied. You might even miss out the vital details that can add value to your resume. You are able to also record the details of your apprenticeship, if any. Generally, the above mentioned outline is remarkably simple because the job search procedure, despite all the confusion and anxiety, is remarkably straightforward.
Resume writing is not difficult and you do not require a professional resume template or possibly a free resume manufacturer to locate a successful template for resumes that you've created yourself. There are several resume formats, so it's really tough to pick a format. Selecting, that is the best resume format for you is not so hard if you understand the pros and cons of each. Thus, if you are planning to write your resume, there are many formats steps which could ease down your attempts to write. Especially whenever you have to choose one from numerous formats that are unique. Therefore it is important to keep to keep your resume updated together with the present format in need.
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Managing payroll appears fairly simple every time a company starts up, but after a business grows and needs to take care of the payroll for a number of places, things become more complicated. Payroll may be an exceptionally tedious undertaking. Payroll is an integral component of all organizations. Outsourcing payroll lets your enterprise information to stay off-site and confidential.
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The tax deduction may change from 1 state to another state. If you are not paying taxes or getting a refund, filing taxes punctually would be advantageous for you whether you're receiving credits from the government. Before you believe it's possible to merely forego the taxation, there are lots of things you'll have to contemplate. Should you really do, the application will deduct the tax in line with your state's tax details. If you must figure taxes that are due or large amounts that have taken place, it's that part of paper you'll have an exact record.
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NAS boxes are becoming an increasingly popular commodity in people's homes - whether it be for creating redundancy of your data (loosely called "backing up"), having a central storage of music, movies and media, for business and SOHO needs with a few dozen users, or, in this case all of the above and a whole load more.
The TS-409 Turbo is a bit like the "ultimate NAS" without the asking price when you read its feature list below - guaranteed it'll have something you need or have thought about before and shifting the onus of responsibility from your power hungry main PC or server to independent, low power box might certainly tempt some of you.
The Pro version adds Microsoft Active Directory support for Businesses and NFS support for Linux clients; this we'd have thought, of all features, NFS support should be "core" in the first place. As you'd have guessed from the name the 409 is a four disk NAS box that offers a multitude of disk management options - either a single, large space (JBOD) or a variety of RAID versions where we have previously explained in detail right here.
It's sort of surprising to see the typically enterprise level RAID 6 come to this type of device, but it's still only the tip of the iceberg when we consider more inventive features like RAID migration and expansion. Both are clever tricks to allow for future-proofing and can be done on the fly while the machine is running - there's no downtime involved. Well, that's not strictly true - you still have to wait for the NAS box to readjust its underwear before it gives the thumbs up, and in this case we found that it can take some time.
By adding extra disks the migration feature increases the RAID level from 1 to 5 to 6 or spare etc, depending on your settings, and the expansion feature allows the disks to be replaced with higher capacity ones (one at a time) in order to increase the space available should you need it. It's very similar to Netgears X-RAID feature on its ReadyNAS NV+ products and I'm thoroughly assured by the Editor of TrustedReviews that it's an oh-so-awesome feature.
Having just suffered the wrath of my Thecus N2100 not allowing RAID (or JBOD in my case) expansion by simply adding another disk, I can completely sympathise that of all, these are key features. Without them you're left to wipe the array and start again which goes against the whole reason why many people buy separate storage devices in the first place!
In the box there's the power adapter, CAT5 cable, brief instruction manual and information disk, but very little else as everything is all pre-fitted to the TS-409 anyway.
With a large fan, 512MB of DDR3 memory and a 1.6GHz CPU, is the DS211+ a speed daemon?
The successor to the excellent DS210j doesn't disappoint.


