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Tag Archives: fan fiction
From the pinnacle to the pit
I heard you were a poet. But a poet of no words? (Shakespeare in Love)
As a writer it's always strange when you find yourself unable to express something verbally. It's as if your go-to toolbox has been misplaced. As if the screwdriver that worked fine yesterday no longer fits.
My stories are emotional turmoil processed by time and structured by hindsight. I can seldom express anything if the impact is too recent – like now. I sit here trying to verbalise yesterday's experience at a Ghost concert, but I'm strangled by too much… something (can't even find an appropriate noun).
Me nineteen years ago. Strangely prophetic.
To describe this concert, I have to borrow from myself. Last summer I wrote some fan fiction because the new album totally fucked me up, and those words still ring truer than anything I could write today.
The lights explode into being, like the first day all over again: it's the parting of light from darkness and the celestial dance that started then and hasn't slowed down since. The music soars, guitars and keys and drums and bass, and the light splashes on Special where he crowns the stage, ghastly and glorious. As the auditorium erupts in screams, he holds his arms out to them, embracing them all. He's a beacon of darkness, a charity for the hopeless. And when his voice resounds through the air, it's a sizzle down Papa's neck. Special isn't just singing, he's pulling his soul out with an iron fist, ripping his heart from its cage and holding it aloft, dripping darkly, like a sacrifice.
Papa shudders in equal parts horror and euphoria. He's never seen him in action, never witnessed the transformation from flesh to flame. From the back, Special looks like the incarnation of Papa's every desire. The shafts of light cut themselves on his dark silhouette. A platitude comes to mind – that the smallest light can banish any darkness. Well, look at this. You can shine the brightest lamp, but it only takes one man to stand in front of it and cover the world with his shadow. Everywhere he goes, the spots follow him and are devoured. Where he plants his feet, he slices through the beams. Nothing can get past him.
Special pauses in his singing, holding the microphone to his chest and staring out at the crowd. He knows. He feels it too. What Papa and he only dreamed of, what they planned but didn't see the full scope of – it's now conceived. It's born and growing in the world. When the masses out there open their throats in praise, when they sing Special's words back at him, it's more than an invocation. It's the realization of the impossible. A sea of lonely creatures coming together, truly coming together for one purpose. Yes, they talked about the dominion of the world, of an infernal new era, but this is that era not only nascent but adolescent. Special has become a demi-god. He has them in his fist, and they're delirious to be so trapped.
(Scriptures of Abundance on AO3, enter at own risk
– it's adult and blasphemous and bloody)
So… yeah. Ghost. Six years ago we saw them in a small venue closer to home, we stood ten metres from Papa and could have touched him. Last night we squinted at a tiny figure on the other side of a hall in Stockholm. Bigger, more lavish backdrop, bigger better lights. Everything turned up to eleven. From a perfect seed, this perfect flower. Two and a half hours of musical generosity. The heat of flames in an unapologetic celebration of life and death.
There's nothing like lyrics about death to make you feel alive. When an entire hall sings "While you sleep in earthly delight, someone's flesh is rotting tonight" it kind of makes you realise that no one in there is dead. For all our collective romanticising of the Grim Reaper, every one of us is still here, still on this earth – but we won't always be. And isn't that one of art's ultimate goals? To make you feel alive and mortal, to make you grab what you have in the moment because the moment is all you have?
But it's so goddamn lopsided. Yes, you can sing your throat raw and clap and scream and even write gushy fan letters if you're so inclined, but in the end the communication is very one-way. I wish there was some way to reciprocate, you know? As I expressed it to my husband, "I feel like a dog that tries to lick your face when you pet it, just because it wants to give something back." To which he replied, "Oh, okay, like – yes, hello Tobias? My wife wants to lick your face."
Which is only half true!
It's just… you want to convey that age-old fan feeling that a piece of art makes an actual, concrete difference in your life. That your soul would be less without it. That when a fictional stage character tells 14 000 people he can see through the scars inside them, you feel personally addressed. That you can hear something quintessentially Swedish in the music and it makes you ridiculously proud. And that when he uses Neil Peart's phrase "plateau of untouchable" in an interview, you want to shout, "Yes! I can quote the entirety of Beyond the Lighted Stage too!"
But today, of course, I'm crashing. A "See Naples and die" feeling. The post-gig blues from hell – literally. Questions about what I'm doing with my life, why I'm not in a place where I feel as limitless as I did during Faith or Year Zero.
The euphoria of last night is a blue memory now, a thing of the past, something that almost never happened. Now there's just us and the desolate waste and the rest of our lives, and nothing but our own hands and minds to till the land we don't recognize. No authorities, no one to go crying to. No one to tell us what to do. What you can't make for yourself you'll never have.
That was always the message, wasn't it?
But now it's true, now it's here. This is reality now. The dance is our own. We invent the steps even as we tread the ground, even as we test the firmness of earth that may give way at every turn.
You're the conductor now.
(Before and After on AO3)
As the cardinal would have it, "this is the moment of just letting go."
But I can't let go, and so what remains but to engage in some symbolic consumption in the online merch shop?
This entry was posted in THINGS I LIKED and tagged a pale tour named death, fan fiction, ghost, globen, prequelle, stockholm, tobias forge on February 24, 2019 by Ingela Bohm.
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Vampire junk journal


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Gwent set to bask in the sunshine - for a few days at least
By Andy Rutherford
There will be plenty of time for basking in the sun in Gwent during the next few days, according to the Met Office
SUMMER has been reluctant to show its best side recently - but the sun is set to shine on Gwent for much of the next three days.
After the soggy if humid start to the week, things are set to dry out very quickly, with the current cloud cover gradually lifting throughout today.
According to the Met Office forecast, Gwent and the rest of south Wales are set for a very pleasant, sunny evening, with the temperature set to....
And that is a precursor to plenty of sunshine tomorrow, Friday and Saturday.
Temperatures in Newport are set to reach 23-24C during the afternoon over these next three days, and further inland - in places such as Pontypool, Abergavenny and Monmouth - the top temperature might be a degree or two higher.
Crucially though, there will be plenty of unbroken sunshine to soak up, particularly tomorrow and Friday and while a little more cloud may be evident on Saturday, it is still set to be a lovely, largely sunny day.
Make the most of the next three days' sunshine however, for the forecast is for temperatures to dip back to around 18C from Sunday, with the sun disappearing behind the clouds again.
Newport drug boss jailed for 22 years over dad's 'horrific and cruel' killing
Caerleon campus sold to housing developer for more than £6million
Newport workers call for reform of 'completely unreasonable' parking restrictions in some areas of the city
More than 1,500 parking tickets have been issued in Newport in just over two weeks
Leaked email from Caerphilly council leader warns of 'high impact' cuts to cover cost of leisure centre legal challenge
Cwmbran High School's governing body could be removed over 'insufficient progress'
'Professional' thief jailed after stealing designer goods during brazen shoplifting spree
Taxi was 'deliberately set on fire' in Newport street
Stargazers prepare for partial lunar eclipse visible from Gwent - weather permitting - tonight

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


We'd love your help. Let us know what's wrong with this preview of Master of Paxwax by Phillip Mann.
The first of four parts of a far-future drama of revenge and tragedy, involving a huge cast of humans and aliens. Seeking to bring about the fall of the autocratic, decadent, human galactic empire, the aliens manipulate Pawl Paxwax, second son of one of the eleven dynastic human families.
To ask other readers questions about Master of Paxwax, please sign up.
This classic science-fiction tale has now been reprinted and rereleased in the New Zealand market - and thanks to Booksellers NZ, found its way into my reading pile. Now, I do not normally read science fiction, favouring fantasy, but as the synopsis sounded somewhat like a space opera, I figured it was worth reading.
Highly enjoyable, highly original, with plenty of complex political wrangling, alliances and enemies. At the centre of it all, young Pawl Paxwax, suddenly summoned back to This classic science-fiction tale has now been reprinted and rereleased in the New Zealand market - and thanks to Booksellers NZ, found its way into my reading pile. Now, I do not normally read science fiction, favouring fantasy, but as the synopsis sounded somewhat like a space opera, I figured it was worth reading.
Highly enjoyable, highly original, with plenty of complex political wrangling, alliances and enemies. At the centre of it all, young Pawl Paxwax, suddenly summoned back to his home planet following the death of his younger brother. Suddenly he finds himself heir of the estate, and a freak accident adds further complications to his plans for marriage and a simple life.
The alien races are truly that - alien. Never described in too indepth detail, creatures like Odin and the spiderings populate the story, adding a fantastical, and slightly frightening, element. Compounded with that are the various deformations suffered by the mostly-humans. Pawl, for example, is hunched and disfigured, another bears a ruff of feathers and most seem to suffer from some sort of physical malady. Truly, Mann has brought these (slightly demented) otherworlds to life.
It was a joy to sail through and the colourful characters made it a fun, even though at time precarious, journey.
Though immediately sold to Pawls plight, I was left feeling not particularly emotionally connected to it, nor was there emotional pay off for me.
However, I'm looking forward to continuing onto the sequel.
Phillip Mann was born in 1942 and studied English and Drama at Manchester University and later in California. He worked in the New China News Agency in Beijing for two years but has lived in New Zealand since 1969, working as a theatre critic, drama teacher and university Reader in Drama.


