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Will Bunch: Tearing Down The Reagan 'Myth'
Journalist Will Bunch critiques the 40th president in his new book Tear Down This Myth: How The Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics And Haunts Our Future.
William Bunch
Reagan, Ronald
Other segments from the episode on February 5, 2009
Fresh Air with Terry Gross, February 5, 2009: interview with Will Bunch; Interview with Douglas Brinkley; Review of John Hassell's "Last Night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street."
In Praise Of Reagan, Communicator Extraordinaire
Historian Douglas Brinkley considers Ronald Reagan one of the top five American presidents of the 20th century. Brinkley is the editor of The Reagan Diaries.
Douglas Brinkley
Jon Hassell Brings World Fusion To 'The Moon'
Music critic Milo Miles reviews Last Night The Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street, the new CD by trumpeter and composer Jon Hassell.
Will Bunch: Tearing Down The Reagan 'Myth
This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" - probably the most famous of all President Reagan's quoted phrases. "Tear Down This Myth" is the name of a new book about the Reagan legacy. It argues that the Reagan legacy that is claimed by the right and that was so often referred to by Republican presidential candidates is not an accurate description of the Reagan presidency. According to the book, the legacy version is a myth consciously created by a new, aggressive breed of conservatives to unite and energize the right.
My guest Will Bunch is the author of "Tear Down This Myth." He's a senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and the author of its blog, Attytood. Will Bunch, welcome to Fresh Air.
Mr. WILL BUNCH (Senior Writer, Philadelphia Daily News; Blogger, Attytood; Author, "Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future"): Thanks for having me, Terry.
GROSS: So what do you consider to be the Reagan myth?
Mr. BUNCH: The Reagan myth is really pretty simple. Basically, people want Ronald Reagan remembered as the man who won the Cold War and as the man who turned the American economy around. In fact, if you go to the Reagan Library, for example, that message is just drilled into you. I mean, there's basically, you see - there's the actual Berlin Wall and there's replicas of the Berlin wall and there's quotes from the Berlin Wall, and you know, so this idea that Ronald Reagan brought down the Berlin Wall and that he cut taxes and saved the American economy. I mean, I think those are really two essential elements.
GROSS: You've described the myth making around President Reagan as a partially very consciously and contrived process. You write about something called the Reagan Legacy Project. What was the project?
Mr. BUNCH: In 1997, Grover Norquist, who's a well-known anti-tax advocate and kind of a nexus point for a lot of conservatives in D.C. who work at think tanks or work for some of these conservative magazines.
GROSS: And he has weekly meetings that bring together conservatives from many different parts of government and religion, and I think industry as well.
Mr. BUNCH: Right, absolutely. I mean, he's kind of...
GROSS: Tries to find common points to build alliances around main agenda items.
Mr. BUNCH: Absolutely. And he's kind of a leader of almost this kind of permanent shadow unelected, you know, conservative, you know, shadow government in D.C. in terms of his influence under the radar screen. That said, I mean, in 1997, you have to go back to that as a time that the conservative movement in this country was really at kind of its low point because Bill Clinton's presidency was at its high point. He'd just been reelected by a huge margin, and the economy was doing great in 1997 on every cylinder. And conservatives were really struggling for a message. You know, they were looking ahead to the 2000 election when Clinton would be leaving office, and they weren't really sure what their message was for the American people. And you know, I think they were trying to get back to their roots, in a sense. Most of them had come to Washington during the Reagan years, and you know, saw them as, you know, kind of spiritual godfather of their movement.
But it was partly because of what I think a dearth of ideas in the present that, you know, in trying to go back to Reagan, they basically remade Reagan in the image of the policies they were trying to portray, which was, you know, militarism, taxes can only be cut, those sorts of things. And the Reagan Legacy Project was this very interesting way to try and get the American people to associate Reagan with greatness.
GROSS: So what was the project?
Mr. BUNCH: Basically, it was to establish memorials to Reagan's legacy as they portrayed it all over the country. And you know, it's interesting. They chose National Airport in Washington, D.C. as a place to start, I guess maybe because so many, you know, liberal media members and members of Congress and their you-point(ph) travel through that airport maybe. But that was their first target, and they introduced a bill to rename the airport as Reagan National Airport, and as we all know, it succeeded. It is now Reagan National Airport.
And you know, this was not long after Reagan had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and he had made a very graceful exit from the public stage, and you weren't going to get much opposition to a bill like that. I mean, some Democrats said, well, you know, Reagan's record is kind of vastly overrated and he was very divisive, but I'm not going to oppose this bill.
The thing is the Ronald Reagan legacy movement wanted to replicate this all over the country. I mean, their stated goal was to rename something for Ronald Reagan whether it was a library or a post office or a middle school in every county of America. That's more than 3,000 counties. I mean, they have not achieved that, but the success that they have achieved is pretty remarkable.
GROSS: Does the project still exist?
Mr. BUNCH: Absolutely. It's affiliated with Grover Norquist's anti-tax organization in Washington, and it has a board of directors which is a kind of who's who of, you know, people in the conservative movement who basically date back to the time of Reagan. And it is still active. It is still pushing to make this Friday, February 6th, Reagan's birthday, as Reagan Day nationally. They'd like to see Reagan perhaps put on money, either some sort of currency or have him on the dime alternating with FDR, which would be kind of ironic since you'd have the father of the New Deal and an opponent of the New Deal alternating on dimes. So it's still a very active movement.
GROSS: So how significant do you think the Reagan Legacy Project has actually been in the creation of the Reagan myth? I mean, if what they're doing is naming airports and roads and libraries and medical centers and stuff, how significant is that in creating or recreating what the Reagan story is?
Mr. BUNCH: I argue that it is significant because history is very complex. You know, it was complex as it was happening, and you know, as 20, 30 years pass it becomes even more complicated for busy people to, you know, reflect on the nuances of, you know, 1980s economics and the deficit and what Reagan's real record was. But you know, when you're driving down a road and it's a Ronald Reagan Freeway on a bright, sunny day, it's hard for you not to associate this must have been a great man, you know, to have this road named after him. And in fact, you know, the people with the legacy project basically said that, that we want people to, you know, when they're driving to work or when they're going to the post office or whatever, you know, they will associate Ronald Reagan with greatness. So it was a very conscious effort, and I think on a very subliminal level very successful.
GROSS: Do you think that the Reagan myth was something that was basically consciously created? I mean, one of the points you make in your book is that the Reagan myth has been very helpful for people with a very conservative ideology because they have a hero to point to, they have an image to point to that they can rally around and focus, and it gives the movement a narrative and a hero. How much of that do you think was conscious and how much of it do you think is just a genuine affection for and appreciation of what Reagan accomplished?
Mr. BUNCH: I think it's been very hard for the modern generation of Republicans to develop a leader, you know, who has the kind of charisma that Ronald Reagan has had. And so since nobody's going to really be able to project that kind of charisma, I think it's like, well, I'll borrow it, you know, I'll show that I can be another Ronald Reagan either by showing my loyalty to Reagan, or you know, the current generation, you know, of Republican leaders, the people who are running for president in 2008 were people who were around during the Reagan years.
John McCain, I think, very successfully, he was having a problem with the conservative wing of the party, and so he went to great lengths to call himself a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution, and in fact, he made this claim that seems pretty fantastical that when he was a prisoner of war in Hanoi that somehow word had gotten to him in the POW camp about this inspiring new governor of California named Ronald Reagan.
He also ran an ad attacking Mitt Romney for misrepresenting how much - that Mitt Romney had been a follower of Reagan, and said, if we can't trust Mitt Romney on Ronald Reagan, what else can we trust him on? You know, so it was like fealty to Ronald Reagan was almost more important than discussing the economic crisis or subprime mortgages or the issues that we had today. So I think it's a charisma gap.
What worries me, though, is that to be like Reagan, they're adopting policies of Reagan that don't really fit our current situation. You know, that the low tax, the push for low taxes in the economic stimulus plan I think really traces back from this desire to we're going to follow the Reagan blueprint no matter what.
GROSS: There's a chapter in your book, "Tear Down This Myth," that focuses on President Reagan's funeral and the press coverage of that funeral. Do you think that the press coverage and the way the funeral was produced reflects what you describe as the Reagan myth?
Mr. BUNCH: Absolutely. And you know, you can certainly make the point that some of it is the format. You know, we live in this world of just non-stop cable news where they're looking for a good story, and you know, Reagan but also the Reagan myth is a good narrative. And the people who planned Reagan's funeral were very conscious about the fact that they wanted to use this as kind of the last photo-op. The people who had been Reagan's advance team while he was president basically took over the funeral, and they called it Operation Serenade. And the planners give a very interesting interview to the Wall Street Journal where they said our focus when Reagan was president was always, you know, picture, headline, story. What's the picture, what's the headline and what's the story that the media's going to get out of this event? And they did the same - they consciously did the same thing for Reagan's funeral, that we want the headline, picture and story from this event to be this was the man whowon the Cold War, and this was the man who restored America's greatness.
And you know, they went to great lengths to give the media that storyline, and you had a media setup that was, you know, happy to oblige. And you know, so you saw this wall-to-wall coverage. You saw, you know, non-stop booking of guests who were from Reagan's inner circle, you know, his former speech writers who were going to give you that portrayal of Reagan, and people weren't really going to hear about the more divisive aspects of Reagan's presidency or the aspects of the presidency that were a failure, whether it was the Iran-Contra scandal or the huge deficits.
Part of the problem is, though, you have entire generation or maybe two generations of Americans who don't really have vivid memories of his actual presidency. A lot of people, they're - what they know about Ronald Reagan is what they know from watching that funeral week on TV, and that really - that really was, I think, a defining moment for the Reagan myth.
GROSS: What are your concerns about people who have learned about Reagan from recent media coverage of him like that funeral?
Mr. BUNCH: That when they hear their political leaders saying we need to adopt the policies of Ronald Reagan, you know, Dick Cheney said at one key point during the Bush presidency that Reagan showed that deficits don't matter. And you know, when you have a public that says, you know, the way forward for America is to have a president like Ronald Reagan and then you have leaders who say we're going to do this the way Reagan did it, it makes people more receptive of that message.
You know, yeah, of course, Reagan was that great president. You know, I saw, you know, I remember watching his funeral on TV. You know, why don't - he was right about tax cuts or he was right that it didn't - the deficit didn't really matter, or you know, he was right to call our enemies an evil empire, you know. So I think there's a very strong connection between the way that, you know, conservatives have been able to sell certain policies and the establishment of this myth with the everyday person.
GROSS: My guest is journalist Will Bunch, author of the new book, "Tear Down this Myth: How the Reagan Legacy has Distorted our Politics and Haunts Our Future." More after a break. This is Fresh Air.
GROSS: My guest is journalist Will Bunch. His new book, "Tear Down this Myth," argues that the Reagan legacy that is claimed by the right was consciously created by aggressive conservatives to unite and energize the right.
GROSS: You say that the creation of the Reagan myth depends on omitting key parts of the Reagan presidency that were negative, and at the top of your list is the Iran-Contra scandal. Do you think that there was like a conscious attempt to eliminate the Reagan - the Iran-Contra scandal from the story?
Mr. BUNCH: There must be. I mean, if you go to the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, you know, this massive edifice costing millions of dollars that was - is basically a museum to the history of Ronald Reagan. And here you have a scandal that for those of us who were around in the late 1980s know really threatened to bring down his entire presidency for a time.
I mean, can you imagine a Richard Nixon museum that didn't have anything about Watergate? Now, Reagan didn't resign, obviously, but you know, there were - there were articles of impeachment were prepared. That entire year, 1987, was dominated by congressional hearings about the Iran-Contra scandal, which, you know, just for your listeners who don't know, was kind of two elements. One, a cornerstone of Reagan's foreign policy was funding anti-communist rebels in Central America. It became a very controversial program, and Congress passed an act, the Boland Act, which barred the government from spending money for that purpose.
At the same time, things were not going well for the U.S in the Middle East and a number of Americans had been taken hostage in Lebanon under Iranian influence. And this became a big problem for the Reagan administration, and he decided on this policy of doing arms deals with Iran, which was at war with Iraq at that time. And these arms deals would get Iran to use its influence to free the hostages. That didn't exactly work. If you were freed, the more were taken.
In the meantime, as this scheme evolved, they were making money from these arms sales, and they said, let's use this money to secretly fund these rebels in Central America even though Congress had barred them from doing that.
So basically, there were two secret elements - trading arms for hostages and then funding these rebels illegally. And you know, as I said, it led to massive congressional hearings. Reagan's popularity plunged down to like 40 percent, and it's rarely talked about nowadays. It's interesting.
GROSS: Another key part of the Reagan presidency that you say is eliminated from the Reagan myth is how divided America was during his eight years in office.
Mr. BUNCH: Absolutely. You know, when Reagan died in 2004, a number of articles described him as one of the most popular presidents in American history or that, you know, that he left office as one of the most popular presidents we've ever had. The statistical evidence to back that up just isn't there.
You know, people have analyzed the Gallop approval ratings throughout his presidency, and it was average. It was, you know, on the level of Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, you know. Very - presidents who have - you know, Bill Clinton was impeached. You know, the first Bush only served one term and was voted out of office. And that was about the level of Reagan's approval rating. It was way behind Eisenhower, JFK, FDR, Lyndon Johnson had a much higher approval rating. And you know, this reflects the fact that he was a very divisive figure. I mean, certainly he had virtually zero support from African-Americans, for example. You know, his policies were seen as very harmful to black Americans.
GROSS: And also, in terms of creating the Reagan myth, you say things were eliminated that don't fit the conservative ideology. For example, you say, yes, Reagan really slashed taxes, particularly for the wealthy. But later on in his presidency, he increased taxes, and the tax increase is not a part of the Reagan myth.
Mr. BUNCH: Right. Well, Reagan was - he was the great communicator, and he was very good at portraying a broad conservative message to the American people. But when he had to govern, he actually was kind of a great compromiser. I mean, he - he was willing to - to make compromises to get things done. You almost never hear about the fact that he reached a deal with Democrats on social security that basically helped to prop up our social security deficit for a number of years, which actually increased payroll taxes. I mean, middle-class Americans took a big hit from that deal, but that's never talked about. He signed off on some sort of tax increase almost every year of his presidency after his first year, including one in 1982 that was, at the time, the largest tax increase in American history, and it was basically to under-do - undo the fact that they '81 tax cut had gone too far.
GROSS: When President Obama was a presidential candidate, he described Ronald Reagan as a transformative president. President Obama's policies are very different than President Reagan's, but yet you wrote an op-ed mentioning some of the things that you think President Obama could learn from President Reagan. What are some of those things?
Mr. BUNCH: I think the main sense is that even - even though we live in kind of a dire time and we face this, you know, massive economic crisis, Ronald Reagan was very successful in connecting with the American people because of his optimism. You know - you know, he clearly had a strong belief in himself and a belief in America that - that we were a good people and that things would - you know, that a brighter future lay ahead. And you know, which was a message that was surprising to a lot of people in 1980 because interest rates were 21 percent, unemployment was so high.
You know, now we face a similar crisis, and I think people - I think people in an over-arching sense need to hear that, you know, that America is a can-do nation and can still do great things. You know, where he needs to differ greatly, though, is on the policy level, you know, kind of rolling back these policies that have created such a wide gulf between the rich and the middle class, for example.
You know, undoing - you know, unfortunately, I think the optimism led to too much optimism about energy and about the environment that - you know - you know, we're tired of doom and gloom in America, so we're tired of doom and gloom about climate change and we're tired of doom and gloom about the world running out of fossil fuel supplies. Well, those are areas where I think we need some realism. So - but again, I think if President Obama, you know, says we're going to fight climate change or says that we're going to, you know, reduce our dependency on foreign oil, it's a challenge to America's greatness that, you know, that a great nation can respond to this challenge. I think in a way he'll be channeling Reagan message-wise, but you know, to achieve a very different result.
GROSS: Will Bunch, thank you so much for talking with us.
Mr. BUNCH: Oh, thanks Terry. Thanks for having me on. I really enjoyed it.
GROSS: Will Bunch is the author of "Tear Down this Myth." He's the senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and writes its blog, Attytood. We'll hear a different take on the Reagan legacy from historian Doug Brinkley in the second half of the show. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air.
This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. In the first half of our show, journalist Will Bunch, author of "Tear Down This Myth," argued that the Reagan legacy as claimed by Republicans is a consciously created myth. We asked historian Douglas Brinkley what he has to say about the Reagan legacy. Brinkley edited the book of Reagan's White House diaries. He's a professor of history at Rice University.
