text:
Q: Twilio Outbound Status "in-progress" but audio is "ringing" I'm creating python code to start and monitor a conference call. The code initiates calls to 2 or more numbers and directs them to a TwiML Bin conference:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Response>
  <Dial>
    <Conference
                beep="false"
                waitUrl="http://twimlets.com/holdmusic?Bucket=com.twilio.music.ambient"
                >
      Conf
    </Conference>
  </Dial>
</Response>

This works great for some numbers, but others are showing as "in-progress" before the call is picked up by the recipient. The problem with this is that the instant they indicate "in-progress", they are placed into the conference and the ringing sounds play into the conference. I end up with a conference full of ringing phones.
I've tried with different phone numbers, some work just fine, some don't. The same numbers that don't work, always don't work, it's not intermittent. I've tried using a TwiML Bin redirect to the conference, but it still just redirects when ringing.
Is there a trick I'm missing here with the TwiML Bin to properly categorized a call? It seems to me that it might just be a result of certain phone systems not being sophisticated enough to tell Twilio "ringing"?
In summary:
I expect Twilio to be able to understand that a phone is ringing, vs having been answered, but "ringing" is making it through as "in-progress" for come recipient phone numbers. This causes issues with ringing phones into the conference and also charges my account for calls that were never completed.

A: I received a response from Twilio after they looked into the specific call. They don't have any control over this specific issue because they're receiving a response from the recipient that says "I answered" before they actually answered.
"Twilio will change the status to in-progress when we receive a SIP 200 OK response from the far end. So it would seem that the far end carrier (Zipwhip ) responds with a 200 OK before the actual device itself answers the call. I am afraid that Twilio does not have any control over this."


text:
Bing updates its movie search
Bing's movie search now lets you see all the local theaters playing your flick pick and offers trailers and reviews to help you decide if it's worth seeing.
Lance Whitney
Nov. 24, 2010 9:12 a.m. PT
Lance Whitney Contributing Writer
Lance Whitney is a freelance technology writer and trainer and a former IT professional. He's written for Time, CNET, PCMag, and several other publications. He's the author of two tech books--one on Windows and another on LinkedIn.
Those of you planning to catch a film this holiday weekend may want to check out the latest changes at Bing Movies.
The search engine's movie site has updated its lineup with some new features to help you decide what you want to see.
Users can now more easily see all the local theaters showing a particular picture rather than bouncing from one venue's site to another. Just search for or click on a title like the latest Harry Potter movie, and Bing lists all the theaters in your area where it's playing along with their showtimes and driving distances.
A new trailers page provides a host of clips, previews, and interviews on new movies. You can watch each video full screen and share it with other people via Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks.
Bing now combines a variety of reviews on each film from both the critics and other users, giving you one page where you can decide if the movie is worth your hard-earned dough.
Finally, the Bing Movie home page ties all the new features together nicely, providing a single spot where you can view trailers, read a synopsis, and check out local show times.
Bing's revamped movie page is now similar to the one offered by Google. Searching for a movie at Google also shows you local show times, links to reviews, and a video of the movie's trailer all in one spot. But Bing offers a greater variety and number of reviews and a wider selection of trailers and other clips.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
WHY NUTRITION
Sheeran calls Washington's attention to another type of "cliff" at the 22nd Annual Martin J. Forman Memorial Lecture
Julie Ruel-Bergeron
Suggest a
The Martin J. Forman Annual Memorial Lecture commemorates the impact and contributions of Martin J. Forman, who headed the Office of Nutrition at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for over twenty years. Each year, the Forman Lecture is hosted at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), who invites a lecturer to present his or her views on nutrition issues. This year's lecturer was Josette Sheeran, who served as the World Food Programme's Executive Director from 2006 to 2012; she is now Vice Chairman of the World Economic Forum.
Recognizing Washington's current preoccupation with the fiscal cliff, Josette Sheeran opened her presentation urging for a shift of focus to a different type of cliff: The Food Cliff, which she describes as the rising challenge of feeding billions of people with healthy and nutritious food in the context of a rapidly growing population and a scarce and deteriorating natural environment. Sheeran also reminded us of the severe consequences of continuing down a road where the issue of hunger and malnutrition is not addressed: a dramatic impact on the physical and cognitive development of children that translates into significant losses in National GDP and hinders the economic future of countries around the world.
In her presentation, Sheeran provided concrete examples of critical actions that she says will be "game changers", such as making breastfeeding "cool" again, creating partnerships to help poor and vulnerable populations rebuild their lives and invest in their futures, promoting and scaling up more sustainable and circular food economies that create win-wins for all of those involved and affected along the food value chain, and a continued push for high-level advocacy to inspire leaders to act towards a common nutrition goal.
Through these broad game changers, Sheeran highlighted high-level best practices such as the partnerships formed for Grow Africa and the SUN movement, bringing us all the way down to the village level with examples of community-led projects that have secured a stable food source through food warehousing, among others. All of her examples showed practical and feasible ways through which nutrition can and should be addressed in the future, to save us from falling off the cliff.
Sheeran's Ten "Things that may change things"
In line with her game changers, Sheeran concluded her presentation by giving the audience a concrete list of top ten "things that may change things". Despite their wide range, many of these activities are based on hard evidence and known to improve food and nutrition security. And for those few that don't have such hard evidence, her game changers showed us the wide span and flexibility in the types of activities and pathways through which nutrition can be addressed. Sheeran's Ten "Things that may change things" are the following:
Prioritize urgent nutrition to pregnant women and young children. We know this is when we should intervene to prevent the life-long consequences of malnutrition.
Change our view of hunger, as a chance to create win-win opportunities. We need to create a food economy where everyone along the value chain benefits.
Update our policies and investments; the ones we use are outdated and inappropriate for our time. We need a better idea of the food economy that we need in the 21st century and how it should be created, rather than depending on the ideas that were created half a century ago.
Urgently address policy gaps in the developing world and land investment. We need to step up our investments and focus on policy gaps.
Scale up what works. We know what works and we need to spend our money there.
Promote diverse solutions. We need to end the war between large-scale and small-scale agriculture, because each of them plays a critical role and can contribute to ending hunger and malnutrition.
Reduce waste from farm to fork. We produce enough food to feed the world but we are not feeding the world due to waste and distribution inequalities.
Deploy innovative technologies. Many of these technologies already exist but we are not widely using them or tailoring them to the needs of those who need them most.
Continue building leadership. We can't let food drop from the G8 and G20 agendas! We are not out of the woods and we need to continue prioritizing food and nutrition security at a high leadership level.
Force a paradigm shift in our thinking. What does a food economy in the 21st century look like and how do we increase sustainability and implement a circular food economy at the global level? We need a paradigm shift in our thinking.
For Sheeran's original perspective and delivery, please view her full presentation from the IFPRI event website.
Nutrition, Food Security
POSTS BY THIS AUTHOR:
Funding for nutrition evaluations under the Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF)
A day at the inaugural meeting of the Moldy Corn Society
The Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Reform
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The present study examined friendship rules on the online social networking site Facebook. Study 1 used focus group data to inductively create a list of 36 Facebook friendship rules. Study 2 utilized survey data to examine college students' endorsement of the various rules in close, casual, and acquaintance friendships. Results indicated five categories of Facebook friendship rules, which included rules regarding communication channels, deception and control, relational maintenance, negative consequences for the self, and negative consequences for a friend. Additionally, close friends, casual friends, and acquaintances significantly differed in their endorsement of four of the five rules categories. Results suggested that interaction rules provide a useful framework for the study of online social networking sites.


Provide complete heartworm protection for your dog with Heartgard. This easy to administer chewable tablet can be given to dogs of positive, negative and unknown heartworm status. You can't stop mosquito bites. But with Heartguard, you can kill the heartworm larvae that are transmitted to your dog by those annoying bloodsuckers, helping to prevent heartworm disease.
Heartgard is a chewable oral tablet for dogs designed to prevent heartworm disease and effectively treat and control roundworms and hookworms.


Deborah Krisher-Steele, daughter of Bernie Krisher, receives a bouquet of flowers at the opening ceremony on March 23rd, 2011, of the Bernie Krisher School 2 donated by the Friends of Bernie Krisher.
Deborah Krisher-Steele cut the ribbon, opening the Bernie Krisher School 2 in Takeo province.
Deborah Krisher-Steele speaks with students in the new classrooms, after she distributed school supplies to them.
Deborah Krisher-Steele watches as students follow their Computer lessons in the new computer room.
After the ceremony Deborah Krisher-Steele poses for a souvenir picture with students and teachers in front of the new school building.