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Hartford In The Civil War
Hartford soldiers and notable citizens and their contributions to the War of the Rebellion
Cedar Hill Cemetery
1841 Tanner Atlas
Irish Bend
Hartford Cemeteries
Beth Israel
Holy Trinity Cemetery
Mount St. Benedict Cemetery
Old North Cemetery
Spring Grove Cemetery
St. Patrick Cemetery
Zion Hill Cemetery
March 16, 2016 by HartCivWar
Harriet Foote Hawley: Saving Captain Tourtellotte
Jerome Tourtellotte, 1875 (Photo: Connecticut State Library, Picture Group 540)
In the first assault on Fort Wagner on Morris Island, SC, Captain Jerome Tourtellotte (Co. K, 7th Connecticut), was wounded while aiding one of his enlisted men, receiving "an old-fashioned musket ball and three buckshot" just below the knee. After four days in a Charleston guard house he was sent to a hospital at the South Carolina College where he was able to persuade a surgeon (with a "rankly Southern sympathy") not to amputate his badly infected leg. After a few weeks there ,with "fair surgical treatment," he was able to maneuver around on crutches and was sent to the Richland County Jail in Columbia, joining fellow 7th Connecticut officers Captain Val Chamberlain and Lieutenants William E. Phillips and Elmer Jordan. [1] Expecting to be released in a few weeks, Tourtellotte sold his cavalry boots to a guard for $125 to buy fruit for his comrades. His timing could not have been worse.
We ate up the boots in one day and I went barefoot for eighteen months. [1]
In May of 1863, the Confederate Congress passed legislation supporting Jefferson Davis's earlier proclamation that captured African-American Union soldiers would not be included in prisoner exchanges. In July, President Lincoln issued General Orders 252 which suspended the release of Confederate soldiers until the rebellious states began treating black prisoners the same as white. While most of the enlisted men of the 7th Connecticut captured at Fort Wagner were released within a month, all prisoner exchanges ceased at about the time Tourtellotte would have been paroled.
Harriet Foote Hawley (Photo: History of the Seventh Connecticut Volunteer Infantry)
While communications out of the prison were sporadic and sparse, the well-being of the imprisoned officers weighed heavy on their fellow comrades and especially on their Colonel's wife, Harriet Foote Hawley. In January of 1865 she wrote to one of the imprisoned officers – most likely Captain Chamberlain – that word had reached them about Captain Tourtellotte's ill health. Hattie Hawley took a very personal interest in all of her husband's men and concern for these prisoners made her feel "perfectly desperate." Working at the time as a nurse at Armory Square Hospital in Washington, DC, Mrs. Hawley took it upon herself to personally visit Connecticut Senator Lafayette Foster and the Secretary of the Navy – and Connecticut native – Gideon Welles to ask for any help they could give. They promised to do what they could "'tho 'official exchanges' are made with great difficulty." If need be, she was prepared to go directly to President Lincoln – "I won't give up 'till I am successful." [2]
Though small in stature – at just 5 feet in height – this "little lady" knew how to get things done. On January 11 she received word that Secretary of War Edwin Stanton had placed the names of all four of the 7th's officers on the list for special exchange. On March 1, 1865, Jerome Tourtellotte passed into Union lines a few miles north of Wilmington, NC.
At the war's end, Jerome Tourtellotte went first to work in Cranston, RI then returned to Putnam in 1874 where he became a successful businessman and banker. He represented his house district in the Connecticut General Assembly from 1875 to 1881. He was the last surviving veteran of the Seventh Connecticut. [3]
Harriet Hawley continued to serve "her boys" after the war by assisting her husband with the numerous pension requests he received while serving as a Connecticut Senator in Washington, DC. We'll leave how she was honored at her death in 1886 by Connecticut's veterans for a future blog article.
[1] Tourtellotte, Jerome. A history of company K of the Seventh Connecticut Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War. 1910.
[2] Hawley, Harriet Foote. Letter dated January 9, 1865, Armory Square Hospital, Washington, D.C.
[3] Col. Tourtelotte [sic] Dies at His Home. Hartford Courant, January 4, 1926, pg. 11.
March 9, 2016 by HartCivWar
Rob & Sophie: A Civil War Love Story
Few, if any of Hartford's citizens would avoid being touched in some way by the carnage and resulting sorrow of the Civil War. Newspaper articles appeared almost daily describing the brutal battles and listing the wounded, killed and missing from Connecticut regiments. The bitter reality of the War of Rebellion was that the brightest young men lost their lives and young, vibrant women lost their lovers. The bucolic, rural enclave of Nook Farm did not escape that fate.
Robert Gillette, 1864. Courtesy of Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. Used with permission.
Although unable to serve in the army due to ill health, Nook Farm resident Robert "Rob" Gillette was able to join the Navy and eventually became an acting paymaster on the U. S. S. Gettysburg. The Gettysburg was a part of Commander David D. Porter's fleet that, combined with Connecticut's own Brigadier General Alfred H. Terry army, lay siege on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, "the last gateway between the Confederate States and the outside world." (1) Starting January 13, 1865, the Union gunships relentlessly fired on the garrison until its commander Colonel William Lamb was forced to surrender on January 15.
The Union victors commenced to celebrate their victory with as much fervor and energy as they had fought for it in an all-night celebration fueled by whiskey pilfered from the Confederates' medicinal stores. Cheers of victory ashore were answered by the ships at anchor with "rockets, lights of all colors, ringing of bells, steam whistles, and all sorts of unearthly noises." (2)
Paymaster Gillette received permission to go ashore the next day to experience the excitement for himself. Guards
Fort Fisher explosion. Harpers Weekly.
were posted at the fort's munitions magazines to prevent looting. Regrettably the largest of these, in which was stored an estimated six to seven tons of powder, went unguarded. Shortly after 8 o'clock in the morning of January 16, two drunken seamen entered this munitions store with torches blazing. The impact of the resultant explosion dismembered the men on top of and immediately adjacent to the magazine rendering their remains unidentifiable. Robert Gillette and another fellow officer from the Gettysburg were killed instantly by flying timbers that struck them where they stood 150 yards away.
Sophia Stoddard Gillette, 1873. Courtesy of Harriet Beecher Stowe Center. Used with permission.
Robert Gillette's body was returned to Hartford where he was mourned by his family and his beautiful fiancée Sophia Stoddard. Just before the mourners left his parent's Forest Street home for his burial in Farmington's Riverside Cemetery, Sophia was left alone for a long quiet time with her lover- quiet except for her deep sobs. (1)
Oh, but this war comes home to us now! (2)
The following year, Sophie married Robert Gillette's brother Edward but marriage was not a happy one and the pair were divorced in 1894. Despite this, the remaining Gillette siblings, Elisabeth "Lilly" Gillette Warner and the actor William Gillette, stayed close to Sophie.
Lilly Warner wrote to "dear sister" Sophie in 1899 to tell her of messages received from Robert by a medium employed by her aunt and Nook Farm neighbor Isabella Beecher Hooker. Lilly hoped Sophie would be comforted in knowing that Robert "loved her and her alone." He despaired of not having married her
but she will be mine – yes, she is mine – and in the spirit world will be my bride . . . and she will be as pure to me as in our first engagement.
The Gillettes honored Sophie's dying wish that she be interred near her beloved Robert. She was buried with a cherished and treasured memento of her lover – the photograph of her he carried with him throughout the war.
(1) Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative. Red River to Appomattox. New York: Vintage Books, 1986. Page 717.
(2) Ibid, page 746.
(3) Hooker, Isabella Beecher. Letter to Alice Hooker Day, January 27, 1865. Isabella Hooker Collection, Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, Connecticut.
(4) Warner, Elisabeth Gillette. Letter to Francis and Elisabeth Hooker Gillette, January 20, 1865. Gillette Collection, Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, Connecticut.
(5) Warner, Elisabeth Gillette. Letter to Sophia Stoddard Gillette, February 10, 1899. Gillette Collection, Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, Connecticut.
It becomes my painful duty to inform you: Capt. Oliver R. Post
Oliver R. Post (photo: Ancestry.com used by permission)
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Joseph R. Hawley, publisher of the Hartford Evening Press and a founding member of Hartford's Republican Party, organized the first company of citizen soldiers to enlist in Connecticut's volunteer army. In the summer of 1862, President Lincoln called on the nation for 300,000 more Union soldiers and Hawley's assistant editor Oliver R. Post answered the call. Post mustered into the 20th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry as a lieutenant on September 8, 1862 and was promoted to Company D as a captain the following February.
The men of the 20th Connecticut were seasoned battle veterans by the time they fought in the Battle of Peachtree Creek on July 20, 1864, the inaugural engagement of the Siege of Atlanta. Late in the afternoon they were relieved after four hours of grueling, front line combat by the 136th New York. They retreated to a second line after "having fired one hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition per man and after the muskets had become so foul from use as to be almost entirely unserviceable."
While his men were moving to the rear, Capt. Post returned to the front to retrieve some blankets he had left behind and was shot by a musket ball that nearly severed his sword belt. As he was moved to a divisional hospital in the rear, he implored his Lieutenant to "take good care of my boys." Post died of his wounds the following afternoon.
Capt. Ezra Sprague
The sorrowful duty of writing to Post's wife Mary fell to his friend and follow officer, Capt. Ezra Sprague.
Dear Madam: In compliance with the last request of my deeply regretted friend and comrade, it becomes my painful duty to inform you of the death of your husband.
Capt. Sprague went on to describe the battle scene and his last moments with her husband. He continued:
And thus has passed away another noble spirit, to be added to the thousands who have gone before, sacrificed upon the altar of Our Country. If aught can be offered as consolation in this, your hour of deep affliction, perhaps it may be that he died for his country while nobly performing his duty.
On the day of his death, most of the Union and Confederate dead were buried on the field of battle. The 20th Connecticut had Capt. Post's body embalmed and buried him in the graveyard of St. James Episcopal Church in Marietta. It was the intention of his fellow officers to have his body returned to his family in Connecticut in the fall. They then marched off to the Siege of Atlanta and were one of the first Union troops to enter the city after its surrender.
Capt.Post's gravesite Marietta National Cemetery (photo: Findagrave.com)
At the end of the war, Oliver Post's body remained in Georgia. In 1866, Henry Cole Greene, a Union loyalist and Marietta businessman, donated the land that is now known as the Marietta National Cemetery. Oliver Post's remains were re-interred there along with approximately 10,000 other Union soldiers who perished in nearby battles.
Though his ringing voice is no longer heard among us, and his pleasant smile, ready wit, and quick suggestion, are lost to us forever, yet he will march with us in memory until our bivouac fires of life are extinguished, and we go to meet him on the far-off shore. He died happy, assured that the future shone bright for him.
Read Capt. Sprague's letter to Mary Post here.
Official report of Philo B. Buckingham, Lt. Col., 20th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, to General Horace J. Morse, Adjutant General, State of Connecticut, August 6, 1864. Connecticut State Library RG 13.
Captain Ezra Sprague to Mary Holcomb Sprague, July 22, 1864 as reprinted in the Hartford Evening Press, August 2, 1864.
Record of service of Connecticut men in the army and navy of the United States during the War of the Rebellion. Hartford, Conn.: Press of Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., 1889.
May 3, 2015 by HartCivWar
In a far north section (19) of Cedar Hill Cemetery is a collection of single grave sites. Here lie, by chance or circumstance, the remains of men, women and children who do not rest surrounded by those of their family and loved ones.
Civil War veteran Nathan Leonard Cooper resided in Hartford only a few months before he died in 1909 at his stepson's Sisson Avenue house. Corporal Cooper served with the 112th New York Volunteers and was wounded in the leg in 1864 in the battle of New Market Heights, VA. He spent most of his life after the war as a carriage trimmer in Minnesota before coming with his 2nd wife to live with her son, then the pastor of St. Paul's Methodist Church. Census records show that the family, including his wife, returned to Minneapolis by 1920. [1] Resting near Cooper are the remains of George P. Langdon, a casualty of war even though his death occurred more 40 years after the end of the rebellion. Langdon served with Company C of the 20th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, one of the last Union regiments to retreat from the carnage of the Chancellorsville battlefield on May 3, 1863. Two months later the 20th found itself at Gettysburg enduring a grueling seven hours of combat on Culp's Hill. [2, 3]
Retreat for the Insane circa 1886
Langdon was discharged for disability on November 24, 1863 and within 6 months made application for a military pension.[2, 3] By 1866 his mother was appointed his conservator and he entered the Retreat for the Insane on Washington Street (now known as the Institute for Living) where he remained until his death on January 30, 1909.
By the accounts on file with Langdon's probate records, his material needs were met. After his mother's death in 1886 his sister Sarah Banks was appointed his conservator and under her direction his estate grew to almost $26,000 by the time of his death. And yet, he was buried in a solitary grave marked by a state-issued veteran's stone while his father and many siblings are buried in a family plot at Zion Hill Cemetery and his mother was buried next to his sister Janett Burns in her husband's family plot in Section 2 at Cedar Hill. One could conjecture that the stigma of mental illness, even when caused by the ravages of war, resulted in his burial apart from his family.
Though missing the lush trees and flowering shrubs found in other sections of Cedar Hill, a visit on the first Saturday of May found the ground surrounding these solitary graves strewn with a fresh growth of wild Forget-Me-Nots. It is the purpose of this blog and its writer to remember and document the lives and service records of all the veterans buried in Hartford's cemetery – including those who remains lie far from family and loved ones. They shall not be forgotten.
[1] Hartford Courant February 24, 1909
[2] Record of service of Connecticut men in the army and navy of the United States during the War of the Rebellion. Hartford, Conn.: Press of the Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., 1889.
[3] http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/gettysburg/maps/gettysburg-battle-for-1.html
[4] The pension records of George Langdon have been ordered from the National Archives and will be the subject of a future blog post.
Posted in Cedar Hill
January 28, 2015 by HartCivWar
The Thirteenth Amendment
History comes to us through the filter of time. Motivations and issues become digested into simple statements of right and wrong. But we should be wary of distilling pivotal times and events of history into black and white. A perfect example of this caution actually revolves around the Civil War-era issue of black and white – and the Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment freeing the slaves.
We have long been taught that the North fought against the South to free the slaves from the onset of the War of the Rebellion. A more accurate viewpoint might be that while slavery was the spark that started the fire, the issue of individual state's rights versus the preservation of the Union was the fuel. The majority of the population of the white South were not slave owners. And while many in the North decried the institution of slavery, the vast majority decidedly viewed the African American race as their inferiors. Hartford's own Gideon Welles, Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy, was vehemently against granting African Americans the right to vote given their lack of education, a convenient view held by many to justify their bigotry. One strong motivation behind the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment might even have been the meting out of punishment to the Southern enemy. [1]
As the Civil War was moving towards its end, President Lincoln felt an urgency to have the 38th Congress ratify the amendment even though the incoming Congress would have a Republican majority. On April 8, 1864, the United States Senate passed the resolution by a vote of 38 for and 6 against but the bill failed when introduced in the House of Representatives the next month. When reintroduced in the House just months before the end of the war, the resolution was approved by a vote of 119 for, 56 against and 8 not voting.
James E. English (Library of Congress)
All six members of Connecticut's congressional delegation voted in favor of the Thirteenth Amendment. Hartford's members – Senator James Dixon and Congressman Henry Champion Dixon (a veteran of the 12th Connecticut Volunteer Regiment)– were staunch Republicans and their votes were assured. But one member from Connecticut, Congressman James Edward English of New Haven, crossed the aisle along with fifteen of his fellow Democrats to vote with their conscience instead of following their party's line. In discussing this momentous vote with a New Haven friend, Congressman English said
I suppose I am politically ruined but that day was the happiest of my life. [2]
Soldiers returning from the war with their black regiments later in 1865 may have had their constitutional freedom but their military service and valor did not automatically confer the full rights of citizenship – including the right to vote – upon them. (See blog entry Separate Not Equal). Matthew Warshauer, in his recent book Connecticut in the American Civil War, reminds us "that ending slavery did not put to rest the formidable issues attached to race, issues that reverberate to this day." [3]
To commemorate anniversary of the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment – and to correct the voting record of Connecticut's delegation as depicted in Stephen Spielberg's movie Lincoln – Connecticut Congressman Joe Courtney has issued Honoring Connecticut's Role in Abolishing Slavery, 150 Years Later.
[1] Warshauer, Matthew Connecticut in the Civil War (Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 2011), 167.
[2] English, Anna Morris In Memoriam, James Edward English (Privately printed, 1891), 23.
[3] Warshauer, 167.
Let Freedom Ring: John Hale Thacher
A Mother Left Behind: James Shurtliffe
Suffolk, VA 1863: The Lads from Connecticut
Veterans remembering veterans: Robert Warner
It would have made a great story but . . .