Doug Brinkley, welcome back to Fresh Air. Now, you've called President Reagan one of the top five American presidents of the 20th century. Why do you think he merits that?
Prof. DOUGLAS BRINKLEY (History, Rice University; Editor, "The Reagan Diaries"): Well, look, Ronald Reagan had left a very large shadow. We used to say that Franklin Roosevelt's shadow went all the way from 1932 to 1980, meaning whether it was Eisenhower or Kennedy or Johnson or Nixon, they were still - politically, they were inclined to have to deal with the legacy of FDR. From 1980 until the election of Barack Obama, we were living in the age of Reagan. He in many ways was the pendulum swing back against FDR and the New Deal in the great society of Lyndon Johnson, and it lasted longer than people thought. Many people thought the age of Reagan might just be eight years or 12 years but it went for a very long time, meaning the Clinton years, which should have been a progressive movement. Instead, keyed(ph) the triangulation and still operated within the very notions of Reaganism, meaning welfare, reform or tax cuts, promoting the big military buildup, et cetera.
And also, I think Reagan stood up for that - at the last minute for the World War II generation, and by the 1980s, before Stephen Ambrose and Spielberg and Brokaw's greatest generation, Regan was talking about the morning again in America, which meant back to World War II, pre-Vietnam, when we were all in this together. There is a Disney-like view that Reagan had that didn't grapple with the fact that women weren't getting equal pay, that Jim Crow existed in the South. Nevertheless, he made the veterans of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and Sicily and Normandy feel that they mattered. And so that whole generation felt that Regan was their president.
GROSS: Now, Will Bunch in his book makes the point that a lot of the Reagan mystique is myth that was manufactured intentionally by a new aggressive breed of conservative that needed a hero to help unite and refuel the right. What's your opinion of that?
Prof. BRINKLEY: I agree with that. But that's only one part of what's going on. I don't think it's so much as a myth. I think presidents have legacies, and they get advocates. There's people that believe Theodore Roosevelt was great or FDR was great or Kennedy or Reagan. And it's personal - it's reasonable to think that people want to admire Ronald Reagan. I think the distortion comes when people leave the history books and try to create saints out of people.
Ronald Reagan was not a saint. He was a good president for his times. He was good because there was a kind of malaise in the country due to double-digit inflation, due to the hostages in Iran, due to the excesses of the great society or at least the misappropriations of funds going on for government programs. Taxes were being raised left and right, and so that we were naturally going to find a force in this country to kind of bring us back in a different direction. Reagan was that.
Even Barack Obama during the campaign trail had nice things to say about Ronald Reagan and Bush 41's foreign policy because if you get the partisanism out of it - the left wants to bash Reagan all the time. The right wants to celebrate him. Let's just be honest and look at what he accomplished in eight years, and you'll find that he was affective, and he was affective because he communicated to the American people that his heart was generally in the right place, that his personality captured people.
And we're going to have books that try to tear Reagan down or books that try to build him up, but the facts are that our national airport will be the Reagan airport forever, and that his presidential library in Simi Valley, California is by far the most visited presidential library in America. And people like Reagan, and I think his image will continue to grow, and it's not just because the hard right is promoting him. I think that people realize in the '80s he did a pretty good job grappling with the big issues of the day.
GROSS: Well, one of Will Bunches points - and let's see if you agree with this - is that some of the pragmatism of Ronald Reagan has been erased by the parts of the right that have made him into a hero because they're hardliners, and they want to portray him that way too. So when he does something pragmatic like raise taxes after he's lowered them, that's kind of erased from the official Regan legacy that the right puts forth. What are your thoughts?
Prof. BRINKLEY: Well, I think that's also accurate. You know, I'll give you a different example. I mean, look what Reagan had to face when we had our marines killed in 1983 in Lebanon, peacekeepers blown up. He - you know, there was a drumbeat on the right to put in troops, to go to war in the Middle East, and Reagan said, basically, you can always have a war in the Middle East. And he did what was the hardest thing for him to do, and that's not to send troops to pull out of Lebanon, not escalate the situation, there is a pragmatic president at work operating against the hard right in his day.
But look, the right should have Reagan as a hero. He made conservative - along with Barry Goldwater, Reagan made conservatism part of the bloodstream of America. Up until Reagan, at least until Reagan was governor of California, you were seen as somehow a bit of a kooky fringe if you were on the right. Reagan brought the right into the mainstream of America, and that's why they championed him. But they do a disservice by not looking at the historical Ronald Reagan and recognizing that he usually operated from a very centrist position, maybe center right on some issues, but he also tacked center left in that his great gift was his personality. And his personality was one that really wanted to prevent Armageddon.
When I edited Ronald Reagan's diaries, it was quite startling to see a president of the United States in his own handwriting writing the word Armageddon time and again. And he kept telling himself that that was his duty as president is to avoid war. So for all the hawkish rhetoric of the 1980s, we had a Grenada invasion, and we did a little bit of a few strikes with Libya, but by and large, Reagan was able to keep America at peace during his presidency and reduce nuclear weapons in the world more than any other Cold War president. That's his great legacy.
GROSS: You mentioned that you often saw the word Armageddon in Reagan's diaries when you were editing them? Let me give you an example. After Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor, thinking that this reactor was basically preparation for an atomic weapon, Reagan writes in his diaries: Got word of Israeli bombing of Iraq nuclear reactor. I swear I believe Armageddon is near. When I read that, I was wondering, I wonder what he meant by that. What do you think?
Prof. BRINKLEY: Reagan, you know, I think he had a relationship with God that you have to try to understand. When he was shot, for example, in his diary he said, from now on I am serving God. And part of serving God was to be a peacekeeper. Underneath it all was a man desperate to rid the world of nuclear weapons. And it be, even, you know, working closely again with George Shultz, they succeeded to a large degree to make the world a safer place, which again is his enduring accomplishment. That was triggered by kind of California religion about -that he read. He had read a lot of what some people would call subpar religious literature. But beyond critiquing that affect of what he read, the net result was it helped him as president keep his mind on being a peacemaker, not a warmonger.
GROSS: You know, you mentioned that you were interested in the role of faith in President Reagan's life, and I think one of the things President Reagan did was form a political coalition with the religious right. For example, the moral majority was, I think it's fair to say, instrumental in his election or at least in the size of his victory. And I wonder how you see that figuring into the Reagan legacy and the Reagan myth?
Prof. BRINKLEY: Well, it's very important, and I think he's really the person that brought evangelicals into the Republican fold, and part of it was a backlash on Roe verse(ph) Wade, although Reagan himself barely mentioned that issue during his presidency. Incidentally, if there's an insensitivity to Reagan that historians look at of something that he did wrong, he seemed not to respond to AIDS quickly enough as president. He seemed a bit indifferent to apartheid in South Africa.
One section of the diaries, Bishop Tutu comes to see him. Regan likes Tutu, but he says, you know, he needs to slow down pushing for freedom in South Africa. Yet Reagan never asked anybody in Central Europe to slow down. So, there are these disparities in Ronald Reagan, but I think that the right became a very - the moral majority types in this country, evangelicals, became a group Reagan was able to bring into the coalition and still is really the heart and soul today, I think, of the modern Republican Party.
GROSS: My guest is historian Douglas Brinkley. We'll talk more about the Reagan legacy after a break.
This is Fresh Air. We're talking about the Reagan legacy. In the first half of our show, we heard from journalist Will Bunch, author of "Tear Down This Myth," which argues that conservatives created a mythologized version of Reagan's legacy to help energize the right. My guest, historian Douglas Brinkley, edited Reagan's White House diaries.
One of the points Will Bunch makes in "Tear Down This Myth" about how the Reagan myth was built is that one thing that's always left out of the Reagan myth is Iran-Contra, the arms-for-hostages scandal. And you edited his journals, and there's a few entries about that. I thought I'd read a little bit of that just to get a sense of what he'd written in his own journals.
He writes: (Reading) Usual meetings. Discussion of how to handle press who are off on a wild story built on unfounded story originating in Beirut that we bought hostage David Jacobsen's freedom with weapons to Iran. We've tried, no comment. I've proposed and our message will be we can't and won't answer any questions on the subject because to do so will endanger the lives of those we are trying to help.
November 24th. After meeting Attorney General Ed Meese and Don Regan, they told me of a smoking gun. On one of the arms shipments, the Iranians paid Israel a higher purchase price than we were getting. The Israelis put the difference in a secret bank account. Then our Colonel Oliver North gave the money to the Contras. This was a violation of the law against giving the Contras money without an authorization by Congress. North didn't tell me about this. Worst of all, John Poindexter found out about it and didn't tell me. This may call for resignations.
So, he doesn't say in his journals that he knew anything about it, and he faults people in his administration for knowing and not telling him. What do you come away with about Ronald Reagan's contributions to the Iran-Contra scandal and also, why that's not mentioned - like, the Iran-Contra scandal isn't usually included in, you know, the myth of the Reagan presidency.
Prof. BRINKLEY: First off, Regan's to blame for Iran-Contra as any commander-in-chief is because it was his passive management style that allowed these guys to do what they did. But Reagan also always operated above the fray, meaning he didn't purposefully know what people were doing. There's one moment in the diaries where Reagan tells people about getting the hostages out, which all Americans wanted. Nobody wanted to see our people held hostage. Reagan said, I don't care if you end up going to Levenworth Prison. I want those guys out. Now, that was the word of the boss. He did not micromanage how they did that, and of course, he never said break the law to do it, but it was a general comment. So people like Oliver North and Poindexter thought they were kind of following the boss's verdict, no matter what, get these guys out.
Now, to Reagan's credit, he refused to pardon any of these people. Many people thought when he left office he'd pardon. He refused to. He said it wouldn't be right to the American people. And also, quite famously, on March 4th of 1987, he went on television and said, I made a mistake. He just flat out used the word, I made a mistake with Iran-Contra, and then shortly after - that was March of '87 - by June he's giving the famous Berlin Brandenburg Gate tear-down-this-wall speech and was able to turn around his popularity. Iran-Contra represents the low-water mark of the Reagan administration because it shows the down side of his passive management style.
GROSS: I think when people talk about how everybody loved Reagan that there's a group of people who feel very left out of that, and that's liberals who felt that Reagan was very conservative, that Reagan did away with a lot of federal regulations of government, that he put people in charge of the environment who were, in the view of many liberals, anti-environmentalist. That Reagan - you know, a lot of liberals felt Reagan was shallow, that he was a good communicator but he didn't necessarily have a very deep grasp of his own policies. So, I guess I'm just interested in your take on that.
Prof. BRINKLEY: I would suggest that the left in America has turned Reagan into a bit of - what Clark Clifford, the Democrat, called that he's an amiable dunce. Well, he wasn't a dunce. We now have documentary evidence Reagan was a much more hands-on president then the liberals want to admit.
And so the left has to drop, I think, the cartoon image of Ronald Reagan and see him as Sean Wilentz, Princeton University historian, has recently done well in his book, "The Age Of Reagan," to see how he played the political crises of his day very astutely.
And we - you don't have to, if you're on the left, embrace Ronald Reagan. He was conservative. He didn't do things that liberals would want. But I think from the perspective of time, particularly after eight years of George W. Bush, some of Reagan's restraints have to be admired.
GROSS: You touched on this earlier, but I'd like you to elaborate on it. On election night, you said that with the election of Barack Obama the age of Reagan is over. So would you elaborate on that?
Prof. BRINKLEY: In Reagan's diaries he writes, I love FDR. Reagan says, I voted for Franklin Roosevelt four times and I - everything about the New Deal I like. What I'm trying to do is roll back the great society. When Johnson came in after the Kennedy assassination in '64, Johnson continued federal programs. Reagan was trying to turn back Johnson's great society, and that by doing so starting in '80, he controlled the political agenda in this country. Tax - you couldn't run for office, Democrat or Republican, if you didn't want a tax cut. Democrats were afraid to call themselves liberals because of what Reagan did to them.
Obama's changed all that. He's a progressive. And so you're seeing the energy of Reagan over. You saw it at the end of the Bush administration with the big bailout for the economy. The federal government is now back in vogue. The people are looking for the federal government, not the private sector, to solve problems. Hence, we are in now the beginning of a new progressive movement with the Obama election.
GROSS: As a presidential historian, what are some of the things you're looking for, watching out for in the early days of the Obama presidency?
Prof. BRINKLEY: My concern about Obama is that he may be surrounding himself with so many Bill Clinton people who tend to triangulate, who tend to want to operate from the center, and that's smart politics but it's not visionary leadership. If Theodore Roosevelt thought like that, we never would have had our - he never would have put aside 240 million acres saving our beautiful forests and parks and monuments. Roosevelt created U.S. fish and wildlife and bird reserves, and he had no - everybody was against him but he did it because he used the power of the bully pulpit and used executive orders to do what was right for America from a long-term perspective.
Obama does not want to get in a situation where everything he does is so watered down for political expediency that he loses his visionary side. There are things he must do because they're the right things to do for what America represents. When I say America, it's the America of the Constitution, of the Declaration, America that created national parks, it's the America of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and second inaugural. He needs to keep that vision of what this country is alive because otherwise you'll get mired in compromise. Yes, you might be able to win re-election, and yes, you might be able to do some things, but I think we're in a stage in our country now we need to do some big things well.
And it's going - there's pain involved with that. You can't be a leader without pain. The great Theodore Roosevelt used to say, you know, the point of leadership is to lead, not to triangulate. And so as much as we're - I think Obama needs to develop a consensus and try to work from a kind of unified front, I think he's got to do some big things quickly or else the inertia of middle-roading it will just overwhelm him.
GROSS: Douglas Brinkley, thank you so much for talking with us.
Prof. BRINKLEY: Thank you, Terry.
GROSS: Douglas Brinkley is a professor of history at Rice University. He edited the book of Reagan's White House diaries. Coming up, Milo Miles reviews a new CD by Jon Hassell who's known for his mix of ambient electronico, world fusion and minimalism. This is Fresh Air.
Trumpeter and composer Jon Hassell has worked with a very diverse group of performers over the last 30 years, including the Kronos Quartet, Bono, Brian Eno and Biorke. Hassell's mixture of world fusion, ambient electronica and minimalism was shaped by his studies with Karlheinz Schtockhausen and Indian vocalist Pran Nath, as well as his association with new music composers Tim Riley and La Monte Young.
Hassell has a new album called, "Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street." Hassell begins his first American tour in 20 years tonight. Music critic Milo Miles has a review of his new CD.
MILO MILES: Jon Hassell calls his style of music fourth world. Everyone who talks about him mentions it. As with Ornette Coleman's theory of harmolodics, nobody knows quite what Hassell means. He may be the only permanent inhabitant of the fourth world, but that's enough.
Hassell creates numbers with no set foreground or background, at once static and constantly in motion with instrumental interactions and solos that sound transient, at best. This suggests it might be music without clear beginnings, end or location points, but it's not. There's plenty of distinctive, specific language in something like the title track from his new "Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street," which is taken from a line by the soupy poet, Rumi.
(Soundbite of title track music)
MILES: Hassell would seem to be grounded in classical minimalism or maybe jazz eclectic, but he's been embraced from early on by the experimental pop audience. Why? Well, pop has always been more open to scavengers and pick-up games, especially for players who have a sharp eye and unexpected moves.
Hassell first gained a wide audience in 1980 through his collaboration with Brian Eno, Fourth World, Volume One, Possible Musics. What is this thing, Eno fans wondered? And the answer is still not in, though the album has become a benchmark in the development of ambient music.
Likewise, Hassell's "Power Spot" from 1986 was a touchstone for electronica performers. And his "Dressing For Pleasure" in 1994 set the standard of modern jazz world fusion, particularly influential with younger European players. "Last Night The Moon" doesn't probe quite as deep as the earlier albums, but it features his most harmonious, long-standing group, Maarifa Street, and all of Hassell's trumpet tones, including his sly echoes of Miles Davis.
MILES: For all his obstruce theorizing and articles and liner notes in his Web site, there's an earthy appeal that Hassell's montages that reminds me that he was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1937. You can take the trumpeter away from Beale Street but you can't entirely take Beale Street out of the trumpeter.
Somewhere in Hassell's clouds and shadow dances is some old-fashion soul sensibility. He enjoys being the cool cat you can't quite trace. Nobody fades in and out like Hassell. He's a particular master of the slow disappearance, as in this finale to "Light On Water."
MILES: That's Jon Hassell for you. Gets a little fuzzy around the edges, then almost translucent, and then he's gone. A man of mystery to the end.
GROSS: Milo Miles lives in Boston. He reviewed Jon Hassell's new album, ""Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street." Hassell begins a seven-city tour tonight in Columbus, Ohio. You can download podcasts of our show on our Web site, freshair.npr.org.
How Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, influences the Supreme Court
New Yorker writer Jane Mayer discusses the conservative beliefs and influence of Ginni Thomas, an activist who's been associated with some groups involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Jane Mayer
Understanding Trump's 'Hit List': Experience Matters Far Less Than Loyalty
Axios reporter Jonathan Swan says the president has "crossed a psychological line" since impeachment, developing a list of disloyal officials to oust — and suggesting loyalists to replace them.


