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Two Coffee Houses And An Off Day
June 18, 2019 / railroadmusic333	/ Leave a comment
In the tavern i was reading, drinking coffee enjoying some free time. I walked the streets looking for you! You were not anywhere to be found! Everywhere beautiful women seemingly looking like I was, for a free time adventure. Looking for a friend or the silence of a lazy afternoon on the town.
Now I am back at my hermitage shrine to solemn resolve. Thomas Merton and Dalai Lama quotes on the wall, experience rolling inside a mind weary of worldly desire – lost religions and blissful music, a rose above the door to invite soulful deep conversation. Questions roll from tongue like incense to the gods – swirls of past story like endless star galaxies revolve – callused hands and worn, creaking bones tell the tale of a rebellious past that finds me now even more in control of personal passage! In a far off contemplative stare – I am day dreaming of the bright, innocent youthful faces that caught my attention today – their mass consumption of a Pandora's box of shiny little objects in nice little packages – their fancy clothing, their cultural statements of time and place. Older folks, holding desperately onto whatever the hell was important – hoping what was found long ago will not decay or fail!
For this time is confusing! The papers are talking of war, again, the drums of destruction are beating relentlessly of a blood soaked – oil drenched unreasonable global position. This day weighs heavy on heart and soul. In all of this, in all of today, and tomorrow's tomorrow – if your searching for a partner, a muse, someone to say it's going to be alright? This mind has seen a big ominous picture that tells of days soon come that may not be alright. Things may not just be OK and nobody is going to care if you are triggered, offended, you may get lost!
However, is just a connective way to suggest a duality of the reality that I enjoy, the blissful alter-destiny of paradox -another way of looking at all that surrounds today – the troubled minds of working stiffs, the suffering of the street beggar, the homeless people on the corner. I was out today, looking for that soul that is scared – for that mind that is open – for that heart that feels deeply all the sorrow, joy and the suffering, yet eats of it like a queen bee fed royal jelly.
Maybe you were that young girl, reading Sylvia Plath – mad at her father, mad at the hypocrisy of her upbringing? Maybe you were that lonely woman, feverishly working on some term paper – for some side hustle degree – so her career can provide more mobility? Maybe all your childhood dreams of pretty horses and handsome princes have come to haunt you like some sort of painting hanging on the wall, here, in this coffee house, where lovers and lonesome souls mingle – workers toil – maybe you're dreaming while awake? Lost in worldly demise. The gloom and doom of generational drift pulling your spirit into the cracks?
Be that it may that I was looking for you – here, there and anywhere god's children play. And all this beating about the burning bushes is folly for students of poetry, prose, I am settling differences, making plans for a long difficult journey, know what to take, what not to carry and what not to pick up along the way! I have been there before. Where darkness surrounds mindful dreaming like a skipping record, like a repeating message of known useless information. Caught like a prisoner, used like a metaphor, over and over – this life is not fair. Be that is may that you have gone missing.
Your Saviour is crucified and satisfied with the narrative so long overturned that he is traveling to a new free trade, silk road escape. I can't help your spiteful queen and vane princesses – who in selfish revolt, have ruthlessly killed their king. Overpowered and drunk in creation spirits, their mother nature gods have failed them. Now they are cold – now they are as powerless as power relentlessly turned inward. I warned you – I told you so! I knew your fruitless praying to symbols and light was dangerous! Playful occult muses were playing tricks with vanity! In this age of digital lost connection, this age of difficult reality and reason, you should have long put away your little girl teapots and childish games and came home when you were called!
Eventually, I may find you. I'll keep looking. And if you are hiding behind some corner and saw me searching? If you make your presence known? Leave your disgust of patriarchy to the fires of creation. A spark of light from a hearts kinship is all it takes to rekindle that conversation. Many a love sick girl runs to her father when it's time to rebel against their mother. The corruption of human love is a lack of care-taking! A win -win situation? That scheme is not for the soulful. To win, you must lose it all and show up to the game naked as a jay bird singing.
John Henry The Myth – The Flogging Will Continue Until Morale Improves.
June 16, 2019 June 16, 2019 / railroadmusic333	/ Leave a comment
John Henry was the second folk song I worked on after I started working at the CSX railroad as a yard switchman. The first tune I wrote was Hub Engineer. We will get to that later.
There was so much going on around us as this tune was being reformatted for contemporary use. A new technology was being introduced, jobs were being cut and morale was at an all time low. Written on the cab wall of one of the railroad yard switch engines, in big black letters read:
The Flogging Will Continue Until Morale Improves.
Remote control technology had been a rumor for a long time and every once in a while in conversation we railroaders would suggest that it could never work, or any version of that argument, however, the union was making agreements, the remote control boxes were arriving and something needed to be done.
I grew up around folk music my whole life!
I was raised by a railroader and political activist! I knew the John Henry story and knew the power of song and being a Sun Ra devotee, knew that myth was important to developing our story. John Henry might as well had been a steel driving man, but we needed a hero. We needed myth and a story. What we needed was good old folk music to the rescue!
After releasing the song, I was sort of concerned because my co-workers were not fully aware of one of their own working class heroes. What was even more troubling, was that the moral to the real folk story John Henry was not being heeded.
Pride killed John Henry, and pride was not going to help us organize against this new technology. The railroad knew Remote Control Technology was a direct threat to the locomotive engineer craft. They knew the two unions it was being forced on were historically known to fight each other. The railroad worked every aspect of the pride issue and eventually got exactly what they wanted. We were railroaded.
Everybody was pissed off, mad and nervous.
Things were changing fast! Operations were changing, two unions were being pitted against each other and something historical was happening and needed to be told. A story. A story about what was going on back in the not so far away past. In some ways, I was embedded behind the front lines of the class war. Sort of a war journalist in a railyard battlefield.
I compiled the song John Henry on a CD titled Music For Modern Railroaders and sold them at the railyard from a clerk van. I think we sold about 200 copies at the yard. The song made everybody who bought a CD from the railroad clerk, laugh.
We needed laughter, bad.
There really was a locomotive engineer named John Henry at the railyard. He retired before the remote control technology was implemented. Ol' John used to say when the rumors became a locker room conversation, that he would be gone before they came. If you get the nickname John Henry on the railroad these days, it's probably because you are a company man. You probably need to slow down. He was one of those who would work us out of a job. Slow down! John Henry for ya' work us all out of a job!
John Henry 2006 from (JP) (rufus porter) to all my brothers and sisters in
the BLE&T and The UTU!
Well John Henry he was a locomotive engineer
Workin' down in the Osborn bowl.
And he looked at his switchman said you
Better git to work.
We're gonna beat that RCO.
Gonna beat that RCO!
Yankin' and a Pullin' on them cars with his
Switchman working as fast as he can.
Ol' John is a thinkin the whole time,
A Machine aint gonna beat a man.
Well the groundhoggers came out of the shanty
And they looked at the 6022.
Said to each other as they switched on their boxes,
Ya know we got a lotta work to do
Ya know we got a lotta work to do.
The groundhoggers were havin a little problem
They couldn't get their boxes to link up.
Between a poll off-line and a comm loss,
They wer'nt having a very good time.
Seems like it happens everytime.
Well the groundhoggers hollerd at the bowl.
BOWL TOWR
We're havin a problem linkin up.
We've tried everything we know how to do.
I guess we're shit outta luck
I guess we're shit outta luck.
The tower hollers to John Henry.
Come and get this engine outta the way
It's blockin the East and we gotta pull some cars,
I guess we'll convert one today,
It seems like it's better that way.
The groundhoggers sat in the shanty,
Waitin for a Big E to come and git er done.
John Henry and his switchman allready pulled 300 cars
That RCO job pulled none.
But it's safer when you sit on your bum.
There is a reason for this story,
Corporate greed is killin this land.
If we don't do something and ORGANIZE.
Say hello to the ONE MAN PLAN.
That's talkin Union!
They wanna run trains with one man.
Roll the Union on!!
A Late Night Poem
To whom:
our breath reaches only so far
into sky and hearts on the honest
hope of connection.
Leave the anger behind.
This truth may be confusing
may be too much to disolve
into worth.
I am not looking to impress.
Sharing requires a certain
something that this limited voice
booms to leave behind.
An Interview I Wish Would Happen
June 2, 2019 June 2, 2019 / railroadmusic333	/ 1 Comment
So, you are working as an engineer on the only steamboat operating in the United States?
Well, the Steamer Belle of Louisville is the only operating steamboat that survived the packet era of river boat commerce. There are other boats that are steam operated, however, none of them are over one hundred years old. And I work there yes, but what I really am doing is escaping from a life that was being threatened by automation.
Well, by the time I had worked sixteen years in the railroad industry, I had witnessed the transition of totally manual operation of trains to an almost entirely computer, robot operation of trains.
What will happen when most jobs are handed over to computers and robots?
Well, humans will and always have longed to be loved and cared for, so, I hope that we as a people will go back to doing the things that have as much love and care contained in them as possible. It is suggested that humans have a tendency, when disaster strikes, to put differences aside and to help each other out unconditionally in the face of extreme difficulty. This to me is the saving grace of humanity. Unfortunately, waiting till the last minute to make changes is also a human trait that historically has caused so many disasters. It is obvious to me that the bottom line economically is most of the time the reason given for not making the changes required to avert many human made disasters.
You used to be very active in labor and social activist groups, what are you doing now?
Enjoying my new life as a river worker and member of a crew, reading a lot and writing.
What do you mean, "member of a crew?"
Well, Anne Feeney, my favorite labor singer and rebel folk musician has a song titled, War on the Workers, wherein she suggests that "if they call you a team, you better learn how to scream." I hate it when some manager suggests that a group of workers are a team. On boats, we are all on the same boat is our motto, no teams. We have one goal, keep the boat floating and all the folks safe that are on board. We are all on the same boat is one of my favorite metaphorical reasonings. Something like asking this question – What would we do if we were all on the same boat?
This is the essence of a lack of competition. If teams were applied, then somebody would lose. In human existence and in labor, an injury to one, is an injury to all. The suggestion of an injury to one, is also the very essence of a compassionate community that recognizes that decisions must be made with every one person involved. If there is even one person suffering, then everyone must stop, recognize and discover what is troubling this member of the crew, because ultimately, the crew is also suffering. It takes a full crew to operate a boat safely.
We do not live in a perfect world.
Sure, and we don't live in a constant state of emergency when all hands must be on deck at all times. And, in emergency situations a good crew would be strong enough to work with a member who can not work at full potential. Such as a strong community that operates with members who are suffering.
What is a community?
Unfortunately, community is sometimes just a word that has been co-opted as a brand and gimmick for profit takers. The same goes for free trade, cooperatives, green, sustainable, local and nonprofits. Many non profits will work their organizers, interns, directors and volunteers to extremes to enjoy a sort of free labor of love aspect of doing business, such as some businesses that make it their gimmick to create and sometimes support worker and farmer led cooperatives, but when it comes to their own workers, union cooperative collectivity is not something that is necessary to achieve.
Do you still support the union?
Well, I have been an active member of one of the oldest unions in the United States, The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. I have also been a member of one of the largest and most powerful unions, The Teamsters. What I found being a member of these unions was the same thing Eugene V. Debs found. Corruption, competition and a lack of human care taking. You can't throw the baby out with the bathwater, however, it seems to me that the labor movement has lost its way. That is why I was a union reformer and supporter of democratic movements in the unions that I was a member of. Democratic principles are nice and all, however there must be dissent for democracy to exist. Power corrupts. Care taking of the minority view is difficult to manage while in power and the troubling results of overpowering the minority is what fails many an organization and community minded endeavors.
Do you support Democratic movements and organizations now?
At the moment, I am not a member of any group or organization. I am still a supporter of Railroad Workers United because that is the organization that taught me most of the deeply held beliefs that I have adhered to as I transitioned out of the labor movement, so to say. I am a solidarity member, however, I am not in the railroad industry, community any more and my work as of late has been internally, moreover, personal and that has taken most of my time and energy.
What about the I.W.W.? I thought you were a member of that union.
I am not a dues paying member of any organization right now. I am only a solidarity member of railroad workers united in so far as I still talk frequently to the secretary and would support works that they might do. If I were called upon, I would give my advice and take the time to offer what time I might have in opinion. As for the I.W.W. That union is closer to my deeply held conviction that Labor is Entitled to All Wealth created by labor. This is not the belief of many of the trade unions of today. I am also more inclined to be a member when what I can offer is wanted. The labor movement in general has lost its heart and soul. That is my department. I am a singer, poet, storyteller, folk musician and griot.