Earth Day teaches people that the planet belongs to everyone, so everyone is equally responsible for protecting it. Although Earth Day is an environmental celebration, our team at Carolina Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry wants to remind you that you don't have to wait until then to make changes that will allow you and your family to live a greener life.
Happy Earth Day from the team at Carolina Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry.
Contrary to popular belief, orthodontic treatment is not just for older children and teens who have alignment and spacing issues. At our Northeast Columbia office, orthodontic treatment offers many benefits for children at a young age.
Drs. Luis Leite and Rick Singh can identify your child's alignment issues early, and provide treatment as the teeth begin to develop. It's crucial to start dental care early, not only for proper dental health and cosmetic benefits, but to improve your child's overall health.
Drs. Luis Leite and Rick Singh and our staff are able to see early on whether your child will need to have braces in adolescence. Early treatment means fewer procedures, cleaner teeth, and less expense for parents. It's a win-win for everyone!
Wearing a helmet can save your life and prevent devastating physical damage in a variety of situations, from playing football to riding a bicycle. According to the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, helmets reduce the risk of various head injuries by as much as 85 percent. Whether helmet laws apply in your area or not, Drs. Luis Leite and Rick Singh and our team at Carolina Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry want you to make sure you and your loved ones wear helmets with the appropriate safety ratings for specific activities. (A sticker on or inside the helmet will usually indicate this rating.) Helmets can also help save your teeth if they come with an attached faceguard, an essential addition for football players and others involved in contact sports.
A mouthguard can protect you against a variety of dental injuries, such as cracked, broken, or knocked-out teeth. The American Dental Association states that mouthguards play an essential role in preventing up to 200,000 dental injuries each year, and many states mandate their use for sports activities such as football and hockey. The Academy for Sports Dentistry warns, however, that these mouthguards must be custom-fitted as precisely as possible to prove effective. Have a professional-quality mouthguard molded and fitted by our team at Carolina Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry for better protection than a generic store-bought or "boil-and-bite" variety can offer. These cheaper versions tend to wear out quickly, interfere with proper breathing, and provide uneven degrees of cushion against impacts. Always have a fresh mouthguard fitted for each new sports season.
Choose the right combination of helmet, faceguard, and mouthguard to protect your teeth and face this April, and tell your friends to do the same! To learn more about mouthguards, or to schedule an appointment with Drs. Luis Leite and Rick Singh, please give us a call at our convenient Northeast Columbia office!
One exciting part about wearing braces from Carolina Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry is getting to choose the colors of your rubber bands. Orthodontists place elastic bands, or ligatures, over each bracket to secure the archwire in place. These rubber bands may be individual or connected, depending on your mouth's needs. From Drs. Luis Leite and Rick Singh, you have the option of choosing the color of your elastics, which are changed about once every month at every visit. Our offices keep a color wheel handy to help you choose which ones suit you best!