text:
Shell in the UK Diversity Pay Gap Report
Diversity key to Innovation and Digital Transformation
The Digitalisation and Computational Science Centre of Excellence was created in 2018 to bring together expertise that supports the delivery of digital projects and incubates emerging technologies.
Core competencies in this team include data science, computational science, digital product management, digital engineering and innovation. It is especially hard to attract females into these disciplines as there is a lower proportion (26%) of female graduates with the relevant (STEM) backgrounds. Competition in the external market is fierce as many other companies are also building these skills in an era of digitalisation and are trying to attract the same, limited pool of female talent into their teams.
From the start, it was essential to create a culture and an employee value proposition that would be attractive to women and bring in greater cultural diversity; both in terms of recruitment, as well as retention of females in the team. This needed a pro-active approach and visible actions.
We have taken steps that can also be replicated in other parts of the organisation which are responding to digitalisation and building the same skills. Some of the actions we have taken include:
Creating an open culture where the agenda for gender balance and diversity in the team is a top priority. This agenda is taken seriously and is discussed at most leadership and team meetings. All team leaders are champions of gender balance and diversity.
Mentoring and coaching for females in the Digital and Computational Science Centre of Excellence. This provides a better support structure and gives our leaders insights into how we need to shape the team and culture of a future organisation to better support gender equality.
Shared videos of female leaders across Projects and Technology talking about their experiences of working in heavily male-dominated teams and what attracts them to work in Shell.
Presence and presentations at external forums and conferences that attract females with the backgrounds we seek for recruitment and networking purposes.
As a result, we celebrated having 60% female representation in one of our digital teams this year and achieved 30% females overall in the Digital Centre of Excellence by the end of August 2019. Our team spans four generations, and 23 nationalities in terms of overall diversity. It is not yet enough but it is an encouraging start. It shows what can be achieved in the short space of a year by placing emphasis on the diversity agenda.
Charting a course to gender balance
In our Shipping and Maritime business, our employees ensure that Shell can continue to provide its products and services worldwide. From optimising the journey of a ship delivering liquefied natural gas from Australia to Japan, or fuels from Rotterdam to Singapore, we know our people make the difference.
Bringing balance to the Upstream Leadership Team
Some areas, like Legal and Human Resources, have good gender balance. Others like our marketing business, are making strong progress. But there are areas where we need additional focus such as in Upstream (where most of our engineering roles are based) and Trading.
These describe the specific and differing challenges in some of our business areas, and the actions being taken to improve representation and build a more balanced and inclusive workplace at Shell in the UK.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace Windwalker\Database\Test\Driver\Mysqli;

use PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase;
use Windwalker\Database\Driver\Mysqli\MysqliDriver;
use Windwalker\Database\Test\Driver\AbstractDriverTest;

/**
 * The MysqliDriverTest class.
 */
class MysqliDriverTest extends AbstractDriverTest
{
    protected static string $platform = 'mysql';

    protected static string $driverName = 'mysqli';

    /**
     * @see  AbstractDriver::quote
     */
    public function testQuote(): void
    {
        self::assertEquals(
            "'foo\'s #hello --options'",
            static::$driver->quote("foo's #hello --options")
        );
    }

    /**
     * @see  AbstractDriver::escape
     */
    public function testEscape(): void
    {
        self::assertEquals(
            "foo\'s #hello --options",
            static::$driver->escape("foo's #hello --options")
        );
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: String/dict manipulation ' to " {'coolstring': {'stepone': {'X': '44', 'Y': '66'}}}

this is a string/dictionary that I create with input(), however, I need to change all the ' or Apostrophes to " or Quotation marks. The reasoning for this is that I need to do so for it be properly passed as a Json string further down my pipeline.
My idea is using .replace() but I'm not quite sure how to format it so that it swaps ' with " any tips?

A: If your input is a dictionary, there's a json module which does exactly what you need:
import json

dic = {'coolstring': {'stepone': {'X': '44', 'Y': '66'}}}

json_string = json.dumps(dic)
print(json_string)

The output will be:

{"coolstring": {"stepone": {"X": "44", "Y": "66"}}}

However if your data is a string, you can use the proposed solution from the other comment by using replace()

A: If the thing is a string, then .replace("'", '"') should work (note the symmetry in using both legal quotes :-)).

A: {'coolstring': {'stepone': {'X': '44', 'Y': '66'}}}

this is a string/dictionary

Is this a string or a dictionary ?
If it is a string (if you use input() from Python 3 or raw_input from Python 2):
You can replace the ' by " using the following:
yournewstring = "{'coolstring': {'stepone': {'X': '44', 'Y': '66'}}}".replace("'", '"')

If it is a dictionary (if you use input() from Python 2):
Here the ' are used as the string delimiters. Python can use both " and ' for delimiting strings. You can convert this dictionary to a JSON string by using:
import json
yourjson = json.dumps({'coolstring': {'stepone': {'X': '44', 'Y': '66'}}})