What is a griot?
A Griot is a West African word that belongs to a certain caste of people who are the keepers of the oral tradition of the community that they belong. They are born into the trade and have a high place in society. They are poets, musicians and somewhat the journalists of their community. I am somewhat also a Djeli. There is some crossover in those two terms, however they are closely related in what those roles play in West African Culture.
Why do you consider yourself a Griot?
Well, I was born into a very musical family. My entire German side of my family were and still are members of a social club centered around singing. I grew up in that rapidly disappearing tradition. My father and uncles were folk mass singers in church and my Lebanese grandfather was a chanter at his Greek orthodox church. Back in my school days, (1984) I was a trumpet player in band. One day an artist was contracted by our band teacher, Malinda, to come, build and play African Drums. Herbie Johnson came and we made drums out of PVC pipes. Painted them and did a performance with them. This was my first experience working with African Music. Eventually, I would meet him again and the drum would change my life. I got my first west African Djembe in 1994. I still have it now.
My first paying gig was playing drum for an African storyteller. Her name was amazing. Oyo Fumilayo M'fundishi, something like that. What a name. I went on to study with Baba Olatunji and several of the Drum players who have worked with the Guinea National Ballets and other West African groups. Bolocada Conde, Famidou Konate to name a few.
How does this make you a Griot?
Well it doesn't really, because I am a Kentucky boy, not African born into a caste system, however I was doing the work that folks like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie were doing. They were storytellers, poets and musicians. Most of my work, when I was working at the railroad and in the democratic reform labor organizations, was done innocently, doing what a griot in Africa would have done. My goal was to document the working conditions of the American railroads using the old myths and stories of the people as my guide.
What do you mean, "old myths and stories?"
I recently met a banjo player who has been working with Rhiannon Giddens. She was playing a folk festival here in Louisville. She has written a song that deals with the ever changing and being added to song John Henry. She wrote a song about John's wife, Polly Anne. John Henry was a real person. To me, he was a moral to the story. The moral to the story was all about automation and pride. Moreover, to me that song is very triggering, because I worked very closely with families who were dealing with the tragic effects of automation. John Henry, lives in the memory of every worker who was killed on the railroad. To have her adding to the body of folk tradition, and adding to the what happened to Polly Anne question to me was absolutely fascinating. Not to mention this woman was a powerful young black woman playing the banjo. We certainly could use as many of those as we can get!
What have you been reading lately?
I have recently devoured all I can find in audiobooks. Joseph Campbell has been a recent study. I have also been reading tons of Idries Shah and other Sufi works. As of late, I am reading the Harlan Hubbard Payne Hollow Journal. Wendell Berry is a poet and essay writer I enjoy reading. I am finding also that Alan Bates is an excellent Kentucky author.
Who was Allen Bates?
He was a river worker who designed and worked on several steamboats. His books are written in a very easy to read way. Technical, but also capturing the human elements of what goes on out on the river.
What music have you been listening to?
The Grateful Dead, once a deadhead, always a deadhead. Sun Ra, I love Sun Ra. I listen to lots of West African Djembe groups and as of late, I have been listening to the birds mostly. I pulled out some Bill Monroe a couple of weeks ago, but mostly I have been listening to John Hartford's steamboat stuff. Kinda goes with the territory.
photo by Greg Acker
To My Brothers in the Brotherhood
December 5, 2018 December 5, 2018 / railroadmusic333	/ Leave a comment
(When I left work – exhausted and hot.
Our secretary was hanging directions
to our meeting on the union board.)
And also with you.
It is my direct action to love!
Go home directly, hug my boy –
kiss the wife and hit the sack.
Brothers, one day you will take
this union as sacrament.
This power we seek is to unite human
heart with sacred vision.
To be forward thinking – with resolve.
Our kinship, our favor.
Our love for one another,
will be our saving grace.
It is radical to speak without kind intention.
It is what it is, is the mantra of the broken.
Reality dictates that our strength comes in numbers.
It is ignorance that expects people
to come, who have not been invited.
It is morality that guides us to be all inviting.
Conscience that tells of our failure.
Let us not fall to fear of what might
happen if we raise our voices on high.
They will say, "they won't stick together!"
They will say, "they don't care!"
They will say, "they have fallen to
greed and don't understand!"
Let us be like the tree,
planted by the water.
For I was happy but now I'm not.
I was lost but now, I'm found.
Was blind … but now I see.
I am employed by your favor!
Let's not get lost in arguments.
Let us now greet each other &
feel open hands meet &
raise our voices on high!
Sing:
There is power in a band of working folks
when they stand hand in hand.
In solidarity!
I make motion to change
the name of our union to also
include the word.
Sisterhood.
Prana meets the Beats inna Firehouse in Monterey, Kentucky
November 16, 2018 / railroadmusic333	/ Leave a comment
This is a chapter from my book The Table that can be purchased HERE.
Rest in peace Mike Bell!
Chapter 12 – Prana meets the Beats inna Firehouse in Monterey, Kentucky
We were young men, in a percussion ensemble circa 1993 -1995 named for a Vedic word used to describe the life-giving force. A source, per definition of the word, that comes from the sun. We were a rag tag team of twenty-year olds, very much innocently – delving into conceptual organic soundscapes – very much inspired by the resurgence of world music that came after Micky Hart released his book and companion CD, Drumming at the Edge of Magic. We were winging it.
We had a didgeridoo player, blacksmith, who had mastered the circular breathing technique of the Australian native peoples. A DunDun player wild man, new to African music, photographer and deep thinker, seeker. We also had the young son of a Presbyterian minister, Zak Fry. My first percussion student. We had Leland, the friend, who would end up sticking around in NYC after the Rant tour, that ate the beat poets, and then would travel with me to the place that was founded by the Sufi, Inayat Khan's son. Several Folks would come in and out of this group. Toby the hippie dude who disappeared. I think he split out to Bloomington, Indiana. We also had Joshua, the white Rasta, soon to become quite a hardworking man and husband. Not to mention kick ass Djembe player in his own right.
Three of our members came as a troop. High school buddies. Our Dundun, bass drum, mask wearing, philosopher – burning man, was a close friend of Eric (habibi) the blacksmith frame drum player. Some of the troop sometimes now honor me as their first teacher, and that is an honor. But we were all new to this culture. Not a study into the factual historical relevance of the Djembe, however, we were on a journey that would take us into Smoketown, Kentucky to do a presentation for impoverished African- American neighborhood kids.
We ate Monterey, Kentucky and played the firehouse in that little lonesome forgotten tobacco town. We played the Twice-Told coffeehouse many times. I suggested that we would eventually play in Egypt and all around the world. I think big. We would wear African masks and put cool Indian carpets on the stage like the Grateful Dead. We were going further, for real. Once we had a copper bullroarer fly off the rope and almost kill somebody in the audience. It was awesome,
Back in the Prana days, I was deeply studying Islam and Sufi poetry. I was playing and making bamboo flutes. I was attending the working-class mosque on 4th street in old Louisville and praying as much as I could. I was reading books written by a Sufi guru named Bawa Muhiyadeen, a lot. My wife and I would later visit the fellowship in Philly that was organized and overseen by Bawa. On our honeymoon, we would pray in the fellowship's mosque, eat mung bean curry and read Bawa texts in his bedroom. We would then travel to the Gershwin hostel in NYC, and sleep in a Barbie themed bed. We were ecstatically in love, still are. And,
Once upon a time there was a Cat Swami. He sat in the grain house and convinced rats to follow him. He told the rats that the cats and the rats had made friends. The cat was awesome, right? He would preach fire and brimstone, the one big union, sing solidarity forever and all was good on the farm. One day, one of the fat rats disappeared. The cat told the fat rat to stay after one of the sermons, because he, the cat, thought that he, the rat, was awesome, right? um, so. Well, when no one was looking, pounce.
The other rats got the picture and figured out the moral of the story and they all lived happily ever after. Right?
That is a very simple version of a Bawa story that was in one of his Children's books. It is a story that teaches folks to be very wary of guru's, plastic shamans, new age bull chicken and the such. Bawa's stories are deep and his teachings, wonderful. Nobody can find any dirt on him. No cars, women, drugs, no wild sex and other things that sometimes come with Indian guru new age crystal visions. I am not Muslim now and my Lebanese Greek Orthodox grandfather would have killed me, if he knew my wife and I got married in the mosque. I am a huge fan of Sufism and, I digress, often.
I think the important thing to mention is that none of us were music students at the college. The non-academic qualities of our group are important to this story. The living and breathing fact was that we were all struggling to figure out some relevance in a world that had lost its way. Lost its culture. I think that it is also important to mention that while some of us were studying the liner notes of all the new world music CDs we were sharing about our collective. We never called it a collective.
We didn't have a website, email and a blog. We released a cassette. Our rehearsals were held mostly at our Dun Dun player's house and were naturally centered around food and friendship. A dundun is a common general name for the bass drums that are the backbone of traditional west African village music from the Malinke people.
We were mixing together the rhythms that I had learned from a collection of African rhythms from two of my earliest teachers, Herbie Johnson and Musa Uthman. It is important to note that these two people were African Americans, from Louisville, Kentucky. These two folks were part of the generation of African Americans that had found African music from the previous generations. From the pan African 1960's.
It is also important to note that the resurgence of World Music, that can be directly blamed on Mickey Hart, was fueling this group. We were adding to that mix, a study of Classical Indian music that found our group traveling to Cincinnati to a birthday celebration for Zakir Hussain's father. If I remember correctly it was his 70th birthday and the concert was a long tabla recital with his two sons. Long, meaning over three hours. Zakir Hussain is one of the most celebrated Tabla players of his time. His father was one of the most important Tabla players of his time. Time.
Eric, our didge player and I had become very good friends. We were dropping acid, playing music for hours, talking, laughing. Eric, is a trickster, seer, magician. He was at the time a Blacksmith. His homemade Didgeridoos, made of copper, were exquisite. To make a serious point, I think Eric is one of the most talented musicians that I have ever played with. I have been places with Eric, in music, that are hard to explain. Other Worlds. Sun Ra has a song called, I'll Wait For You. That is where we went.
It's a far place.
Many light years in space …
I'll wait for you,
I'll wait for you!
Where human feet,
have never trod,
human eyes, have never seen –
I'll build a world, full of abstract dreams –
I'll wait for you … I'll wait for you.
Something like that. Before Prana, I had a friend named Blue. He played the Japanese flute. Blue and I worked at the Good Neighbor Food Cooperative together. He was an ex-Marine, turned hippie, lost son of a folk musician – step son of a biker. Not just a biker, but a real one. His step-father was … well, think biker gang, Louisville Outlaws – think, Hell's Angels. That is how Blue grew up. We met and would become inseparable. We would spend hours and hours playing our flute and drum, in the burned-out chapel upstairs from the Co-op. We named our group One Song, from a line in a poem by Rumi. Blue and I would frequently go to the place that is described in the Sun Ra poem.
To get to that place, a Sufi poet once gave perfect directions. The instructions read:
to enter that place one would need to fly through a window,
but, why do that, if there were no walls …
Something like that. Jazz musicians call this place, "In the pocket." Miles Davis called his notes colors. Many musicians have tried to describe leaving the human world of language and place. It's like a magic carpet ride. L.S.D helps, but like Timothy Leary had suggested in his time – once you get across the river, why carry the canoe – …
The river I was crossing with PRANA was a poem that would have many rewrites over time. Drum, Beat, Dance. The poem turned into an elaborate stage presentation called The Rhythm of Civilization. Here is one of the versions that is in my journal that I carried in my grip while eating NYC, meeting all the old farts of poetry and going to meet Baba Olatunji. The poem is Circa 1994.
Sounds that came from a
place inside you that
you didn't know were there.
from the heart by the
hands the sweet music
flows, Sounds of a
Drum – Beat – Dance …
Children dancing on
the skin that stretches
across …
Looking at the sun
the white heat grabs you.
Drum – Beat – Dance!
A new civilization singing …
Lonely for the flute,
I come looking
for you …
We Celebrate, with music –
and wine, not made from grapes!
In a place, you can't imagine.
The Marriage of flute and drum.
The Rhythm of sound.
The breath of life.
Sound and Power.
Drum Beat Dance and Sing and Dance
and Love and Life and Drum – Beat – Dance …
We started the song with forest sounds, clicks and the bullroarers. The didgeridoo drone would then lead the way to a deep six-eight pattern on the drums. I would do a flute presentation and then start into the poem. The song ended with a long flute solo and then finished with the conclusion of the poem.
When we played this song in Monterey, Kentucky, my flute, right in the middle of my solo, broke in half and fell to the floor. It was surreal. The solo that I had taken had moved me to start crying. Of all the performances that we experienced as a group, the firehouse gig was my favorite. The hash was good, the L.S.D that we took was pure and the creek we swam in was cool. I was young and with my friends. Monterey, Kentucky holds a special place in my heart. I had never experienced that sort of mystical feeling before. A deep rapture that broke my flute. Right?
September 23, 2018 / railroadmusic333	/ Leave a comment