The inseparable link between the place and the vineyard is expressed by the famous French concept of terroir, which sees the way to express and highlight those that are the exclusive features of the area in the work done in the land.
Tenuta Stella is set in an area dotted with hamlets and isolated houses that dot the rolling hills of Collio since Roman times.
The atmosphere is that of Collio in the province of Gorizia, an extraordinarily suitable area for viticulture because of the climate and the soil types, which makes of this borderland a wonderful habitat that expresses its uniqueness through the wines produced here.
The entire estate consists of a single body of 10 hectares, 5 of which are vineyards and the remaining part of woodland.
The vineyards are grown on terraces with (Guyot systems) at 220-270 meters u.s.l., with yields of no more than 40 quintals per hectare and without the use of pesticides or chemical fertilizers, according to the organic farming rule.
The nature of marl and friable soil, easily eroded from the weathering, gives unique traits to the grapes grown in the vineyards of Tenuta Stella.
The choice to valorise native grapes, as expression of the territory, of values and ancient traditions, is very important for the estate, and it's the right way to appreciate their typical characteristics: Friulano, Ribolla and Malvasia.
Every native vine has distinctive characteristics in the morphology of the plant, in form and color of the bunch, and gives the wine it produces precise and typical organoleptic characteristics.


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Q: How can I increase contrast of Outlook 2016 that remainsl too bright, even after changing Office theme? I've already changed to Dark Grey and consulted http://blogs.msdn.com/b/stevelasker/archive/2013/02/11/changing-the-color-them-for-outlook-2013.aspx, but any white part of Outlook still appear lurid.
I welcome solutions without an Office 2010 theme. So  this doesn't duplicate this.

A: Unfortunately there's not much you can do, but I did find one setting that at least helps to differentiate the messages in the message list.
In the View ribbon, under Current View > View Settings > Other Settings > Grid Lines and Group Headings, change the Grid line style from No grid lines to Solid. While this doesn't significantly reduce the blindingly bright whiteness overall, it does at least reduce the "washed out" effect slightly, by breaking the white into discrete half-inch-wide strips (in the message list, anyway).

A: Good Question; my preference is it's too bright also.
This is the best solution I've found there are 7 steps. It's not a simple way to alter it though.
https://officethemehacker.wordpress.com/
I wish it was more like Visual Studio.
hope this helps.

A: I've already posted one answer, but I found an effective and simple solution, though it does have a few side effects.
If you open the Window Color and Appearance settings, and select the "Window" item, you can change the default background color for application windows. This will affect the background color of the Preview Pane and of emails you are composing, as well as a few other UI elements, such as (I believe) the Quick Steps box in the ribbon. Pretty much anything in Office 2013 that's still stark white, even when you choose the so-called "Dark Gray" theme, is going to be driven by this system color.

The side effects I mentioned are that this setting will also affect a number of other UI elements in numerous programs. So while you might be tempted to choose a color like a medium gray (like the scrollbar in the above screenshot), you will likely find this causes other things, like Excel, Notepad, or "Options" dialog boxes, to be far too dark. I actually went with a color very close to white - RGB 252/252/252 - and that was dark enough to eliminate the "blinding" tone of Outlook 2013 without compromising the readability of other programs.
This will work in Windows versions up to 7; I'm not sure exactly when Microsoft removed this dialog, but it's definitely not accessible in Windows 10 version 1709. If you can't access the Window Color and Appearance dialog in your version of Windows, you can also manually adjust the associated registry keys as described in this answer, but this approach will require a logoff and logon in order to apply the change.