With the introduction of TRAI's new rule for Cable and DTH industry, a lot of changes came which including pricing, offers and other attractive benefits. Now a days each and every cable and DTH operators are trying to provide their customers with attractive offers.
Even Though, TRAI's aim was to provide the users with best and cheap plans for their channels and to pay only for those channels that a user needs. But the effect of the new rule was something different. Once the new rule was initially announced, we reported that, this will result in the 2 different ways.
Read: How to Get Pay Channel with TRAI New Rule for DTH and Cable TV ?
For some users, the new rule will help them to pay little bit lesser than the older one, but for the other vast majority, this will force them to pay more than their previous plans. In short, those users who enjoyed the full channel package earlier at a rate of Rs. 400 to 500 now needs to pay Rs. 700 or even more than that.
This change not only caused problems to the customers, but for the operators too. Since operators cannot do whatever they want as like before. Now the channels and the package are available in all the platform with a common MRP rate, so that users can choose according to their choice.
To overcome all these things and by keeping all the rules and regulations of TRAI, the DTH and Cable operators are providing custom offers that benefits the users. Now Tata Sky came with a one month free offer with their flexi annual plan.
Tata sky offers now its users a free one month offer for any plans. This offer will comes as a flexi annual scheme. Those who wish to have this offer needs to keep an amount equivalent for one year subscription in their Tata Sky Account. So that, one month subscription amount will be added to the account as a cash back.
For example, if your subscription amount is Rs. 200 per month, then you need to keep a total amount of Rs. 2,400 in the Tata Sky Account which will be equivalent for your one year subscription. Then another Rs. 200 will be added to your account as a cashback which can be used for the 13th month.
If at any point, the user wish to switch the plan then also he/she can have the same cashback offer. If the user upgrade the plan to Rs. 350, then the user needs to keep an amount of Rs. 4,200 in the account to get Rs. 350 as cashback.


text:
Board index Contributions Translations
Translation update process implements a forced push of English locale into non-English locales.
Place to discuss translation contributions. Recent and
oncoming changes related to translation.
valneq
Filter Inserter
Contact valneq
Post by valneq » Wed Jun 03, 2020 8:49 pm
I am involved with the translations into German, where we are at 100% translated strings.
The translation activity of other locales has greatly increased since the last announcement of the freeze for English in FFF349.
It is great to see such an amazing game being playable even when you don't know English very well.
However, I realized there is a problem in the current workflow for translations. Currently, the English locale is being proofread (by Altagram?) and the first corrections to English have hit the experimental releases, where many of the latest changes were minor replacements of words for English.
The current translation workflow appears to be:
Changes are made to the internal English source strings, replacing previous strings albeit with only minor corrections.
Changes of English are pushed to Crowdin: previous strings are removed, new strings added.
Next minor version of 0.18 is published.
The last two points happen practically simultaneously. They could even happen in the other order. I have no exact time stamps right now to be certain of their order.
Because of this, previously translated strings just disappear from Crowdin, leaving the updated locale strings entirely un-translated in the published version of the next minor release. For all practical purposes this is a forced push of the English locale strings to previously well translated locales, resulting in a mix of English and non-English strings in the game.
One example that was changed in 0.18.30 is "entity-description:rocket-silo". Its value changed from
> Used to build and launch a rocket to win the game.
> Used to craft and launch a rocket to win the game.
I fully approve of this change. And it is easy enough to translate it again, since crowdin keeps an internal copy of the previous translations: It suggest the previous version for the next translation, highlighting the changes to the source. That is great!
However, 0.18.30 now comes with the English locale string for the rocket silo description for all locales irrespective of whether they had previous translations or not. I updated translations to the changed strings as soon as I could, but they will not make it into the game until 0.18.31. Then, I expect this process to repeat and more changes to be applied to English due to proofreading, creating other forced pushed English strings into other locales. Again, creating a 0.18.31 release with a wild mix of English and non-English.
While this behavior may be acceptable for an experimental release cycle like 0.18, I highly recommend to change the update workflow for the locales for the 1.0 stabe release.
One option is to leave more time for translators to update the locale strings between seeing them on Crowdin and having them released in the game. Alternatively, the source strings could be changed instead of entirely replaced. Maybe automatically remove the "approved" status from changed source strings.
I don't know exactly what kind of (semi-automated) workflows Crowdin supports, but I can tell you: many of the strings in my locale needed only similarly small changes or no change at all, and seeing them forcefully replaced by English strings in the released version is just frustrating. This does not increase the degree of polishing in 0.18 but drastically decreases it when you don't play with English locale.
Last edited by valneq on Fri Dec 18, 2020 8:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.
TheEnemy42
Inserter
Contact TheEnemy42
Re: Translation update process implements a forced push of English locale into non-English locales.
Post by TheEnemy42 » Wed Jun 03, 2020 10:20 pm
I've noticed the same thing. Good writeup.
Currently primary Danish translator of Factorio. Feel free to contact me in regards to the translations.
0.18.33 was released and force-pushed about 27% of English locale into non-Englsih versions. One of the biggest change to the locale, yet. Albeit mostly typos, commas, capitalization, etc.
Now we need to wait for
1. the translators to go through the translations
2. release of version 0.18.34
to experience Factorio with our preferred language settings.
Will this process be changed in the time after 1.0? Would be bad if in the final product, the English locale needs fixes that other languages may or may not require, force-pushing English into the final product for an entire sub-version. Considering that sub-versions will most likely not come out every week after 1.0 is released, this may be more of a problem than it is now.
Klonan
Factorio Staff
Contact Klonan
Post by Klonan » Wed Jun 24, 2020 6:18 pm
valneq wrote: ↑
I don't think it will be a big problem after 1.0, and I don't think its a big problem now
The unfinished locales are only pushed to experimental, and we always try to ensure there is time to fix locales before we want to set a release stable
Links: log-file, Applicaton directory, desync-report, update issues.
If the mixed locales will only ever be in experimental, I am fine with it.
gyorokpeter
Contact gyorokpeter
Post by gyorokpeter » Sat Sep 12, 2020 7:27 am
This problem is very much real with the Hungarian translation. When 1.0.0 came out I was surprised that the language has automatically switched to Hungarian (it was always English before) but lots of strings were still in English. Then I looked up how to actually do translations and noticed that (apart from the spidertron-related strings that got into 1.0.0 with zero chance of being translated) most of the untranslated strings were actually found in the translation memory which highlights differences, and all of the differences are English-specific and don't change the meaning (e.g. replacing can't with cannot, adding or removing dashes).
This is poor practice. First impressions matter and Hungary is notorious for being a country with a low penetration of foreign language knowledge - Netflix was initially struggling to gain traction due to the lack of Hungarian subtitles, for example. While I would expect anyone who is interested in more technical games like Factorio to have good English knowledge, having this mixed language in-game would give off a first impression of a poor job by translators, or treating certain languages as second-class citizens.
Additionally the release cycles of translations should be decoupled from the release cycles of the game. Currently there has been no minor release for a month so this half-translated state keeps persisting for an unnecessarily long time, even though in crowdin the strings are 100% translated again.
Return to "Translations"


Welcome to www.adventureranches.net. Adventure ranches. Destination ranches for adventures such as hunting, fishing, sightseeing, skiing, photography, painting, snowmobiling, animal watching, birding, hiking, horseback riding, backpacking, climbing and rafting. Recreational, residential, lakefront, waterfront, beachfront, mountain, fishing, hunting, development, agricultural, investment and private real estate for lease or sale. Other types of listings may also be found on this website.


Adventure and Sport Activities Tours in Myanmar. So many things to do in Myanmar!
Cultural holidays, Culture and Heritage tours to Myanmar (Burma).
An ideal destination for trekking and hiking and adventure travel.
Golf is one of the most popular sports in Myanmar with quality golf courses.
Cycling through Myanmar, a life-changing adventure, explore the Ancient Bagan by bicycle.
A unique experience to see thousands of temples spread in the Bagan valley from a hot air balloon.
We have the knowledge and we are absolutely passionate about designing the best tours for you, we spend time travelling each year to top up our knowledge and discover new hidden gems.
Burma holidays are tailored by specialists. Find the best places to stay in Myanmar.
The best tours, trips and vacation packages in Myanmar, explore the golden land of Southeast Asia.
Latest travel advice for Burma including safety and security, with tips from our travel safety expert.
A varied highlights for the adventure travellers, Nature & Adventure tours.
An enigmatic and exciting land, discover the fabulous wonders of Burma, with many Buddhist temples and pagodas around Bagan.
The ultimate Myanmar travel guide, including the best places to stay, eat, drink, top tourist spots, best places to visit.
Play Golf in Myanmar: Discover Golf Courses in Myanmar (Burma).
A great panoramic view over the pagodas of Bagan.
Where is Myanmar? What's happening there?