It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the 2nd International Electronic Conference on Remote Sensing. ECRS-2 aims to promote and advance the exciting and rapidly changing field of remote sensing and contribute towards outlining the role of earth observation in monitoring the environment for a sustainable future.
During the last decade, we witnessed a remarkable increase in the number of disciplines and activities supported by remote sensing, with Earth Observation data being considered essential to most environmental monitoring activities worldwide. Indeed, remote sensing today is considered critical for addressing key challenges related to climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, industrial pollution, natural and anthropogenic hazards (e.g. earthquakes, floods, landslides, fires), water quality and availability, weather forecasting and early warnings, renewable energy, agriculture, forestry and natural ecosystems, coasts and oceans, topographic mapping and, national security among many others. New missions with sensors suitable for a large variety of different applications, progress in computer technology, development of new advanced digital image analysis techniques, improved access to and availability of images (satellite, airborne) andin-situ measurements, as well as the establishment of global initiatives such as the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) are expected to further increase the use of EO data to an even broader array of disciplines.
Hence, it seems that the future of remote sensing lies in providing numerous types of accurate, current, and multi-resolution data and derived geospatial information products readily available for every area of interest.
Participants in this multidisciplinary conference will be able to examine, explore and critically engage with issues and advances in these and related areas. We hope that this event will facilitate debates on theoretical and applied aspects of remote sensing, which will yield novel ideas to the field.
The 2nd International Electronic Conference on Remote Sensing will be held at www.sciforum.net/conference/ecrs-2, the platform developed by MDPI to organize electronic conferences and discussion groups.
Accepted papers will be published in the proceedings of the conference, and selected papers will be considered for publication in Remote Sensing, which is an open access journal publication of MDPI in the field of remote sensing (http://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing).
We are looking forward to receiving your contributions in this unique event!
Ioannis Gitas is an Associate Professor at the Laboratory of Forest Management and Remote Sensing, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and an elected fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. His research has focused on remote sensing and GIS applications in environmental monitoring, with emphasis on forest fire management and land cover/land use mapping and change detection. He has been involved in various national and international projects and has long experience working as a consultant in GIS/RS issues for national and international organisations, as well as for the industry. Also, he has served as a project proposal reviewer for a number of national and international research organisations. Dr. Gitas received his PhD and M.Phil. degrees in GIS and Remote Sensing from the Department of Geography, Cambridge University, U.K., and a B.Sc. degree in Forestry and Natural Environment from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He is an Associate Editor of Remote Sensing and has edited special issues for a number of high impact factor journals. In addition, he has substantial experience in organising international workshops and conferences. Ioannis Gitas is currently the Chair of the Special Interest Group on Forest Fires of the European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories (EARSeL, FFSIG), the FAO Forest Resources Assessment, Remote Sensing Survey contact point for Greece, and is a member of the GOFC-GOLD Fire Implementation Team.
Sciforum is a platform maintained by MDPI.
Scholars interested in participating with the conference can submit their abstract (about 200-300 words covering the areas of manuscripts for the proceedings issue) online on this website until 17 December 2017.
The Conference Committee will pre-evaluate, based on the submitted abstract, whether a contribution from the authors of the abstract will be welcome for the 2nd International Electronic Conference on Remote Sensing. All authors will be notified by 20 December 2017 about the acceptance of their abstract.
If the abstract is accepted for this conference, the author is asked to submit his/her manuscript, optionally along with a PowerPoint and/or video presentation of his/her paper (only PDF), until the submission deadline of 10 February 2018.
The manuscripts and presentations will be available on https://sciforum.net/conference/ecrs-2 for discussion and rating during the time of the conference 22 March-5 April 2018 and will be published in Journal Proceedings.
The Open Access Journal Remote Sensing will publish a Special Issue of the conference proceedings papers and accepted papers will be published in the proceedings of the conference itself. Accepted papers will be published in the proceedings of the conference. After the conference, the Conference Committee will recommend manuscripts that may be included for publication in this Special Issue of the journal Remote Sensing (the submission to the journal is independent from the conference proceedings and will follow the usual process of the journal, including peer-review, APC, etc.).
Nanosatellites have drawn significant attention in research communities and industrial sectors due to their small size, ease of deployment, and relatively short developmental period. CubeSat specifications have been suggested as an effort to standardize nanosatellite mission design. Standardization opens the door for inter-CubeSat communications that can be used to form a CubeSat Cloud and mimic regular large multifunctional satellites with wide range of features, measurements and sensing capabilities.
Lebanon and many Developing countries have not been involved in satellite/nanosatellite design and launch. This research paper will first present a Comprehensive CubeSat (CoCube) online database. CoCube database is created by collecting information from various resources including currently available databases, published research papers and disseminated information about various CubeSat missions.
Based on the lessons learned from comparing various CubeSat design alternatives and components' structure and analyzing the best practices of CubeSat development, LibanSAT design is introduced. LibanSAT is a 1U CubeSat that serves two main objectives: (i) greenhouse gases observation and (ii) educational purposes. LibanSAT is designed based on existing Components Off-The-Shelf (COTS). The rapid growth in the production of ready to use COTS subsystem made missions' design faster, simpler and more effective. We benchmarked subsystems from various suppliers including ISIS-innovative solutions in Space, Nano avionics, Clyde-space, Gomspace and Pumpkins CubeSat kit among others and chose the most suitable products for our target mission based on cost, size, weight and power consumption.
Lebanon signed the Paris Agreement of climate change in April 2016 where greenhouse gases are identified as the main critical factor causing global warming. LibanSAT mission falls under the greenhouse gases observing satellite category, also known as GoSat. The most abundant greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere can be clearly observed in the near-infrared band. As a result, the proposed spectrometer to be used as a payload is the Argus 1000 infrared spectrometer that is currently being tested as a payload in Canx2 and AlbertaSat-1 missions.
LibanSAT project serves also an educational purpose to raise awareness about the importance of space research among Lebanese academic institutions (universities and research centers). Likewise, the development of this type of technology will ensure the progress of our country and can open the opportunity for other Lebanese universities to perform space science and exploration. Future plans include designing an educational prototype that serves as a classroom CubeSat where all subsystems can be introduced for university students.
Finally, we shed special focus on communication security subsystem during LibanSAT design process. Due to the limitation in CubeSat weight, volume and power, we propose the use of a gateway mission which can be also used to route data between CubeSat Cloud nodes. The gateway is used as a firewall where all communication between ground stations and the Cloud will be handled by this central threat management entity.
The RADARSAT-1 (launched in 1995), RADARSAT-2 (launched in 2007) and the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (to be launched in late 2018) are three past, current, and future Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) space missions which consists the Canadian RADARSAT program. The RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) is the evolution of the RADARSAT Program with the objective of ensuring data continuity, improved operational use of SAR data and enhanced system reliability. Canada is developing the RCM using small satellites to further maximize the capability to carry out round-the-clock surveillance from space. The Canadian Space Agency (CSA), in collaboration with other government-of-Canada departments and Canadian industry, is leading the design, development and operation of the RCM to help addressing key priorities. The mission with its three identical satellites will provide average daily complete coverage of Canada's land and oceans. The short revisit frequency of the mission (four day cycle) combined with accurate orbital control affords a range of applications that are based on regular collection of data and creation of composite images that highlight changes over time. The purpose of our presentation is to discuss the evolution of the RADARSAT program with an overview on the RCM and its characteristics and advancements over the previous SAR missions. However, emphasis will be given on the expected potential RCM will offer on various environmental applications, such as monitoring climate change, land use evolution, and human impacts on local environments. Examples include sea ice classification, wetland monitoring, oil spill detection, flood mapping, coastal erosion and others. Improvement addressing these applications is also expected given the advanced RCM SAR innovations, such as the availability of the compact polarization.
Due to it's Non-Sun-synchornous orbit, RapidScat is the first scatterometer capable of measuring ocean vector winds over the full diurnal cycle istead of observing given location at the fixed time of day. Non-Sun-synchronous orbit enables also overlap with other satellite instruments that have been flying in Sun-synchronous orbits. Rapidscat covers range between ± 51.6 latitudes and was operated onboard the International Space Station between September 2014 and August 2016. This paper describes process that combines RapidScat's active/passive mode, simultaneously measuring both the radar surface backscatter (active mode) and microwave emission from the system noise temperature (passive mode). This work presents the radiometric (passive mode) cross-calibration using the GPM Microwave Imager (GMI), to eliminate brightness temperature measurement biases between a pair of radiometer channels operating at slightly different frequencies and incidence angles. The GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) on the GPM Core satellite flies in a low inclination orbit, with conical-scanning dual-polarized beams. Since the RapidScat operates at 13.4 GHz and the closest GMI channel is 10.65 GHz. GMI Tb's were normalized required before the calibration. The GMI brightness temperatures was translated using the radiative transfer model (RTM) to yield an equivalent Tb prior to direct comparison with RapidScat. Seasonal and systematic biases between two radiometers have been calculated for both polarizations as a function of geometry, atmospheric and ocean brightness temperature models. Calculated biases may be used for measurement correction and reprocessing.
Recently, with the development of remote sensing and computer techniques, automatic extraction and update of road information is becoming true. Remote sensing images can not only provide the surface information in large areas, but also save the costs in human resources, materials and time. Additionally, the update cycle of road network is now much shorter than traditional method. Nowadays, accurate extraction of road information from satellite data has become one of the most popular topics in both remotes sensing and transportation fields. However, as there is usually huge information provided by remote sensing data, an efficient and accurate method to refine the data and extract the road is thus important in real applications, such as the road update and emergency rescue decision making. By combining the deep convolution network and image segmentation approach, this paper proposed a new solution for extraction road network from high resolution images. For doing this, a road class table was built according to the road design and construction specifications that made by transportation industry. Following that, the ownership probability of different road classes should be predicted through deep convolutional network at pixel-level and the corresponding task was then regarded as a specific image segmentation. In addition, to make the extracted road segments more realistic, a post-processing approach was also used to modify, connect and smooth the road segments. Experiments in this paper showed that, the proposed solution successfully distinct multi-type roads from complex situations. Furthermore, a more realistic road map could also be provided with a total accuracy of more than 80% in discriminable areas.
Satellite precipitation estimates data are widely used for a variety of studies, including the hydrologic and climate modeling, weather forecasting, and agriculture management or extreme events prediction. However, satellite precipitation estimation is inevitably followed with errors which are caused by different factors, therefore it is essential to evaluate the relative errors of satellite precipitation data. A realizable method which can be used to quantify the relative errors in large-scale datasets is triple collocation. This method can objectively obtain the relative errors for at least three or more independent products. But before estimation of relative errors, the bias of the products relative to each other should be reduced or removed. This study tests the cumulative distribution function (CDF) matching approach which aims to reduce the bias among three precipitation products over the Netherlands. Afterwards, the triple collocation technique is applied to determine the relative errors of these precipitation products. The three precipitation datasets are, the Climate Prediction Center morphing method (CMORPH), the Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks (PERSIANN) and the gridded rain gauge data interpolated from in situ rain gauge measurement data provided by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI).
The 2nd International Electronic Conference on Remote Sensing will be held from 22 March to 5 April 2018. ECRS-2 aims to promote and advance the exciting and rapidly changing field of remote sensing and contribute towards outlining the role of earth observation in monitoring the environment for a sustainable future. All proceedings will be held online at http://www.sciforum.net/conference/ecrs-2.
The conference will be completely free of charge—both to attend, and for scholars to upload and present their latest work on the conference platform. There will be a possibility to submit selected papers to the e-conference related Special Issue of the journal Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292; 3.244 (2016); 5-Year Impact Factor: 3.749 (2016); http://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing) with a 20% discount on the APCs. ECRS-2 offers you the opportunity to participate in this international, scholarly conference without having the concern or expenditure of travel — all you need is your computer and access to the Internet. We would like to invite you to "attend" this conference by presenting your latest work. You will be able to present your work in the form of your proceedings paper, optionally you may also contribute a (video) presentation.
Abstracts (in English) should be submitted by 17 December 2016 online at http://www.sciforum.net/login. For accepted abstracts, the proceedings paper can be submitted by 10 February 2018. The conference itself will be held 22 March-5 April 2018.
We hope you will be able to join this exciting event and support us in making it a success. ECRS 2018 is organized and sponsored by MDPI, a scholarly open access publisher based in Basel, Switzerland.
For information about the procedure for submission, peer-review, revision and acceptance of conference proceedings papers, please refer to the section "Instructions for Authors": https://sciforum.net/conference/ecrs-2/page/instructions.
HAPTIC R&D CONSULTING stays focused both on private and public organisations, NGOs, universities, educational institutes and agencies offering various services related to European funded programmes such as Horizon 2020 helping them to access EU funds.
We are pleased to invite you to submit an abstract and in case of acceptance your paper to this conference. All accepted papers will be published in ISPRS Archives. The ISPRS Archives are listed in the ISI Conference Proceedings Citation Index (CPCI) of the Web of Science, SCOPUS, and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
Data (ISSN 2306-5729) is an open access journal on data in science, with the aim of enhancing data transparency and reusability. The journal publishes in two sections: a section on the collection, treatment and analysis methods of data in science; a section publishing descriptions of scientific and scholarly datasets (one dataset per paper). There is no Article Processing Charges (APCs) for well-prepared manuscripts submitted in 2018 and a first decision is provided to authors approximately 20.5 days after submission; acceptance to publication is undertaken in 5.6 days (median values for papers published in this journal in 2017). The journal is indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) - Web of Science.
In this webinar, you will learn about basic methods of mapping waterbodies from space using Sentinel-1 SAR and Sentinel-2 Optical data. We will show you how to access the RUS Service and how to download, process, analyse and visualise the free data acquired by the Copernicus satellites using ESA SNAP Toolboxes.
The ability to accurately map water surfaces is integral to many hydrological scientific and civil applications. Various methods exist and are used on operational basis. In this webinar, we will have a look at the basic methods applied to two types of EO data, Optical and SAR, and we will explore the advantages and disadvantages of each type.
Audience: this webinar is addressed to users at all levels of knowledge, who have an interest in the topic.
Barbara J. Ryan is Secretariat Director of the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO) located in Geneva, Switzerland. In this capacity, she leads the Secretariat in coordinating the activities of 104 Member States and the European Commission and 114 Participating Organizations that are integrating Earth observations so that informed decisions can be made across eight Societal Benefit Areas: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Sustainability; Disaster Resilience; Energy and Mineral Resources Management; Food Security; Infrastructure and Transportation Management; Public Health Surveillance; Sustainable Urban Development; Water Resources Management.
Before becoming GEO Director in July 2012, Ryan served as Director of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Space Programme with responsibility for coordinating space-based observations to meet the needs of WMO Members in the topical areas of weather, water, climate and related natural disasters.
Before joining WMO in October 2008, she was the Associate Director for Geography at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Reston, Virginia where she was responsible for the Landsat, remote sensing, geography and civilian mapping programs of the agency. It was under her leadership that implementation of the Landsat data policy was reformed to release all data over the internet at no additional cost to the user—an action that has resulted in the global release of more than 42 million Landsat scenes to date, and significant economic returns globally.
Ryan holds a Bachelor´s degree in Geology from the State University of New York at Cortland, a Master´s degree in Geography from the University of Denver, and a Master´s degree in Civil Engineering from Stanford University. She has been awarded an honorary doctorate of science degree from the State University of New York at Cortland. She was recently named an Honorary Fellow of the American Geographical Society, and in January 2017, was one of 10 global Leaders to be named to the Geospatial World Forum's Hall of Fame.
The "New Platforms and Sensors" session will focus on the innovative orbital, airborne or marine platforms equipped with new and integrated sensor systems that are planned or soon to be operational. With the proliferation of Remotely Piloted Systems (RPAS/UAS/UAV/ drones, AUV), the remote sensing community is seeing an explosion of interest in data collection from these platforms. We encourage contributions that cover this exciting new platform development arena, as well as innovative integrated sensor systems to accompany those platforms. Innovative remote sensing applications which demonstrate the impacts of new platforms and sensors are also encouraged. Additionally, we invite contributions that highlight the newly operational employment of orbital satellite sensor systems at all spatial scales. Many nations and organizations are launching and operating new Earth monitoring systems, and are looking to expand the visibility of those systems for use by the community. The orbital Earth Observation (EO) realm is also being opened up to commercial enterprises, and is no longer just a domain for space organizations. With the development of SmallSats, MicroSats, and even larger platforms by the commercial community, we see a concomitant increase in interest to use these sensor system data sets for supporting a wide range of Earth system studies. We welcome your input to this broad-based session that will hopefully expose the community to the new innovative platforms and Earth Observation sensors that will evolve in the near future.
This session on Big Data Handling is intended to collate papers on the latest techniques to manage, exploit, process, and analyze big data in remote sensing applications. The session is expected to bring together experts from different research areas to discover and realize the values of big data in various remote sensing areas. As a result, different techniques and applications exploiting big data will be gathered as a first necessary effort towards the incorporation of this technology into the remote sensing field, and also help academia, governments, and industries to gain insights into the potential of using big data techniques and concepts in remote sensing applications.
Large-scale image analysis is key to provide rapid insights and information in the world of big data and real-time intelligence and decision making. Image analysis comes in different forms and there has been extensive research on operational and research algorithms suited for a variety of applications—ranging from airborne surveillance to remote sensing and video analytics from space, to name but a few. New image analysis methodologies can be submitted to this forum and may include advances in new algorithms for pattern recognition, feature enhancement, compression, computer vision innovations, including new scalable deep learning and machine vision algorithms, image fusion, image super-resolution, and topics that may include existing image analysis approaches for specific applications, highlighting computational complexity, inter-comparison of methods, sensor limitations and future challenges.
The "Applications" session will focus on the specifics of remote sensing data usage in agriculture, forestry, meteorology, hydrography, land use planning, natural and anthropogenic disasters, change analysis and relevant research topics which are not limited to this list. We encourage contributions that cover examples of different remote sensing data (satellite based, air born, UAV) application in practice. Additionally, we invite contributions that highlight methodological aspects of remote sensing data usage at different spatial scales for mapping, monitoring, and evaluation of natural resources, including multi-sensor applications. We hope that, as a result of the work of our section, new promising tasks of the practical application of remote sensing data will be revealed. In addition, the effectiveness of remote sensing methods and approaches will be demonstrated, and confirmed.
Validation of remote sensing products is fundamental for Earth Observation. The "Product Validation" session will focus on methods used to derive information on the spatial and thematic quality of remote sensing products at all scales. The current proliferation of satellites and sensors providing global imagery at different spatial resolutions has necessitated provision of a variety of remote sensing products that support the monitoring of events and processes on Earth. However, this profusion of new products is often not accompanied by protocols that help determine the quality of the products. Research is needed to establish protocols for product validation that can help users determine their applicability for Earth resource monitoring. This session welcomes submissions of work on the applicability of Earth Observation data for environmental monitoring with an emphasis on quality assurance and quality control of the resulting products.
The main areas of interest of this section are: land, maritime, atmospheric, natural and anthropogenic disasters, change analysis, forest sustainability, food security/global crop monitoring, soil surface and subsurface applications and relevant research topics which are not limited to this list.
In recent years, UAVs have undergone significant advances in equipment capabilities and now have the capacity to acquire high resolution imagery from many angles in a cost effective, efficient manner. UAVs are used in diverse remote sensing applications such as Earth observation, precision farming, cultural heritage monitoring, urban monitoring, forest management, fire monitoring, disaster prevention, search and rescue, security, mapping and monitoring of desertification industrial plant inspection, 3D mapping, and environmental studies and monitoring. With recent advances in technology, UAVs are also able to include new sensors, such as multispectral, hyperspectral, infrared and thermal cameras, lidar and other sensors.