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Crystal Dangerfield rises to No. 10 on UConn's all-time assist list, but Geno Auriemma wants her to maintain a score-first mentality
Connecticut's Legal Boating Age Questioned Following Tragic Accident
By By DAVID MORAN and dmoran@courant.com
After one girl was killed and another was injured in a Greenwich boating accident, the state's legal boating age is being questioned. (Courtesy Of Greenwich Police Department)
Connecticut law allows anyone from age 12 to operate any size boat unsupervised after they complete an eight-hour boating safety course and pass a multiple-choice exam. No test of piloting a boat in water is required.
That surprised and concerned some people last week after a tragic accident involving four teenage girls who were boating and tubing in Long Island Sound. According to police, the Greenwich teenagers, all ages 15 or 16, were in a 21-foot powerboat with a 200-horsepower engine. Two of the girls were inside the boat towing the other two on an inflatable tube. The two girls in the tube fell out, police say, and when the 16-year-old boat operator turned around to pick them up, the propeller hit the girls in the water.
Emily Fedorko, 16, died at the scene, while an unidentified 15-year-old was taken to Stamford Hospital for a leg injury that "required extensive stitching." The accident remains under investigation. The driver of the boat had a Connecticut issued boating safety certificate.
Fatal boating accidents are a small percentage of the total. For example, last year, there were 35 boating accidents in Connecticut with one fatality, according to the United States Coast Guard's Recreational Boating Safety Report. The prior two years, in 2012 and 2011, there were 49 boating accidents including six fatalities and 42 boating accidents with eight fatalities, respectively. None of those accidents involved a minor operating a boat, according to the Coast Guard.
[Related] Parents, teachers push for testing Hartford schools for toxic PCBs »
Nonetheless, state Rep. Stephen Dargan, D-West Haven, and co-chair of the Public Safety Committee, said he was troubled that children as young as 12 could operate any kind of boat without adult supervision.
"It certainly got my attention," Dargan said. "That is somewhat of a young age for somebody using a lot of horsepower."
Dargan, who has served in the House since 1991, said he remembers when the legislature toughened Connecticut's teen driving laws several years ago due to the number of teenager-involved accidents. To operate a car, Connecticut residents must be at least 16, have passed tests and courses and then must observe numerous restrictions regarding driving hours and passengers in the vehicle for the first year. Since the new laws took effect a decade ago, Connecticut motor vehicle officials say there has been an 82 percent drop in driving-related deaths among 16- and 17-year-olds.
Dargan said he wouldn't be opposed to reexamining the legal boating age. The state legislature is not currently in session.
"I remember voting on those (car driving laws) because of some of the horrific tragedies," Dargan said. "We might have to look at the further correction of what we do with boating licenses in the state."
[Related] Hartford's Front Street developer in talks to sell apartment building, invest in new development in the city »
According to the state of Connecticut's Center For Teen Driving website, "Connecticut's teen driving laws are among the strongest and toughest in the country." A brochure from the state's Department of Motor Vehicles that offers safety tips for parents and teen drivers cites teenage brain development as a potential factor in accidents.
"Research shows that the portion of the brain that assesses risk and danger does not fully develop until the mid-20s. Teens are risk takers, lacking the experience, judgment and maturity to recognize many potentially hazardous situations," the brochure states.
But State Sen. Len Fasano, R-North Haven, who says he starting boating when he was 8 years old, said people should not comparing driving a boat and a car.
"Driving is much more perilous than boating," Fasano said.
Fasano, who said his children got their safe boating certificates around the age of 12 or 13, said he doesn't think there's anything the state could do legislatively to prevent such types of accidents in the future.
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"What happened in Greenwich is a horrible, horrible accident. But it's just that -- an accident," Fasano said. "I don't think what happened is a result of someone not knowing how to run a boat."
Richard Werner, a licensed Coast Guard captain and the president of Safe Boat America, the largest provider of boating safety courses in the state of Connecticut, said boating accidents in general are rare compared to the number of registered boats on the water in any given state. And fatal boating accidents are very rare.
"The accidents you hear about are people [who] are drunk and drive into the rocks or kids who get into an accident," Werner said. "I have kids, I hate to talk like that, but statistics are what they are."
Werner said that Safe Boat America's boating safety certification course, which is recognized by the state, is an eight-hour day-long course capped by a 50- to 60-question, multiple-choice exam. Werner said that a score of 80 or higher is required to obtain a safe boating certificate and that 98 percent of participants pass the course. No portion of the test involves operating an actual boat.
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AIDS CT's red-carpet gala one of several Oscar-viewing parties in Connecticut
In addition to the course, a $50 registration fee is required to obtain a safe boating certificate. Certificates do not expire. You must be at least 16 years old to operate a jet ski or other type of personal watercraft in Connecticut, which requires obtaining a different type of certificate that also allows you to operate a boat.
[Related] State police investigate fatal shooting involving Waterbury police officer »
John Fetterman, deputy executive director of the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators, said that the majority of states do not require a test or a license to operate a boat. Fetterman said that Connecticut's boating laws are in line with federal guidelines and in some places even higher.
"In the federal regulations there's no age restrictions, so states are actually more restrictive in that regard," Fetterman said.
In New York and New Jersey, the age limit to operate a boat unsupervised is 10, according to Werner.
Waterway and Maritime Transportation
Laws and Legislation
Mother-Son Team Sparks Local "Treasure" Hunt


Edem features Black Prophet on his new single titled Best Rapper. The VRMG rap artiste describes this song as one that depicts his artistic ego & redefines African Hip-hop in an era of rare creativity. Click to stream this record & don't forget to share your thoughts!


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Scenic private tours of Ku-Ring-Gai Chase
Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park
There are 5 alerts for Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park:
Other planned events, Closed areas
COVID-safe tours and events
In line with the latest NSW Government COVID-19 advice, masks are encouraged for indoor settings where you cannot maintain a safe distance from others.
Explore the rock carvings, lookouts and spectacular panoramas of Ku-ring-Gai Chase National Park with Beautiful Tours Australia. Each tour is private and tailored to suit the needs your group.
Tours are available on request only. Contact Beautiful Tours Australia for more information.
Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park in Sydney and surrounds
Easy. A basic level of fitness is required for this tour.
Contact Beautiful Tours Australia for pricing.
Tour price includes park entry fee.
Bookings required. Book online or email or call Beautiful Tours Australia on 0447 250 355. Bookings available on request only.
Available on request.
You can book a tour for between 1-10 people. There are no minimum number limits.
You will be picked up and returned to the Sydney CBD as part of the tour.
Explore the sights of Ku-Ring-Gai Chase on an exclusive private tour with Beautiful Tours Australia.
Your tour begins at the Basin Aboriginal art site, where you'll see impressive rock engravings that are part of the rich Aboriginal cultural heritage of this area. While you're here, keep an eye out for middens and rock paintings, which are also found in the park.
Then make your way to West Head lookout and take in some of Sydney's most impressive views across the Hawkesbury River. From this vantage point, you can see Broken Bay, Pittwater and further north, all the way to the Central Coast.
Continue your tour along scenic McCarrs Creek and enjoy a delicious lunch overlooking Pittwater at Church Point. After you've eaten your fill, take in the beautiful coastal views at Long Reef Golf Club before the tour concludes.
Beautiful Tours Australia is a licensed commercial tour operator with a Parks Eco Pass.
Beautiful Tours Australia
wolfgang@beautifultoursaustralia.com
in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park in the Sydney and surrounds region
Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park is open sunrise to sunset but may have to close at times due to poor weather or fire danger.
The entrance to Bobbin Head and Appletree Bay is closed from 8pm to 6am during daylight savings periods, and from 5.30pm to 6am the rest of the year.
Gates to West Head are closed from 8.30pm to 6am during daylight savings periods, and from 6pm to 6am the rest of the year.
$12 per vehicle per day. You can also pay for your visit via the Park'nPay app.
Vehicles over 8 seats: $4.40 per adult, $2.20 per child (per day). Students on educational programs: $1.10 per student. Teachers/educational supervisors: free (1 adult per 10 students).
A $3 per adult, $2 per child landing fee may apply for day visitors to The Basin campground. Please pay at the campground wharf. Landing fees are included in your camping fees.
Group bookings:
Under the Plan of Management for this park, prior written approval is required for organised groups of 20 or more people planning to visit this park. Contact the park office before your visit.
Adventure sports (1)
Geotourism (1)