On this date in 1873, my great-grandfather, George Bellan, was born in Croatia, then part of Austria-Hungary. All I really know about George is from information I have collected from old documents and newspaper clippings. He passed away when my mom and uncle were young children, so they don't remember him. I never got a chance to ask my grandfather about him (he passed away when I was eleven.).
George Bellan (nee Beljan) is my only great-grandparent for which I have been able to locate a birth and baptism record from the 'Old Country.' About two years ago, I ordered a microfilm from my local LDS Family History Library and spent a couple of hours going through it. I was able to find his record, along with his sister Veronika's birth record (who also came to the U.S.), and a brother named Francis, who, to my knowledge, stayed in Croatia. The records also list the names of their parents, Francis and Rosa Beljan, which I had not known to that point, so it was a big discovery for me. George's birth and baptismal record from Brod Moravice, Croatia is below. It states he was born on March 12, 1873 and baptized on March 14, 1873. Interestingly, his WWI draft card lists his date of birth as March 15, 1873 and his naturalization card lists it as April 15, 1874. I use this church record as his "official" birthday, so I'm happy to have found it.
According to the information he provided to the census taker in 1900, he immigrated to America in 1893, but I have not been able to find his ship manifest to confirm this date. I do have his wife Ursula's ship manifest; she arrived in 1898 and listed George as her contact person. She used his surname on the manifest, but I do not believe that they married until she arrived. She, too, was Croatian and was born in a town relatively close to where he was from but, honestly, they may not have even known each other prior to their 'betrothal.' I still need to search for a Cleveland, Ohio marriage record.
George and his wife Ursula had eight children, but unfortunately three of them passed away as young adults. George was active in his local Croatian Fraternal Union Lodge, and in 1945 he was honored for being a 50-year member.
George passed away in October of 1954 after living as a widower for eight years. He was 81 years old and is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.
Thank you so much for sharing this information. I am a great grand-daughter also. I am Robert Bellan's daughter who is a son of George Bellan (didn't know he was a junior). I am Barbara Baer's sister.
I am a great great grandson, grandson of Robert Bellan, soon of Cheryl (Bellan) Colson.
You're welcome, Vincent! Thanks for stopping by!
I am Bob Bellan's wife. I never met his grandfather. I thank you for sharing this. You have realy uncovered more documents than I thought was possible.
If you ever get stuck on a problem, join us at our Hungary Exchange Genealogy group at Facebook.
Thanks for stopping by to read my blog, Magda! And I will definitely look for your group on Facebook.


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Drawing on global weaving traditions as well as the history of painting and sculpture, graphic design, and architecture, American artist Sheila Hicks has redefined the role of fibre in art and influenced a generation of contemporary artists with her interdisciplinary visual language. From monumental architectural interventions to her more intimate textile works, Hicks' singular approach to materials exemplifies her masterful articulation of colour, texture, space and scale.
Material Voices is accompanied by a fully-illustrated colour catalogue published by Joslyn Art Museum, and will be available in the Museum Shop.
The exhibition is generously supported by Partners in Art, The United States Consulate General in Toronto and The Jack Weinbaum Family Foundation.
Sheila Hicks (b. 1934, Hastings, Nebraska) lives and works in Paris. Recent solo exhibitions include Sheila Hicks at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2015), Foray into Chromatic Zones at the Hayward Gallery, London (2015), and L'État du Ciel at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2014). The major survey Sheila Hicks: 50 Years debuted at the Addison Gallery of American Art in 2010 and traveled to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, and the Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina in 2011. Hicks's work has been widely exhibited in major group exhibitions including Threadlines, The Drawing Center, New York (2014); The Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2014); and Fiber: Sculpture 1969–Present at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (traveling to the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, and the Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa) (2014–15).Her work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, both in New York City; Museum of Fine Arts Boston; The Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile; the Museums of Modern Art, Tokyo and Kyoto; and many others. Hicks is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Smithsonian Archives of American Art Medal (2010), Officier des Arts et des Lettres, France (1996), and an Honorary Doctorate from the Rhode Island School of Design.


The Sanctuary Choir leads in worship each Sunday at 10:50 a.m. This group is open to older youth and adult singers with no audition required. This choir rehearses each Wednesday evening from 6:45 to 8:00 in the Worship Center. The choir presents seasonal programs which include Christmas and Easter.
The Student Choir is designed for students in grades seven through twelve. This group rehearses on Wednesdays, 5:30-6:25 p.m. The choir sings once a month for worship services and for a program at Christmas. The group takes an annual spring tour in late May or early June. Spring tours have included San Antonio, St. Louis, Kansas City, Memphis, and Dallas/Ft. Worth, Waco. Check out the video of this year's spring tour.
A comprehensive graded choir program, this area of the music ministry focuses on children from age three to sixth grade, with a total of nine choirs for this age group. Children's choirs rehearse each Wednesday evening from 5:30 to 6:25 p.m. These choirs work on scripture memory songs and hymns as well as performances for the Christmas and spring programs. Begins September 5!
The theme, Fruit of the Spirit, is based on Galatians 5:22-23. Through songs and activities, children will experience what it means to grow and live out an authentic, joyful faith. Children will learn to follow the Holy Spirit as they develop godly character and become firmly rooted and grounded in Christ's love.
This sixteen member ensemble is made up of faithful Sanctuary Choir members. This group rehearses at 4:00 p.m. each Sunday afternoon. They sing for worship services, at special events, and occasionally perform outside the church.
This ten member ensemble is made up of faithful Sanctuary Choir members. This group rehearses at 5:00 p.m. each Sunday afternoon. They sing for worship services, at special events, and occasionally perform outside the church.


text:
VOUET, Simon
Crucifixion wet
French Baroque Era Painter, 1590-1649 French painter and draughtsman. Although at the time regarded as one of the leading French painters of the first half of the 17th century, he is now known more for his influence on French painting than for his actual oeuvre. He made his reputation in Italy, where he executed numerous portraits for aristocratic patrons and was commissioned for religious subjects. Although the early Italian works show the influence of Caravaggio, his work was subsequently modified by the Baroque style of such painters as Lanfranco and the influence of the Venetian use of light and colour. When he was summoned back to France by Louis XIII in 1627 he thus brought with him an Italian idiom hitherto unknown in France that revitalized French painting Related Paintings of VOUET, Simon :. | Allegory of Wealth et | Crucifixion er | Parnassus or Apollo and the Muses (detail) | Sleeping Venus kji | Magdalene r |
George Spencer Watson
R.O.I., R.P., A.R.A., R.A. (8 March 1869, London - 11 April 1934, London) was an English portrait artist of the late romantic school who sometimes worked in the style of the Italian Renaissance. He studied at the RA Schools from 1889, exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1891. He won Royal Academy Schools Silver Medals in 1889 and 1891, and the Landseer Scholarship in 1892. He was elected R.O.I. in 1900, R.P. in 1904, A.R.A. in 1923, and a Member of the Royal Academy (R.A.) in 1932. He married Hilda, a dancer and mime artist, and follower of the actor Edward Gordon Craig. They had a daughter, Mary Spencer Watson (1913 - 2006), who became a sculptor. In 1923 he bought Dunshay Manor in the hills of the Isle of Purbeck, after already have spent holidays in Swanage. He died in London and a memorial exhibition was held at the Fine Art Society in the same year. There is a memorial to him in the north vestibule of St James's Church, Piccadilly, London. Some of his works are held at Tate Britain, the Harris Art Gallery, Preston and collections in Bournemouth, Liverpool, Plymouth and the National Gallery of Canada. Born in London, Watson studied at the Royal Academy from 1889; he exhibited there from 1891 and also at the Paris salon. Retrospective exhibitions were held at the Galerie Heinemann, Munich in 1912, and at the Fine Art Society in 1914. His work A Lady in Black (1922) is owned by the Tate Collection.
Giovanni Biliverti
Maestricht 1576-Florence 1644
Musscher, Michiel van
Dutch, 1645-1705 Dutch painter and printmaker. According to Houbraken, van Musscher received his eclectic artistic training in Amsterdam, studying first with the history painter Martinus Zaagmolen (c. 1620-69) in 1660, then with Abraham van den Tempel in 1661, followed by lessons with Gabriel Metsu in 1665. He completed his studies in 1667 in the studio of Adriaen van Ostade. The following year van Musscher returned briefly to Rotterdam before settling permanently in Amsterdam.