Fallows brings a rare note of optimism into the debate on the current state of US politics and its relationship with the media. He summarises his message with the sentence: "America is a functioning country with a non-functioning national political system".
The belief that Trump was elected on foot of the pent-up discontent of an underappreciated part of US society that suddenly found its voice, is a misinterpretation. The idea that economic misery has led to dislocation in American society is both overstated and nothing new. Historically it has often been worse. While there have been economic shocks in the industrial mid-west in this century, the direction over the last 4 years has been positive. In fact, the economy was worse in 1976, the year Jimmy Carter was elected and also in 1992, when Bill Clinton won.
On the issue of immigration, throughout the history of America each new wave of immigration has seemed disruptive when it arrived. Currently, in areas with high immigrant populations things are moving as always and generally moving in a positive direction. On the other hand, the areas with lower immigration levels have a greater "pro-wall" mentality and a greater fear of others. In Fallows opinion, the U.S. is very well positioned in scale, resources and talent. The biggest handicap is the system of national governance. Last year's election was not an expression of misery about the state of the country, but one of misery with the state of its national government.
There is much reported on the tensions within the Democratic Party but these are all within normal bounds for that party. The same is not true of the internal conflicts of the Republican party. The current tension is between two streams within the party, the Trump/Bannon Republican movement and the Republican party of Gingrich and William F Buckley. The latter stream is bigger than just Flake and Corker, there are 20 or so other Republican Senators who hold their beliefs but do not speak them aloud for fear of challenges from the right.
Regarding the media, the recent blurring of the line between public information and entertainment is a unique and unprecedented problem. However, it is part of a continuum of challenges. Every 30 years or so, media face a significant challenge and extinction is feared. The second current problem is government hostility and government's desire to control the media, but this is not new and arises during every crisis. The third problem the media faces is also one not being faced for the first time, the 'siloisation' of information. People are choosing to listen and absorb only the information that sits well with their pre-existing beliefs and, in the main, remain impervious to contrary evidence or counter-beliefs. Fallows is optimistic that all is not lost here either. He gives the example of the issue of sexual harassment, currently receiving a high level of reporting in the mainstream media, yet, unlike with many other issues, there are no cries of "Fake News". Journalism deserves credit for this reporting.
Fallows' message is that the U.S. as a country is in fundamentally better shape than one would think, albeit that the national government is in worse shape. The response needed is greater civic engagement. At local and state levels governance is better and civic involvement is higher. The hope (and goal) is that this should percolate up to the national level.


