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Welcome to our signing day live blog, where we'll be updating you all day on the newest group of Bulldogs.
It's 7:50 and we already have three names inked for UGA -- defensive end Brandon Burrows, linebacker Demetre Baker and wide receiver Michael Bennett. All are three-star guys who have been committed for a while now.
I'm heading over to Butts-Mehre in a few, but space is limited there with the construction and the wireless is always a bit spotty, so we'll see how this goes.
You can also keep up with all the latest in the following places...
-- Local stuff for Macon and Columbus can be found at Macon.com and Ledger-Enquirer.com
-- The AJC has recruiting updates all day coutesy of Chip Towers... and it's free
-- GeorgiaDogs.com has its signing list being updated automatically plus other updates
-- And, of course, ESPN, Scout and Rivals have their usual recruiting coverage
Mark Richt and Georgia's other coaches will be speaking this afternoon (starting around 1:30) and I'm hoping to have plenty of other updates as well.
The plan, tentatively, is to keep this blog going all the way through tonight's UGA-Arkansas basketball... but we'll see how much coffee I'm able to consume.Back with more shortly.
8:02 AM-- In addition to the signing day stuff and tonight's hoops game, UGA's athletics association also has a quarterly meeting today in which discussions will be had to expand Sanford Stadium and revamp Stegeman. Nothing like making sure a busy day gets even busier.
8:05 AM -- Tech gets LOI from running back Tony Zenon. He's an interesting story. He was from New Orleans and was evacuated after Katrina, landing in my former stomping grounds of Albany, Ga. I can clearly remember his coach at Deerfield-Windsor telling me before Zenon had ever played a game that he would become a star.
-- TJ Stripling is also the latest name in for Georgia. It'll be interesting to see how he's deployed in Todd Grantham's system. He's a four-star defensive end/linebacker who, at 6-6, 215 has some potential to fill out and be awfully good.
8:24 AM -- A good note, Kenarious Gates' LOI is now in. Bad news -- Georgia will be missing out on Jordan Akins.
Akins, a 6-3 wide receiver out of Union Grove, had a lot of buzz surround him late, but he has chosen Central Florida over UGA. That one hurts.
Combined with Da'Rick Rogers likely decision to head to Tennessee and Christian Green's late decision to head to Florida State over Georgia, and that wide receiver corps in Athens isn't going to be anywhere near as dangerous as it might have been.
And in a time when good news was much needed at UGA, having a Georgia kid choose to go to UCF instead of UGA hardly qualifies.
8:45 -- Over at Butts-Mehre and just finished listening in on Todd Grantham's interview with GeorgiaDogs.com. I wouldn't exactly call it riveting dialogue -- he wasn't asked any questions about specific signees -- but he did talk a little about T.J. Stripling's body type.
Grantham said his goal was to recruit five or six players per year that are similar to Stripling -- i.e. 6-6 range and around 215 or 220. "If you get four or five of those guys, two or three will become outside linebackers and two or three may gain some weight and get their hand in the dirt (as a D end)." Basically the idea is to recruit the frame and then see which ones fill out.
BTW, we're expecting a letter from Ogletree in the near future.
9:00 AM -- After a brief stint without Internet access, things seem to be rolling again thanks to the fine work of the UGA SID staff.
Had a reader ask about the crowd at Butts-Mehre...
I'd say there are probably about 30 people here, which is definitely down a bit from last year.
On the downside, there's really not much to do. Grantham was out talking to GeorgiaDogs.com, but the fans really couldn't hear him, and they didn't set up speakers to broadcast the interview.
On the upside, there's free coffee. So that's nice.
9:05 AM -- Another name to the list of signatures on the bottom line... defensive back Marc Deas has officially turned in his LOI.
9:06 AM -- And add quarterback Hutson Mason to the list of official signees, too. No surprise there. Hutson has done his best to try to hold this class together... which apparently was no easy task.
9:11 AM -- Here's a photo of the "crowd"...
9:30 AM -- Fun times with no Internet... I just left Butts-Mehre and headed back home so I could post some stuff. My guess is I'll be doing this all day.
9:35 AM -- Make sure you're following me on Twitter, too. I'll be updating there during what will no doubt be frequent bouts without Internet. But at least no one had to shell out money for me to use a wireless card to do my job. So that's a relief.
-- Both Ogletree brothers are official, and we're awaiting word from Mike Thornton any minute.
9:37 AM -- Jalen Fields, who was the first commitment of the 2010 class, is now official. That brings Georgia's list to 12 so far. Here are the names: Fields, Alec Ogletree, Zander Ogletree, Hutson Mason, Marc Deas, Kenarious Gates, TJ Stripling, Demetre Baker, Brandon Burrows and Michael Bennett today along with early enrollees Jakar Hamilton and Kolton Houston.
9:39 AM -- Brett Favre's nephew officially signs with Mississippi State. Wonder if Dan Mullen will get a few more games on ESPN now.
9:42 AM -- Add one more for UGA... running back Ken Malcolme. I think he'll be an interesting guy to watch this fall. If he ends up being the only RB Georgia signs -- and it sure looks that way -- what do you think that means for Richard Samuel? That's info we might be getting from Richt today.
9:45 AM -- Just an FYI... I haven't had a single cup of coffee today. We're out at home (and I have no idea how that happened!) and I didn't have time to get any over at Butts-Mehre. There's a decent chance that I'll simply pass out from exhaustion by noon.
9:47 AM -- Obviously a lot will be made of Da'Rick Rogers defection and Akins turning the Dawgs down. I've heard plenty on both sides now, from the "What the heck is going on at UGA! We're doomed!" folks to the "Eh, it's no big deal. We still have a good stable of receivers" folks.
I'm not saying losing out on either is the end of the world, but the Rogers defection is a big deal. The kid isn't guaranteed to be a stud, but he is a 5-star receiver who could have stepped in nicely should A.J. Green depart after his junior season. Plus, you lose him to a rival SEC East school with a brand new head coach and no real idea who its QB is going to be in 2010. It's bad on the field and it's bad in terms of PR.
But... it isn't the end of the world either.
9:50 AM -- Finally some good news for UGA fans. Mike Thornton has chosen Georgia. The big defensive tackle from Stephenson was pretty much a must-have at this point to solidify the Dawgs' class. He has a chance to fill that nose tackle role quite well down the line.
9:57 AM -- It's official... Da'Rick Rogers is headed to Tennessee.
9:59 AM -- Derek Owens, the 5-9 defensive back out of Jacksonville, has turned in his LOI, giving Georgia 14 official signees.
10:02 AM -- By my count, we're waiting on LOI's to make things official for Thornton, Brent Benedict, Dexter Morant and Garrison Smith. No reason to worry on any of them though.
10:04 AM -- Good point from reader named Pete: "we got by with only 5 scholarship WR this year, and that was with AJ being hurt the last 1/3 of the season."
10:05 AM -- And a good note from our pal T Kyle King: "would like to make it clear that today is National Signing Day, not National Singing Day. If you're a high school senior, please sign your letter of intent declaring where you will play your college football. If you're not, stop singing."
But what about those perky kids from "Glee"?
10:07 AM -- ESPN had Georgia ranked fourth overall for 2010 signing classes, but with Rogers, et all departing, the Dawgs have dropped to ninth.
10:09 AM -- Well, I guess we know how Bacarri Rambo feels about Da'Rick Rogers' departure, courtesy of Facebook: "Bacarri Rambo thinks is messed up how all of UGA high school commitments back out on us but I'm telling you now when I catch you on the field I'm going to knock fire from you."
10:11 AM -- I'm going to attempt to head back over to Butts-Mehre in a few. Hopefully the Internet is working again. We shall see. Either way, Richt will likely be talking with GeorgiaDogs.com and perhaps addressing the crowd some time before noon.
10:21 AM -- Rodney Garner talking about the recruiting process this year...
"People are not going to give up till the clock goes 0:00. We have to make sure we're doing a good job of building those relationships, cultivating relationships and making sure they know they're doing the right thing."
Garner on the Ogletrees…
"They're both tremendous young men… both going to have a very positive impact on our program and our future."
"I think the Dawg Nation is going to be proud of both of those young men."
On their similarities...
"Those two look like they got swapped around at the hospital."
On Zander Ogletree…
"He's hungry. He wants to prove his worth."
Garner on overall recruiting class...
"We're excited about this class. It takes two years to really know, but the one thing I can say is we didn't go to a B list. These were guys we targeted, guys we wanted all along, so we're excited about it."
10:40 AM -- OK, back and Butts-Mehre, coffee in hand, crowd filling out... perhaps things are coming together. The news that Lowndes star Telvin Smith may be reconsidering Florida State and thinking Georgia instead.
10:48 AM -- I think the reason signing day is so big for fans is that it's really the only day in college sports that resembles fantasy football. Think about it... in pro sports you have the drafts, the offseason moves, hot stove in MLB... it's just like fantasy sports. There are trades and changes and free agent signings and stuff for fans to get excited about. Well, in college sports you can't deal your quarterback for a top linebacker, but you do get one day a year to celebrate a big haul of new recruits.