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Upregulation of IL-32 Isoforms in Virologically Suppressed HIV-Infected Individuals: Potential Role in Persistent Inflammation and Transcription From Stable HIV-1 Reservoirs
Canadian HIV and Aging Cohort Study
BACKGROUND: Human IL-32 is a polyfunctional cytokine that was initially reported to inhibit HIV-1 infection. However, recent data suggest that IL-32 may enhance HIV-1 replication by activating the HIV-1 primary targets, CD4 T-cells. Indeed, IL-32 is expressed in multiple isoforms, some of which are proinflammatory, whereas others are anti-inflammatory. SETTING AND METHODS: Here, we aimed to determine the relative expression of IL-32 isoforms and to test their inflammatory nature and potential to induce HIV-1 production in latently infected cells from virologically suppressed HIV-infected individuals. IL-32 and other cytokines were quantified from plasma and supernatant of CD4 T-cells by ELISA. Transcripts of IL-32 isoforms were quantified by qRT-PCR in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. The impact of recombinant human IL-32 isoforms on HIV-1 transcription was assessed in CD4 T-cells from HIV-1cART individuals by qRT-PCR. RESULTS: All IL-32 isoforms were significantly upregulated in HIV-1cART compared to HIV individuals with IL-32β representing the dominantly expressed isoform, mainly in T-cells and NK-cells. At the functional level, although IL-32γ induced typical proinflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and IFN-γ) in TCR-activated CD4 T-cells, IL-32α showed an anti-inflammatory profile by inducing IL-10 but not IL-6 or IFN-γ. However, IL-32β showed a dual phenotype by inducing both pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines. Interestingly, consistent with its highly pro-inflammatory nature, IL-32γ, but not IL-32α or IL-32β, induced HIV-1 production in latently infected CD4 T-cells isolated from combined antiretroviral therapy-treated individuals. CONCLUSIONS: Our data report on the differential expression of IL-32 isoforms and highlight the potential role of IL-32, particularly the γ isoform, in fueling persistent inflammation and transcription of viral reservoir in HIV-1 infection.
Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes (1999)
https://doi.org/10.1097/QAI.0000000000002185
Natural Killer Cells
Canadian HIV and Aging Cohort Study (2019). Upregulation of IL-32 Isoforms in Virologically Suppressed HIV-Infected Individuals: Potential Role in Persistent Inflammation and Transcription From Stable HIV-1 Reservoirs. Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes (1999), 82(5), 503-513. https://doi.org/10.1097/QAI.0000000000002185
Upregulation of IL-32 Isoforms in Virologically Suppressed HIV-Infected Individuals : Potential Role in Persistent Inflammation and Transcription From Stable HIV-1 Reservoirs. / Canadian HIV and Aging Cohort Study.
In: Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes (1999), Vol. 82, No. 5, 15.12.2019, p. 503-513.
Canadian HIV and Aging Cohort Study 2019, 'Upregulation of IL-32 Isoforms in Virologically Suppressed HIV-Infected Individuals: Potential Role in Persistent Inflammation and Transcription From Stable HIV-1 Reservoirs', Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes (1999), vol. 82, no. 5, pp. 503-513. https://doi.org/10.1097/QAI.0000000000002185
Canadian HIV and Aging Cohort Study. Upregulation of IL-32 Isoforms in Virologically Suppressed HIV-Infected Individuals: Potential Role in Persistent Inflammation and Transcription From Stable HIV-1 Reservoirs. Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes (1999). 2019 Dec 15;82(5):503-513. https://doi.org/10.1097/QAI.0000000000002185
Canadian HIV and Aging Cohort Study. / Upregulation of IL-32 Isoforms in Virologically Suppressed HIV-Infected Individuals : Potential Role in Persistent Inflammation and Transcription From Stable HIV-1 Reservoirs. In: Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes (1999). 2019 ; Vol. 82, No. 5. pp. 503-513.
@article{b1ff37c63a5f41c480ad8c78ba41a6cb,
title = "Upregulation of IL-32 Isoforms in Virologically Suppressed HIV-Infected Individuals: Potential Role in Persistent Inflammation and Transcription From Stable HIV-1 Reservoirs",
abstract = "BACKGROUND: Human IL-32 is a polyfunctional cytokine that was initially reported to inhibit HIV-1 infection. However, recent data suggest that IL-32 may enhance HIV-1 replication by activating the HIV-1 primary targets, CD4 T-cells. Indeed, IL-32 is expressed in multiple isoforms, some of which are proinflammatory, whereas others are anti-inflammatory. SETTING AND METHODS: Here, we aimed to determine the relative expression of IL-32 isoforms and to test their inflammatory nature and potential to induce HIV-1 production in latently infected cells from virologically suppressed HIV-infected individuals. IL-32 and other cytokines were quantified from plasma and supernatant of CD4 T-cells by ELISA. Transcripts of IL-32 isoforms were quantified by qRT-PCR in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. The impact of recombinant human IL-32 isoforms on HIV-1 transcription was assessed in CD4 T-cells from HIV-1cART individuals by qRT-PCR. RESULTS: All IL-32 isoforms were significantly upregulated in HIV-1cART compared to HIV individuals with IL-32β representing the dominantly expressed isoform, mainly in T-cells and NK-cells. At the functional level, although IL-32γ induced typical proinflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and IFN-γ) in TCR-activated CD4 T-cells, IL-32α showed an anti-inflammatory profile by inducing IL-10 but not IL-6 or IFN-γ. However, IL-32β showed a dual phenotype by inducing both pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines. Interestingly, consistent with its highly pro-inflammatory nature, IL-32γ, but not IL-32α or IL-32β, induced HIV-1 production in latently infected CD4 T-cells isolated from combined antiretroviral therapy-treated individuals. CONCLUSIONS: Our data report on the differential expression of IL-32 isoforms and highlight the potential role of IL-32, particularly the γ isoform, in fueling persistent inflammation and transcription of viral reservoir in HIV-1 infection.",
author = "{Canadian HIV and Aging Cohort Study} and Zaidan, {Sarah M.} and Louise Leyre and R{\'e}mi Bunet and Etienne Larouche-Anctil and Isabelle Turcotte and Mohamed Sylla and Annie Chamberland and Carl Chartrand-Lefebvre and Petronela Ancuta and Routy, {Jean Pierre} and Baril, {Jean Guy} and Benoit Trottier and Paul MacPherson and Sylvie Trottier and Marianne Harris and Sharon Walmsley and Brian Conway and Alexander Wong and R{\'e}jean Thomas and Kaplan, {Robert C.} and Landay, {Alan L.} and Madeleine Durand and Nicolas Chomont and Tremblay, {C{\'e}cile L.} and Mohamed El-Far",
doi = "10.1097/QAI.0000000000002185",
journal = "Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes",
T1 - Upregulation of IL-32 Isoforms in Virologically Suppressed HIV-Infected Individuals
T2 - Potential Role in Persistent Inflammation and Transcription From Stable HIV-1 Reservoirs
AU - Canadian HIV and Aging Cohort Study
AU - Zaidan, Sarah M.
AU - Leyre, Louise
AU - Bunet, Rémi
AU - Larouche-Anctil, Etienne
AU - Turcotte, Isabelle
AU - Sylla, Mohamed
AU - Chamberland, Annie
AU - Chartrand-Lefebvre, Carl
AU - Ancuta, Petronela
AU - Routy, Jean Pierre
AU - Baril, Jean Guy
AU - Trottier, Benoit
AU - MacPherson, Paul
AU - Trottier, Sylvie
AU - Harris, Marianne
AU - Walmsley, Sharon
AU - Conway, Brian
AU - Wong, Alexander
AU - Thomas, Réjean
AU - Kaplan, Robert C.
AU - Landay, Alan L.
AU - Durand, Madeleine
AU - Chomont, Nicolas
AU - Tremblay, Cécile L.
AU - El-Far, Mohamed
N2 - BACKGROUND: Human IL-32 is a polyfunctional cytokine that was initially reported to inhibit HIV-1 infection. However, recent data suggest that IL-32 may enhance HIV-1 replication by activating the HIV-1 primary targets, CD4 T-cells. Indeed, IL-32 is expressed in multiple isoforms, some of which are proinflammatory, whereas others are anti-inflammatory. SETTING AND METHODS: Here, we aimed to determine the relative expression of IL-32 isoforms and to test their inflammatory nature and potential to induce HIV-1 production in latently infected cells from virologically suppressed HIV-infected individuals. IL-32 and other cytokines were quantified from plasma and supernatant of CD4 T-cells by ELISA. Transcripts of IL-32 isoforms were quantified by qRT-PCR in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. The impact of recombinant human IL-32 isoforms on HIV-1 transcription was assessed in CD4 T-cells from HIV-1cART individuals by qRT-PCR. RESULTS: All IL-32 isoforms were significantly upregulated in HIV-1cART compared to HIV individuals with IL-32β representing the dominantly expressed isoform, mainly in T-cells and NK-cells. At the functional level, although IL-32γ induced typical proinflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and IFN-γ) in TCR-activated CD4 T-cells, IL-32α showed an anti-inflammatory profile by inducing IL-10 but not IL-6 or IFN-γ. However, IL-32β showed a dual phenotype by inducing both pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines. Interestingly, consistent with its highly pro-inflammatory nature, IL-32γ, but not IL-32α or IL-32β, induced HIV-1 production in latently infected CD4 T-cells isolated from combined antiretroviral therapy-treated individuals. CONCLUSIONS: Our data report on the differential expression of IL-32 isoforms and highlight the potential role of IL-32, particularly the γ isoform, in fueling persistent inflammation and transcription of viral reservoir in HIV-1 infection.
AB - BACKGROUND: Human IL-32 is a polyfunctional cytokine that was initially reported to inhibit HIV-1 infection. However, recent data suggest that IL-32 may enhance HIV-1 replication by activating the HIV-1 primary targets, CD4 T-cells. Indeed, IL-32 is expressed in multiple isoforms, some of which are proinflammatory, whereas others are anti-inflammatory. SETTING AND METHODS: Here, we aimed to determine the relative expression of IL-32 isoforms and to test their inflammatory nature and potential to induce HIV-1 production in latently infected cells from virologically suppressed HIV-infected individuals. IL-32 and other cytokines were quantified from plasma and supernatant of CD4 T-cells by ELISA. Transcripts of IL-32 isoforms were quantified by qRT-PCR in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. The impact of recombinant human IL-32 isoforms on HIV-1 transcription was assessed in CD4 T-cells from HIV-1cART individuals by qRT-PCR. RESULTS: All IL-32 isoforms were significantly upregulated in HIV-1cART compared to HIV individuals with IL-32β representing the dominantly expressed isoform, mainly in T-cells and NK-cells. At the functional level, although IL-32γ induced typical proinflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and IFN-γ) in TCR-activated CD4 T-cells, IL-32α showed an anti-inflammatory profile by inducing IL-10 but not IL-6 or IFN-γ. However, IL-32β showed a dual phenotype by inducing both pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines. Interestingly, consistent with its highly pro-inflammatory nature, IL-32γ, but not IL-32α or IL-32β, induced HIV-1 production in latently infected CD4 T-cells isolated from combined antiretroviral therapy-treated individuals. CONCLUSIONS: Our data report on the differential expression of IL-32 isoforms and highlight the potential role of IL-32, particularly the γ isoform, in fueling persistent inflammation and transcription of viral reservoir in HIV-1 infection.
U2 - 10.1097/QAI.0000000000002185
DO - 10.1097/QAI.0000000000002185
JO - Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes
JF - Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes
10.1097/QAI.0000000000002185