I. Always take your file with you everywhere.
II. In your journal, make an entry of every significant event, conversation, discussion, and action of your spouse at the time it occurs.
IV. Memorialize every agreement with every person who is interested/involved in your case; keep/send copies.
V. Meet and confirm strategy with your attorney in person; explore alternative dispute resolution; confirm everything in writing.
VI. Know your strategy; do not deviate without advice and counsel from your attorney.
VII. Participate in preparation of your case: draft, document, investigate, gather information and pre-interview witnesses.
VIII. Let your attorney know when he/she is on-track as well as off-track.
IX. Schedule regular Spit & Growl sessions: don't let resentments accumulate with your attorney or staff.
X. Keep your account current: offer security.
In part two of this four-part series, Attorney Shear describes beautifully the emotional process a couple goes through while divorcing, what their children go through, and what parents can do to help their children get through it.
Don't miss another episode! Subscribe to Ron and Robert on Divorce on iTunes and tune in next week for Honest, Blunt & Brilliant: Custody Matters.
Learn more about Leslie Ellen Shear at CustodyMatters.com.
Ron and Robert caught up with Attorney Leslie Ellen Shear at the Pepperdine Law School Consensual Dispute Resolution seminar in 2010. Leslie Ellen Shear is a graduate of UCLA Law School, a Board Certified Family Law Specialist, a Certified Appellate Law Specialist, and the author of numerous published opinions. Ron and Robert have known her for over twenty-five years and she is a deeply respected colleague. Honest, blunt, and brilliant, Leslie Ellen Shear is a true powerhouse.
In the first of this four-part series, Attorney Shear discusses the shift from Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to Consensual Dispute Resolution (CDR), as well as the pros and cons of both CDR and the traditional adjudicative legal system.
Subscribe to Ron and Robert on Divorce on iTunes and tune in next week for Honest, Blunt, and Brilliant: Child Development.
One of the primary goals of The Law Collaborative, LLP, is to become masters and innovators of Consensual Dispute Resolution techniques and practices. In order to develop and promote Consensual Dispute Resolution so that it may become the mainstream, we must change our vocabulary as well as our approach.
We purposefully use the term Consensual Dispute Resolution (CDR) instead of the more prevalent Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) because the word "alternative" is a pejorative. It suggests that ADR methods are secondary or tertiary choices to "regular" or traditional dispute resolution. "Regular" suggests mainstream, preferred, and superior. But anybody who has ever been involved in "regular" dispute resolution (litigation) can attest to the fact that, while it may be mainstream, it is not superior. Oftentimes both parties are worse off after participating in the traditional dispute resolution process, and the only people enriched are the lawyers.
Competent and ethical attorneys should always consider CDR methods and approaches first. Litigation should always be considered the last resort as it is usually the most expensive and least predictable avenue. We believe that in the near future, litigation will be considered the alternative dispute resolution method.
One of the most promising developments in the field of CDR is Collaborative Law, a specialized form of con-joint mediation involving two attorneys. This article is not intended as a primer on Collaborative Law; many far more eloquent practitioners have already provided these. For a short list, go to the Articles section of our website.
Nor is this article intended to persuade you that Collaborative Law is the way of the future. Do not bother reading further unless you believe that Collaborative Law holds great promise. If you need convincing, I would refer you to the case studies on our website, or those on the websites of any of our colleagues. The proof of the pudding is in the eating as they say. Instead, this article is intended to discuss and reflect on what can be done to improve our collaborative skills and instincts.
Just as you were getting used to the concept of Arbitration and Mediation as the common alternatives for resolving legal disputes, along comes "Collaborative Law." Is it the talisman of future dispute resolution in America?
"Collaborative Law" is being widely used, particularly in Family Law settings globally. In fact, in many European countries, the Court system is only the last resort after all other so-called "Appropriate Dispute Resolution" alternatives are fully exploited. Like any new system, it will undoubtedly be met with some resistance from the Courts and the Bar. This article will explore the concept of "collaborative law" and other "appropriate" dispute resolution processes applicable to the civil case in Los Angeles County .
Ideally, most civil disputes could be resolved, (as they sometimes are in the family law arena) around the kitchen table. That is, the parties sit down together, break bread and make peace. They work out their disputes without the need for outside intervention. This is the first step in "Appropriate Dispute Resolution" – an earnest attempt for the parties to meet and resolve their differences informally.
Failing that, parties could and should retain a neutral dispute facilitator or manager: someone whom both parties could agree to hire to oversee collection and exchange of all the necessary facts in order to fairly evaluate and resolve the dispute. This individual would oversee depositions, collect documents and screen them for confidentiality claims, and keep the parties on a schedule for responding to one another's requests and demands. This approach is not entirely novel: under the California Civil Code all new actions for defects in real estate construction by a Homeowner's Association require retaining and using a Dispute Facilitator before filing a lawsuit.
Once the facts have been fully submitted and explored, a "conventional" mediation might be appropriate. There, each side would be able to present their version of the incident or claim, based upon the stipulated facts and exchanged evidence, and a neutral intermediary could actively engage the two sides in collaborating towards a resolution.
Alec Baldwin wrote a book last year called A Promise To Ourselves, decrying "the corrupt California divorce industry" (his words). He describes a nightmare divorce that lasted eight years and cost over three million dollars, after a ten-year marriage to Kim Basinger. That is the seventh option: Litigation.
A few years ago there was a case all over the newspapers. A short marriage; a two-year-old child. Dad was voluntarily giving Mom $50,000 a month in child support, but the mother wasn't satisfied. Mother wanted $350,000 a month in child support for the two-year-old. Why? Because Dad could afford it.
The couple spent over a million dollars – each – on the Order to Show Cause Hearing. At the end of the day, after hearing all of the evidence and testimony, after concord jets and race horses and all the other evidence put in for a two-year-old child, the judge raised the support from $50,000 a month to $60,000 a month. A hundred thousand for a million. That's litigation, straight up, all the way.
The good news is that you have options. You don't have to spend your life's savings on legal fees or spend years fighting in court. It's your money, it's your family, it's your choice.
Your sixth option is Rent-A-Judge. If California were a business, it would be bankrupt. The courts are under-funded and over-crowded. The lines waiting for trial dates go on and on. The supervising judge in the family law department is anxious to get rid of cases. Any time two attorneys stipulate to file an application for Rent-A-Judge, the court will immediately appoint a retired judge in good standing as a judge pro tem*.
Los Angeles County is host to a "Rent-A-Judge" program wherein retired Superior Court judges are available as arbitrators or will sit as judges on a private basis. In the "Rent-A-Judge" program you try your case in a conference room just as you would in a court room, but without the delays and interruptions you experience with a judicial officer who is subject to the interruptions of a heavy caseload. If you know you have a case that will be in court for a long time, this option can save you a lot of money.
** The Law Collaborative does not represent either of the Jolie Pitt's and is in no way making any claims about the state of their relationship. It was a harmless, fictional example.
The fifth option is the default position. We call it Negotiation in the Shadow of Litigation.
The first three methods of divorce allow the parties to control the process, control the cost and control the outcome. It's your money, it's your property, they're your children, it should be your choice. But most people aren't aware of the first three options, or they don't even consider them. Many lawyers don't bother to tell people about the first three options, and very few people are interested in option four, so most of the time people end up going with number five on the list.
In the fifth option you're working with traditional lawyers who file traditional papers, bang the case around for two or three years, file Orders to Show Cause, Ex Parte hearings, and after all your money is gone, they settle the case. That's what most people get.
Trust me, you have lots of other options.
The fourth option for divorce is Arbitration, which is quite different from our first three options. The Kitchen Table Divorce is casual, creative, quick and inexpensive. Mediation is a cooperative effort between individuals to reach a mutual agreement based on consensus and compromise. Collaborative Divorce provides you with a team of professionals that rally and support you, ensuring that all your needs are met. Though Arbitration is similar to mediation, it is more like litigation in that the parties present their respective positions, evidence, testimony and witnesses to a trial of fact.
Arbitration is a settlement technique in which a third party reviews the case and imposes a decision that is legally binding for both sides. The arbitrator may be a retired judge, an experienced trial lawyer, or some other professional selected from a panel of competent arbitrators, such as the American Arbitration Association. Arbitration can be either voluntary or mandatory and can be either binding or non-binding. The principal distinction between mediation and arbitration is that whereas a mediator will try to help the parties find a middle ground on which to compromise, the (non-binding) arbitrator remains totally removed from the settlement process and will only give a determination of liability.