10:52 AM -- The flip side of that: Yes, Georgia will be adding 15 or 16 names to the roster (at least) today, but looking back at last year's class (which was a very good one), here are the total number of players who made a major impact:
Washaun Ealey (717 rush yards, 3 TDs in nine games)
Orson Charles (23 catches, 374 yards, 3 TDs)
Branden Smith (14 tackles, 279 return yards, 208 rush yards, 2 TDs)
Rantavious Wooten (10 catches, 197 yards, 2 TDs)
Abry Jones (eight tackles, one sack)
Montez Robinson (five tackles, two sacks)
So, summing up...
Last year Georgia signed 20 players. I'd say four of them made major contributions in year one. Two more made minor contributions. Four more made very small or special teams contributions. Ten were redshirted.
So what we're seeing today may be an influx of talent for the future, but don't expect more than about 3 or 4 to really turn into serious factors in 2010.
10:57 AM -- Comment from Charles Armentrout: "On a different subject, any word on who the last remaining defensive coach might be. It would be really cool if he is currently on the New Orleans Saints staff right now. Do you think being understaffed hurt UGA on the recruiting trail this season?"
Can't tell you too much about the new hire, as that's been pretty quiet. It is curious as to why Georgia has been so content to wait on announcing someone, so that only adds some fuel to the Travis Jones fire. That said, there was really no major rush to get someone in. It didn't leave them shorthanded on the recruiting trail (they're only allowed seven on the road at once anyway) and there was a coach for each position, so no players were left wondering who they'd work with.
That said, I'll remind everyone who is calling today a failure for Georgia of what I wrote numerous times during the season: If you wanted changes on the coaching staff, you had to be prepared to accept some short-term setbacks.
That's just how it works. These kids build relationships with coaches, and I promise you, they weren't judging Willie Martinez the same way fans were. When the changes were made, it was bound to put a few doubts in the heads of recruits. And when it took six weeks to find replacements, there was a cost to that, too.
And now that Grantham and Lakatos are in place, there is a cost to that, too. In some ways, Mark Richt simply saying, "Trust me, you know I'll do the right thing" was better than saying, "Hey, meet Todd Grantham. He's our new DC."
These kids had already gotten used to Jancek, Fabris and Willie. Grantham and Lakatos have extremely different personalities. (And, in truth, I'm not sure anyone else has Jon Fabris' personality. He's one of a kind.) So when there were no coaches, it was easy enough to tell players that they'd be bringing in guys who would mesh personality-wise. Now that Grantham and Lakatos are here, there's certainly a possibility that wasn't the case with everyone.
So... there were always going to be short-term costs to making those changes. The verdict on whether it was worthwhile or not won't be seen for another year or two.
11:03 AM -- Things slowing down a tad... I'd figure fans will hear from Richt shortly. We're scheduled to meet with him at 1:30, along with assistants. I'm going for coffee No. 2. And yes, I know many of you are expecting some discussion of "Lost" today... I'll get to it. I concerned about spoilers though.
11:20 AM -- Dexter Morant and Brent Benedict have both sent in their LOIs.On the other hand, Telvin Smith decided to stick with Florida State, according to War Chant.
11:29 AM -- Richt talking with the crowd now. Says he's still expecting "one or two more" faxes to come in.
11:36 AM -- Richt says Richard Samuel will move to linebacker. Says he was "anxious to make that move."
11:38 AM -- Mike Thornton's LOI is officially in.
11:40 AM -- Alec Ogletree is "Tree" while Alexander Ogletree is "Zander" Richt says. Also says Alec will be at safety and coaches expect big impact. Richt also said that his son, Jon, is engaged. Once he's married, Richt says he expects The Watergirl to return to the sidelines at UGA games regularly.
11:44 AM -- Richt answered a handful of questions from fans, but outside of the Samuel announcement, not much substantial. He's talking with Dowdle now.
Compared to last year when Richt had a good idea he'd be landing Marlon Brown late, he seemed a good bit more reserved this year. But he made sure to get in all the requisite quotes about being excited about the class, etc.
11:46 AM -- Garrison Smith's LOI is in. That's all the ones we were waiting on. Outside of a late decision, we're wrapped up with 18 total commits -- 16 today.
Richt says Smith told him privately he was planning to come to UGA before anyone else in the class.
11:48 AM -- Well if you were interested in learning about the recruitment of Tim Jennings, you loved today's GeorgiaDogs.com coverage. I believe it was discussed at length with both Garner and Richt far more than any of the current signees.
11:49 AM -- There was a fan sound asleep in a folding chair in the atrium at Butts-Mehre. I'm jealous.
11:51 AM -- Sorry about the bad link on the Telvin Smith story... but War Chant (FSU site) is reporting it, too.
11:57 AM -- Sorry about the previous broken link on Telvin Smith... here's the right one.OK, we're heading over to the Coliseum now for free food. Be back shortly.
Oh, and one other thing... I'll be on with Bill Shanks in Macon at 4 p.m. if you're in radio distance.
12:42 PM -- Georgia checks in at 9th in ESPN's rankings right now (5th among SEC schools), Rivals has Georgia 15th nationally (6th in the SEC) and Scout has the Bulldogs 19th overall (7th in the SEC).
If that tells me anything, it tells me that the SEC knows how to recruit. This wasn't a horrific day for UGA -- it just wasn't a great one. Problem is, there are a lot of SEC schools that can say the same thing.
12:49 PM -- No LOI yet, but word is Georgia will also land wide receiver Lonnie Outlaw from Wilcox County. He's a two-star guy.
1:18 PM -- Richt is meeting with media in about 15 minutes. I'll have updates then.
1:37 PM -- Richt and Garner at the podium now.
1:40 PM -- Kolton Houston is at Buford today to celebrate with his HS teammates.
1:41 PM -- Garner: "We could have gone out and signed other guys if we wanted to meet that number and fill a quota." Instead wanted players that would fit Grantham's scheme.
1:42 PM -- Richt on Grantham & Lakatos: "They really understand what they want and what they're looking for, and they're great evaluators."
1:44 PM -- Richt: "Timing of the hire, taking as long as it did, it did put a strain on these guys who had committed."
1:46 PM -- Richt said he would be for an early signing date assuming there was a stipulation that recruits would not take official visits until after they sign.
1:47 PM -- Richt says UGA's policy is that if a kid isn't 100 percent certain they'll continue to recruit him, even if he is committed elsewhere. "I think everybody does that," he said.
2:00 PM -- OK, prolly easier to just post my Twitter updates here:
Richt: "anything a school can use to create some doubt in a kid's mind, thats what they'll do. So that's what we were dealing with."
Richt on 3-4: "I really believe a lot of NFL teams and college teams are moving toward this trend, so we're really @ the front end of it."
Richt says he's concerned about WR depth, but very excited about what he has at tight end.
Richt on getting another WR today: "I don't know that. But anything's possible." Think he said similar about Marlon Brown last year.
Richt says not certain, but last he has heard is that Logan Gray will start spring at QB. Chance he could try "a couple" of positions.
2:46 PM -- I'll be posting a lot more stuff in a bit but I've got to work on some stories for the paper. But a few things to point out...
1.) A big congrats to our pal Dan, who helped us out with our picks columns during the season. He and his wife had their first kid today, and I fully expect Virginia Tech to be sending out a press release shortly saying that they have just signed a 5-star beer-pong recruit for the class of 2028.
2.) Here's the deal on Lonnie Outlaw -- He won't be here next year, and likely not until 2012. He is technically a Georgia signee, but he will be attending GMC.
3.) Don't forget, Christian Green announcement is coming at 3:30.
4.) Best quotes of the press conference came from Jakar Hamilton.
First, on his thoughts on Da'Rick Rogers and others de-committing late: "It's disappointing to have a high school player be committed for so long and come up at the last minute because it hurts. It hurts the football team tremendously and the recruiting class. In that case, another player could have had that spot or had a chance to come here and play. I'm not going to call it selfish because they're high school players. Most of them do it for the hype or to have their name out there. But it just shows you what kind of player that person is. Me, Coach Martinez left before I even got here. I could have easily said I don't want to go here anymore, I'll go to Alabama. But I gave Coach Mark Richt my word, and I told him I was committed here. That's what kind of person I am, and that's what I want people to see. I kept my word."
Second, on Bacarri Rambo's promise of a big hit in Rogers' future: "It's going to happen. Especially if he's going to play right off the bat. I just hope he's ready for it, because there's going to be a lot of people on the hit for him on this team."
And when reminded that Georgia swiped a late commit from Kentucky: "It happens a lot. But your in the SEC. You're going to get hit regardless."
2:55 PM -- Answering a question from NRBQ: "Do you have a list of the red-shirts from last year handy?"
Yup... Chris Burnette (OL), Kwame Geathers (DL), Dallas Lee (OL), Austin Long (OL), Derrick Lott (DL), Jordan Love (DB), Zach Mettenberger (QB), Aaron Murray (QB) and Chase Vasser (LB). (And I'm dumb when I said 10 RS earlier... accidentally counted Brandon Bogotay... you might understand why.)
3:35 PM -- Florida just nabs its 16th ESPN top-150 commit in Chaz Green. Christian Green up soon.
3:40 PM -- Those last-ditch hope for Christian Green don't pan out -- he's sticking with Florida State. He did say he couldn't sleep at night worrying about his decision, but still, I think this probably was leaning in FSU's direction all along. And hey, maybe the kid will torch Florida's secondary for the next few years to at least give UGA some benefit to the whole deal.