I am packing for a trip to Nederland, the country where I was born, raised and lived until the age of 25. It's been 18 months since I saw my parents and grandmother and am very much looking forward to spending time with them.
I also look forward to soaking up new impressions from the country that is so familiar and yet so foreign to me after 16 years abroad. Canada is home now. I am a visitor to my country of birth where still I wave my Dutch (and only) passport to gain entry. Last time the customs officer told me, Welkom thuis, or Welcome home.
I love wandering through the town Dronten, where my parents moved a few years ago after three decades in historic and picturesque Harderwijk, which was a member of the Hanseatic League and had a university from the mid-17th century until early in the 19th.
Dronten is a neat brandnew place with a population of about 40,000 near the Ketel Lake and Marker Lake that arose when land was reclaimed in the former Zuiderzee after it was closed from the North Sea through the Afsluitdijk connecting the province of North Holland with the province of Friesland.
One of my favourite places there is De Meerpaal, a superb centre for the arts that sits right next to the excellent public library. The wide flatter-than-flat polder landscape around Dronten is fantastic for running and I hope to meet up with this year's national women's marathon masters champion who lives there.
I can run to several surrounding towns along the North American-style grid of roads and cycling paths. Not having cycled for six years now, I would jump on my roadbike there in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, it's too much hassle to bring it. I'll ride one of the 'regular' Dutch commuter bikes instead.
I love visiting the iconic Dutch stores that remain such as the HEMA, Kruidvat and de Albert Heyn. Nothing entertains me more than speaking the language without anyone batting an eyelid, as back home in Canada I get asked almost daily about " that accent".
I explored the importance of understanding our roots in From my Mother, my first novel. Based on a true story, I found that exploring parts of my family history as a fictional tale was easier, yet it also made me realize how much knowledge I have taken for granted; in other words, I thought I knew a whole lot more than I actually did.
Having just finished that book a month ago, I return home with a new perspective and I am looking forward to experiencing the thoughts and feelings that will accompany this visit. My first volume of poetry, Sunshine on a wooden floor, contains a poem I wrote in the train I took from Schiphol Airport to Lelystad, where my parents picked me up, three years ago.
I am in a state of minor despair, the state of restlessness and anxiety that seems to occur between book projects. It's not unlike the depression a runner feels after finishing a major goal race. It's hardly a disaster or hardship in the larger scheme of things but it's a period that can feel like a black hole nonetheless.
"Even if you ran a good race, you may feel depressed for a few weeks. Just as in postpartum depression, your 'baby' has reached the finish line and your long sought-after goal, around which your life revolved for months, has been achieved, leaving you feeling empty," write Bob Glover and Shelly-lynn Florence Glover in The Competitive Runner's Handbook (second revised edition).
Completing a book is a major project that requires focus and, I admit, a healthy dose of obsession. As I wrote in On gravity, I take my running very seriously. Yet it pales in comparison to the level of importance I assign to my efforts as a writer. I am without a doubt a running writer, rather than a writing runner.
Having just finished my first novel, From my Mother, the result of participating in the 2010 National Novel Writing Month a year ago, I believe this is the time I should be refuelling the creative well yet I have a hard time finding the patience to do so. As a writer, I should write. Always. I feel I don't have the luxury of time to take a break.
Yet November 1 arrived and, as planned, I began on NaNoWriMo, which is at Day 18. That novel's first draft should be at 30,000 words. Mine is not. The NaNoWriMo clock is ticking and my word count certainly isn't.
I have typed up well over 17,000 words in two abysmal starts to pathetic manuscripts on a topic I should know inside and out; the Sub-3 Marathon. It is about a runner who wants to run 42 kilometres and 195 metres in a second under three hours. The clock must stop at 2:59:59, or sooner. Why? Because. Just because she thinks she can.
The longer it takes, the more important it becomes; the importance lies in trying, in knowing that you are doing everything you can, rather than in achieving. It is what I live and breathe every day. You would think I have plenty to say, write, on the topic. That's what I figured too but it seems that I don't; call it writer's block if you will.
I believe in writer's Block as much as I believe in the runner's Wall; if you hit it, or if it hits you, you have done something wrong. It only exists if you let it. Not only is it preventable, there is a cure as well.
But at the moment I do feel blocked; nothing is coming out, no matter how hard I try. And I am trying hard—trust me. I feel that perhaps that is the core of the problem, that I am willing too hard, too much, too soon. My gut tells me I need to stop stressing and take a rest. Read, instead of willing myself to write which at the moment merely results in staring hopelessly at the screen, and impatiently rifling to an ever-increasing stack of books and notebooks on my desk.
I have combed most of my unfinished pieces of writing on my hard drive repeatedly, willing them to give me a sense of direction or at least a few more words to add to my NaNoWriMo word count. I've written and published two books in the past 12 months. Perhaps I need to give in to the seemingly obvious need to refill the creative well.
But most of all, I need to keep writing, one piece at a time, as I have been doing every single day including most of this post, written in that state of frustration and despair three days ago. We can be hard on ourselves, choosing to focus on the lack of progress instead of the small steps we keep taking. I am reading and I am writing, just not the first draft of the novel I had in mind. And that's OK for now.
Training and racing are matters of gravity for the distance runner. Much the way writing is for the writer, running comes natural to the runner but it only comes easy after hard work and dedication.
The marathoner leaps and bounds along the rhythm that her body finds along the space-time continuum. As HG Wells wrote in The Time Machine, "There is no difference between time and any of the three dimensions of space except that our consciousness moves along it."
She moves between the force of attraction that draws her towards the centre of the earth and the suspension in the air as she brings forward her trailing leg, signalling to the other that its turn at the front is done. In that briefest of moments, as her body moves along, the runner is an astronaut on earth, relishing the illusion of momentary respite from the law that grounds us all.
The runner runs to escape what Abraham Maslow called the psychopathology of normality, referring to the fact that "most of us function most of the time on a level lower than that of self-actualization."
The runner's quest to improve is instinctive. It occurs as soon as she takes her first steps; she knows her body and her mind can do better -- instantly. She realizes her potential lies beyond the status quo as long as she is willing to take another step. And then another.
"When I became a runner, I stopped expecting anything for nothing. I discovered that I could just go so far (about one block) without training," wrote George Sheehan in This Running Life.
The runner's dance along the space-time continuum is always a delicate one, searching for the perfect balance as she trains on the edge; the edge of time, age, mental endurance and physical makeup. She aims to find the pinnacle of performance where she can reap the rewards for the years of training before the inevitable physical decline in maximum oxygen consumption, or VO2 max, and muscle mass outweighs the fitness and knowledge gained.
The runner knows she is the only one who can answer the most important questions; what will her genes allow her to do? Has she already squeezed out all that was possible, or is there more left? Will she ever finish a race thinking there is no more speed to gain? Miracles do happen. The mystery of performance, for anyone regardless of ability, is finding the level you are capable of, but first one has to discover the way to achieve it. Both are a matter of trial and error. And the utmost gravity.
Numbers seem to be the name of every runner's game. This runner has gained sixty-four seconds. In three years. After more than 10,000 kilometres of running. That is twenty-one seconds and 3,333 kilometres per year. Every second of speed has taken at least hundred and fifty-six kilometres of training, or about an average of sixty-four kilometres a week every week. Three-hundred and sixty-seven seconds still stand beside her and her ultimate goal: finishing a marathon in two-fifty-nine-fifty-nine. Forty-two consecutive kilometres trotted at four-fifteen per kilometre. She needs to run more. And she will.
Run every day of the week. This winter, a day will not pass without her feet feeling the New Balance REVlites, of which she now owns three pair. Not a day where she can switch off her runner's mind. Not a day without pushing her heart rate beyond 130 beats per minute. The decision to train for a marathon should never be taken lightly. It is a matter of gravity, growing in importance over her 16 years of running.
Some think of it as a matter of vanity. Surely, the only number the female runner is trying to improve, lower, is that on the scale. Her pursuit is fuelled by appearance, implying it is a shallow and unworthy one, according to those non-athletes who make it clear they do not have the time to waste on such immaterial matters.
The athlete has no choice but to assign to her running the highest level of importance. She studies the sport, though most of all studies her body and mind, and how they respond to the demands of marathon training. By now, there is no guidance she can trust better than her own on who she is as an athlete and a competitor. She searches relentlessly for the training schedule that suits her temperament and her current state as a runner. A runner continually evolves as does her running. It takes a lot of training to maintain the status quo of high fitness.
The better the shape of the runner the more it takes to improve it, and the less it takes to lose it; injury, sickness, time constraints, mental weakness or distraction. Sometimes a loss of courage, a loss of hope. A distance runner must be an optimist who can never lose sight of that most subjective of matters, potential. They have to look on the bright side of their personal records, always expecting to be able to better them. They will never win the battle if they lose their conviction that their potential lies beyond their achievements.
Running is religion, a belief the runner follows strictly, without wavering. A runner striving to better her best performance must sustain an absolute conviction she can do better than she has done so far, no matter what. If she loses the conviction, she has found her limits. So she believes, including in the decisions she makes. So many variables, so many choices. There are no hard and fast rules; there is only hard and fast training, with enough recovery and rest to allow the stressed body and mind to recover enough to improve to the next level.
It's been exactly four decades since the first two women broke the magical 3-hour barrier that this runner is aiming for. The fastest has broken it by nearly 45 minutes. But it remains unchartered territory for most. Even falling short of this magical barrier by 6 minutes and 7 seconds, this runner may end 2011 with three times among the year's top 100 women's overall Marathon Canada rankings. This runner believes her potential lies on the other side of three hours. It's only a matter of time. And the utmost gravity.
Sometimes we will ourselves to keep pushing forward, impatient to take the time to let our progress follow its own schedule. We ignore the warning signs that, at first subtly then slowly but surely, swell to a crescendo, indicating that it is time to rest before we push on.
In running, rest is crucial to progress. Training works by stressing the body but you cannot keep stressing it without giving it a chance to recover. The body needs to absorb the training before it can improve its performance. If you keep pushing relentlessly, harder and harder, your body will break down, through injury or illness, forcing you to take the break you refused to give it.
This is the case in writing too, something I am still learning. A writer cannot keep squeezing the words from her soul without rest after a major build-up and race, i.e. the drafting, revising and publishing of a book. Each one takes a mental and physical effort that strengthens the writer but only if he takes the time to absorb what he has learned through a break.
In writing a break may be physical, i.e. no writing, though I find it hard not to write at all. I prefer to write short pieces, such as for this blog. While their creation takes mental effort, it is a small and manageable one compared to the gigantic process that is involved in writing a book.
After finishing A Hundred Reasons to Run 100km earlier this year, I needed a lot of courage, read mental energy, to take on and complete the revisions for my first novel, From my Mother.
My self-imposed deadline was October, which meant finishing the revisions, proofing and entire publication process of a paperback and e-book at about the same time I was getting ready to run my second A-race of 2011, the Bellingham Bay Marathon on Sept. 25 (followed by the Victoria Marathon two weeks later, and the Whistler 50-mile Ultra last Saturday).
I was running my highest volume ever, covering up to 140 kilometres in seven days. Consistent marathon training takes up a lot of energy, not just physically but also mentally. While running inspires my writing, and I apply many lessons from my running to drive my writing, it can be a fine line.
As Tim Noakes writes in Lore of Running, "While gentle running enhances a person's productivity and creativity, too much training has the opposite effect ... Training burns up creative energy, leaving little space for other intellectual matters."
Runners, at any level, committed to pushing themselves to lift their performance need a sizeable amount of daily courage to sustain the consistency in their training. Regardless of how much you love to run, and I absolutely love running, you face an almost-daily challenge to head out the door, particularly in the final six weeks before a marathon.
Finishing and publishing my first work of fiction during that same time demanded plenty of courage too. It was a rollercoaster that sent me to peaks of confidence before roaring back down into the abyss of self-doubt on a daily basis.
Elizabeth George writes in Write Away; One Novelist's Approach to Fiction and the Writing Life, "Committing to writing is placing yourself in a highly exposed position. Once your novel is written and published, you are at the mercy of the critics, the readers, your fellow writers, your family, your friends, and your former colleagues. It's truly a case of if-you-can't-stand-the-heat, and frequently the creation and publication of a novel become rife with stress and tension."
Just to be clear, this is not a woe-is-me post. But I believe it helps explain Days 7, 8 & 9 of National Novel Writing Month. Day 5 coincided with my 50-mile race, as mentioned in an earlier post. It was an awesome but tiring event. I began Day 6 a day behind but finished it with a total of 8,372 words by completing 1,687 that day at the Come Write-In in the Squamish Public Library.
On Day 7, I managed another 1,487 for a total of 9,859 but they didn't come easy. That number didn't change on Day 8 as I lost the plot (pun intended). Completely. Yesterday I squeezed another 543 words out in utter despair but felt physically ill by the end of the day.
During a total of 10,402 words I had allowed two characters to die from cancer, the protagonist's dad and daughter, and had her husband shoot himself in their kitchen after she told him she wanted to aim for the marathon world record in the women's 60-64 division.
Those three deaths also killed off my ability to continue on this story, so I have decided to start from scratch on Day 10 and write 50,000 words about the same topic (Sub-3 Marathon), hopefully still by the end of the month, but through a narrative that's a little closer to home. The one I had set out to do simply turned out to require more mental energy than I have right now.
"I suggest that for three months you should do little or no running but concentrate on other non-weight-bearing activities, such as swimming, cycling, or working out in the gym. This allows the weight-bearing function of your legs to recover. Once that has happened and your legs again feel light and springy, you can consider returning to running training."
"The ultramarathon may be the most exciting challenge you ever undertake in your running career. But it is a demanding event that can leave deep scars, equal to the great moment it bestows. Treat this race with respect and it will reward you in ways perhaps unequalled by any other race. But if you abuse it, it may bit back—if not immediately, perhaps some time in the future."
I am very aware, my body reminds me with every move I make, that I've broken the race recovery rules in the past six weeks, running a 3:09 and 3:06 (PB) marathon within two weeks of each other followed by the 50-miler four weeks later.
I think it's time to dust off my bike and jump on the wind trainer in the next couple of weeks to aid recovery and prepare my body for starting my 2012 Vancouver marathon training program in four to six weeks from now.
Day 5. Zero words typed. But 50 miles run at the superb Whistler 50 Relay and Ultra (highly recommend this race, whether solo or in a relay as a team).
Day 6. NaNoWriMo write-in at the Squamish library. Met two very interesting NaNoWriMos. Wrote 1,687 words. So I am now at a total of 8,367, or one day behind. I expect to make up the deficit in the next couple of days.
I woke up a couple of minutes before 6am after a sound night's sleep. In 24 hours we'll be on the startline of the Whistler 50 Ultra. In the darkness I realized I had yet to pack my headlight.
Our visitor from Australia, Dessie, has already packed his gear, using a transition bag from one of his Ironmans when Minolta was still a sponsor (I think going back to 2001 when Germany's Normann Stadler and Canada's Lori Bowden won the Ironman Australia event).
My nutrition bag is ready. It has 4 Powerbar energy bars, 9 gels of the same brand, a Snickers and a bag of Twizzlers. I've also thrown in 6 Hammer electrolyte tablets. A can of Red Bull might be added, too.
The weather forecast for Saturday has changed over the past week and it's looking good, if a bit chilly. The forecast high is 1 degree, with an expected low of minus 4. Whistler Village received a layer of snow this week but I hope the course will be mostly clear come tomorrow.
The last month since the Victoria Marathon seems to have flown by. Tim and I each got a total of 4 easy runs in, all around 30 minutes. Daily walks were part of my routine, and I felt those were plenty after my two marathons in the past six weeks.
I am planning to race as hard as I can on the day tomorrow, and am expecting to feel great. Having said that, finishing is not the main goal should I find that my body hasn't recovered enough from the Bellingham Bay and Victoria marathons. For me, the Whistler 50 is a bonus race; since the start of the year I had hoped to be able to do it after the two marathons.
As always, I have various time goals. My conservative goal is to finish sub-8 hours, and based on reaching the 79km mark in 8:03 in the 100km I did a year ago that should be realistic (famous last pre-ultra words). My dream goal is to cross the line in sub-7, which calls for a pace of at least 5:12 per km or 8:22 per mile.
Most likely, it will be somewhere in between.
Since there will be no kilometre or mile markers, locking into the right pace will have to be done by feel unless you opt for a Garmin. While I have one, I am not planning to wear it tomorrow at this stage.
I'll also wear a thermal long-sleeve top, with a vest on top in the early hours, a hat and gloves. In terms of shoes, with a course on hard-packed trails and roads, my New Balance REVlite 890s should do the trick.
I'll put a spare shirt, gloves, socks and pair of shoes in my drop bag, too. While there's only a 30 percent chance of rain, I'll waterproof the drop bag.
My iPod is coming too, with the same selection of music I used as in the 100km a year ago. I plan to save it for the last two laps.
We're all excited about racing the first edition of the Whistler 50 Relay and Ultra tomorrow.
A first for both Tim and Dessie in terms of distance, Dessie particularly liked one line in the Ultra Race Rules, another first in his nearly four decades of racing: "If the runner decides to drop out, it is MANDATORY that race management be informed of this decision, otherwise we will assume the runner is lost or eaten by a bear and will be searching for you."
Once we have faced our fear and begun to write, we step up to the plateau of frustration. Fear followed by frustration is the essence of writerly despair.
My head doesn't seem to be in the right place at the moment. Struggle is the word that sums up the past two NaNoWriMo days for me. To stay on track for completing the 50,000-word goal this month, I need to write 1,667 words a day.
Yesterday I had a very tough time and ended Day 2 at a total of 3,307, so 27 words short. Today is even harder. I just cannot seem to get into the story. Now, at 4,585 words I still need another 400 to complete the goal for the day.
Tim reminded me that I had a hard time in the first week of NaNoWriMo last year. Perhaps, I don't recall. That month is a bit of a blur, what with a 100km race on top of the writing challenge. I just remember that I made it through both, and that those 50,000 words became a novel. Somehow it doesn't seem to make this one any easier.
In fact, it might even seem harder as I now have expectations that it will become another, and of course better, novel. Perhaps that vision explains my struggle, judgement before first draft kills productivity.
I don't want to finish the day short, as I am running another ultra on Saturday. With a 3:15am alarm, and returning only at night, I doubt I'll find the energy to create 1,667 words that day, which means I'll have to catch up the next.
I've been considering abandoning the current idea for Sub-3 Marathon and changing to a different one. But that means I'd have to write 5,000 words today to stay on track. I'm not sure if that's the way to go either. I've been combing unfinished pieces of writing hanging out on my hard drive to find inspiration to drive the idea I am struggling with forward.
Often all an endeavour needs is a change of mind, a Can-Do attitude. In Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life, Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander write that the notion of possibility is empowering and transformative if we choose to adopt it.
The frames our minds create define – and confine – what we perceive to be possible. Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a particular frame or point of view. Enlarge the box, or create another frame around the data, and problems vanish, while new opportunities appear.
Today I received the first official review for my novel From my Mother, a 5-star rating by Readers Favorite. According to Readers Favorite, 5 (out of 5) stars means that "this is an excellent, very well written book."
Over the duration of a 100 km marathon, Nadia reflects on the life of her Oma (grandma), the hardships her loved one endured and the impact it made on the way she lived.
Miles pass under Nadia's feet, her goal is merely to reach the finish line, not necessarily to win . . . for accomplishing the goal is a victory in her book. It allows her time to dwell on her family's history, dig deep into the root and the result, pull tidbits of clues and join them together to create a full picture of those things that had been so vague.
Oma is cranky, to say the least, at her age. She lives in an apartment in a senior complex, having moved from a house she rented for many years. Paranoia (probably from the trials she faced in her younger years) has set in heavily. The local police are on speed dial as she frequently lodges complaints against her son-in-law, who she feels is surely trying to get her out of the way so he can have her inheritance. Of course, this is not the case and those around her try to be patient and understanding.
Nadia's journey of 100km is one in which her physical strength is pushed but also her heart and mind.
It was not difficult to get wrapped up in this story, feeling the ups and downs both in the race and in Nadia's life. It brings to mind that, as stated in the book, our feet may be busy but our minds are still free. I loved that! I highly recommend this book to everyone, especially those who are into marathons and so on.
I wrote the first draft for From my Mother during National Novel Writing Month 2010. Read excerpts of the novel here.
The start of NaNoWriMo feels like a mammoth task. It's a bit like starting a marathon or an ultra without course markers; you can take any road just as long as you go the incredibly long, yet doable, distance of 50,000 words this month.
Waking up just before 6am, I got up 10 minutes later. With a pot of fresh coffee, I headed to my desk, checked my emails, facebook and a couple of other sites until I no longer had a virtual excuse to postpone beginning on NaNoWriMo.
It felt like a tough start. Suddenly, I felt completely not ready and unprepared. So many choices, too much freedom. Do I stick to the plan, my idea, or do something else?
I began second-guessing the story, only to realize how little I really knew about my characters and plot. Or, to be more specific, I questioned whether I even had either one. Words weren't coming easy, and hitting the recount button didn't make them flow any faster.
The good thing about NaNoWriMo is that you need to stay on track for the daily average word count. So I reminded myself that was the main thing I needed to focus on: quantity. I don't stop until I hit my daily average. It's the secret to NaNoWriMo's success because the freedom that comes with worrying about quantity alone works in that it leads to output.
I typed, and typed some more, until I hit 1,668 words.
For now, I discovered that the protagonist Robin has a daughter named Isa, who is recovering from breast cancer and convinced her to train for the Vancouver Marathon together.
Robin's husband doesn't like change, which includes his wife suddenly becoming a distance runner.
Robin has two brothers, both All American baseball players, to the disappointment of their dad who had a chance of making the Olympic marathon team before a bout of polio ended that dream. He later recovered enough to run a 2:37 marathon at the age of 52.
Her dad never encouraged Robin to run as a teenager, not surprising, as the 1960s wasn't an era when women did.