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Home » Archives » Can Surgery Cause Breast Cancer to Spread?
Can Surgery Cause Breast Cancer to Spread?
By The Doctors Health Press Editorial Board - March 7, 2007
Some new evidence has been uncovered that supports a controversial theory about breast cancer and surgery. The theory? That surgical intervention to remove a tumor could actually promote the spread of cancer in certain women, leading to a greater risk of mortality.
Now, don't panic. Let's take a look at this theory and the weight of the evidence for it first before we come to any conclusions.
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), there will be 178,480 new cases of breast cancer in women and 2,030 in men in the U.S. in 2007. The mortality rates this year are expected to average out at 40,460 women and 450 men; disturbing numbers for sure.
Normally, to treat breast cancer that has not yet spread, your specialist will recommend radiation therapy and/or surgery to destroy the tumor — surgery being by far the most common strategy. However, some scientists believe that there's something about surgery that could be causing great harm in some women.
A research team comprised of researchers from the U.S., U.K., and Italy has been looking into the theory that surgery to remove a primary malignant tumor from the breast could actually cause the cancer to spread to other areas. Back in 2005, this same team looked back on historical medical theory and at other evidence and concluded that surgery could trigger the "animation" of tiny tumors that exist undetected in other areas of the body.
So, when the primary tumor is removed from the breast, a signal is either released or some kind of control inhibiting activation is removed and tiny tumors that were not active before begin to grow and spread. A study the team did on Italian women showed that 20% of premenopausal women had their cancer spread after surgery, compared to approximately 10% of postmenopausal women. Based on this study, it seems that a woman who has not entered menopause is more likely to have a negative reaction to surgery than a woman who has. Could there be a hormonal connection?
Moving on, this latest analysis takes a look at breast cancer in African American women. Breast cancer is more likely to be fatal in this section of the population — 1.5 to 2.2 times more likely — even though the rates of this type of cancer are higher in white women. Some say that it's the differences in medical care at the varying levels of society that are causing this gap, but this research team is now suggesting that it's the type of treatment and the way the body reacts to it that are hiking up the mortality rate.
To make this leap, you'd have to know that African American women are diagnosed with breast cancer at the average age of 46 and that white women are usually diagnosed around the age of 57, perhaps due to genetic or hormonal differences. That's a huge difference in age — and it means that African Americans are often starting treatment, usually surgery, while they're in their premenopausal years. It's this timing that researchers believe could be the key to the surgery-metastasis link.
In addition to their 2005 study findings, the researchers have looked into laboratory and animal studies that back up the theory that, while in the body, a primary tumor sends out a substance called an "angiogenesis inhibitor" that blocks the growth of new blood cells, meaning that it keeps the aforementioned tiny tumors around the body inactive.
When the tumor is removed, there's nothing stopping the other tumors from thriving and spreading. Moreover, surgery stimulates the body into releasing its own "angiogenetic promoters" in an effort to heal itself faster, which just adds fuel to the cancer fire. Note that none of this has been proven yet in biological studies on humans.
Since all of this research is speculative and has not been proven satisfactorily, the researchers cannot recommend that changes be made in the way breast cancer is treated. Whatever your age, as a woman, you must continue to get screened for this disease on a regular basis and must take immediate action on any findings. If you are diagnosed with cancer, follow the advice of your doctors. Surgery could still give you the best chances of healing and survival.
This research only serves to point out that methods must be reevaluated and that more research needs to be done. If it is true that surgery could cause a chain of events that could increase the risk of the cancer spreading, it doesn't mean that surgery is not an option. It just means that certain measures should be taken to make it safer, such as administering angiogenesis inhibitors before and/or after the operation.
If you'd like to know more about breast cancer and its treatment, talk to your doctor or visit the National Cancer Institute web site at www.cancer.gov. If you think you might have the disease, get checked out by a medical professional right away.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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The most modern-looking tank, plane, rifle...etc.
Topic: The most modern-looking tank, plane, rifle...etc.
I'd say that the F117 is beginning to look dated with its sharp corners and such.
I think the F22 just looks much more 'modern' than anything else flying.
Unfortunately though, the Commanche program was scratched.
I'm a fan of the Leopard 2A6 myself.
That's true. Is the flight helmet of the F117 cube-shaped?
I wonder whether another country will want to buy Commanches in the future.
Most post-WW2 Soviet and Russian tanks look pretty neat with their flat, rounded turrets.
Are they in the process of solving that problem?
I don't know if they try to fix it or maybe solve it in the A7 version, but for use in battle position without moving it or on near distances it is top, too. In other cases I would use the A5 instead.