3:55 PM -- Mentioned this on Twitter, but spring practice is scheduled to open on March 4. The Dawgs won't hold their second practice until March 16 though -- then one practice every two days or so until G-Day on April 10.
OK, I'm working on transcribing quotes for a bit... will have some signing day wrap-up stuff later and then off to the Georgia-Arkansas game where the live blogging will continue.
4:33 PM -- Just finished up on Bill Shanks' show on FOX Sports 1670 in Macon. Hope you got to catch some of it. The Telegraph's Jonathan Heeter is also on talking recruiting.
4:35 PM -- I'll be adding a few quotes as we go here, but this is one I thought summed things up pretty well from Mark Richt: "Guys that are committed to us, there's some we feel are very solid and you have peace about that because you know they've done their homework. Some kids are a little bit more mature than others and they know what they want and they do believe that their word means something. But these kids are 17, 18, 19 years old and coaches that are anywhere between 25 and 65 are trying to convince them why one school is better than another. So it can be confusing at times. It can be very difficult at times. That's why our policy has been to be very straightforward from the beginning, Don't say something that won't come true in the end. Trust is really the only thing we have to hold us together, I think."


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Having reviewed nine weeks of our reading plan let's turn to the final readings we finished for week ten, New Creation.
In those readings we see the final stages of God's plan–a plan that has been in the works since before the world was created. It is a plan for restoration and newness. Christ has reversed the curse that Adam had brought and now we can look forward to life everlasting. We, along with the entire creation, will be remade and raised to a life that is lived fully in the presence of God.
In Revelation there is a moment of concern for the author John because the scroll, the plan of God for this world, is sealed and there is no one that can open it. He despairs that the good work of God is being halted. As he weeps someone comes to him telling him to weep no more, for in fact there is one who can open the scroll. It is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, the conqueror, who can open the scroll.
This Lion is the one who can carry out the plans of God.[1] Jesus has been on the move in a powerful way throughout Scripture and he takes center stage in Revelation. But there is a fantastic twist that follows. As John turns he doesn't see a Lion, but a Lamb. It is the Lamb of God that takes the scroll and is able to open it.
This is a great, quick illustration of the way in which God came in a way that was not what people expected. Jesus is the Lion of Judah, but the way in which he conquers is not like others. Our Lion is the Lamb, the one who would be the sacrifice for our sins. He conquers by means of his own death.
It is the death of God who would comes to earth to save sinners that is able to break the curse of our sin and reverse the damning effects of our sin not just in ourselves, but in all creation. We trust our life over to the Lamb that was slain, but who now lives and reigns forevermore. And if our life is now in him, in Jesus Christ, we follow his lead and live for him now as we eagerly await his return.
- With this imagery in mind I had this 10 Week plan use a picture of a lion for its logo. ↩

subset: commoncrawl


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I spoke last night a Brandeis University, as usual under the auspices of College Republicans and with no institutional or faculty sponsorship. As fate would have it, there were two other events with speakers that evening, one an anti-Israel activist named Hedy Epstein, who was sponsored by the Peace, Conflict Resolution and Co-existence Department, and the other a radical professor from Yeshiva University, named Ellen Schrecker. Schrecker, who in the past has gone out of her way to attack me for objecting to the injection of political agendas into academic classrooms, was speaking about her new book, The Lost Soul of Higher Education, which is a defense of indoctrination (the "lost soul" in the title refers to the alleged "corporatization" of the university and its interests). While my talk was a faculty orphan, Schrecker's was sponsored by the following Brandeis departments: Education, History, Women's and Gender Studies, Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education, Sociology, Anthropology, English, Legal Studies and Journalism.
This little disparity tells you all you really need to know about the intellectual orientation of academic faculties and their disrespect for conservative students. For the failure of any academic department at Brandeis to sponsor the talk of a well-known university critic who has written five books presenting a conservative view response to authors like Schrecker was not an oversight. My student hosts had approached these or similar departments and asked them to sponsor my talk and been rebuffed. Nor is this an unusual occurrence. I have spoken at roughy 400 universities in the last 20 years and at only two have I been invited by members of the faculty, and only one by a department. This is one – and only one -- of the reasons it grieves me to see conservatives refer to their antagonists, whose deepest passions are censorious and totalitarian as "liberals."
As a matter of fact, I would have welcomed the opportunity to share a platform with Professor Schrecker, who despite her intolerant attitudes and collectivist prejudices sits on the academic freedom committee of the American Association of University Professors. This would have been a special pleasure because her new book confirms everything I have written or said about the contemporary university, although when I do, I am condemned by Shrecker and her colleagues as a liar who has made the up the facts and a witch-hunter –- "worse than McCarthy," as a story by Schrecker described me on the cover of the Chronicle of Higher Education.
For nearly a decade it has been my claim, which I have documented in four books -- The Professors, Indoctrination U., One Party Classroom and the recently published Reforming Our Universities -- that entire academic fields, newly created in the post-1960s era, are not in fact academic but are political parties, now entrenched in our universities, whose mission is the indoctrination and recruitment of students to leftwing political agendas. I have identified these fields as Women's Studies, African American Studies, Peace Studies, Cultural Studies, Post-Colonial Studies, and similar inter-discipinary subjects, and have deplored how they have spread their malign influence into other academic areas including all the Brandeis departments that chose to sponsor Schrecker's talk and withhold support from mine.
And here is how Ellen Schrecker in her book describes the creation of the two new academic fields that pioneered the debasement of the university curriculum: "What women's studies did have in common with African American studies, however, was its connection to a major social movement. The field grew directly out of second-wave feminism; it was, one scholar noted, 'the educational arm of the women's liberation movement.' As such, it had a strong political agenda, one that was readily embraced by its early practitioners, former New Left activists who viewed their teaching and research as part of the broader feminist struggle against the patriarchal oppression of women. 'From the beginning,' historian Marilyn Boxer explained, 'the goal of women's studies was not merely to study women's position in the world but to change it.' There was thus a 'continuing commitment …. to advocacy – that is to political action…."
This, in a nutshell, is the Orwellian universe we now inhabit, where totalitarians and character assassins are referred to as "liberals" and where defenders of political indoctrination sit on academic freedom committees and call their critics "McCarthyites."


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In the first part of this post I discussed the way successive administrations since Mrs Thatcher – those of john Major, Tony Blair, and now, possibly, the coalition, had planned to introduce ID cards. Privacy campaigners such as Simon Davies have opposed them, because of the immense potential they represent for human rights abuses, the mass surveillance of the population, and discrimination against immigrants and minorities. I posted it as a response to Mike's piece on Vox Political, which I reblogged, on Theresa May's latest campaign against illegal immigration, and the fears landlords and immigrants' rights groups have about the terrible effect this will have on them. The landlords in particular were concerned that this would lead to the introduction of 404 European document-style ID cards. In this part of the post I will discuss the dangers ID cards present, and their failure to do what is often claimed for them, such as to prevent crime and illegal immigration.
It looks like illegal immigration will be the platform by which ID cards will be introduced in this country. Mike and a number of other bloggers have commented on the way recent statements and policies by coalition ministers to combat illegal immigration suggest that they plan to introduce ID cards as part of their campaign. Illegal immigration has been the main issue driving their introduction in Europe, America and some developing nations. Davies book on the growth of the surveillance society in Britain notes that as the European Union dissolves borders in Europe, so the police were given greater power to check people's ID. As for fears that ID cards will somehow stop illegal immigrants from claiming benefits, this has been disproved in Australia. The Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Australia Card found that of 57,000 people, who overstayed their visa in New South Wales, on 22 were illegally claiming Unemployment Benefit.
Anti-racism campaigners are right to worry that ID will increase discrimination. ID cards carrying information on the bearer's ethnic groups or religious beliefs have been used to discriminate against minority groups in many countries. The Japanese were accused of racism when they passed legislation forcing all foreigners to carry ID cards. The French police were similarly accused of racism in demanding Blacks and Algerians carry and produce ID cards. This was one of the reasons behind the race riots in France in the 1990s. In Greece, the authorities were also accused of using the religious information on the card to discriminate against those, who were not Greek Orthodox. Down Under, Aboriginal and Jewish Australians joined the campaign against the Australia Card from fear that they would also suffer discrimination. A few thousand miles across the Pacific in New Zealand, Kiwi trade unions and civil liberties groups also feared ID cards would lead to discrimination against minorities and the poor.
Contrary to the frequent claims made by various Right-wing governments like Thatcher's, Major's and Blair's, ID cards don't actually stop welfare fraud. Says Davies 'the key area of interest lies in creating a single numbering system which would be used as a basis for employment eligibility, and which would reduce the size of the black market economy'. In Oz, the Department of Social Security stated that much less than 1 per cent of overpaid benefits came from identity fraud. The true figure for such crime is probably 0.6 per cent. Most fraudulent or overpaid benefit claims – 61 per cent – came from the non-reporting of variations in the claimant's income.
ID cards also don't stop crime. This is again contrary to the statements made by governments wishing to introducing them. The problem is not the identification of criminals, but in collecting sufficient evidence and successfully prosecuting them. The Association of Chief Police Officers in Britain concluded in 1993 report that burglaries, street crime and crimes committed by people impersonating officials could be reduced through ID cards. They did not, however, present any evidence for this. The Association did fear that the introduction of ID cards would make relations between the police and the general public worse. Davies considered that only a DNA or biometric database could possibly link perpetrators with their crimes.