Arbitration is most commonly used for the resolution of commercial disputes, but it is desirable in divorce cases when agreement cannot be reached but the parties still wish to save the costs and expenses of litigating through the usual judicial system, which has built-in delays and attendant increased costs. The Los Angeles County Superior Court sponsors an arbitration program and a "Rent-A-Judge program wherein retired Superior Court judges are available as arbitrators, or will sit as judges on a private basis. But we'll talk more about Rent-A-Judge in a later post.
That's a great question, and very often the first question a lawyer hears from a potential client. Mr. Ron Supancic answers that question in this short, informative video.
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« Return to Index of Historians
Professor Cheryl Walker
Native American Literature
How did Native Americans view the United States in the 19th century? Professor Cheryl Walker of Scripps College is an expert on the writings of 19th century Native Americans.
Cheryl Walker, author of Indian Nation: Native American Literature and 19th century Nationalisms will be chatting with students online about the writings of figures such as William Apess, Black Hawk, George Copway, John Rollin Ridge, and Sarah Winnemucca and more. In addition to her expertise in these areas, Professor Walker wrote The Nightingale's Burden: Women Poets and American Culture Before 1900 and will be available to discuss the role of women in the 19th century and their writings as well.
Professor Walker is the Richard Armour Professor of Modern Languages and former Director of the Humanities Institute and the English Department at Scripps College in Claremont, California. Her interests in this project were sparked while teaching courses about American identity and its many variations. Presently, Professor Walker teaches a course on Race and Ethnicity in Nineteenth-Century American Literature for undergraduates, but her audience is much wider than that. She has lectured on Native American issues and other topics to community groups, postdoctoral seminars, American Literature Association members and American Studies scholars.
Professor Walker wants people to realize that Indians ARE Americans and that the whole notion of American identity is to some extent founded on a conception of the Indian native. According to Walker, we tend to think of minorities as "outside the circle" or opposed to the American culture, but she would like us to think of Native Americans as "the outsider inside," as people who have been forcibly alienated from America's European roots and yet have been and still are deeply involved in the very fabric of American life.
Professor Walker is interested in emergent literatures composed by people who have been traditionally excluded from the canon and welcomes questions in all areas of her research and writing. Cheryl Walker makes it her job to help Americans hear the voice of Native Americans and women especially. She feels their voices have an urgency and, "at their best, a power that comes from having something really important to say; something which is simultaneously personal, political, and literary."
BB: Okay it's Thursday, November 9, 2000. We're here for another guest expert session. We're fortunate enough to have Professor Cheryl Walker, author of Indian Nation. She is the Richard Armour Professor of Modern Languages and Director of the Humanity Institute of Scripps College. Cheryl, welcome.
Walker: Thank you. Good to be here.
BB: We appreciate your time. We've had information posted on our web site about this interview and it's generated a lot of interest. One question that several people asked was, "Is it derogatory to use the word "Indian" today?"
Walker: It's one of those misnomers that has been taken up by the group today. So obviously when Columbus came looking for India, and ended up in the West Indies and calls the people "Indian," this was a complete misnomer. But over time, Americans have adopted the term "Indian." Always with a certain degree of irony, but they themselves write about Indians and have used the names themselves.
BB: Right, right. We had a couple of different teachers write in and ask us. Would you kind of make clear the distinctions with oral literature and written literature and how that applies to Native Americans?
CW: Most of Native American culture, for many centuries, revolved around the presentations of stories, poetry, and songs, and that is still the case in many tribal communities. The glue that held the culture together was the performance of mass ritual story in a communal, and that was what we might call their literature. It was not written down. However, starting in the 19th century, some interesting things happened. The Indians themselves created a way of using, the alphabet that we use. We call this syllabary. So they can put English language into written form and they produced a newspaper and Indians read this newspaper. That was one thing that happened. Then a number of Native Americans learned English and were able to communicate, and write in English. So in the 19th century, we have the start of what we think of American native literature, that being a branch of American literature.
BB: We have a follow-up question from Ruth. She says, "How did traditional stories come to be written down then?"
Walker: Traditional stories were first written down mostly by anthropologists that came by; explorers like Louis and Clark, for instance, who visited tribal communities, and who sent back some of these things in the form of government, or in letters; published them in newspapers. But there was a lot of contention over the issue of these stories migrating from tribal communities to a European American population.
BB: Right. We've got a question from a teacher named Roberta in Florida. She says, "Why is a lot of the earliest literature autobiographical, and how can we be sure what the author really intended?"
Walker: It's a very good question. And there is an expert on Native American literature named Arnold Krupat at Sarah Lawrence, and he's developed this notion of bi- cultural presentation of Native American writings; where some of them were translated like Black Hawk's autobiography being dictated to a translator, and then written down and edited by a third person. So you can see right away, I talk about that as a writing team that there were at least 3 major people involved in that presentation. But there were other Native Americans who actually learned English, like George Copway, Sarah Winnemucca and they wrote directly in English. Now should we say that those writings represented a literal or non problematic representation of their views? Probably not. All these cross cultural, intercultural connections end up fraught with complexity. So in every case we have to reflect on how was the work composed, what forces were in it, and who was involved, and for what reason.
BB: Was Sequoyah the first to write in the language?
Walker: He was the first one translating the sounds of Native American language into Euro-American script. So he was the first one to make that transformation, but way back in the 17th century — Roger Williams.
BB: Uh-huh.
CW: He was very sympathetic to Native American ideas. And he wrote himself in the sound of Native American's words. He wrote those words out for English settlers so they can see them on the page and know in their phonetics what they sounded like.
BB: Right. Who were some of the earlier Americans who were sympathetic to the Native Americans?
Walker: Well John Eliot was interested in converting Native Americans. And he spent his entire life really living with Native American tribes trying to translate the Bible into Native American language. He was sympathetic in the sense that he valued these people and their ideas. But of course, he was a missionary; so his intent was to bring the gospel to the Indians. And that was a kind of different, I think, form of interest in Native Americans than somebody like Roger Williams.
In the 18th century we have both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson who admired certain things about Native Americans. They also were interested in enfolding Native Americans in the sort of American imperial project. So from some points of view, their interest was not the healthiest way of moving forward in the inter cultural encounter. But there are so many complexities in terms of Native Americans, going all the way back, that it seems that it is not the best way to approaching it. So just simplifying it in terms of, well these people were being pushed around, victimized and mistreated. There was always a deeper thing going on there.
BB: We have a follow-up question from Lisa in Pittsburgh. She asked, "Did any Native Americans write for a Native American audience?"
Walker: Oh yes. There were newspapers that were published by Native Americans in the 19th century that had Native American authors contribute to them, and the readership. The Cherokee had such a journal, and there were things going on in the Iroquois community that were directed to a Native American audience. So, yes there were.
BB: I have a question — actually several teachers have asked this: What native American history would you like to see in schools and why? It's...
Walker: It's a very interesting question. In anthologies. There are a lot of short and interesting pieces that I would recommend for a high school anthology. William Apess, who was a Pequot, has very interesting writing he wrote in English. He wrote a piece called "Looking Glass for the White Man" where he mirrors an American point of view with a Euro-American point of view. That's another piece appropriate to high school students. At the end of my book, I found this wonderful speech that was recorded on birch called the "Red Man's Rebuke" about 18 pages long. It's a passionate, very angry piece, but I think its interesting to put back to back with for instance, his much more assimilationist as opposed to much more accommodationist piece with "Red Man." Wherein, the latter, he says, "We have to assimilate," and where in the other one he's talking about the cost of assimilation. I think Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins works, any chapter that you want to take from her book Life Among the Piutes. It's passionate writing from a woman writer. She's very funny. I think that would be very interesting for high school students. These are, of course, all 19th century pieces. If you go into the 20th century, certainly the short stories in Louise Erdrich's books, I think, are wonderful for students. I'm thinking about "The Red Convertible," which is about 2 brothers, one of whom goes to Vietnam, then comes back shell shocked. That's a very moving story to high school students.
Are you also familiar with "Pow Wow High School?"(WHAT IS THIS?)
BB: I was fortunate enough to meet author.