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Full Metal Monsters Review
I can imagine how the idea for the Full Metal Monsters Android game came about - someone said something like this:
"So, this PvP battle arena thing is still going strong… how about if we didn't use people or robots as characters - but robot dinosaurs!"
Naturally, being this is 2019, everyone at AI GAMES FZ game development studio loved it. The result is a title that is getting popular really fast and which is technically still under development. However, it can be downloaded and played - which is precisely what I did. However, for me, the results are kind of mixed, but lean more towards the negative side.
Full Metal Monsters Mayhem… almost
I'm sure this is how the game would love to be perceived - as total mayhem of dinosaur and heavy gun action. Unfortunately, while the promo art looks amazing, the game is not as impressive once you get into the matches. The player models are fine, but the first map I encountered was lacking in details and levels - dinosaurs can jump like crazy, but as far as I can tell, most if not all of the fighting takes place on the ground level(unless you get a flying beast).
This really takes its toll on an arena game that is not that complex when it comes to the action possibilities. Sure, there are loads of guns and loads of upgrades, but the actual fighting uses auto-aim and asks that the players keep their target in the crosshair while it does the rest. This is the linchpin that fails to hold this PvP game together, unlike, for example, War Wings.
Takeaway:
Yes, you ride dinosaurs that are tricked out to be fighting robots, but the actual fighting uses an unengaging basic mechanic. Try out the Full Metal Monsters on Google Play!
Action Android Arena PvP Review


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David Joseph Murray
Sergeant, United States Army
DoD Identifies Army Casualty
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Sergeant David J. Murray, 23, of Clinton, Louisiana, died June 9, 2005, in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his military vehicle. Murray was assigned to the Army National Guard's 1088th Engineering Battalion, New Roads, Louisiana.
15 June 2005:
Funeral services are scheduled this weekend for a member of the Louisiana National Guard who was killed last week in Iraq.
23-year-old Sergeant David Murray died last Thursday when a bomb exploded under his armored personnel carrier during a patrol in Baghdad.
Visitation for Sergeant Murray will be held this Friday from 5:00pm to 9:00pm at Christian Bible Fellowship Church in Clinton.
Funeral services will be held at the same location the following day, Saturday morning at 11:00.
Sergeant Murray will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. on June 21st.
BATON ROUGE - Relatives and military members gathered on the runway at the Baton Rouge airport to meet the casket of an East Feliciana Parish sheriff's deputy and National Guard soldier killed in Iraq.
Law enforcement officers formed a processional to escort the hearse carrying Sergeant David Joseph Murray, 23, who died June 9, 2005, when a bomb exploded under his armored personnel carrier in Baghdad. Murray was a member of B Company, 1088th Engineering Battalion, 256th Brigade Combat Team.
Murray was also an East Feliciana Parish Sheriff's deputy and worked part time as a sergeant for the Norwood Police Department. Norwood Assistant Police Chief Ray Chamberlian waited as the sun went down for the plane to arrive Thursday evening. He recalled a young man who was a natural at law enforcement.
"He had it," Chamberlian said. "He would have been a lieutenant when he came back."
Chamberlian was one of dozens of local law enforcement officers who gathered to form a processional of cars and motorcycles for Murray. Some, like Chamberlian, knew him. Others, like Baton Rouge Police Officer Brian Harrison, came simply out of respect.
A motorcycle officer, Harrison said news of another Louisiana soldier's death is hard to take.
"They're just kids. Just kids," he said.
After moving from Pennsylvania to Louisiana in 1997, Murray joined the National Guard while he was a junior at Silliman Institute. He attended boot camp after he graduated from high school in 2001.
He lived in the Felixville community, north of Clinton, and was a native of Philadelphia. He is survived by his mother and stepfather, Joanne Spence and John Parker; father, Gary Murray Sr. of Philadelphia; sister, Caitlin Marie Parker of Clinton; two brothers, Gary Michael Murray and Coley Patrick Parker, both of Clinton; and a grandmother, Patricia Lepera of Jeffersonville, Pennsylvania.
Visitation will be from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. today at the Christian Bible Fellowship Church in Clinton and from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Saturday. Funeral services are set for Saturday at 11 a.m. at Christian Bible Fellowship Church. Burial will be at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, Tuesday.
'There's still an emptiness'
By SONYA KIMBRELL
Coutesy of the Advocate
Joanne Parker of Clinton has good memories of her son's funeral. "I don't know many people who can say that. There were so many things about the funeral that were an inspiration," she said.
Parker's oldest son, Louisiana National Guard Sergeant David Joseph Murray, died June 9, 2005 in Iraq. Murray, 23, a member of Bravo Company, 1088th Engineering Battalion, 256th Brigade Combat Team, died when a bomb exploded under his armored personnel carrier in Baghdad.
It's been less than a year since Joanne Parker and her husband, John Parker, got the news that Murray was killed in combat. They are thoughtful about the war in Iraq and about how life has changed for them and their three surviving children.
"It still hurts. There's still an emptiness. It doesn't get easier, but it changes," said Joanne Parker of the grief she feels over her son's death.
John Parker said he doesn't agree with everything about the war in Iraq, but he thinks U.S. troops should stay and finish the job.
"I do like that we're bettering their quality of life," he said regarding the Iraqis.
The Parkers are philosophical about Murray's death and life.
"His ultimate goal was to be a state trooper," John Parker said.
Murray joined the Louisiana National Guard when he was a high school junior. In his civilian life, he worked for the East Feliciana Parish Sheriff's Office and worked part time for the Norwood Police Department.
"He was never scared. He knew the consequences of the life he chose," Joanne Parker said.
They both said they see honor and dignity in the way Murray lived and died. To some degree, they both agreed that honor and dignity changes the nature of their grieving.
"It's better than saying, 'I wish the dopehead hadn't shot him,'" John Parker said.
They've dealt with their grief in private ways, though their community has shown great support.
"The high school retired his football jersey. Things like that get to me," John Parker said.
Joanne Parker has recently started volunteering as a Soldier Angel, which involves writing to a soldier stationed in combat.
"I wanted to stay connected with the Army," she said.
Joanne Parker's not sure whether she would have tried to talk her son out of choosing the military if she could have foreseen September 11, 2001. However, she has no illusions that she would have succeeded.
"What could I have done?" she asked.
And she said she doesn't think she would dissuade her other children if they wanted to join the military. She points to the top of the blond head of her 10-year-old son, Coley, who sat on the floor next to her chair.
"He says he's going to go into the Army and kill all the ones who killed David," John Parker said.
On the subject of Cindy Sheehan, the Parkers disagree.
"She's a disgrace. This isn't Vietnam," John Parker said.
But Joanne Parker feels compassion for Sheehan in spite of the fact she disagrees with Sheehan's message and method. She sees her as a mother who lost her son.
"I don't know. You can't tell someone how to grieve," Joanne Parker said.
Although it's been less than a year since Murray's death, there have been holidays and other milestones. Joanne Parker said the hardest for her was July 4, which came less than a month after her son died.
"I had to get out of the house," she said.
Murray is buried in Arlington National Cemetery so they haven't been able to visit his grave often. They have tentative plans for a trip around Memorial Day.
Meanwhile, they stay focused on their surviving children, Gary Murray, who is an LSU junior; Caitlin Parker, 11, and 8-year-old Coley Parker.
"I love him; I miss him," Joanne Parker said, "You have to move forward."
Relatives, friends and military officials, gather near the coffin of Sgt. David J. Murray, left,
during a funeral ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Joan Parker, center, mother of Sgt. David J. Murray, is handed the U.S. flag that draped her sons
coffin, by Major General Bennett Landreneau, left, during a funeral ceremony at the Arlington National Cemetery
A fawn scampers among the headstones at Arlington National Cemetery
Photo Courtesy of Holly. August 2005
Posted: 11 June 2005 Updated: 17 June 2005 Updated: 21 June 2005 Updated: 1 September 2005 Updated: 19 March 2006 Updated: 12 May 2008
While visiting Section 60 On Saturday, 10 May 2008 I met Gary Murray who had driven from Philadelphia to visit his son, David. Gary is a wonderful man
who told me how much he misses his boy and how he sometimes still wakes up at 1:30 in the morning still thinking that David will be calling from Iraq. Sadly,
that call never comes. While Gary does not get to visit David as often as he would like, I promised that I would post these photos so that he could remember this
visit and so that he could "visit" at any time over the Internet. It was a pleasure to have met you, Gary. Please know that we will keep you and David in our prayers.
Photos By Michael Patterson, 10 May 2008


text:
paces to lk.us
1,300 paces
1,300 pace
0.13e4
4,924.228698409090909090909090909090909090909090909090909090909090909090909090909* lk.us
Gunter's links (US)
4.[encoded data, 5120 characters]
0.[encoded data, 5122 characters]
Free online Length conversion. Convert 1,300 paces to lk.us (pace to Gunter's links (US)). How much is 1,300 paces to lk.us? Made for you with much by CalculatePlus.
Try out the inverse calculation lk.us to paces.
lk.us
2 7.575736459090909090909090909090909090909090909090909090909090909090909090909e+00*
3 11.36360468863636363636363636363636363636363636363636363636363636363636363636363*
9 34.0908140659090909090909090909090909090909090909090909090909090909090909090909*
10 37.87868229545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545*
100 378.7868229545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545*
1000 3,787.868229545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545454545*
Related with paces
1,300 paces to chains (Gunter, US)
1,300 paces to light years
1,300 paces to synodic light months
1,300 paces to pouce
1,300 paces to decameter
1,300 paces to yoctoparsecs
1,300 paces to mi.uk
1,300 paces to nautical miles (US)
1,300 paces to light week
1,300 paces to thous
8 m to dam (meters to decameters)
50,000 cm to hm (centimeters to hectometers)
50 m to nm (meters to nanometers)
light minutes to kilometer (l.m. to km)
8 light minutes to meter (l.m. to m)
37.9 hm to dm (hectometers to decimeters)
cm to printer-points (centimeter to pr pnt)
17 km2 to mm2 (square kilometers to square millimeters)
g/cm3 to g/ml (gram/cubic centimeter to gram/milliliter)
92 m2 to square yard (UK) (square meters to yd2.uk)
469 dm3/l to g/kg (cubic decimeters/liter to grams/kilogram)
Gb to b (gigabit to bit)
5 hg to dag (hectograms to decagrams)