The introduction of ID cards do, however, increase police powers. Police routinely ask for ID cards in all the countries that have them, and detain those, who don't possess them. In Britain the wartime ID cards were removed in 1953 after a High Court judge ruled that their routine demand by the police was contrary to the spirit of the National Registration Act, and adversely affected the good relations between police and the public.
In fact, instead of helping to combat crime, ID cards actually help it. ID cards provide a 'one-stop' proof of identity, and this can and is used by criminal gangs in their crimes. The technology used to manufacture the cards is now available and used by such organisations. As ordinary organisations, such as companies and the state civil service increasingly rely on ID cards as the unquestioned proof of an individual's identity, so they abandon the other systems used to check it that they have been using for decades. As a result, crimes using fake identities are actually easier with ID cards.
ID cards are a real danger to the privacy of personal information. About one per cent of the staff of companies involved in collecting the personal information used to construct the relational databases used in such cards are corrupt and prepared to trade confidential information. Each year, one per cent of all bank staff in Europe are dismissed for corruption. This is a minuscule percentage, it is true, but nevertheless it still presents a danger to the privacy and safety of the public. In Britain, computer crime amongst the civil services own ID staff massively increased in the 1980s and 1990s. The National Accounting Office estimated in March 1995 that hacking, theft and infection by viruses were all increasing on the IT network in Whitehall. In one year, for example, hacking rose by 140 per cent and viruses by a massive 300 per cent. Of the 655 cases of hacking in the Whitehall network identified by the NAO, most involved staff exceeding their authority to obtain the personal information of members of the public, which was they then passed on to outside individuals.
ID card schemes also tend to be much more expensive than governments' estimate and allow for. Once again, Australia provides a good example of this. When introducing the Australia Card scheme, the Ozzie government failed to take into account training costs, and the expenses coming from administrative supervision, staff turnover, holiday and sick leave, as well as compliance, the issue of the cards overseas and fraud. They also underestimated the costs of issuing and maintaining the cards and how expensive they would be to private industry. In the first part of this post I mentioned how leading Australian bankers and financiers, such as Sir Noel Foley, were openly hostile to the scheme. This is not surprising, as the Australian Bankers' Association estimated that the ID card their would cost Ozzie banks A$100 million over ten years. The total cost of the cards to the private sector was estimated at A$1 billion per year. At the time Davies was writing, the cost of the card system in the UK had not taken into account of administration and compliance costs. These could be as high as £2 – £3 billion. When Tony Blair launched his scheme to develop biometric ID cards, there was further embarrassment to the government when it was revealed by the papers that the scheme had also gone massively over its budget due to problems in developing the technology.
Another factor against the cards is the distress and inconvenience caused to the individual by their accidental loss or destruction. About five per cent of ID cards are either lost, damaged or stolen every year, and it can be several weeks before a replacement is received.
Governments have frequently insisted that ID cards will be voluntary. This was the stance taken by Tony Blair's government on them. It is misleading. There is a tendency for them to become compulsory. Even in nations where they are voluntary, there is considerable inconvenience if they are not carried, so that they are actually compulsory in practice if not in law.
ID cards also have a tendency to become internal passports as they acquire other uses through function creep. These will include all government and a significant number of important, private functions.
Finally, opponents of ID cards object to them because they feel that they damage national identity and personal integrity. The movements against ID cards in America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand called attention to the fears of ordinary people that the introduction of such cards would reduce them to mere numbers. They were a symbol of oppressive authority, and represented popular anxieties that their countries were ruled, not by elected officials, but by bureaucracies driven by technology.
Actually, reading through all the considerable negative aspects of ID cards and the list of the dangers and damage they represent to society and the safety and privacy of its members, I can see why the Coalition government would see no problem in introducing them. After all, such schemes are inefficient, corrupt and massively expensive. They expand the power of the state and the police at the expense of the individual, and are used to persecute and victimise minorities and the poor. Pretty much like all the Coalition's policies, then. And ID cards are exactly like IDS welfare schemes and workfare in that, undercover of eliminating welfare fraud, which they actually don't do anything about, they're really about controlling the movement of labour.
So, corrupt, authoritarian and discriminatory: just right for Theresa May and the rest of the Coalition then!


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Kent Bush: Everything you wanted to know about the Electoral College
It's that time again.
Pundits have begun counting how many electoral votes each candidate expects to win, and suddenly -- as they do every four years -- someone notices that a candidate might win the presidency in the Electoral College without winning the popular vote.
After you take a moment for sanctimonious outrage at the situation, you need to remember that you do not live in a democracy.
The United States utilizes democratic methods of voting and governing. However, those democratic practices take place in a federal constitutional republic form of government.
That's why California has one set of laws and Kansas has another, for example.
The states are autonomous on certain issues while still joined by a federal government that binds them together.
That theory of government gave birth to the Electoral College. Two main forces created this electoral system that is misunderstood and maligned.
First and foremost, without it states with smaller populations wouldn't have joined the union and ratified the constitution. Those small states feared being swallowed up or overpowered by more populous states.
Thus the Electoral College was created to straddle the line with representation based on population, but made concessions to smaller states. The number of electors is based on the number of representatives each state has. Rather than stop there, the body was expanded to include an additional elector for each senator from the state, which are evenly distributed despite population.
Thus Kansas will have six electors even though it has only four members of the House of Representatives. California has 53 members of the House. So when they receive the two additional votes for their senators, it represents a far smaller ratio of representation.
According to 2006 population estimates, Kansas has one vote in the Electoral College for every 460,674 people. California has one vote for every 662,864 people. So each Kansan's vote counts for about 50 percent more than each Californian.
That apparent disparity is quelled by the sheer volume of votes the larger state has.
The other reason for the Electoral College is that the framers of the Constitution did not trust majority rule. They feared mobs and ground swells. According to the Alexander Hamilton in the 68th entry of the Federalist Papers -- a group of literary rationalizations and explanations of constitutional ideals -- "The precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of several, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of one who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes."
Remember, at the time the Constitution was formulated, only men who owned land were able to vote.
News traveled on horseback and innuendo took the place of information because information was scarce -- innuendo never is.
The Founding Fathers didn't like how easily the masses could move back and forth, and selecting a few men who would then go vote to select a president was seen as far more stable.
The creation of the Electoral College also fought corruption by having a body separate from the elected legislators who were more likely to cut deals to help select a president rather than follow the wishes of the voters. Thus, the Electoral College resembles Congress, but it does not mimic it.
The real issue with the Electoral College developed in the 1800s when states began to use a winner-take-all method of distributing their Electoral College votes. States don't force Representatives or Senators to vote en masse, but they do with the Electoral College.
This is because two candidates from the same party often ran at the same time, and in 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr received an exact split of their party's votes. This situation was seen as imminently repeatable, thus states took on the challenge of solving the problem, thus winner-take-all replaced the proportional voting that created the tie -- which took 36 votes of Congress to break.
There are obvious differences in the country now compared with when the Electoral College came into being.
Information is available everywhere, all the time. All adults -- even women, minorities, renters -- are allowed to vote. Talk of secession is considered a fringe element now rather than a common political debate. We hadn't even fought the Civil War when this body was established. And the parties select their one candidate on their own rather than having a group of Democrats run in the general election.
Regardless of concerns about the system, it was formed to help a young nation thrive despite attempts to overwhelm it with corruption and mob rule.
It has served the nation well even if modern developments have made it less necessary.
Don't look for any significant changes any time soon. It would take a constitutional amendment ratified by 75 percent of the states to change the system.
It is hard to imagine the smaller states agreeing -- even today.
Augusta Gazette


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It's time for another rollover of the Polymath7 "Hot Spots" conjecture, as the previous research thread has again become full.
Activity has now focused on a numerical strategy to solve the hot spots conjecture for all acute angle triangles ABC. In broad terms, the strategy (also outlined in this document) is as follows. (I'll focus here on the problem of estimating the eigenfunction; one also needs to simultaneously obtain control on the eigenvalue, but this seems to be to be a somewhat more tractable problem.)
- First, observe that as the conjecture is scale invariant, the only relevant parameters for the triangle ABC are the angles , which of course lie between 0 and and add up to . We can also order , giving a parameter space which is a triangle between the values .
- The triangles that are too close to the degenerate isosceles triangle or the equilateral triangle need to be handled by analytic arguments. (Preliminary versions of these arguments can be found here and Section 6 of these notes respectively, but the constants need to be made explicit (and as strong as possible)).
- For the remaining parameter space, we will use a sufficiently fine discrete mesh of angles ; the optimal spacing of this mesh is yet to be determined.
- For each triplet of angles in this mesh, we partition the triangle ABC (possibly after rescaling it to a reference triangle , such as the unit right-angled triangle) into smaller subtriangles, and approximate the second eigenfunction (or the rescaled triangle ) by the eigenfunction (or ) for a finite element restriction of the eigenvalue problem, in which the function is continuous and piecewise polynomial of low degree (probably linear or quadratic) in each subtriangle; see Section 2.2 of these notes. With respect to a suitable basis, can be represented by a finite vector .