Holiday- Tuesday - Feb 28 - Carnival: So you're considering going on a Carnival cruise! Here are some useful tips that are certain to help you spare cash and make the most of your cruise without bounds! These 7 cruise tips for Carnival cruises are ensured to augment your cruise understanding.
Cruise Tip #1 - Book your next cruise while still on board the ship. Carnival cruises will ordinarily offer awesome motivating forces and rebates when you exploit this offer. Many boats will have a specialist on board to serve you with noteworthy reserve funds and credits to travelers who exploit this awesome alternative. You generally have the alternative to modify or cross out the reservation if your arrangements happen to change. Carnival cruises will permit you to adjust the reservation with no punishment on the off chance that it is done 75-90 days ahead of time of your date of sail. On the off chance that you can't exploit booking while on the ship, timing is urgent in getting the best cost off board. The most ideal approach to get marked down evaluating on cruises is to either book far ahead of time or else exploit a minute ago arrangements. The further ahead of time you can book your cruise, the less expensive it will be. Carnival cruises likewise dependably incline toward their boats to be full, so they offer remarkable rebates and motivating forces accessible a minute ago. This is a superb choice in the event that you live close to a cruise port or have an adaptable timetable.
Cruise Tip #2 - Try to avoid the clubhouse and betting zones, and in addition different costs that are not shrouded in your cruise charge. Carnival cruises are quite great about being comprehensive, however many boats don't have betting as a taken care of expense. Attempt to overlook the allurement, as the boats are regularly intended to attract you with this additional cost. Adhere to the exercises that are as of now covered...such as films, cooking classes or different showings. There are a lot of free choices that will keep you occupied and engaged. Numerous Carnival cruises will offer extraordinary choices, for example, wine sampling as a quality contrasting option to betting.
Cruise Tip #3 - Always pay for your tips ahead of time when Carnival cruise offers you this alternative. Numerous specialists in the cruise business discuss this top to bottom. It's standard for most cruise lines to pay tips to the group, and commonly this is done the most recent night. In any case, on the off chance that you have the choice to include it into your underlying cost, exploit it! This is an awesome planning instrument since it gets this cost off the beaten path early and will help you to ensure you remain inside your assigned spending sum.
Cruise Tip #4 - Be brave! Have a go at investigating a port all alone rather than paying for a costly on shore outing. You'll be flabbergasted at the amount more you can submerge yourself in the way of life and feel of the place in the event that you just remain open to what you may find all alone. You can likewise battle for yourself when you're on shore and book your own particular visits! On the off chance that you incline toward a guided visit or experience, have a go at booking straightforwardly through a seller upon your entry as you will skirt the cruise lines costly increase. Carnival cruises profit on these day trips from different ports. In the event that you book your day trip at the genuine port specifically through a seller, you will make certain to skirt the swelled cruise cost advertised. Numerous mainstream choices, for example, nature visits, tequila tasting and privateer visits are accessible to anybody, not simply cruise clients. It's truly simple to book these journeys all alone!
Cruise Tip #5 - You can have your back rub and not pay far too much for it. Ask with the on-board spa on the off chance that it offers day port specials. Numerous Carnival cruise ships offer this choice. Cruise Diva creator Linda Coffman prescribes this choice as back rubs can be expensive. Be that as it may, spas on load up here and there battle to pull in clients when the pontoon is ported, and will offer great rebates to the individuals who exploit port days. If its all the same to you missing some of your time shorewards, investigate this alternative. Another approach to exploit spa offices is to discover which spa solaces are free and utilize them however much as could reasonably be expected. Quite a bit of this data is not broadcasted and can be truly helpful in the event that you'll just inquire! Numerous Carnival cruise ships have free saunas, steam rooms and bear in mind the pool! You will more often than not have entry to the practice hardware too. Inquire as to whether your Carnival cruise offers complimentary practice classes or facials all through the cruise.
Cruise Tip #6 - If you jump at the chance to share in mixed refreshments, pack your own particular alcohol! Bringing your own particular liquor might be debilitated, yet most Carnival cruises will permit you to bring it on board. Costs on the ship are radically expanded, also the tip expense we as of now talked about being included, and the alcohol you purchase at obligation free should be put aside till the trek is over. That being stated, on the off chance that you plan to drink, you ought to exploit whatever remittance you can bring on board. Free beverages are now and again distributed at occasions like the commander's inviting gathering or the cruiser's arrival party. Ensure you know when these occasions are and make great utilization of them. Additionally, on the off chance that you do drink at dinners, you can stay away from the corkage expense by requesting room administration or taking the nourishment back to your room.
Cruise Tip #7 - Stay submitted! You've gotten your work done and realize that Carnival cruise suits your necessities. Presently ensure you're remunerated for remaining to focused on a similar line. On the off chance that you do, you can regularly get expansive rebates for client faithfulness. After you're on the mailing list you'll have the capacity to exploit disounted rates on cruises, and you'll get unique offers and livens, including on board credits and free on board dinner overhauls.
It's not hard to see the interest of taking a cruise for your next excursion. We know these cruise tips for Carnival cruises will help you spare so much cash that you can undoubtedly control your expenses and keep on cruising for quite a long time to come!