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↑ S. Sacks, Kenneth (1976). "Herodotus and the Dating of the Battle of Thermopylae". The Classical Quarterly. 26 (2): 232–248. สืบค้นเมื่อ 2008-07-05.
↑ Bury, J. B. (2000). A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great (4th Revised Edition ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. pp. page 271. Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: Extra text (link) The 1913 edition (same page numbers) สามารถดาวน์โหลดได้ที่ Google Books, .
↑ Bury (1913), page 295.
Bradford, Ernle (2004). Thermopylae: The Battle for the West. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81360-2.
Cartledge, Paul (2006). Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World. Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press. ISBN 1-58567-566-0.
Matthews, Rupert (2006). The Battle of Thermopylae: A Campaign in Context. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Tempus Publishing. ISBN 1-86227-325-1.
Ctesias; Freese, J.H. (Translator) (2002), "Persica", in Photius; Pearse, Roger, Bibliotheca (Myriobiblon): Codex LXXII, The Tertullian Project .
EDSITEment staff. "300 Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae: Herodotus' Real History". National Endowment for the Humanities. สืบค้นเมื่อ 2007-12-18.
Stecchini, Livio C. (2007). "The Persian Wars: the Size of the Persian Army" (html). Iran Chamber Society. สืบค้นเมื่อ 2007-10-19.
The Five Great Battles of Antiquity by David L. Smith, Symposion Lectures, 30 June 2006.
หน้านี้แก้ไขล่าสุดเมื่อวันที่ 23 กันยายน 2560 เวลา 04:06 น.