- Using numerical linear algebra methods (such as Lanczos iteration) with interval arithmetic, obtain an approximation to , with rigorous bounds on the error between the two. This gives an approximation to or with rigorous error bounds (initially of L^2 type, but presumably upgradable).
- After (somehow) obtaining a rigorous error bound between and (or and ), conclude that stays far from its extremum when one is sufficiently far away from the vertices A,B,C of the triangle.
- Using stability theory of eigenfunctions (see Section 5 of these notes), conclude that stays far from its extremum even when is not at a mesh point. Thus, the hot spots conjecture is not violated away from the vertices. (This argument should also handle the vertex that is neither the maximum nor minimum value for the eigenfunction, leaving only the neighbourhoods of the two extremising vertices to deal with.)
- Finally, use an analytic argument (perhaps based on these calculations) to show that the hot spots conjecture is also not violated near an extremising vertex.
This all looks like it should work in principle, but it is a substantial amount of effort; there is probably still some scope to try to simplify the scheme before we really push for implementing it.


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"When you let go, you can truly live."
– Seon Master Daehaeng Sunim
Therevadan Buddhism isn't my path, but I've lived in Bangkok for most of the past ten years and there are certain teachers here and in this tradition I never miss seeing if I can help it. Foremost among them is Ajahn Brahm. Born in London in 1951, ordained in Wat Saket in 1974, disciple of Ajahn Chah for nine years at Wat Nong Pah Pong, and now Spiritual Director of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia, he is rightly famous for the depth of his experience and knowledge and the wonderful way in which he is able to present the Dhamma.
His teaching is seemingly simple, full of stories, warm anecdotes, and his famous, unashamedly oft-repeated, jokes, but his humour serves to present teachings of great depth. I've not always agreed with everything I've heard from him, but I have benefitted greatly from his wisdom and especially from his skillful instructions regarding practice. I mention all this because he was here again this week and during the workshops I attended he gave a short teaching so profound and eye-opening I just had to share it here.
I don't know which sutta it comes from, and it doesn't matter even if it doesn't, but Ajahn Brahm told a story of how Buddha was wandering along with Ananda when they came across a monk sitting under a tree in meditation. The monk was sat on the ground with a straight back, his hands were folded, and his head and neck at just the right angle. He was deep in meditation and had been for some time. The Buddha turned to Ananda and said "I'm worried about that monk."
A few minutes later they came across another monk sitting under a tree in meditation. He was on a comfy cushion, his back was bent forward and he'd fallen asleep. Every now and then he'd wake up only to nod off again. He was even snoring. The Buddha turned to Ananda and said "this monk I'm not worried about at all, he's doing just fine."
The point, of course, is about letting go. With his perfect posture and iron will, the first monk had turned meditation into a competitive sport, even if the only person he was competing against was himself. He wasn't abandoning the ego, he was building it. Ajahn Brahm talked about a friend of his in Wat Nong Pah Pong years ago who was admired for his diligence and discipline, sitting upright while others would be half asleep with heads almost on the floor. Eventually the friend disrobed, the whole experience of monkhood had been, he discovered, an exercise in ego, nothing but a constant struggle.
The second monk, the one the Buddha wasn't worried about, had the sense to relax. If he nodded off, then he nodded off, no big deal. He was able to let go, let go of his need for perfection, and let go of the struggle. Even more, he was able to trust that things would be just fine without his striving and without his perfection. It reminded me of Daehaeng Kun Sunim's comments on practice. Specific regimens, she says, will come to a dead end, but "if you keep letting go and entrusting, and experiencing the results of this, then the path that seemed narrow in the beginning will gradually widen, and in the end will become a great avenue and gateway to the truth."
Ajahn Brahm talks about trying to control your mind and thoughts, trying to control anything in fact, as being like a farmer holding onto a rope trying to control a buffalo as it runs away. The rope can get twisted round your fingers and what will happen next? The farmer will lose his fingers. Crazy farmer, all he gets is pain and suffering, and in any case buffalos never go far. If the farmer had just waited a few minutes he could have just walked up to the buffalo and led it wherever he wanted to go.
"If you know how to let go and be at peace, you know everything you need to know about living in the world."
– Ajahn Brahm, 'Practising In The World'.
Ajahn Brahm's Website
Ajahn Brahmavamso, 'Practising In The World'


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Federal Audit Finds Rampant Abuses of Show Horses; Agency Reform Promised
For years The HSUS has called on the USDA to meet its responsibilities and deal with significant and ongoing abuses of horses at the hands of horse show exhibitors. The USDA's Horse Protection Program is meant to protect these wonderful animals, ensuring that Tennessee Walking Horses are not subjected to the abusive practice of "soring"—the intentional infliction of pain to a horse's legs or hooves in order to force an artificial, exaggerated gait.
Today, the USDA's Office of Inspector General (OIG), the law enforcement arm of the agency, released an audit echoing what we've said all along. And good news, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the agency of the USDA charged with enforcing the program, has agreed to take stronger steps for the benefit of horses.
Michelle Riley/The HSUS
Extreme equipment used to train Tennessee Walking Horses.
The Office of Inspector General—which in May issued a damning report about the appalling lack of enforcement of inhumane large-scale commercial dog breeding operations—found that the present government program for inspecting horses for soring "is not adequate to ensure that these animals are not being abused." This is exactly what The HSUS also has documented.
Currently, in a system rife with conflicts of interest, horse show industry groups are certified by the USDA to hire, train and license inspectors who are responsible for examining horses at shows for illegal soring. That's right, industry self-regulation.
Well it hasn't worked. The OIG acknowledged that such inspectors are supposed to safeguard the welfare of horses while representing an industry too often hostile to enforcement. Further, the audit found inadequate USDA resources to manage oversight. Among the report's findings (DQP here stands for designated qualified persons, the inspectors hired by horse industry organizations):
- DQPs have clear conflicts of interest, and do not always inspect horses according to the requirements of the Horse Protection Act. They realize that by excluding horses from a show, they are not likely to please their employers—who are interested in putting on a profitable show.
- Some DQPs—when they did issue a ticket—would issue it not to the exhibitor responsible for abusing the horse, but to almost anyone else, including stable hands working for the exhibitor, so the responsible person could avoid receiving a penalty.
- DQPs working independently issued few tickets; they were much more likely to issue violations when they were being observed by an APHIS employee. From 2005 to 2008, APHIS veterinarians were present at only 6 percent of all shows, yet DQPs issued 49 percent of all violations at these shows.
- Many in the horse show industry do not regard the abuse of horses as a serious problem, and resent USDA performing inspections. The practice of soring has been ingrained as an acceptable practice in the industry for decades.
- APHIS employees were subjected to intimidation and attempts to prevent them from inspecting horses. Due to this hostile environment, APHIS employees routinely bring armed security or the police with them when they visit shows.
- APHIS inspection teams at horse-related events cannot ensure that individuals suspended from participating in horse shows due to violations are not participating.
So, the OIG recommended—and APHIS agreed—to abolish this industry inspection program. Instead, APHIS will take a more direct role in licensing and oversight of inspectors, and mandate across-the-board penalties for violators.
While the details of the implementation will be critical to success and are worthy of our input, the proposed remedies are in sync with a regulatory petition filed by The HSUS and others back in August. We appreciate the leadership of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on animal welfare enforcement issues, and his department's agreement with the OIG's recommendations.
We will provide our input to the USDA every step of the way as it works to implement reforms. This audit and the subsequent positive reaction by regulators could mean an important step forward in protecting horses from needless and unconscionable cruelty.


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As new biographies and Critical works and essays are published, more and more people are learning the awful truth about H.P. Lovecraft – the man ascribed to be the Father of the Modern Horror genre – that he was a racist, classist, arrogant bigot and misogynist.
In a world where we are increasingly affected by the consequence of such views, where do we draw the line? Where should we draw the line? And why – because of his contributions – do we seem so willing to look the other way?
What makes Lovecraft different? And how can we look to Lovecraft as a creative example with all of the things we now know about him?
The answer is complicated. But for those who recoil in disgust or offense, there are very important reasons why Lovecraft cannot be damned for his faults. And while we may wish to condemn him for his offensive-yet- period-driven personal views, if we are wont to do so we must also look at his own personal arc of growth.
The lesson is this: once we open the door to weighing an author's work based on his or her personal life, we must include the totality of that life.
The Literary Defense
For those who dislike Literary Critics for seeming arbitrary in their judgments, Lovecraft seems the perfect example of the divide between Critics and fans of the genre. Have they not dirtied their hands and sullied their reputations elevating the creative status of a man who was not shy in his contempt for almost everyone else?
Lovecraft himself makes it easy to think so. As Charlotte Montague states in her biographical work, HP Lovecraft, the Mysterious Man Behind the Darkness, "Indeed racist sentiments can be found in his stories. 'The Horror at Red Hook' – described by the English fantasy fiction author [and Literary Critic], China Mieville, as 'extraordinarily racist'…going further in my opinion than 'merely' 'being' a racist – I follow Michel Houellebecq…in thinking that Lovecraft's oeuvre, his work itself, is inspired by and deeply structured with race hatred…" (Montague 101)
Make no mistake: this is not a maligning of Lovecraft, but a fact he himself boldly advertised in his own words and letters, confessing to being "known as an anti-Semite" (despite having married a Jewish woman), and displaying "contempt and even disgust for black people…Asians, Arabs, Mexicans, Italians, the Irish and Poles…" (101)
Yet such a reprehensible man sits at the top of our genre…
Do we not have an obligation to question why we select the people we do to elevate by excuse? Is this a case of "the end justifies the means"?