February 21-23, the BC Patient Safety & Quality Council is hosting its annual Quality Forum. The three-day conference allocates the first day to full-day sessions that "dive deep" into timely topics, as well as an evening Health Talks event. The following two days feature the Quality Forum's main programming: plenary speakers, presentations and interactive workshops on topics related to improving quality across the continuum of care.


We're already major fans of Chrissy Teigen's cool-girl style. But where does she house all of her perfect clothes and accessories? In a perfect closet, of course. The Coveteur just released pics of Chrissy's Los Angeles–based home, filled with everything you imagined—beautiful leather jackets, rad sunglasses (she can't get enough of her shades from Oliver Peoples), gorgeous bags, and shoes, shoes, and more shoes.
Check out all the images here, or scroll below to scope out a few of our favourite snaps.
What do you think of Chrissy's closet? Sound off in the comments below. And don't forget to shop her closet too with The Coveteur!


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Israel And Defining Anti-Semitism
In response to an Irish Times editorial on the British Labour Party's anti-Semitism controversy A damaging, hurtful battle, (published Monday September 10th), the Ireland Israel Alliance offered a counterbalanced view, (published Wednesday September 12th), and reproduced here.
The issue of contemporary racism surrounding the British Labour Party's decision to accept the full IHRA definition of anti-Semitism certainly resonates beyond Britain but to say that much of it is directed against Muslims and people of colour rather than Jews is avoiding the very real issue surrounding this whole war of words.
It should be remembered that Israel was not created as a response to the Nazi genocide. The initial immigration of Jewish refugees to Palestine began in 1882, with a second wave returning just prior to the First World War, both as a direct result of vicious persecution.
Anti-Semitism is growing again within Europe and Jews are genuinely concerned and, in many cases, deeply worried. Worried enough, that many have already packed their bags, grateful they have a home they can call Israel.
It is unfair to suggest that the current right-wing government relies on "West Bank settler parties" to stay in power. Israel is a multi-ethnic and diverse society. Its Jews have returned from places as far afield as Russia, India, Ethiopia, Iran, South America, Europe and the U.S., to name but a few, and like all liberal, democratic societies its voter affiliations cover a very wide spectrum.
While there is much fatigue within Israel at Netanyahu's leadership, on issues of national security, Israelis feel that nobody else appears able to take on the challenge of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, who openly seek the destruction of this tiny state, similar in size to Leinster.
Indeed, it is not anti-Semitic to criticise Israel. Israelis spend an inordinate amount of time criticising their own government policy. What is anti-Semitic however, is denying the right of Jews to live collectively in their ancient homeland with the same rights as everyone else, and to describe the circumstances around its foundation as racist.
by Jackie Goodall