and data transmitter for a bike-sharing service.
PBSC needed a system to monitor trips made with its fleet of Citi Bikes in New York. The company asked Spiria to undertake a proof of concept and develop the architecture of an on-board GPS system.
Maximum number of bikes able to simultaneously send data to the kiosk.
Technical problems solved with 500 hours of expertise in on-board systems.
Stations, or 7,000 bikes, potentially using the on-board system.
Spiria developed an energy-efficient on-board system for PBSC to collect precise GPS data on every trip. Data is transmitted wirelessly to the kiosk every time a bike is parked at a station. The kiosk then forwards the data to a central server for processing. Thanks to this technology, PBSC was able to gain a better understanding of bike-share users, quantify environmental gains provided by the service, and enhance the Citi Bike network.
Provide quantitative data on the environmental gains yielded by the service as tangible proof of Citi Bike's environmental benefits, which would help obtain new funding.
Incentivize users by providing them with personnalized Citi Bike data: calories burned, environmental footprint, etc.
The proof of concept covered four key points.
The on-board GPS systems had to be able to transfer trip data to the radio frequency module in station kiosks.
There needed to be a data transfer logic and protocol to optimize available power when bikes were parked.
Data from bikes parked in the furthest spots had to reach the station kiosk despite the distance.
Energy generated by the dynamo from pedaling activates the bike-mounted on-board system to collect trip data.
Every time the bike is parked at a station, trip data is sent to the radio frequency module in the station kiosk. The GPS system has three minutes of residual energy to send this data.
The radio frequency module gathers and stores data from each bike. It then forwards it to a central server.
The central server receives the data through a 3G cellular network. It then synchronises data to map out bike trips and produce usage statistics.
It contains the Atmel ATmega128RFA1 microcontroller which executes the SNAPpy source code.
The main on-board GPS system component.
Spiria went to great lengths to optimize this component. For example, we modified the SNAPpy script to improve data sequencing, which reduced the size of data packets and optimized data collection and transmission. Energy efficiency gains are achieved through the data transmission protocol.
Further, the SM200 contains a radio frequency antenna that sends data to the kiosk module thanks to a protocol optimized by Spiria.
store energy produced by the bike-mounted dynamo to run the GPS when moving and send data to the kiosk when parked.
reads, writes and records data from the microcontroller.
receives data recorded by the GPS. An external antenna on the kiosk's radio frequency module ensures reception of data sent from bikes parked in the furthest spots.
Receives bike data collected when moving and transmitted when parked. Data is stored in a file which, when complete, is sent to a central server.
Spiria modified code logic for the microprocessor to track the number of GPS points recorded and time needed to receive them. This modification was crucial in proving feasibility.
It receives data sent by the bike's on-board system through the external antenna. Its microcontroller, also an Atmel, sends the data to the ARM microprocessor.
Ability to maintain data integrity and track itineraries regardless of environment (clear or obstructed).
Ability to optimize available power when bike is parked and relying on residual energy previously accumulated through pedaling.
Ability of kiosk radio frequency module to handle large volumes of data when several bikes are simultaneously parked at the station.
The system development plan and proof of concept allowed PSBS to proceed with the large-scale implementation of an electronic device crucial to the development of its urban mobility solutions.


This BV is much larger than it appears. Offers 4 bedrooms plus study, huge rumpus room plus formal lounge with polished floors and adjacent kitchen with laminated cupboards and gas cooking. Needs some TLC but with ducted heating throughout this large home is ideal for extended family. Quiet location close to schools, shops & transport, inspect & be impressed.


A 92-year-old Bishop's Cleeve man's food caddy has not been emptied for nearly two months — and now he is rebelling against council rules by putting food waste in his general waste bin.
Ronald Littlejohn, of Station Road, started suffering from sporadic food waste collections in early April, when his caddy was not emptied for five weeks.
After that, he says the waste was removed every other week until late July, when collections stopped entirely.
The retired research chemist said: "It is a nuisance. I am hoping this story can shame the council into some action.
"I have just given up. I have been putting the food waste into the big bins. There is nothing else to do is there?
By the start of this month, six bags of waste had accumulated next to the side-door of Mr Littlejohn's bungalow, but a neighbour has now taken them to his compost heap.
Mr Littlejohn has been calling Tewkesbury Borough Council around once a fortnight to ask why binmen are not taking the rubbish out of his caddy regularly.
The pensioner wrote to Mike Dawson, chief executive of the council, on August 10, but is yet to receive a reply.
Mr Littlejohn has had assisted collections for 15 years because of limited mobility and heart problems, but he never had any issues with the service until April.
Pete Tonge, head of Tewkesbury Borough Council's community services, said: "We would like to offer Mr Littlejohn our unreserved apologies.
"His experience is a far cry from the standards of services our customers should expect and we are both disappointed and concerned that this has not been resolved sooner.
"We are grateful that this has been bought to our attention and have taken this as an opportunity to look closely at what went wrong and how we might make changes to ensure that this does not happen again.


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NIHR GOSH BRC
Funding and opportunities
NIHR GOSH BRC New Projects Funding Call 2020/21
CLOSED: This call aims to fund a number of new translational research ideas at GOSH/ICH across a wide range of areas mapping to the broad BRC objectives. The call is primarily focused at early career researchers and the aim is for the new research ideas to help shape the BRC's future strategic direction. There is a total of £300,000 available with around £30,000 available per one-year award.
Internal GOSH and ICH applicants only. The lead applicant must hold a substantive contract with one of the organisations (staff or student contract).
The NIHR GOSH BRC funds early translational research, which aims to translate discoveries from basic/discovery science into clinical research and through to patient benefit and economic benefit. Our research aims to accelerate discoveries into the basis of childhood rare diseases and to develop new diagnostics, imaging techniques and treatments, including cellular and gene therapies.
The BRC is currently in its penultimate year of funding for its third term and we are beginning to consider the strategic direction for a future application seeking to renew funding for the BRC for a fourth term. As part of this, we are re-launching the GOSH BRC's New Projects Funding Call. This will provide early career researchers with the opportunity to apply for up to £30,000 to support non-pay costs of a new research project, and offers them the chance to share their ideas for novel research avenues that could form part of GOSH BRC's future strategic direction.
Funding Call
The New Projects Funding Call aims to support around ten new one-year pump prime projects, which seek to drive proof of concept ideas that could potentially grow into larger research projects. We would expect successful applicants to generate preliminary data to support future grant and patent applications or delivery of new interventions for patients. The call is primarily aimed at early career researchers to ensure it supports career progression as well as driving translational research. Applications are welcome from all staff within GOSH/ICH, including clinicians, non-clinical, nursing and AHP staff and any others not mentioned here.
We are looking for a broad range of new research ideas through this call, including in the areas of medical devices and innovative technologies, pathways to novel therapeutics, biomarker development, new diagnostics, and surgical improvements or improvements to medical methodologies. Furthermore, we welcome applications presenting novel ideas for COVID-19 translational research. In exceptional circumstances, extensions to existing projects may be considered, where the project is moving into a new phase and clear success against previous milestones can be demonstrated.
Projects submitted do not need to be within a disease area the BRC currently supports, but should be able to demonstrate how they align to the broad aims and remit of the BRC outlined above. You do not need to have had prior links with the BRC to be eligible to apply and the BRC is keen to receive new ideas from a broad spectrum of research areas across GOSH and ICH. NIHR funding is not allowed to support any research using animals; therefore, the research project must not involve animal work.
How much money is available?
The call has a total of £300,000 available with a maximum of £30,000 per award. We expect to fund around 10 new projects through this call and anticipate that up to four of those selected will have a COVID-19 focus.
The call is for non-pay (consumables) only, therefore no salaries will be covered. There is a maximum limit of £5,000 on equipment purchases (including VAT) and all funds will need to be spent at GOSH or ICH between 1st April 2021 and 28th February 2022 (the project end date can be up until 31st March 2022, but the funding must be spent by 28th February 2022). If your research idea requires more than £30,000 and you consider there to be a strong rationale for this, please detail the costs on the application form and provide significant justification for why additional funds would be needed.
For details about the call and instructions on how to apply can be found in the Guidance Notes and Application Form (147.2 KB). The deadline for applications is Tuesday 15th December 2020 (at midnight). Applicants must register their project with R&D prior to submission (up to 15 days before the application deadline).
A Review Panel, the membership of which will include representatives from the BRC's Leadership Team, each BRC Theme, and the BRC Junior Faculty, in addition to external and internal members of academic staff, will assess applications using criteria outlined in the guidance document. A lay member of the Review Panel will review the lay summary in applications to ensure patient/public views are taken into account in the selection process. Applications will be anonymised before being sent to the Review Panel.
Please contact brc@gosh.nhs.uk if you have any questions about the scheme.
NIHR GOSH Biomedical Research Centre
UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health
R&D Office
30 Guilford Street
Bloomsbury, London
WC1N 1EH
Email: brc@gosh.nhs.uk
The NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre is a collaboration between Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust and the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health.