Surprisingly, the answer is no.
And a great deal of that answer has to do with Lovecraft himself – a man who "derived greatest pleasure from 'symbolic identification with the landscape and tradition-stream to which I belong…" (Joshi 216). He was therefore a man caught in the constrictions of his own race and class at the time, a man whose search for understanding led to tremendous attempts at self-education and philosophical thought, whose own views changed during his relatively short life. This meager transition of personal growth (which some may see as underserved and inadequate), has importance in the Literary Critical scheme of things. Because an arc is an arc…
While we can recoil in disgust or "enlightened" superiority at many of his early enunciations against other races and classes, we also must acknowledge that we ourselves live in another time; we cannot know the struggle he might have had to understand his own world in the context of his personal, yet tightly shaped world view. Yet the needle did move.
For example, according to S.T. Joshi (todays' most erudite scholar of all things Lovecraft), "Initially, Lovecraft felt that a frankly hereditary aristocracy was the only political system to ensure a high level of civilization" – an important observation when "in his preferences for political organization, Lovecraft again made it clear that the preservation of a rich and thriving culture was all that concerned him." But during his lifetime, he did in fact begin to change, leaving fascist views behind "…as the prosperous twenties gave way to the Depression of the thirties, he began to realize that a restoration of the sort of aristocracy of privilege, cultivation, and civic-mindedness advocated (and embodied) by Henry Adams was highly unlikely, in the days of labor unions, political bosses and crass plutocrats of business who did not have sufficient refinement to be the leaders of any civilization Lovecraft cared about. The solution for Lovecraft was socialism." (Joshi 217)
This one example reveals the simple fact that Lovecraft explored his own theories of not only what classes of peoples constituted "civilization" but how it should unfold during his brief life. We cannot know where his unrealized contemplations and potential epiphanies would have taken him; we simply know that he was a person whose ideas were in constant transit. We simply have as evidence an abbreviated life's peripheral writings like correspondence and essays in which to frame his writings.
Should we then be privy to that private journey? Some Critics say yes, some say no.
But whether we do look at the private side of Lovecraft or not also can be said to have less direct bearing on his body of Literary work. Its total impact on the genre is not about his personal views but his world view as depicted BY his work…not so much about race as about humanity's futile place in the cosmos. And while his personal views certainly "color" how he depicts this world view, it does not serve any greater purpose in his writing.
For Literary Critics, the reasons for this have more to do with what Lovecraft does with his writing that makes him what he is within the future Horror canon. The changes he makes there are Literary changes.
Again, we must remember that Literary Critics do not read for Criticism in the way WE might do while on vacation at the beach – the way we do every day. This is not "rationalism" but a reality. Neither is it the sign of a dog whistle – which is never heard if one is not a dog.
We read texts at face value – as fun romps through Horror universes. We are not seeking out double entendre, hidden meanings, subtext, or moral messages. In fact, we used to cede that intermediate ground to reviewers, who would point out details that made us sigh, "oh yeah…neat…" and triple our admiration of our chosen authors. Now we simply read in abject ignorance.
And we can do that with Lovecraft, seeing only the surface story. Lovecraft made such intriguing monsters – so many of them derived from real-life night terrors he experienced as a child – some still so reeking of childish imagination that we can easily identify with them– like the monster described as a mass of cosmic bubbles and sometimes seen in streams…Yog Sothoth… And for many of us any further allegory to racial superiority or class superiority is lost on us; we are indeed too obtuse to see it, too untrained, too not-caring.
It is easy to be bewitched by both monster and story… we identify with them without seeing anything nefarious, without suspecting too much in the way of bigotry or misogyny, forgetting our indoctrination by period pieces like Disney princesses because we are in fact indoctrinated…
This is not always part of a subversive plot, but more a matter of sociological evolution… we are all victims of our times – Lovecraft being no exception – and it is hard to clearly see something so thoroughly incorporated into our culture that it seems like this is the way it always was…like it has some divine endorsement.
Shaking loose of that takes generations. So when Literary Critics are faced with someone who so reeks of his time period that we can be properly "taken aback" at his "normalized" view of his fellow human beings, at his atheism, his love of Classic history, at his embrace of the scientific and the promise of astronomy… they see time capsules. And while we can cringe in discomfort at what a man like Lovecraft really, truly believed about his fellow human beings, we can also see the world he was living in.
Lovecraft in His Time
It always sounds like an oversimplified, if not convenient excuse to say, "he was a product of his times."
But we need to acknowledge that the further back in history we go, the more this is true. We are spoiled today with access to information – to such an extent, in fact, that we have little sympathy for those who think in narrow ways, because we cannot imagine what it is to live in small, isolated, rigidly contained islands of carefully constructed and forcefully maintained social hierarchies. Perhaps a brief recollection of high school would be helpful, because if we think our own times do not contaminate our beliefs, then we are fools.
Yet we do have to look at that – at what surrounds a writer or an artist when they are creating their life's work – especially if we are threatening to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Lovecraft was a sickly child of failing upper class parents. Early in his life, his father suffered from a "psychosis" ascribed to syphilis by some, dying when Lovecraft was a toddler. Lovecraft, however, would claim his death was the result of a "paralyzing stroke." The loss of his father and his father's income resulted in he and his mother removing to the Phillips family estate, placing him under "the smothering attention of his mother and two aunts, his grandmother, and the maidservants… (Montague 15) With the death of his grandfather at age five, he began having night terrors, suffering what he called a "near breakdown" in 1898 and another two years later…Students of his life have in fact suspected he might have also suffered from Asperger's Syndrome as well , as he showed a number of known symptoms such as antisocial behavior, reluctance to leave familiar places, etc. (26) At times exhibiting signs of depression and suicidal thought, he was frequently plagued with intolerance, insecurity, and "nervous fatigue"… (34)
People do not live in vacuums. We have families and circumstances unique to ourselves. But we also are ships on our own cultural oceans.
And if we are going to weigh the soul of Lovecraft, we must also look at the culture that was influencing him; it does not exclude him from being an often reprehensible, unpleasant creature, but it just might explain why Lovecraft successfully exploits the fear of the Other without being an instigator of it. In Lovecraft's writings, his racism is used as setting to fuel "fear of the unknown" and "fear of invasion" and "fear of something without conscience." Had he been alive in the 1980's, he might well have written a literary version of Jaws….
"Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous." – H.P. Lovecraft
No, we cannot escape the impact of a writer's experiences on his writing. Sometimes our own culture informs our writing, and sometimes it confirms our own terrors so that we write with a perceived, implied authority – convincingly… and in ways that span lifetimes. It does not help our case if we write stories published by our own, read by our own, judged by our own and preserved by our own.
Indeed, a whole lotta Lovecraft resonates with disenfranchised white males today. And here is an example of the how and why any buried dog whistle – that institutionalized dog whistle inserted by rote in his works – might sometimes have that particular sociological effect. But what should concern us here as we judge Lovecraft the man, is that it shows no evidence of ever having been meant to.
In preparing for this post, I was immediately struck by the truth of how shaped we are by our peers when I happened across these two paragraphs while reading The Trial of Lizzie Borden: a True Story by Cara Robertson. And while that real-life Horror story does not sound like it would hold any relevance, keep in mind the Borden drama took place a mere 18 miles to the southeast of Providence and some 200 miles east from New York City, sharing by proximity the same social Petrie dish…
"In this era [1892 for Lizzie, Lovecraft—1890 to 1937], America derived its vision of the criminal classes from European models of criminality… [Cesare Lombroso, a leading proponent from the Italian school of criminology] drawing upon contemporary anthropological studies of 'other races'…believed the physical structures of their bodies displayed their criminal natures… 'he is like a man who has remained animalized…'" (Roberston [25])
"In one of her popular lectures, the prominent suffragist [my emphasis] and temperance advocate, Mary Ashton Rice Livermore contended: 'an invasion of migrating peoples, outnumbering the Goths and Vandals that overran the south of Europe, has brought to our shores a host of undesirable aliens…Unlike the earlier and desirable immigrants, who have helped the republic retain its present greatness, these hinder its developments. They are discharged convicts, paupers, lunatics, imbeciles, peoples suffering from loathsome and contagious diseases, incapables, illiterates, defective, contract laborers, who are smuggled hither to work for reduced wages, and who crowd out our native workingmen and women." (Robertson [26])
How amazing (and disappointing) when we are faced with the fact of how little our political rhetoric has changed…even as our targets have changed, as evidenced again by Robertson:
"…Large influxes of immigrants into Fall River – mostly Irish Catholic, French Canadian and Portuguese – altered the composition of the city in the course of the nineteenth century…Irish Catholic and English immigrants comprised the majority of workers in the textile mills by 1850. By 1885. French Canadians were the most important single ethnic group employed in the region's textile industry…Each of the city's social groups inhabited distinct geographical sectors. The segmentation into ethnic ghettoes paralleled the pattern of settlement in other industrial New England towns of the same period…" [20-21]
This means that Lovecraft – despite what appears in his work as uniquely bigoted and racist and misogynist – was a social conformist in his time; he was not alone in his prejudices and suspicions, which were at the least regional and publicly reinforced. The fears of the sociological moment fanned his own, and did so at such an extent that those fears are inseparable from his work.