Dixie Carter confirmed on Twitter that she inducted Jeff Jarrett into the TNA Hall of Fame during tonight's Impact Wrestling tapings in Orlando. The ceremony should air in late July or early August. No word yet if TNA is still planning on doing an induction at this year's Bound For Glory pay-per-view.


Extra-terrestrials are among us. Take a good look at your teacher. Your next-door neighbour. Notice anything strange? Extra eyes? Too many legs? An exoskeleton, perhaps? Maybe you need the Men in Black. Super-cool duo Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones star in this hilarious, hugely inventive comedy that imagines how Earth would cope with the reality of aliens, some living peacefully alongside humans ("Elvis didn't die, he just went home") - some with less peaceful activities on their minds.
This film has one use of moderate bad language, violence and horror.
Activities to support engagement, debate and reflection for primary titles within the Comedy Genius strand of the Into Film Festival.
This heart-warming family favourite about an alien stranded all alone on earth contains some of the most magical scenes in movie history.
Every essential blues and soul musician takes a turn to help Jake and Elwood save their former orphanage, in this hilarious deadpan comedy.
Big-budget, futuristic film with state-of-the-art CGI about a hostile alien invasion of earth.
Classic 1950s sci-fi film in which a doctor from a small Californian town discovers its citizens are being replaced by identical-looking aliens.
We explore how the New Zealand comedy-drama reaches beyond its odd-couple dynamic to highlight how creativity and humour can help people express themselves.


President Juncker said that Sibiu is the moment where "we must offer all Europeans a strong perspective for the future".
Triggered by Brexit, the EU began a process of reflection, soul-searching and possibly reform – the so-called "Bratislava process" or the "process on the Future of Europe". EU institutions, Member States and civil society have made a number of contributions to this process. This paper of the Ecologic Institute discusses how EU climate and energy policies can support the EU reform process.
Meyer-Ohlendorf, Nils (2018). How can EU climate and energy policies support EU reform?, Ecologic Institute, Berlin.
4 Migration is a difficult starting point for EU reform: Can climate and energy policies help?
6 Can EU climate and energy policies help formulate a (re)newed vision for the EU?
7 Can climate and energy policies help strengthen EU foreign policy?
8 Can climate and energy policies serve as a role model for a more transparent EU?
9 Can climate and energy policies serve as a role model for a more participatory EU?


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Q: Encrypt with Javascript (cryptojs), Decrypt with php openssl, can't recreate message key I'm having trouble getting a message encrypted with cryptojs decrypted with php.
On the javascript side, the code to create the encryption is:
var keySize = 256;
var ivSize = 128;
var saltSize = 256;
var iterations = 100;

var message = "This is my test";
var password = "thepassword";

function encrypt(msg, pass) {

// Generate salt, key and iv
var salt = CryptoJS.lib.WordArray.random(saltSize / 8);

var key = CryptoJS.PBKDF2(pass, salt, {
    keySize: 256 / 32,
    iterations: iterations
});

console.log('Message key: ' + key);

var iv = CryptoJS.lib.WordArray.random(ivSize / 8);

// encrypt message
var encrypted = CryptoJS.AES.encrypt(msg, key, {
    iv: iv,
    padding: CryptoJS.pad.Pkcs7,
    mode: CryptoJS.mode.CBC

});

// convert encrypted message to hex
var encryptedHex = base64ToHex(encrypted.toString());

// Prepare result to transmit
var base64result = hexToBase64(salt + iv + encryptedHex);

return base64result;

}

This creates a string like:

g281MRrrEdiysHSAolnMmy3Au3yYkb2TK1t7iF4dv8X2k9Fod1DkOt/LF8eLgX8OxRvkSOMqtrcGEMaCL7A8YVBcugcirNg44HcWGWt+hfA=

When I bring that into php, I can correctly pull back the pieces sent (salt, iv, message), but can't decode the message.
$text_key = 'thepassword';
$cipher = "aes-256-cbc";

$received_message = $_REQUEST['message'];

// Decode message and pull out pieces:
$decoded = base64_decode($received_message);

$hex_version = bin2hex($decoded);

// Pull out salt, iv and encrypted message
$salt = substr($hex_version, 0,64);
$iv = substr($hex_version, 64,32);
$encrypted_string = substr($hex_version, 96);

// Message key
$generated_key = bin2hex(openssl_pbkdf2($text_key, $salt, 32, 100, 'sha256'));

// Decode Message
$result = openssl_decrypt($text_encoded, $cipher, $generated_key, $options=0, hex2bin($iv));

If I replace $generated_key with the key displayed in the javascript console, however, the message decrypts successfully.
What am I doing incorrectly to generate the key in php?

A: After creating a routine to run through all possible algorithms for openssl_pbkdf2 and the hash_pbkdf2 functions, discovered that the hash_pbkdf2 function is the one that will create the key:
$generated_key = hex2bin(hash_pbkdf2('sha1', $text_key, hex2bin($salt), 100, 64, FALSE));

Once the right algorithm and size was in place, the decryption works as expected.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Tell Boris Johnson: Don't water down sleaze rules for MPs
They should be strengthened instead.
ourEconomy: Analysis
Those who have prospered during the pandemic should pay more in tax
We need a tax system that supports a fair recovery and keeps pace with the economic changes that have been accelerated by the pandemic
24 September 2021, 2.23pm
Profits have soared for Jeff Bezos's Amazon
DPA Picture Alliance/Alamy Stock Photo. All rights reserved
Watching Boris Johnson all but beg Amazon's chief Jeff Bezos to pay more tax this week was a galling sight. Amazon is the perfect illustration of who benefitted from the COVID-19 pandemic: the company's profit in the first three months of 2021 was a record $8.1bn – more than triple what it was in the same period last year.
But it's not only US multinationals that have cashed in during the pandemic. This week Tax Justice UK published new research that identified UK-based companies whose profits have soared over the past 18 months.
The research found that the online retailer ASOS, the outsourcing company Serco and the mining giant Rio Tinto are among six UK-based companies across online retail, finance, outsourcing, real estate, mining and pharmaceuticals who made £16bn in excess global profits during the pandemic. Most of these companies increased their profits by more than 100% during the pandemic compared with previous years – in some cases significantly so. The profits of one company, the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, increased by 801%.
A debate is currently raging in the UK about how best to fund investment in social care and our COVID-ravaged public services. Legislation for a 1.25% increase to National Insurance was rushed through Parliament just last week.
Get one whole story, direct to your inbox every weekday.
This is a decision that makes ordinary people's taxes work more – not wealth, nor the excess profits that some companies have made in the last 18 months. Surely it is right that higher taxes on profitable companies should be on the agenda too?
Reform for fairness
Going forward, we need a tax system that supports a fair recovery and keeps pace with the economic changes that the pandemic has accelerated. Those hit hardest over the last 18 months should not be asked to pay more, but it is fair that those who have prospered contribute more to the economic recovery.
The Tax Justice UK report outlines a series of recommended reforms to our tax system. The first is the introduction of a one-off windfall tax on profits made during the pandemic. Windfall taxes are not new. In 1915, the government introduced an 'excess profits duty' to support the First World War effort. A similar tax was introduced just after the outbreak of the Second World War.
In 1981, the Thatcher-led Conservative government introduced a 'special budget levy' on UK clearing banks, which had made large profits during the previous decade's recession due to high interest rates. The following year, the same government introduced a 'special tax' on North Sea oil and gas to capture more of the revenues from the late 1970s oil-price explosion, which raised £2.4bn. In 1997, the newly elected Labour government introduced a windfall tax on the privatised utilities, which produced an estimated one-off payment to the government of £5bn.
The six companies examined in the report made excess global profits of £16bn in 2020 compared with previous years. On this basis, a pandemic profit levy of 10% could raise up to £1.6bn from these companies alone, and a 50% levy could raise up to £8bn.
The report's second recommendation is that the government increases the main rate of corporation tax to 25% immediately, and closes corporate tax breaks that don't work. At just 19%, the UK's rate of corporation tax is low by international and historical standards. In the spring budget, the chancellor announced that corporation tax would increase to 25%, but not until 2023. However, with national insurance set to rise from April 2022, is it fair to postpone tax rises on businesses?
Capital gains should be taxed at the same rate as employment income so that returns from wealth and income from work are taxed evenly
Increasing corporation tax immediately would mean that companies that are well placed to prosper from the structural shifts accelerated by the pandemic – such as mining and pharmaceutical companies – also contribute more to the public purse on an ongoing basis. Corporation tax is only paid on profits, so companies that have been significantly impacted by the pandemic will not be affected. According to estimates by the Resolution Foundation, increasing the rate of corporation tax to 25% would raise around £20bn a year.
The report's final recommendation is to equalise the taxation of capital gains and income. The analysis showed that the company with the biggest increase in profits during the pandemic was the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (SMIT), which saw an £8bn increase in global profit, much of it stemming from soaring share prices.
Investment trusts such as SMIT are exempt from paying capital gains tax and corporation tax on the capital gains realised in their portfolio, but investors in the trust are liable for capital gains tax on profits when selling their investments. However, the maximum rate of capital gains tax paid on shares is 20% – far below the maximum income tax rate of 45% – even though it is mostly paid by wealthy asset owners.
There is a strong and growing consensus among economists and think tanks that this arrangement is inefficient and unfair. The report recommends that capital gains be taxed at the same rates as income from employment so that returns from wealth and income from work are taxed evenly, and so that a larger proportion of the substantial capital gains realised during and after the pandemic contribute to the economic recovery.
The pandemic is an opportunity to reset our tax system towards one that rebalances the burden towards wealth rather than work. Taxing those who have prospered during this crisis would signal that the government does actually care about fairness as we build back the economy.
The UK's culture secretary wants to appease right-wingers by abolishing the licence fee. Will the market now rule all broadcasting? And would that be that a bad thing? Join us for this free live event on Thursday 27 January at 5pm UK time.
If we are to 'live with' COVID-19, we must decide what we really value
Written by: Laurie Macfarlane All articles by: Laurie Macfarlane
If Martin Luther King were alive today his radicalism wouldn't be celebrated
Written by: Holly Genovese All articles by: Holly Genovese
Our ancestors worked less and had better lives. What are we doing wrong?
Written by: Ståle Wig All articles by: Ståle Wig
View all in ourEconomy
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A membership-based non profit organisation, the Australia Bangladesh Business Council (ABBC) represents the best interest of its member businesses and promotes and facilitates trade and investment between Bangladesh and Australia.
The Council seeks to foster the friendship and understanding and commercial activities between Australia and Bangladesh and to promote technical, scientific and economic co-operation, trade investment, tourism and cultural relationship between Australia and Bangladesh. The roles and objectives of the Australia Bangladesh Business Council are vital in the bilateral trade between the two economies.