Walker: There is a lot of very interesting Native American literature so there is a lot to choose from.
BB: Well, I think you'll be pleased to know that several schools are reading Sarah Winnemucca and we had questions. One is from Tom down in Washington D.C., and he asked, "How did Sarah manage to find an audience?"
Walker: Well, it happened this way. She started out being involved in some performance pieces in San Francisco. She was a talented performer and spoke 5 languages — 3 different Indian languages, Spanish, and English. She learned of the Piutes being victimized. She was interviewed by reporters. She involved a certain audience in the west coast and was able to collect some funds to make trips back to the east coast where she gave performances that were attended by many, many, many, people. Hundreds in fact, if you add them altogether, even thousands of people in the Washington Baltimore, and Boston area and because of that she came to the attention of the progressive liberal-minded performers like Mary Mann, the wife of Horace Mann. And she actually created the possibility for her of writing Life Among the Piutes and distributed it. Then her views came to an even wider audience.
BB: In your book, you write that Sarah forged a bond with white feminists of her era, what areas of common interest did each find?
Walker: Well, Sarah was quite a strong woman in her own right. Always was, of course she has a status ... had a status among the Piute as what's described today as a vidoge(Sp.?) a two-sided person that she would also portray a sort of male.--she further created possibility to save some of her people who had been taken prisoner as a tribe, and her father said, "She should be the chief because she's the strongest person in our tribe." She therefore came from a cultural background that did not have the same sorts of attitudes toward women as, let's say, the way of true womanhood of your American and middle and upper-class whites. However, she was also made vulnerable when white people, especially the sort of frontier man came to Nevada. Her and her sister were threatened by this. In fact, her sister was raped several times. So she felt that in this cultural situation women needed protection against male violence.
So she gave a talk — I think it was a sexy talk for the time — called "For women only," which drew a huge crowd. This was like going to the circus and having these-
BB: Sure.
Walker: -kind of tantalizing shows, and she gave many talks where she talked directly to women about so-called "women problems," and these were things that white women and Native American women were both interested in.
BB: Right. I've read excerpts from Life Among the Piutes and I've found it quite beautiful really. What I'm wondering is — I'm trying to put myself in the place of a 19th century white American. I would not find it quite so moving. What did the whites make of native writing?
Walker: Well, you know, there was a tremendous interest in Native American oral stories and use of metaphor in the 19th century. All the reviews carried stories or written versions of Native American speeches, and these issues were discussed — sort of like how feminism became an issue that was picked up in all the various media venues. So we can simplify what readers were thinking about on these matters. Some were quite hard nosed and imperialistic and they had to move from sea to shiny sea. But there were lots of other people who didn't feel that way. Melville didn't feel that way. And a writer wrote hobanuc (sp?) in a way to draw attention to the problem. Later in the century, you have something like the author of Ramona, Helen Hunt Jackson, whose work was popular and brought a lot of sympathy to the problems.
BB: When you say Helen Hunt's work was popular, how was it popular?
Walker: If you've read Ramona, it was very romanticized and it's been attacked from native Indians, and non-Native Americans. It was less flowery and less hardnosed of the violation of treaties and mistreatment of Indians, that was not so widely read. But these were published by publishers in the Midwest and had a lot of readers in the West as well.
BB: A wonderful question came in. Is there any relationship between Native American literature and the mythology of -
Walker: That's a very interesting question. I'm not that knowledgeable about the mythology of Europeans, but there have been people that have attempted to prove that. There are a lot of cross cultural similarities in terms of mythology. This is not something I've done research on, but I do not have too much on that.
BB: Another question that I can't resist asking comes from Barney in Pennsylvania — our neighborhood here — writing, "Is there any good Native American literature that deals with vision quests?"
Walker: Yes, yes there is. I'm thinking that the best place to look for that though, would be in 20th century literature. Black Elk Speaks is a wonderful novel, not exactly a novel. I mean, it's as told to, and we know that Neihardt changed aspects of it, and it's been kind of revised by members of Black Elk's family. But that's all about the vision quests. Ceremony is a novel that also deals with vision quests. There is material about the vision quests in-
BB: What about Frank Waters' works?
Walker: Oh yes, uh-huh. Definitely. So yes you can definitely find it. I think more in 20th century literature than in the 1900s.
BB: I have a question that just came in from Tashan in Michigan. She wants to know about if we know about African traits...
Walker: Good question, but a complicated one. And looking at that question, it helps us keep in mind that there are huge differences among tribes in terms of what we would see now as important issues. When Sarah Winnemucca writes about black people in Life Among the Piutes she points out her grandfather's attitude toward whites. The pain that he felt, he personally felt, when he saw blacks slaves being mistreated, and he felt that this was wrong. The Cherokee on the East Coast, actually owned black slaves. The more affluent Cherokee who lived in Georgia like the Ridge family. They, themselves, had plantations, they owned slaves. They participated to a certain extent in anti-bellum culture as southerners, you might say. But an important point to keep in mind, is that broadly speaking, Native Americans did not envision the kind of attitudes towards people of color that are characteristic of slave owners in the 19th century. They didn't think of people being placed in a particular category because of skin color or being born into slavery.
BB: Right.
Walker: The slave status was something you were familiar with because when you fought with a tribal side, and you lost people were taken as slaves. That doesn't mean that generation after generation their families would be enslaved. And sometimes these people were adopted. So slavery for many Native Americans was a different thing than it was for Euro-Americans in the 19th century.
BB: We have a follow-up question. It's from Alberto in Miami, a sophomore. He asks, "Authors like Sarah Winnemucca, who were they reading in English?"
Walker: That's an excellent question, and we don't really know the answer to that. In fact, I sort of ponder that issue in my chapter on Sarah Winnemucca because there are some interesting echoes in her book of something like Uncle Tom's Cabin where the character of Topsee (sp?) is sort of like Sarah's character Oitus (sp?) a kind of rascal who the main character feels sympathetic to. But did Sarah read Uncle Tom's Cabin? Did she read Frederick Douglass? One guess is that she did. There is also the editing of Life Among the Piutes, if they were involved in editing. They knew Uncle Tom's Cabin. They also knew Frederick's work. We just don't know. It's a matter of guesswork.
BB: It seems like we have a lot of history-oriented people taking part today. One [question] that we've got several variations on is this one: Where did the idea come from that all Native Americans were all savages and bloodthirsty?
Walker: The word "savage," it goes back to the French word sauvage, and that means "wild." The savage child would be a white child raised by wolves for instance. Overtime, the word "savage" in English began to acquire association with the bloodthirsty, the savage. But that could also mean somebody who was not civilized. The figure that was in a primitive state who was not Europeanized, that was not civilized according to the European notion. But from the early times of travel and travel reports about the "new world," the area that we now call the United States, you have two versions of the Native American appearing. In one, the people are represented as very docile very beautiful, self-sufficient, kindly. Not at all "savage." And those reports were often generated by people who had lived for a time with the native population and been treated very well by them and felt kindly disposed to them. The more political side of that, which came about with colonialism and with imperialism rendered Native Americans in a different light obviously for the purpose of explaining why it must be justified to take their land and to even massacre them.
BB: Yes. Alberto has asked us the next question. He asks, "The native authors that you refer to in your books, these are his words, are pretty obscure, given that the students that have a limited amount of school ... what... what kind of canon is there for teaching this? Does it have teaching merit, and all the permutations of this question.
Walker: Yes, and that is one of the most hotly debated questions these days in the academic world. I think that we should definitely keep in mind the fact that the challenges to the canon have resulted in an enormous widening in our sense of what literature is and what it has been. And it has had extremely positive consequences because now we include a lot of things that were overlooked in the past. It is true that some of the authors that used to be considered absolutely vital to any student's comprehension of American literature — people like Byron, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, and John Greenleaf are perhaps less read today than some of these minority writers or women writers. But it's important to keep in mind that the canon in American literature, has never been fixed. It has always been in transition. Always there have been writers who were fading out, who were going overtime, and new writers coming in. I think the best answer to how the canon is changing is to look at anthologies, and look at many of them. Because the Norton Anthology of American Literature has included a lot of minorities and women. If you look at Norton or some of the other anthologies, they are more interested in preserving many of the writers of the past with a little infusion of new writers who are more recently rediscovered. But one of the things that's exciting about teaching American literature today, is that there is so much more to think about than there used to be. And people can pick and choose.