But it is also a unique characteristic of inherent and institutionalized racism that the arrogance of the moment leads to the assumption that all people of reason, all people of your own class – agree.
So there is no preaching to the reader evidenced in his writings, because in Lovecraft's mind, only white males like him would read and assess his works and any dog whistles were naturally, subconsciously infused with no conscious effort: Lovecraft's intended audience was mostly himself and those like himself. There was no need to explain or recruit. He simply "reported" his observations and documented his fears.
It doesn't mean that there are not images or allegations within his stories that now rub with the intensity of a Black Lives Matter moment… but they are more like Disney films…like the horribly racist drawings meant to be amusing in those wink-wink-nod-nod ways that are so clearly institutionalized racism today that we can finally see what minorities and Others have been telling us for centuries.
No doubt Lovecraft could not have seen the forest for the trees; he was far too self-centered, too paranoid of all outsiders, of all people he deemed not his equal – which his peers acknowledge was pretty much everyone else.
But it also means that Lovecraft probably could not help himself, either. He wrote the world as he – a white male whose wealthy family lost its wealth and who needed a reason to explain his own misfortunes, turned to other white males to establish an acceptable reason. He found it in racism against immigrants and people from other classes… including women, who at the time were often ghosts in their own lives. Continues Robertson on this matter:
"In the words of a contemporary journalist Julian Ralph, her [Lizzie Borden's]situation exemplified 'a peculiar phase of life in New England – a wretched phase' suffered by 'the daughters of a class of well-to-do New England men who seem never to have enough money no matter how rich they become, whose houses are little more cheerful than jails, and whose womenfolk had, from a human point of view, better to be dead than born to these fortunes…" [24-25]
As any writer can tell you, the best stories come from the singular place in self where real fears are harbored. Lovecraft mined terror from his personal nightmares, his personal dread of women and immigrants, his awe of the universe, his doubt about God, his loss of wealth and standing and the struggle to cover it up, his need for his talents and efforts to be recognized if not valued, and the irritations that come with native bigotries – close proximity to people abhorred, sounds of languages, smells of foods, suspicion of religious practices, constant and inescapable human presence.
Once again, we have to look at Lovecraft closely…to see that much of his behavior – while blatantly racist – also masked what was probably a host of antisocial if not psychiatric disorders.
It was a perfect storm of sorts for concocting his monster mythos replete with sinister, exotic characters. We have to "own" the social messaging of the times before we can shrink from Lovecraft and his flaws. We have to see the context – even if in Lovecraft's case it is because he so impacted the genre…
Again, this may feel far too much to be like we are using the lexicon of Literary Critics. But in this case they are correct. And the more our skin crawls, the more we need to see why they are right.
It was not only natural at the time to believe the immigrant mythologies created by frightened white people, but it was white people who controlled all media, all "official" and socially acceptable behaviors – like moving white households uptown, and passing rumors about Other cultures downtown so not-understood.
This provided a ready-made foil for Lovecraft to terrify his characters with – cultured, upper class men lost among exotic (immigrant) cult worshippers, and rural-therefore-dark and ignorantly populated (lower class) settings to seat his creative world in. In a time where "science" was looking to explain human inferiority in animalistic terms, where fear became revulsion and an almost psychiatrically derived aversion to Others, prejudice takes on a frightening life of its own reinforced by mainstream culture. These are all the ingredients a Critic can dream of. And they were the very real interpretations of the ruling class – well-to-do white people – at the time.
But do those facts exonerate Lovecraft, once it becomes impossible to not-see the truth?
As reprehensible as it might feel, the answer is yes.
Seeing What We Want To See
Sometimes it feels like the bigger question is: do we all have our own motivations for seeing what we want to see when we look at Lovecraft?
And to some degree we do. Critics are as mesmerized by his writings as we are – so much so because for the first time they have the whole butterfly under glass – one whose life is documented, whose influence on a genre is indisputable and profound and authenticated, who provided so much information that can be used to analyze not only invention of story and impact of society on writer, but on the creation of genre…something that happened previously in the anonymity of indistinct pasts…It is the Literary equivalent of getting to see the Big Bang. They are – in a word – dazzled by the prolific collection of cross-pollinating information never before succinctly gathered in one place.
Yet for those who want to see just another angry white male, they will find plenty of evidence speaking to that – plenty of imagery that seems to reinforce that very institutionalized racism and misogyny we know we need to fix right here in our modern world…And those who just love a good mythos can get lost on a stormy afternoon as well…
For genre readers in general, there will always be some semblance of separation of author and intent, a blissful ignorance of what motivates the Horrors he or she writes about. We have come for the thrills, for the entertainment, for the escape. There really isn't any subversive motivation to our willful blindness.
Again, when we read Horror, we read at face-value…
But we cannot escape Lovecraft's influence. Lovecraft brought us a refinement of The Weird, he delivered us to the Literary Critic; he gave us the tentacle, and reconnected us to our English Literary roots via Dunsany and Blackwood. He opened the door to the unholy marriage of philosophy and Horror, of science and monstrosity, stretching the supernatural into the unknown cosmos.
Most of us are neither privy to nor interested in the man or his motivations. We fall in love with the monsters, the mythos, the scope of the dream worlds, because they resonate with us – not because of latent racism in ourselves, but because we are looking superficially at the monsters. We are fine with engaging in a shallow way with the decorations on the page.
In fact, we prefer not to see them… we don't want our vision of Lovecraft or his writings sullied or ruined. Besides, we would then know we would have to ask ourselves that if we enjoy them…does that mean WE are racists, too?
The surprising answer is no. Sometimes a monster is just a monster… a cigar, just a cigar.
It really does depend on what level we are reading on…
Institutionalism from the inside is hard to spot and easy to rationalize. We might then wonder if we are doing that with Lovecraft – rationalizing for the sake of the genre's Literary gain, and wonder further if we should be subsidizing his work, calling him the Father of the Modern Horror genre, emulating him, etc…
Indeed, Lovecraft is perhaps THE representational argument for debating the relevance of an author's life and views on his or her work – should an author and his or her life be considered in Literary Criticism?
This is part of the big upheaval we now see in the field of Literary Criticism, where the discussion has great relevance. And I think – especially when one sees the volume of evidence and peripheral information on the life of Lovecraft – that there can most certainly be importance in Literary Criticism steeped in that author knowledge. But I also think that what cannot be applied to all authors should not be applied as a general rule of Criticism… knowing the details makes his case so very different from others and there will always be and have always been authors about whom we know precious little.
Lovecraft is that rare exception.
And through the lens of Literary Criticism, Lovecraft rises bereft of racist promotion. Rather, it is a geographical feature in his work, an accent, a layer of setting. His World View, in other words, rises free of his own prejudices to question the purpose of humanity among the cosmos…Incredibly, Lovecraft is more about religion than race.
But why, we ask, do we not penalize Lovecraft?
Again, the difference is that Lovecraft 's works do not preach his bigotries – but reflect them – and which are unfortunately, a product of their historical times. What we know about Lovecraft is there because other people noted and kept those details, not because of some arrogant plan for infamy and immortality; he wrote letters to acquaintances, not manifestos.
That he also did things never done before in our genre is what makes his contributions irreversible and inseparable from modern Horror fiction.
Lovecraft's morally dubious quality of racism remains unavoidably burdensome and is not attractive, and neither was his arrogant classism. But we are stuck with him. Because there is absolutely no avoiding him or the impact of his work in the Horror genre.
So here is the truth: Lovecraft is a one-man branch of Horror tradition who represents a mere moment in time but also an incredible leap in philosophical Horror; where we go from here we go because of him or in spite of him.
But we go in his shadow. It's time to get familiar. We don't have to like him; but we cannot and should not ignore him.
Bilstad, T. Allan. The Lovecraft Necronomicon Primer: a Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, c2009.
Joshi, S.T. The Weird Tale. Holicong, PA: Wildside Press, c1990.
Montague, Charlotte. H.P. Lovecraft: the Mysterious Man Behind the Darkness. New York: Chartwell Books, c 2015
Robertson, Cara. The Trial of Lizzie Borden: a True Story [Advance copy]. New York: Simon & Schuster, c2019.


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I bathe my whole life
In the Blood of Christ.
In Spirit, I place my Soul,
Envisioned as a new born,
In the water that flowed
From the Side of Jesus,
At the piercing
Of His most Sacred Heart.
O Holy Bath, flow over me.
Flow within me,
Permeating even
To the marrow of my bones.
Embrace my thoughts.
As a river in flood,
Envelope all in Your path.
Possess all.
Carry the delinquent and wayward,
As a torrent,
To the ever peaceful Mind of Christ,
Redeeming and reconciling opposites.
May the Christ,
As priestly chrism,
Penetrate the mundane of me,
And divinate my being.
Heal forever my disparity,
Remove all trace
Of Sin's dominion and damage.
O Holy Love, at Your insistence,
I trust in You.
Coming forth from this bath,
Dry me, Your child,
As tears upon Your cheek
to honor all the tears
You shed for want of me.