Zacks Investment Research upgraded shares of Viper Energy Partners (NASDAQ:VNOM) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report report published on Friday morning, Zacks.com reports. Zacks Investment Research currently has $37.00 price target on the oil and gas producer's stock.
A number of other equities research analysts also recently weighed in on VNOM. Oppenheimer set a $49.00 target price on Viper Energy Partners and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Friday, December 14th. Citigroup set a $33.00 target price on Viper Energy Partners and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Monday, December 17th. ValuEngine downgraded Viper Energy Partners from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Tuesday, December 25th. BidaskClub downgraded Viper Energy Partners from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report on Tuesday, December 25th. Finally, Raymond James set a $52.00 target price on Viper Energy Partners and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, January 23rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. The company presently has a consensus rating of Buy and an average target price of $42.58.
VNOM opened at $33.90 on Friday. Viper Energy Partners has a fifty-two week low of $22.76 and a fifty-two week high of $44.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33, a current ratio of 10.84 and a quick ratio of 10.84. The firm has a market cap of $4.20 billion, a PE ratio of 31.39 and a beta of 1.31.
Viper Energy Partners (NASDAQ:VNOM) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 5th. The oil and gas producer reported ($0.01) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the Zacks' consensus estimate of $0.16 by ($0.17). Viper Energy Partners had a return on equity of 6.74% and a net margin of 49.62%. The firm had revenue of $73.67 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $81.53 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.37 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Viper Energy Partners will post 0.32 EPS for the current year.
In related news, President Hof Matthew Kaes Van't sold 2,300 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $33.51, for a total value of $77,073.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the president now owns 44,624 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,495,350.24. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.30% of the stock is owned by insiders.
A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Raymond James Trust N.A. acquired a new position in Viper Energy Partners in the first quarter valued at about $230,000. Biltmore Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in Viper Energy Partners in the first quarter valued at about $451,000. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Viper Energy Partners by 15.8% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,970 shares of the oil and gas producer's stock valued at $1,014,000 after purchasing an additional 5,324 shares in the last quarter. Aurora Investment Counsel raised its stake in Viper Energy Partners by 34.1% in the fourth quarter. Aurora Investment Counsel now owns 79,441 shares of the oil and gas producer's stock valued at $2,069,000 after purchasing an additional 20,208 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CI Investments Inc. acquired a new position in Viper Energy Partners in the fourth quarter valued at about $37,850,000. 32.24% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.


Spiders - Global Pest Services, LLC.
Spiders are common occupants of homes. Usually, the low number of spiders in a house do not cause a problem, but many people are afraid of spiders. Most house spiders are completely harmless, but some species bite, and some spider species are poisonous to humans. In many cases, having a few house spiders is beneficial, as they feed on insects.
Spiders feed using their fangs to inject venom into their prey. This venom then liquifies the prey, because the spider's stomach can only handle foods that have been partially digested externally. Some spider species will eat plant material.
All spiders have four pairs of legs and most spiders have four pairs of eyes. The eyes of a spider are usually different sizes; the central, frontal pair is the most sophisticated in being able to form images. The other eyes are more rudimentary, and they are not compound eyes like the main pair. Spiders are able to sense their environment using chemical detectors and touch sensors called "setae."
Spiders move their legs using two methods: muscles flex the limbs, and hydraulic pressure is necessary to move them back to an extended position. This is the reason why dead spiders have limbs that curl up. Jumping spiders also use this hydraulic pressure to jump high into the air.
All spider species produce silk. In some species, the silk is used to make webs that catch prey. When spiders mate, the male often courts the female, who is often larger. Some spider species have females that often eat the males after mating, but this is not the norm for all spider species. Females can lay thousands of eggs in a single egg sac. The egg sac of a spider is made in silk. The female of some species may die after laying eggs, or the female may live to protect the egg sac.
The smallest spider in the world is a Columbian spider of the species Patu digua. The largest spider is the Giant Huntsman spider from Laos. It is commonly reported that the largest spider is the Goliath Birdeater spider, a kind of tarantula, but the Goliath Birdeater spider has a shorter leg-span.
An interesting case of mimickry in spiders is the ant-mimicking spider. This spider has a modified body that resembles that of an ant. The spider keeps its front pair of legs up in the air to make them look like ant antennae. The spider also has modified hairs on its body and has a dark patch where an ant's compound eyes would be to make it look more like an ant than a spider. The spider even walks like an ant!
Spiders may bite humans if they are trying to defend themselves. Most spider bites are harmless. Arachnophobia, or fear of spiders, is one of the most common phobias in existence; it is no surprise that most people would like to rid their homes of spiders entirely.


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You can let your imagination run wild and design the curtains of your dreams! Choose something more modern and streamlined for your living room, or install floor-to-ceiling sheer curtains in your bedroom for a more romantic feel. QuickFit has all the options you're looking for. You'll be able to create something customized and truly special for the windows treatments in your home.
Need a little inspiration to help you design the perfect curtains for your room? Browse the gallery below.