BB: Cheryl, I don't know if you caught this in your [New York] Times book review, at the end there was a very passionate plea to teach Longfellow, can you speak to that?
Walker: Yes. I do have a friend who teaches in Indiana who has been teaching "Hiawatha" and it has convinced me that this is a text that needs to be reread. What's interesting about "Hiawatha" in terms of Native American responses, is that in the '70s many of us thought that, well, Hiawatha" is kind of this false representation by Euro-American writers. And this is a time, of course when Cooper and Longfellow were under challenge because they didn't speak for Native Americans. What's interesting is that a lot of Native Americans read it and quoted it as the gospel truth about Indians. So it's an interesting debate and I think there is justification for rethinking a lot of these writers like Longfellow in light of a more complicated notion of what was going on in the 20th century.
BB: We've been having a lively dialogue; I don't know if you can see it. But there is a great interest in Christianity and Native Americans. Several other questions that have come in from people like Clay, Chelsea and Barney. "How greatly did Christianity affect them?" "Were there any movements that did not involve Christianizing them?" So I don't know where you want to start.
Walker: Three questions. Okay. Okay. First question: Were there attempt to support native communities that did not involved christianizing them? Yes there were. They were not as strongly backed financially as the missionary movement. It was really from the missionary moment that a lot of the money for helping Native Americans came. But there were individuals and even groups that were founded with the sense that it was not really their souls that needed to be saved but their bodies. And of course there was the education movement (that like) such as the Carlisle School that was founded with what they felt was a very high minded notion of bringing NativeAmericans into the world of American culture, but which had devastating effects in other ways in terms of denying the validity of native dress, religious and culture. So yes there were some movements that were not connected with Christianity, that was the strongest movement. Remind me again the second and third question.
BB: Let's see. Well, Clay wanted to know were there any movements that did not involve christianizing them.
Walker: Yes. There were some movements that dealt with poverty and a need to find respectable living conditions for natives that were not connected with Christianity.
BB: Right. Stevie from New Jersey has a follow-up question from "Hiawatha." He writes, "How much did they know from one other?"
Walker: That is a great question. One of the reasons why a work like "Hiawatha" was understood to be literal was that Cherokee did not know a whole lot about the Northwest. So they were reading some of this literature themselves to get information about fellow natives and had no independent knowledge about what was going on in different communities. So, the Plains Indians, of course, were deeply different in culture from the Southwest tribes, like the Pueblo, and there was a kind of notion of Pan-Indianism, that all Native Americans were in a certain sense connected. But part of that was actually the result of colonization and imperialism because before that there are different tribes, and that's humanity. You know, there is our group and other groups. This pan-Indianism came as a reaction to the mistreatment of natives by Europeans.
BB: We have a film fan in the audience, a student from Philadelphia. "Would the screen play to the movie Smoke Signal be a-"
Walker: I have not seen the play. I'm not going to be a judge of that.
BB: We also have another student ask, "What about Carlos Castaneda? Would he be considered Native American literature?
Walker: Well Carlos Castaneda was not a Native American, and I love his work, but it reflects some of the values as a representative in Native American literature. He wrote these words that are generally considered to be a novel, not really an ethnography. He created this man Don Juan, who was supposedly Indian and inducted Carlos into the tribal secrets and mythology. But I doubt whether Native Americans would consider this Native American literature. It's more like the notion called white shamanism, of people who are not natives who want to take on the trappings of Native American culture.
BB: Cat, a student from Maryland, has a follow-up. "Was there more Native American literature in the 18th and 19th century than now, and is the Internet kind of a new way for promoting Native American literature?
Walker: Okay. Was there more in the 18th and 19th century? Let's take the 18th century first. There was virtually no Native American literature per se in the 18th century. Though Logan's speech, a speech made by a very bitter native about the disposition of him and the mistreatment of his family. It became a set piece for school children in the 18th century to memorize and recite. So there was a recognition of American oratory. In the 19th century you actually have published books so there is more there. But the 20th century is sort of an explosion of Native American literatures. Stories by men and women and screenplays and everything you can imagine. And the last question, is the Internet a resource? Yes and you can explore it; there is a lot of Native American writers that you can enjoy.
BB: I have a great question from Rebecca in Troy, New York. How did the Native Americans compare to the American settlers at that time?
Walker: That's a good question, let me do this, on one side this on the other side that. On the one side, the most well-known side, Native Americans did not understand the nation in the same way as Euro-Americans did. As a sort of fixed land mass with a certain numerically measurable population with a fixed governmental structure. It was a much looser notion of nation. And I think William(DANA: Is this the name?), though he's not a Native American gives a beautiful accounting of this in his work "Prairie Deep Map" (Can't find) where he presents the nation as a myth but not fixed in the political way that we think about it in European ways. On the other side, things were not quite as different as other, as was some times thought previously. There is a lot of evidence that in certain locations Native Americans were very precise about the boundaries of their land and what they could do with the land; whether they can sell it, or use it in particular ways. There was a sense in certain Native American tribes of "us versus them." To the extent that Black Hawk in a quite surprising moment vows that he's going to wipe out the northern Cherokee who have killed his father and he wants to wipe them out to the last man. In other words he has a genocidal fantasy there about eliminating this other nation, which is kind of surprising to many of us. But, though the nation was understood differently, I think, in tribal communities than it was in European communities, there was certainly a notion about leadership that there were people who had the right to speak for the tribe. And should be listened to.
BB: I'm glad you mentioned Black Hawk, who was a member of the Sauk tribe. A couple of questions came in earlier. First off, do you think that sports teams should adopt Native American names?
Walker: You know, I actually don't. I think that at this point we need to get beyond that. There is a lot of — there is a lot of interest in this issue here in California over the Aztecs, you know, should this sports team be allowed to use the Aztecs mascot. And people feel strongly that this is not actually a commentary on Native Americans any more than to use a rabbit or a certain kind of female character as a commentary on this group. But things are so charged, and there is such a history, and Native Americans feel strongly about the misuse of their names, and of their bodies. And I think that we need to get beyond that and choose new mascot and new names for teams.
BB: Black Hawk is a complex and fascinating figure. His book was edited later. Can you tell us about Black Hawk's autobiography?
Walker: I think it's much different than what you said in the sense that the interpreter was the one who was a mixed blood.
BB: Okay.
Walker: And the editor, J. B. Patterson, was not Native American at all, so he came in at the end of the line. There is a lot of controversy over what is Black Hawk's autobiography. Is it really what Black Hawk intended or what he said? Some scholars are claiming that it's obvious that these words do not reflect Black Hawk's real views, and others arguing that they do. I take a kind of middle-of-the-road position; that the text may have been altered to some degree. But I have tried to argue that the figure of Black Hawk, the heart of the man, and his tremendous commitment to fair mindedness to weighing the claims of one side and of the other, is consistent through that book and suggest to me something more authentic and something more than a book that was altered by an author. The commitment of weighing evidence is different from any other American text that I know from the 19th century and that suggests something through the spirit of Black Hawk is coming through there.
BB: A friend from Pittsburgh has written in some interesting questions. She wants to know, "Was there any Native American comedy, plays, and dramas, and a follow up if you have time — What Native American writings are considered to be classic must-have native works?"
Walker: Two different questions. There is a wonderful book by Kenneth Lincoln called Indian Humor and that is a great resource if you're interested in comedy. Indians are, were, have been, very funny. And they have a wonderful sense of irony; in fact I would say the comic is from an indigenous culture. So yes, there is a lot of comedy and Lincoln would be a good place to start to look for it. What is the classic text from a Native American view? Lincoln again, who is a Native American himself, wrote what is now a scholarly classic called Native American Renaissance which is about Native American literature. And in the 19th century, I think, we look at things like Black Hawk and now Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, and Charles Eastman's work. In the early 19th century her tales had been published. So these are the forerunners of the contemporary literature. And now classics, I would use the word with some degree of humor, new classics are being created all the time.
Meet the Historians
These renowned historians and experts chatted with students online. Read the transcripts.
Carol Berkin
Colonial Women
Ira Berlin
Joseph Ellis
James Loewen
Debunking History
Jon Nese
Robert Regan
Robert Remini
The Jacksonian Era
Brooks Simpson
U.S. Grant and Reconstruction
David Traxel
Errol Uys
Riding the Rails
Native American Lit