Got blood tests back today and iron/thyroid is all normal, which I suppose is really good news, but does leave lanreotide as the presumed culprit. In addition, the registrar has written to my doctor saying he's going to increase my dosage to 120 - so all in all it's not looking great for the tresses!
Sometimes this all seems like some kind of surreal adventure in a foreign land!
re the counselling offer, i strongly recommend that.
i've been having counselling with macmillan and it is brilliant.
would be excellent also i think to talk to their special hairdresser - what a great idea. how did you get in contact with them and is it on a referral basis?
I found them just by googling hair loss help in Hertfordshire - they are called Cancer Hair Care and are based in Stevenage. I just emailed them, explained my problem and asked for help. There 'office' (its pretty small!) is right next door to a hair salon, so a couple of mornings a week they just take it over. They have been so kind eg. I rang them up and asked if they recommended a particular type of shampoo and next morning I get a large package with two bottles of shampoo (Faith in Nature Rosemary shampoo - available from Oxfam apparently) carefully wrapped up in tissue paper and ribbons - it was the ribbons that really got me!
I definitely think the counselling is a good idea. This is a fence this particular horse needs to get its head around!
i see what you mean about the ribbons - how kind and full marks to them for realising that a bit of effort makes a big difference.
Just updating the status on my hair thinning just in case anyone else goes through this in the future.
Thyroid and iron levels all came back normal leaving lanreotide as the presumed culprit. I've been thinning for about 9 months now.
Hair loss continues at a low but steady rate, though for the time being only noticeable to me. It's similar but slightly worse to what I had following pregnancy.
I decided to face my fears somewhat by taking a preemptive visit to the wig department in Selfridges (well, I've got no experience to go on, but I thought they'd probably have good ones!). My rationale was that I'd be better able to cope with it if and when I need it if I'd already done a bit of research. This slightly backfired in the sense that it turned out that I have too much hair currently to actually try wigs on ! Was slightly freaked when their wig person turned out to be a man, but he was brilliant - very knowledgeable, down to earth and clearly very used to dealing with people struggling with the emotion of it all. He suggested some potential styles and also gave me some advice on hair condition as the lanreotide also seems to be making my hair exceptionally dry. He told me to stop shampooing it, but just rinse and condition as necessary. This has turned out to be good advice and I can report I haven't shampooed for almost 2 weeks now, and my hair looks absolutely fine - I told some friends last night and they gasped in shock!
Anyway, still hoping things may eventually settle down...but steadying myself in case they don't.
hopethat you are at least feeling some benefit from being on the lanreotide?
I think Selfridges is really out of my league when it comes to wigs given the cost, but the advice was good and I'm going back there this week for a haircut to a style he thinks would suit me better, cut out the dry stuff and potentially move me closer to the kind of wig I might go for. The lanreotide is doing something, but has not normalised the growth hormone, so I'm pending a decision from the hospital as to whether they will do gamma knife - I hope so; I would prefer that to normal radiotherapy.
How are thing with you now?
i'm still having my ups and downs as far as fatigue etc. but far better than i was pre-diagnosis in terms of stamina / pain /mobility etc etc.
my hair is getting shorter as i carefully trim off the split ends and it doesn't grow inbetween to catch up... ha ha.
meanwhile good luck with the radiotherapy. it doesn't hurt. and they've probably already told you that you'll have to be patient as far as noticing positive effects. there are other 'threads' here about radiotherapy. i had cyberknife almost 2 years ago and ... er ... i suppose we can say that the tumour doesn't seem to have grown. (neither has it shrunk. grrrr) and my levels still are not 'controlled', so the tumour is clearly still active and merrily pumping away. i'd better stop here or i'll start writing unmentionable things about what i think about it!
Just thought I'd give an update in case this affects anybody else in the future.
The good news is that although the loss I think is continuing, it has definitely lessened in the last couple of months (ie. about a year since it started). The increase in dosage to 120 in fact didn't seem to have any impact. I got my hair cut a bit shorter about four months ago and I think that helped psychologically, if nothing else because it made the actual volume of hair falling less. It was also the first proper haircut I'd dared to have after the loss started (eek!), and it was a relief to see that in fact my hair didn't actually all fall out during the process as I feared it might!
I did end up going to Selfridges wig department (where I in fact had it cut) to try to prepare myself for a wig as a potential possibility. Although so far that has not been necessary, i would definitely recommend them as they were very kind, knew what they were talking about, and kept tissues in the consulting room because 'everyone cries when they come in here' Bless them!
but....i think that my hair might be growing back. it seems to be getting a bit thicker.
this has been going on for past few months but i didn't want to say anything incase it stops again.
am still on max dose of lanreotide.
anyone else have something similar?
ps am also no longer on omeprazole, in case that is of relevance..


text:
Le Concours international du Festival musical d'automne de jeunes interprètes (FMAJI) est un concours de musique classique fondé en 1985 et se déroulant dans le Val-d'Oise. En plus de la série de concerts tout au long du mois de février, la compétition est ouverte artistes âgés de moins de 25 ans.

Historique

Le Festival musical d'automne de jeunes interprètes (FMAJI) est une association loi de 1901, créée en 1985 par Daniel Faidherbe, Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, altiste de l'Orchestre de la Garde républicaine, directeur artistique.

À l'époque, Jean-Pierre Delalande, député et maire de Deuil-la-Barre, François Scellier député et maire de Saint-Gratien, Albert Margarian, maire de Montmorency, Pierre Salvi, sénateur et président du Conseil général du Val-d'Oise et Jacques Charpentier, organiste compositeur, ont participé à son développement . Le Festival, alors, comptait trois concerts. Aujourd'hui, avec six concerts, s'ajoutent également trois récitals qui permettent d'inviter d'anciens lauréats au talent reconnu.

Objectif

Ouvert à tous les instruments de l'orchestre (deux pour l'année 2020) . Le Concours a pour objectif la promotion de jeunes musiciens de moins de . À l'issue des épreuves, trois lauréats sont désignés par un jury composé de compositeurs, de solistes renommés, de professeurs du Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris, de chefs d'orchestre et du directeur musical de l'association. Chacun reçoit un prix de  euros offert par le Fmaji, auquel s'ajoute pour le premier prix,  du Conseil général du Val-d'Oise (prix Pierre Salvi). Un prix de  est également décerné pour la meilleure interprétation d'une œuvre contemporaine par la Ville d'Enghien-les-Bains (prix Jean Paul Neu).

Accompagnés par des orchestres symphoniques ou de chambre  (Orchestre Pasdeloup, Les Siècles, Les Bagatelles, Cité internationale universitaire de Paris, Jean-Walter Audoli, la Symphonie de Poche, Ellipses, etc.), les trois lauréats jouent en soliste lors de six concerts organisés à l'automne, de fin septembre à mi-décembre - par roulement - dans 9 villes du Val de Montmorency (Andilly, Deuil la Barre, Enghien-les-Bains, Groslay, Margency, Montmagny, Montmorency, Saint-Gratien, et Soisy-sous-Montmorency).

Organisation
L'association est composée de bénévoles et de deux permanents. Son siège est situé au 22, rue Charles de Gaulle à Deuil-la-Barre dans le Val-d'Oise.

Président : François Detton . Nouveau Directeur artistique : Romain Dumas - chef assistant de l'Opéra National de Bordeaux, à la suite du départ à la retraite, de Daniel Faidherbe, Fondateur du Festival. Le conseil d'administration est constitué des membres du bureau, des membres d'honneur et des maires des neuf communes partenaires du Festival, membres de droit.

Le concours se déroule sur  à l'école de musique Maurice Cornet sise au château de la Chevrette à Deuil la Barre.

Jury

Le jury est choisi par le directeur artistique du Festival et se compose de neuf membres : un compositeur, six concertistes (deux pour chaque discipline), le directeur artistique, et un membre du conseil d'administration. Leur identité n'est révélée que lors des épreuves éliminatoires.

Président du concours 2019 : Xavier Delette - Directeur du Conservatoire à rayonnement régional de Paris..

Œuvres au programme

Le programme du concours est constitué d'une épreuve éliminatoire et d'une épreuve finale offrant la possibilité de présenter soit des œuvres définies par le FMAJI soit des œuvres imposées au concours d'entrée au Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris.