Be solace to my regret .
Be comfort in my sorrow.
Wrap me, in my infancy,
In the heart of the Mother,
That Immaculate Heart
That longed with You
For my birth anew,
And enflesh me as a child.
By water and the Spirit
As Your child.
Sweet Peace, O Holy Peace,
You are All in All.
I, a child of God, will thank You
For all Eternity
In Triune embrace,
A happy word, whispered in Spirit,
From the Son to the Father.
© 2013 Joann Nelander


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Ahkam e Shariat - 21st October 2018 - ARY Qtv
AHKAM-E-SHARIAT Commandments of Islamic Jurisprudence; Mufti Muhammad Akmal provides solutions for day to day problems faced by Muslim Ummah , according to the guidance and teachings of Qur'an and Sunnah. This program has facilitated a majority of people for making suitable amendments and corrections in their conduct and affairs of routine life in accordance with their religious believe , worship dealings and ethics.To Watch More Click Here: http://aryqtv.tvAndroid App: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aryservices.qtv&hl=enIos: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aryqtv/id665713411?mt=8Share your valuable views in comment box below.
SOURCE: www.dailymotion.com 2018-10-22


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A previous post, What makes a great teacher?, was a popular post. I suppose that's not surprising; people are intrigued to know what the answer might be. Am I a great teacher? Can I be a great teacher? What would it take for me to feel that this applies to me? We all want to know. I'm the same. But as a Headteacher, I have to ask myself another set of questions:
- Where teachers are already 'great teachers', am I doing enough to reward and motivate them? Are we helping them to be great teachers or are we putting obstacles in the way?
- Where teachers are on the way or have the potential to be really great teachers am I doing enough to encourage them, to guide them, to motivate them?
- I also have to ask if there are teachers who would need significant support and guidance to approach the level 'great' suggests. Am I doing enough for them too?
I'm not going to use this post to describe the full gamut of accountability systems we deploy or the CPD opportunities that we offer. Here, I'm interested in the spirit of a school; the ethos and culture that need to pervade a school so that 'great teachers' thrive and all teachers continually strive to emulate them. What are the prevailing conditions needed to enable a rich array of teacher-talent to develop and flourish!? (And in doing this, I'm not saying that I've cracked it in my school; but I am working on it!)
I think it comes down to a few key principles and this is an attempt to capture the essence:
Purpose: All organisations are essentially collections of individuals with their own personal values and goals. The role of leaders is to try to create the maximum alignment for those values and goals so that everyone pulls in the same direction to the greatest extent. Really strong teachers tend to have strong views about education, about teaching and learning and about relationships with students; they have an intrinsic sense of purpose. However, it doesn't work for them or the school if they are fighting against the flow; you want them with you, not against you. This requires either a clear, inspiring vision that they buy into, or, more probably, it requires a process that involves them in shaping the vision in the first place. It's demotivating in the extreme to be asked to work towards goals you don't believe in; in fact it doesn't work at all. So, the question is: am I doing enough to forge a sense of common purpose amongst the key drivers in my school? Are we as closely aligned in our goals as we can be? (See the force-field analogy)
Challenge: Talented people thrive in a high-demand environment. Great teachers who drive students towards ever higher standards, expect standards to be high all around them. They are usually demanding of themselves and of others; rightly so. This means you have to expect the challenge to be a two-way process; you push me; I'll push you and we'll do a better job. That means we need mechanisms that actively seek out opinions and ideas that would lead to improvement. It is also means that we should do all we can to sustain a culture where rigour, high quality and doing things properly pervades. It is acceptable to be very demanding of people if they too can be demanding of you. (Does the converse need spelling out?)
Autonomy: Fundamentally, if we think we're doing a decent job (and if we're not), we like to be left alone. Autonomy is the thing teachers crave. I know what I'm doing, let me get on with it. Don't tell me what to do because I've already got enough ideas of my own… It is the great joy of teaching; the freedom to experiment, to perform, to follow your whims, to be yourself…. and those great teachers are no different. Any process that restricts, inhibits, limits, deflects, blocks, restrains… for no reason other than a perceived need for conformity and uniformity or purely to satisfy an accountability measure…. is likely to frustrate great teachers. Conversely, if they feel at liberty to make choices, to do their own thing, to go way off piste whenever they want to….they'll be flourishing. Real autonomy isn't automatic; it emerges from a culture where there is a high level of confidence, professional respect and mutual trust. Question: where are we along the control-autonomy axis? How much more freedom could I give teachers within the context of my school?
Growth: Great teachers are learners; they want to move forward. Usually, they have mastered the key skills in teaching and are looking to refine their practice or explore innovations of various forms. They want the space and time to grow professionally. However, this has to be seen in the context where all teachers are working collaboratively, forming larger groups where the levels of expertise will vary. This is the challenge; can I provide the range of growth opportunities needed to move the very best forward, without them getting unduly bogged down in 'whole staff INSET' that they don't really need. Is this a case of harnessing their talent to help support the development of others or of providing CPD opportunities more orientated towards individual research and innovation? How far have I gone in tailoring CPD for each individual? Or is there still a bit of 'egg sucking' that still needs to be eliminated?
Recognition: This is a key motivating factor but we are not talking simply about financial reward. Maximising pay is important but salary increments never do justice to the additional value really great teachers deliver. It is also often the case that very strong teachers are self-effacing, don't want a fuss made and don't court public affirmation. What matters is often simply that their work is recognised, acknowledged, appreciated, and not taken for granted. Beyond the rigmarole of formal lesson observations and examination postmortems, there needs to be a culture where excellence is acknowledged on an individual basis and celebrated publicly. This isn't to create divisions – it is to identify where we have role models, to have exemplars for others to follow and, crucially, to ensure that the exponents of great teaching get the recognition they deserve. If you have a lot of teachers like this, then you need to apply this to them all. Do I do enough in this area? No… but I must and will do more!
Care: Finally, it is important to create a culture where teachers are looked after as people. Great teachers often have a touch of the 'tis but a scratch' attitude. But, as in the Geese analogy, everyone needs to fall to the back of the pack from time to time or, if necessary, be nursed back to health before rejoining the flock. High performing people are not immune to stress or the usual array of health or personal set-backs. I'm a great believer that you get more from everyone by being conspicuously supportive with personal issues. Whether this is taking a flexible approach to part-time working, returning from maternity leave, enabling people to see children in their primary assembly or graduation, helping people to look after elderly parents or simply get to the bank.. it pays to be generous and flexible. I always say 'family first' because that is how I feel about my own. If you want people to give their all, they need to feel that the trade-off is worthwhile; the community spirit fostered by a strong family-first approach, nurtures loyalty, commitment and the determination to strive for success. Everyone benefits. I think we do pretty well here… but there is always more!
So, there we are: the conditions for great teachers to thrive: Purpose, Challenge, Automony, Growth, Recognition, Care.
Related Posts:
How do I know how good my teachers are?
Research as CPD: CPD as Research


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The hit-and-run ex-con charged with mowing down a young Orthodox Jewish couple in New York last month, killing them and their unborn child, said "accidents happen," in his first remarks about that death-filled day.
Julio Acevedo, 44, told WABC in a jailhouse interview he was deeply sorry, but insisted he was not speeding down a Brooklyn street, as alleged — and that the cabbie ferrying Nachman Glauber and his pregnant wife Raizy Glauber on March 3 ran a stop sign and thus deserves an equal measure of fault in the tragedy.
"I can't bring 'em back; it was an accident," Julio Acevedo reportedly said, "I apologize deeply."
"I'm made out to be the monster in all this . . . Sure I played a part. I couldn't stop. Accidents happen. I'm sad. It was a tragedy. Let's ask the cab driver why did he run the stop sign."
WABC inquired of Acevedo whether he was certain the livery hack ran a stop sign before he T-boned the vehicle and caused the three fatalities.
"Positive," Acevedo replied. "Of course (he bears responsibility). He was more in the rush than I was. He was rushing the woman to the hospital."
Acevedo, who fled, was arrested four days later in Pennsylvania.
He is being held without bail on three counts of vehicular manslaughter – due to prosecutors' allegations, based on witness accounts, that he accelerated to nearly 70 mph, twice the speed limit, and was swerving through traffic in the moments before the accident occurred in the Williamsburg section of the borough. He faces life in prison.
Acevedo, who previously served 10 years on a murder rap, insists that he would not have callously fled the scene, if he could replay the events of that day. "Now knowing what I'm going through, I would have stayed," Acevedo told WABC.
(Source: Fox News)


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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says improved energy efficiency and higher energy production in the United States are yielding environmental and economic benefits that are helping ensure cleaner air and a more competitive business landscape.
In his weekly Saturday radio and Internet address Obama draws attention to increased U.S. oil extraction, which last month exceeded oil imports for the first time in nearly two decades.
He says that represents, quote, "a tremendous step towards American energy independence."
Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin delivered the Republican address, criticizing the 3-year-old health care law. He says Obama's unmet claims that Americans would be able to keep their insurance plans amounted to, quote, "political fraud."
He calls Obama's acknowledgement that he fumbled the launch of the health care enrolment period a phoney apology.
Obama's address: http://www.whitehouse.gov
Republican address: http://www.youtube.com/user/gopweeklyaddress