text:
Tag: Michael Burgess
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Doesn't Understand How Obamacare's Exchanges Work
On Twitter Sunday evening, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) complained about what she viewed as the daunting prospect of having to choose her health insurance plan for 2020.
It's not the first time Ocasio-Cortez has taken issue with the health coverage for members of Congress. She griped about the process last year, as a newly elected official just taking her seat.
But, as someone who has gone through the process of buying health insurance as a DC resident for years, I can characterize most of the points she makes in the tweet as inaccurate, or rooted in the special privilege she receives as a member of Congress.
She's Not Buying 'Off the Exchange'
To start with, Ocasio-Cortez claimed that "Members of Congress also have to buy their plans off the Exchange." That statement contains numerous false elements. Most obviously, she cannot buy her insurance off the exchange because the District of Columbia abolished its private insurance market "off the Exchange."
Upon seeing her tweet, I went to eHealthInsurance, a private market away from the government-run exchange, and tried to search for a plan. (Disclosure: I used to represent eHealth more than a decade ago as a paid lobbyist.) When I typed in a DC-based ZIP code, I found the following:
eHealth doesn't offer insurance plans in the District of Columbia, because it can't offer them. DC law prohibits anyone but the exchange from selling insurance to individuals.
Rather than purchasing coverage "off the Exchange," Ocasio-Cortez buys her health insurance through DC's small business exchange, as opposed to its marketplace for individuals. As a Congressional Research Service paper on health coverage for members of Congress and their staff explains, both groups buy insurance through the DC small business exchange to obtain their (illegal) employer subsidy.
Admittedly, Ocasio-Cortez may have meant "from the Exchange" when she said "off the Exchange." But her imprecise language implies that she does not understand the important distinction between buying plans from the Exchange directly and not doing so. (Only Exchange-purchased plans qualify for subsidies under the Obamacare statute.)
She Gets Access to More Plans as a Member of Congress
Ocasio-Cortez complained about having to choose from 66 different insurance plans. She wouldn't have that problem if she weren't a member of Congress. People who buy insurance on DC's individual exchange have far fewer options. I know, because I have to buy coverage there. Take a look at the "choices" my personalized webpage presented to me: Only 23 plans—about one-third the number available to Ocasio-Cortez:
Some may think that 23 plans still represent a large number to choose from, but my reality proved far different. To begin with, those plans come from only two carriers: CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield and Kaiser Permanente, which only offers HMO options. If you don't want to get locked into an HMO's provider network—and I don't—you have exactly one choice of carrier: CareFirst.
Couple my preference for non-HMO coverage with my desire for insurance that includes a health savings account option, and I ended up with only two plans to choose from: CareFirst's Bronze HSA plan, and its Gold HSA plan.
I would prefer more choices for health insurance. I would particularly appreciate the opportunity to buy coverage that doesn't need to comply with the Obamacare insurance regulations that have driven up premiums and priced millions of people out of coverage. But DC's insurance regulators have prohibited carriers from offering non-complaint plans, because they're from the government and they're here to help.
She Gets Special Privileges as a Member of Congress
To say that members of Congress and congressional staff receive kid-glove treatment from the DC small business exchange would put it mildly. This flyer (from 2013) shows that the DC exchange conducted no fewer than 12 separate in-person enrollment events for members and staff during Obamacare's first open enrollment period.
Congressional staff confirmed to me that the in-person enrollment sessions continued on Capitol Hill this year. Congressional staff also confirmed that House and Senate benefits counselors can walk them through the entire enrollment process.
Even as an individual DC exchange participant, I received no fewer than five separate e-mails, starting on Friday afternoon, reminding me that Sunday represented the last day to sign up for coverage taking effect on January 1. The timing of Ocasio-Cortez' tweet suggests that she waited until the last minute to examine her coverage options, but she can't say she wasn't warned. Maybe if she and her colleagues spent less time focused on impeachment, Ocasio-Cortez could have found more time to select her plan sooner?
Ocasio-Cortez Gets an Illegal Subsidy
I and others have made this point before: members of Congress and their staff represent the only group that can receive a subsidy from their employer on the exchange. That subsidy came through a rule promulgated by the Office of Personnel Management in 2013, but several analyses have called that rule illegal.
Ocasio-Cortez claimed that "Members of Congress have to buy their plans off the Exchange." Just as the off-exchange claim holds no basis in fact, she and other members of Congress do not have to buy plans via the DC small business exchange. Nothing in law forces them to do so—unless they want to receive the (illegal) subsidy.
In fact, at least one member of Congress has turned down the (illegal) congressional subsidy. Dr. Michael Burgess frequently mentions at hearings, including the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on single payer last week, that he buys his own coverage with his own money, not taxpayer funds. As someone who earns less than members of Congress do, and has no access to (illegal) insurance subsidies, I appreciate Burgess' integrity in this regard.
If Ocasio-Cortez wanted to do something other than complain—and if she didn't want so many choices—she could ditch the special, and illegal, subsidies she receives as a member of Congress, and buy coverage with the hoi polloi like me. She's welcome to do so any time she likes, but I'm not holding my breath.
UPDATE: This post was updated after publication to clarify potential interpretations of Ocasio-Cortez' comments about "off the Exchange" coverage.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on December 17, 2019 December 31, 2019 Categories Coverage, RegulationsTags Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, CareFirst Blue Cross, Congressional Research Service, DC Health Link, District of Columbia, eHealthInsurance, Exchange subsidies, Exchanges, House Energy and Commerce Committee, Illegal, Kaiser Permanente, Michael Burgess, Office of Personnel Management, Single payer, The Federalist
Legislative Bulletin: H.R. 914, Physician Workforce Enhancement Act
Floor Situation: H.R. 914 is being considered under suspension of the rules, requiring a two-thirds vote for passage. The legislation was introduced by Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) on February 9, 2009.
Summary: H.R. 914 would amend the Public Health Service Act to create a new loan program for hospitals to create residency training programs. Hospitals located in rural areas or outside major cities would receive priority in applying for the interest-free loans of up to $1 million, which would be repayable over a 24-month period. The bill authorizes a total of $25 million in appropriations.
Background: On September 23, 2008 the House passed a similar bill (H.R. 2583) by voice vote. The Senate never considered the legislation.
Cost: A Congressional Budget Office score was not available.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on March 30, 2009 January 13, 2020 Categories Costs, CoverageTags Congressional Budget Office, Department of Health and Human Services, Legislative Bulletin, Michael Burgess, Physician access
Legislative Bulletin: H.R. 1253, Health Insurance Restrictions and Limitations Clarification Act
Floor Situation: H.R. 1253 is being considered under suspension of the rules, requiring a two-thirds vote for passage. The legislation was introduced by Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) on March 3, 2009.
Summary: H.R. 1253 would amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the Internal Revenue Code, and the Public Health Service Act to require group health insurance sponsors (i.e. employers) and issuers (i.e. insurance carriers) to disclose plan restrictions and limitations in an easily understandable format prior to enrollment.
Background: On September 23, 2008, the House passed a similar bill (H.R. 6908) by voice vote. The Senate never considered the legislation.
Cost: According to the Congressional Budget Office, implementation of H.R. 1253 would have no significant impact on the federal budget. The CBO score also notes that the bill would impose an unfunded mandate on the private sector, by requiring insurers to disclose limitations and restrictions on health insurance coverage; however, CBO does not believe these mandates exceed the thresholds specified in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA).
Author chrisjacobsPosted on March 30, 2009 January 13, 2020 Categories Costs, Coverage, RegulationsTags Congressional Budget Office, Cost estimates, Employer-provided health coverage, ERISA, Individual insurance, Internal Revenue Code, Legislative Bulletin, Michael Burgess, Public Health Service Act, Unfunded mandates, Unfunded Mandates Reform Act
Weekly Newsletter: July 21, 2008
Resolution Would Block SCHIP Funds from Being Targeted to Poor Children
Last week, a group of Senators introduced a Resolution of Disapproval (S. J. Res. 44) designed to nullify guidance put forward by the Administration regarding state efforts to expand government-funded health insurance coverage to higher-income children. The guidance, issued last August and revised this May, provides a list of steps states must take in order to expand coverage to children in families making over 250% of the federal poverty level (approximately $50,000 for a family of four), and to ensure that states do not encourage families to drop private insurance coverage in order to obtain coverage through a government program.
Many conservatives may be surprised and disappointed by this resolution, which if successful would effectively give states a disincentive to reach out and enroll poorer-income children if children from wealthier families can be more easily found and enrolled in government-funded coverage. Particularly as the Administration has issued clarifying guidance noting that no child need be dropped off the SCHIP rolls while states implement this new policy, some conservatives may question why Democrats would prefer to extend government-funded health insurance to families making $80,000 or more, while neglecting to ensure that poorer children receive first preference for SCHIP enrollment.
An RSC Policy Brief on the Administration's SCHIP Guidance can be found here.
Medicaid Bailout for States Receives Committee Hearing
This week the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a Subcommittee hearing on legislation (H.R. 5268) designed to provide a temporary increase in the Medicaid matching rate provided to states. News reports suggest that the Democrat leadership may attempt to attach similar provisions to a second "stimulus" package being considered by the Congressional majority.
Some conservatives may be concerned that this legislation—which was proposed, and rejected, during negotiations over the first "stimulus" bill passed in January—would not provide any "stimulus" at all, instead substituting federal Medicaid spending for state dollars, at a significant cost to the federal budget deficit. Given an Urban Institute study suggesting that lost revenue—and not increases in Medicaid enrollment—generates a measurably larger impact on state budgets during economic downturns, some conservatives may view H.R. 5268 as providing a bailout to states, which did not engage in proper budgetary planning, that will only encourage "moral hazard" among states with flawed revenue projection models.
The legislation being considered also includes provisions designed to disregard "extraordinary pension contributions" for purposes of calculating each state's Medicaid match rate. Because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has noted that Michigan—home to full Committee Chairman John Dingell—is the only state that would benefit from such a change, some conservatives may consider this provision an authorizing earmark and object to its inclusion.
An RSC Policy Brief on Medicaid matching formulae can be found here.
Documents of Note: Democrats Defend Entitlement Spending on the Wealthy
Last Wednesday, RSC Chairman Hensarling submitted an op-ed to the Washington Times discussing Medicare legislation recently enacted over the President's veto. The article noted that the Democrat-constructed bill pits groups of low-income seniors against each other—by adding subsidies for some, while taking away access to Medicare Advantage for millions—all the while doing nothing to make billionaires like Warren Buffett and George Soros pay $2 per day more for prescription drug coverage.
Read the op-ed here.
And as Congress once again may consider SCHIP-related legislation, some conservatives may find the colloquy between Rep. Mike Burgess (R-TX) and House Energy and Commerce Chairman Dingell from last October enlightening. In it, Chairman Dingell admitted that states can choose to disregard tens of thousands of dollars of income from families applying for SCHIP—thus making families with six-figure incomes potentially subject to government-funded health insurance for "poor" children.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on July 21, 2008 March 12, 2019 Categories Costs, Coverage, Medicaid and SCHIP, MedicareTags "Stimulus", Bailouts, Congressional Review Act, Crowd out, Earmarks, Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, George Soros, House Energy and Commerce Committee, Jeb Hensarling, John Dingell, Means testing, Medicaid, Medicare Advantage, Michael Burgess, Michigan, SCHIP, Warren Buffett, Washington Times, Weekly Newsletter


The next event I'll be attending is the Spirit Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah. This is the first time this event has been held there so we are excited for this groundbreaking experience.
Icon Expert Event will be returning to New York this November. Could you do more for your business of you booked more speaking gigs, had your own book and had a money making presentation? Be sure to register today to reserve your seat!
Coming November 12-13 we will be hosting the Icon Expert Event in New York City! This event it is only for Attorneys, Coaches, Dentists, Chiropractors, Realtors, Speakers, Trainers, Authors, Consultants, CPAs and Hosts. Tickets are normally $997 you can register as my free guest by clicking on this picture.
Thank you to everyone that attended the Word Genius Weekend and the City Gala. Everyone was eager to connect, network and learn from our amazing speakers. Thank you Ryan Long joining this event today to share your message of Global Unity.
My Word Genius Weekend is almost here. At this Workshop you will learn the finer points of wording your beliefs, capturing your stories, constructing emotional triggers, and so much more!
My JV Day will be coming to New York City July 30th. If you want to network, connect, and build high profit low maintenance relationships then this event is for you.
Starting the 18th is the Big Book and Magazine Summit here at the Embassy Suites North in LA. Still not too late to join us and learn how to make a million dollars with your book.


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