Lauréats

 1985 : Thierry Brodard (violon), Pierre Lénert (alto), Sabine Chefson (harpe)
 1986 : Valérie Amsellem (flûte), Henri Demarquette (violoncelle),
 1987 : Frédéric Pelassy (violon), Catherine Arnoux (violon), Anne Ricquebourg (harpe)
 1988 : Valérie Millot (soprano), Hélène Devilleneuve (hautbois), François-Frédéric Guy (piano).
 1989 : Francis Touchard (clarinette), Catherine Robin (contrebasse)
 1992 : Hervé Joulain (cor), Cécile Brey (violon), Pierre Girault (trompette)
 1993 : Emmanuel Rossfelder (guitare), Christian Wirth (saxophone), Laurent Wagschal (piano)
 1994 : Ludovic Tissus (basson), Olivier Tardy (flûte), Ophélie Gaillard (violoncelle)
 1995 : Renaud Sthal (alto), Florence Dumont (harpe), Marianne Legendre (hautbois)
 1996 : David Locqueneux (trombone), Fabrice Brohet (trombone), Jean-Edmond Bacquet (contrebasse)
 1997 : Aude Richard (clarinette), Amanda Favier (violon), Simon Bernardini (violon)
 1998 : Sandrine Poncet (flûte), Romain Leleu (trompette), Christine Lindermeir (piano)
 1999 : Arnaud Boukhitine) (tuba), Stéphane Peter (cor), Ingrid Schoenlaub (violoncelle)
 2000 : Julien Hardy (basson), Lise Berthaud (alto), Cyril Bouffiès (alto)
 2002 : Deborah Nemtanu (violon), Cécilia Baillia (percussions), Ibrahim Maalouf (trompette)
 2003 : Olivier Rousset (hautbois), Charlotte Marck  (clavecin), Ludovic Sicard (contrebasse)
 2004 : Antoine Pierlot (violoncelle), Adam Mital (violoncelle), David Lootvoet (harpe), Marion Ralincourt (flûte)
 2005 : Maïko Shioyasu (saxophone), Anna Kasyan (soprano), Amaya Dominguez (mezzo-soprano)
 2006 : Nicolas Moutier (trombone), Jocelyn Willem (cor), David Pont-Ripoll (trombone)
 2007 : Christelle Pochet (clarinette), Sandrine Vasseur (clarinette), Étienne Buet (basson), Audrey-Anne Hetz (basson)
 2008 : Kristi Gjezi (violon), Adrien Boisseau (alto), Johanna Olé (violoncelle), Haruka Matsuoka (violon)
 2009 : Marc Lachat (hautbois), Florian Puddu (piano), Friederike Huy (trompette)
 2010 : Vassilena Serafimova (percussions), Théotime Voisin (contrebasse), Jae-A Yoo (flûte), Jean-Baptite Bonnard (percussions)
 2011 : Anaïs Gaudemard (harpe), Mathilde Salvi (saxophone), Alexandre Collard (cor)
 2012 : Floriane Tardy (clarinette), Thomas Lefort (violon) Nicolas Desvois (trombone)
 2013 : Martin Lefèvre (hautbois), Rémi Carlon (violoncelle), Jean-Sébastien Ponchel (guitare), Michaël Bialobroda (violoncelle)
 2014 : Joséphine Olech (flûtiste), Louise Lapierre (bassoniste), Mathieu Brunet (bassoniste).
 2015 : Adélaïde Ferrière (percussions), Pierre Badol (cor), Nicolas Ramez (cor)
 2016 : Selim Mazari (piano), Gauthier Broutin (violoncelle), Hildegarde Fresneau (violon).
 2017 : Lorraine Campet (contrebasse), Joë Christophe (clarinette), Paul Zientara (alto).
2018 : Simon Philippeau (trombone), Madeleine Fougeras (harpe), Eudes Bernstein (saxophone)
2019 : Marceau Lefevre (basson), Gilles Stoesel (flûte) et Alexis Grizard (orgue) - ex-aequo -

 Liste des concours internationaux de musique classique

Notes et références

Festival musical d'automne de jeunes interprètes
Festival musical d'automne de jeunes interprètes
Récompense musicale en France
Musique classique en Île-de-France

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Papa Lacona has quirky take on tradition
By Jim Duncan
Spaghetti pizza includes no pie crust at Papa Lacona's, 860 First St., West Des Moines, 822-9022, open daily from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. and 4-8 p.m. on Sunday–Friday and 4-9 p.m. on Saturday.
No family has contributed more to the central Iowa food scene than Teresa Lacona's. Her sons founded Noah's Ark and Mama Lacona's. The next generation added Bambino's. Lucca, Gusto and Hot Shots are gifts from the fourth generation. Papa Lacona's, which opened last month, is the latest, and the quirkiest, contribution to the family legacy.
Chuck Lacona is a personable fellow whose younger brother runs Mama Lacona's and whose sister owns Bambino's. This is his first effort at operating a restaurant in central Iowa after a successful career in construction. It's housed in a building built for a Bruegger's, with a drive-through lane and set on a busy rush hour corridor that appears to be a sensible convenience for commuters wanting to pick up a pizza for dinner or a slice for lunch. Nothing is quite as it seems at this place, though. Lacona said his landlord won't let him use the drive-through and that he's also forbidden to erect a sign on the building. On my last visit, curbside delivery was offered to people who call ahead and a construction truck was parked out front with a hand-painted sign in its trailer.
Quirks continued inside. One enters facing a wall built into a bookcase/office. Hosts greeted guests at the door and immediately handed them menus, a la lunch rush at a self serve. The women's bathroom included a changing table that doubled as a giant table saw, complete with a large generator. Linen tablecloths were complemented by thin paper napkin dispensers with advertising on their sides. A row of booths was separated from a row of banquettes by a huge empty space. A large rack of chips sat in front of an open kitchen which revealed no pizza dough being tossed. The menu boasted "open for breakfast, lunch and dinner" but also stated that 11 a.m. was the earliest it ever opens.
At any hour, breakfast offerings were brief. The main item was called "the holy one" and consisted of sausage, egg and American cheese melted on a glazed doughnut. A sausage, egg and cheese muffin, plus Danish, doughnuts and cinnamon rolls completed that menu. A Sunday buffet menu adds scrambled eggs, fruit, banana bread and lemon bread.
The dinner/lunch menu was a light version of other Lacona family restaurants. From just three appetizers, we chose a tomato salad for two ($8). Our waiter delivered a bowl of 20 cherry tomatoes in a pool of balsamic vinaigrette with dried basil sprinkled on top. He asked if we expected something different and added, "me too," after we responded affirmatively. He gave us each a fork but nothing else. We were scolded for picking up a couple steak knives from a condiment table and told that butter knives were good enough to cut the tomatoes. Maybe, but not without making an even larger mess of spilled balsamic than we did. (Note, splashing balsamic stains pants through thin paper napkins.)
Entrées were basic. Pizza ($10-$27) crusts lacked the freshness of those at other Lacona family places. Lots of mozzarella and chosen toppings compensated. Pasta ($7.50-$13) were not homemade. The same thick, dark red marinara was used in three different pasta dishes and two different pizza, as was copious mozzarella. On a "pizza spaghetti" dish, which included no bread or crust, the mozzarella rendered my fork pointless, literally. Not even the forbidden steak knives could scrape the coagulated cheese off it. It was served without promised meatballs then returned a moment later with meatballs having ice cold centers. Manicotti and lasagna delivered well balanced dishes of cheese and sauce with Graziano sausage.
Side Dishes The next Culture Kin Breakfast is on Tuesday, Nov. 12 at Beth El Jacob Synagogue featuring cuisine and culture of Israel and Palestine. CV
Jim Duncan is a freelance writer who has penned nine different columns for Cityview and its sister publications beginning in 1987.


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text:
Solitary by another name is just as cruel
The Globe and Mail by Kim Pate 12 November 2018
Government legislation billed as eliminating the damaging and dangerous practice of administrative segregation – better known as solitary confinement – is in reality, a cynical exercise that merely rebrands this cruel treatment.
I am shocked by the linguistic trickery in Bill C-83: An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and another Act.
Rather than ending segregation, Bill C-83 rebrands administrative segregation as "structured intervention units." It allows the Commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada to designate any unit or penitentiary as a structured intervention unit without imposing restrictions on the nature or number of cells. This creates the risk that an ever-increasing number of prisoners will be segregated – an all-too-easy answer to managing mental-health issues and other needs that should be addressed through community supports rather than by restrictive confinement.
These measures fly in the face of the recommendations of the jury in the Ashley Smith inquest, which said prisoners should not be segregated and those with mental health issues should be in community-based mental-health facilities, not prison.
The government has also boasted that Bill C-83 will see prisoners in these new units spend a minimum of four hours a day outside their cell, an increase from the current two-hour-a-day requirement. The premise is that 22 hours of isolation per day meets the definition of segregation of a prisoner and attracts certain, far too limited constitutional protections – but that 20 hours of isolation per day under the same torturous conditions does not. This should make clear why we need a true end to segregation and separation, by any name.
Medical experts have long recognized that segregation has permanent negative impacts, from anxiety and paranoia to severe psychological pain and suffering, as well as permanent psychiatric disability.
Courts have also found that segregation's harmful effects can begin almost immediately and have ruled that segregation is unconstitutional and discriminatory against Indigenous people and those with mental health issues. These groups are just two among many, including women and visible minorities, that are unjustly and unjustifiably over-represented in segregation.
While proponents of Bill C-83 have argued that imposing a minimum of four hours outside of cells will allow for meaningful access to programs, health care and human contact, this simply replicates the current situation in maximum security units for women, where prisoners are segregated in small, isolated cells.
Despite progressive-sounding requirements about access to services, individuals in those units are severely limited in their access to programming and health care. They experience psychological harm practically indistinguishable from segregation.
Nor will Bill C-83 change the current lack of effective external oversight of correctional decision-making. All decisions about when and for how long prisoners are to be segregated would be made by a correctional services administrator alone and without the review of any third party. This represents another step away from former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour's recommendation that judicial oversight of corrections is necessary to prevent the abuse of segregation.
Bill C-83 may also reduce the ability of Indigenous prisoners and parolees to transfer to their communities, a measure included in the current law to address the over-representation of Indigenous people in federal prisons. Nor will the bill address chronic failures on the part of corrections staff to ensure prisoners have access to these transfers – a failure noted by the Office of the Correctional Investigator in its recent annual report.
The government described Bill C-83 as ending the practice of segregation by the Correctional Service of Canada and providing the government's response to the recommendations of the jury regarding the death by homicide of Ashley Smith after she spent months on end in segregation cells. Bill C-83 does neither.
Ottawa cannot declare that segregation has been eliminated, while failing to address the horrors associated with this practice and gutting what minimal restrictions courts have placed on its use.
The public response to Bill C-83 has demonstrated that there is interest in meaningful change. We must end segregation and ensure judicial oversight of corrections, not merely change the labels on doors and further limit correctional accountability.
Senator Kim Pate was executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies. She represents Ontario.