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text:
'Everybody deserves a good cup of coffee': Tiong Hoe Specialty Coffee's Jacob Tan
Speciality coffee is having its day in the sun, and Jacob Tan of Tiong Hoe Specialty Coffee has been steadily growing the business he started when he took over the family's coffee roasting company in 2014.
Tiong Hoe Specialty Coffee's Jacob Tan. (Photo: Alvin Teo)
Cara Yap
By Cara Yap
A chronic rash of COVID-19-triggered restrictions have spelt entropy for weary F&B operators, but Jacob Tan, the co-founder of Tiong Hoe Specialty Coffee, is determined to ride out the jerky motion of start-stop measures to expand his business.
In the past year, the local brand has welcomed three new outlets, including a kiosk at ever-bustling hypermart FairPrice Xtra Parkway Parade. And while a formidable second wave of infections in Singapore may have delivered the coup de grace to some business owners, Tiong Hoe has a 4,000 sq ft roastery on the way, as well as its sixth store that's on track to open at Raffles Xchange by the end of the year.
It's not that their bottom line hasn't taken a hit. Tan says that the company has suffered a 30 per cent to 40 per cent dip in revenue attributed to lower footfall at shopping malls, where most of their outlets are located. Not to mention, the knock-on effects of dining-in curbs that impacted his wholesale business.
Choosing not to stay circumspect in uncertainty however, he is buoyed by a surge in e-commerce sales, negotiable rental rates and a positive outlook. "I'm pretty confident in the kind of measures that Singapore is taking to make a recovery from this pandemic. It is going to be difficult, but there's no better time than now to take the plunge," he said.
Tiong Hoe Specialty Coffee was started by Jacob's father, Tan Tiong Hoe, in the 1960s. (Photo: Alvin Teo)
'Good food doesn't have to be expensive': Astons founder Aston Soon
SINGAPORE, A SPECIALITY COFFEE HUB
But that isn't just something the 40-year-old divined over a piccolo latte. Since he took over his family's commercial coffee roasting business and established Tiong Hoe Specialty Coffee in 2014, Singapore has seen a growing number of speciality coffee establishments enticing coffee drinkers with third-wave brew fantasia – just name your poison in the tongue-twisting vernacular of coffee region, species, varietal and brewing process.
By the end of 2021, the city-state is slated to open an Asean Coffee Institute, which will train and certify baristas and introduce a programme to set a regional standard for grading speciality coffee. According to Singapore Coffee Association's president Victor Mah, speciality coffee accounts for about a fifth of the US$200 million (S$231 million) industry in Singapore.
So the market is smelling robust, redolent and ripe for the picking. "Gone are the days where people mostly liked their coffee overly bitter. You can see how the big boys are reacting to this; Starbucks' answer to speciality coffee is the Starbucks Reserve outlet, of which you can see more and more opening around the world. There's a clear trend in people moving towards the speciality segment," observed Tan.
The licensed Q Grader, who is certified by the Coffee Quality Institute to grade coffee, explains that only coffee scoring at least 80 points on a system that appraises qualities such as fragrance, acidity, body, flavours and aftertaste passes muster as speciality coffee.
"As you start roasting you gain interest in how different roasting processes can produce vastly different tasting coffees. The research and development aspect of it really intrigued me," Jacob recounted. (Photo: Alvin Teo)
"Everybody deserves a good cup of coffee." – Jacob Tan
"My father... would say that if you have to burn some coffee (to get it right), then burn some coffee," Jacob recalled. (Photo: Alvin Teo)
"To put it in a more qualitative context, we describe coffee in the way the value chain is handled, so this includes how farmers process the coffee, down to buyers, coffee roasters, baristas and lastly, the end consumer. In short, nobody should mess up whatever process they are supposed to handle," he explained.
Admittedly, most Singaporeans aren't fastidiously tracing their coffee's journey from bean to cup, but Tan does encounter customers who request for fair trade coffee. "There are people who are concerned about whether farmers are getting paid properly, and if the coffee is from a sustainable source," he shared.
Such considerations are intrinsic to the third-wave coffee movement, a distinct departure from big chain brands largely characterised by bold, indelible marketing, well-burnished bar counters and dark-roasted blends. Tan wants to "act as a bridge leading people from second- to third-wave coffee," which Tiong Hoe does by toning down their coffee's acidic profile while maintaining its unique flavours. The company proffers beans of up to 30 origins, covering regions such as Ethiopia, Peru, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
Tan himself is something of a coffee devotee. He's part of a coterie of aficionados including his staff, customers, coffee suppliers as well as competitors, who get together to cycle on weekends. It's an opportunity to carry out caffeine-fuelled shop talk within a tightly-knit community that, for the most part, thrives on collaboration. "The millennials who are coming into the business are more open to sharing resources,"he said. For instance, the roasters may divvy pallets of coffee among themselves, so shipping costs aren't prohibitive.
The Tenderfresh fried chicken story: From hawker stall to F&B empire
THE ART OF THE ROAST
Such nuts and bolts of running a company aren't lost on the former logistics professional. Tan grew up helping out at his father's coffee roasting business, which he later joined fresh off serving his national service. He started with the grunt work of roasting coffee, which exposed him to the nuances of his craft. "As you start roasting you gain interest in how different roasting processes can produce vastly different tasting coffees. The research and development aspect of it really intrigued me," he recounted.
The learning curve was steep, given this was circa YouTube and its infinite galaxy of tutorials. "It was really learning the hard way through trial and error, but the learning journey really drew me into the process, and the resources were there for me to utilise. My father is rather generous, he would say that if you have to burn some coffee (to get it right), then burn some coffee," he recalled.
His heuristic approach to learning notwithstanding, the elder Tan has clearly influenced his son's philosophy that's framed by a desire to "serve an honest cup of coffee." For instance, Tan claims that his trust-based relationships with clients entail holding them to bulk orders of specific beans, rather than surreptitiously substituting them with other products when they are scarce. This, he says, is a common – albeit questionable – practice in the coffee industry.
The second-generation entrepreneur's family business has a storied tradition. In the 1960s, Tan's father and mentor, who is Tiong Hoe's namesake, began apprenticing at Dutch coffee company Mirandolle Voute & Co at the age of 16. Three years later, he established his own coffee company, which became known for cleaving to the traditional method of roasting pure coffee – as opposed to cutting corners by mixing it with maize, margarine and sugar. Though the elder Tan has retired, the coffee maestro still proselytises the value of quality coffee.
In the year ahead, Jacob is looking to stabilise the company's operations, maintain product consistency, as well as start a traditional coffee brand. (Photo: Alvin Teo)
"My father… would say that if you have to burn some coffee (to get it right), then burn some coffee." – Jacob Tan
"Strangers sometimes recognise my father when he's at the cafe, and he can just go on and on talking about coffee. You can constantly feel that he is a preacher on a mission to share his knowledge and passion for coffee," he said proudly.
Tan tries to kindle the same love of the craft in his baristas, whom he intends to place on an intensive in-house training programme next year. "Our baristas are actually quite sought after in the market, we have a lot of competitors coming to our shop to poach them," he said, laughing.
The father-of-one revealed that Tiong Hoe managed to snag coveted spots at the experiential Fairprice outlets at Parkway Parade and VivoCity by dint of its heritage brand status and onsite roasting facilities. In the year ahead, he's looking to stabilise the company's operations, maintain product consistency, as well as start a traditional coffee brand.
"They used ingredients of better quality to roast traditional coffee in the old days, hence the superior taste. This is something that has been lost along the way because of business costs, but we have the know-how to attract the older generation. Everybody deserves a good cup of coffee," he said.
With halal Swedish meatballs, she redefined Kampong Glam's F&B scene
Source: CNA/ds
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