text:
Here's a bit of an excerpt from an unfinished story that is an example of the First Age missionaries going about and spreading the Word of the Dawn.
10. History of the Hagolings
The missionaries' procedures were generally benevolent and successful. The Hagolings are a good example of such a meeting.
In Talastar, shortly after the Dawn, the Theyalan missionaries found a small clan who called themselves the Hagolings. The Hagolings were a miserable people, skinny and unhealthy. They were typically poor, without any substantial material goods, even lacking sewn clothing. For weapons they bore sharpened sticks, large gnarled clubs, and anything which they could throw. They ate a variety of roots and tubers, springtime shoots, and rough leaves but, typically of the pretheyalans, were unable to know that a variety of other foodstuffs were all around them.
The Hagolings fled when they first saw the Theyalans. But, as was usual, the Theyalans made a fire which they left burning, prepared a simple feast, played some music, and departed to the distance to watch. Sometimes this led to nothing but flight. But like all the clans that were later called the Nine Talastari, the Hagolings came back to the fire, ate the food, and did not run away when the White Woman approached them. She sang her peace songs. These always make anyone feel better, because they take away all the small pains and aches and worries for the time it is sung, and for as long afterwards as it was sung. Naturally she gained their simple confidence. Then she healed the worst among them. He'd been mauled, and his leg was festered, with bits of bone still sticking out. She made him still, and the clan gawked as she opened the wound, spat on a cloth and wiped away the pus, then put the bones back into place and closed it. She never stopped singing until she was done. After they calmed, she sat them in a circle, leaving seven seats empty. She took out her bundle, and from it a tool for each empty seat. These bundles were, of course, different from tribe to tribe, clan to clan, and cult to cult. These particular human missionaries were from the Vestantes tribe, and so they carried their regalia in a sheep skin. When the White Woman unrolled it the Hagolings broke into excited speech. They explained later they'd never seen any sheep skin except their own goddess'. When they saw that one, they all felt they were surely in the presence of lost kin.
When the White Woman placed a curled ram's horn upon the seat where her Orlanth friend would sit, the Hagolings got even more excited and began talking among themselves.
After a time the other missionaries came out of hiding, and with great care they took the seats where their particular regalia waited. The Hagolings were most interested in the Orlanth representative. They could hardly take their eyes off him, and they were nearly pop eyed with wonder. He began to speak to them, in the missionary's song. The missionary song was not the same as the one Ezkankekko had sung, but more polished version which was adapted after meeting many of these ragged peoples. He sang, for the Hagolings, forty two verses before he sang one which they knew.
The ice kneads my flesh.
The needles of death hold me still.
There is a warm skin about me.
My heart is the fire.
Little one, go forward.
That one known song was all the people needed, though. They began to speak, freely, and in the process the missionaries began to learn their dialect. It was hard, with the Hagolings, and at first only the Speaker thought that they were talking the Orlanthi tongue at all.
They were eager learners, of course. Every day they spent learning songs and lessons that brought new revelations, whether it was needles or recognizing that a fruit was edible. After a few years, when the Hagolings learned the Elmal Verses so they could find ripe fruit in summer and autumn, the Hagoling elders brought forth Hethana's Hide, and told their story about how they had survived the Great Darkness.
The Hagolings flourished once their eyes had been opened with the Theyalan intelligence. It took about three years of teaching them until they all agreed to sacrifice to Orlanth and Ernalda. Their offerings were received the people rejoiced to join the worship of these great gods and their pantheon.
Shortly afterwards the Hagolings found Lanisti claim stones amidst their lands, which they destroyed. Consulting with their teachers, the Hagolings made a formal Orlanthi claim to their lands.
The first Chief was named Pundarl. He made a bold plan. As was common by that time, some of the original missionaries had married into the new clan, and sometimes brought their own kinsmen from afar. Since the Vestantes knew the new song to summon the Storm Sheep, they did so, and Pundarl and his companions walked the winds after them. They strode across the air, and laid their claims to a larger territory that way.
When the Lanisti clan attacked the Hagolings they were ambushed and driven off, and the Hagoling markers were never disturbed.
After several generations the blessing of Hethana was given to the Hagolings. Their sheep which grazed upon Hethana's own lands grew wool which was golden in color, which was woven into clothing of tremendous beauty by the clan women. Distant people believed the sheep actually grew wool made out of gold wire, but that is foolish. Those fibers came from sheep later, after Lokamayadon.
The Hagolings flourished and after a couple of generations their clan had grown so large that they sought other ancestors and established several clans where there had been just one before.
Related Pages
- Cultures
- Dragon Pass – A brief outline
- Glorantha
- Glorantha Core Rune Font
- Glorantha Rune Magic
- History of Dragon Pass in the Second Age
- History of Malkioni Thought – Brithini and First Age
- How Argan Argar Courted Esrola
- Hsunchen Peoples of Genertela (2003)
- Introduction to Gloranthan Mythology and History
- Maps of Glorantha
- Myth – The Drinking Giant's Cauldron
- Mythical Age Maps
- New Discoveries about Ingolf Dragonfriend
- References for Glorantha (2021)
- Runes
- Sartar clan generator
- Some Gods
- Some Myths (1999)
- The Enerali circa 130 ST
- The Gloranthan Cosmos (2008)
- The Green Land
- The Movable Ephemeris and the Gloranthan Sky
- The Origins of Writing
- The Plundering of Aron
- The Seven Lightbringers
- The Silver Age and the Dawn
- The Story of The Summons of Evil (1992, 2015)
- Third Age of Glorantha
- Three Documents, One Event
- Types of Heroquests (2008)
- What is the Third Age History of the Sun Dome Temple in Sartar (2008)


text:
City Environment Compositing in After Effects
Taught by Kirill Pleshakov
- Course Number:
- Software Version:
- Original Run Date:
- October 2018
- Duration:
- 2 hours 46 minutes
The course starts with Kirill sharing his organizational structure for projects and then works he works his way through the shot. Along the way, like with most comps, he solves numerous problems with source material and elements in order to create the final shot. It's certainly no "import your layers and hit render" kind of course.
course syllabus
Class 1: Initial PrepAdjusting the incomplete city matte painting elements.
Class 2: CompositingCompositing of the city matte painting, matching it with live action footage, and using link expressions to speed up compositing.
Class 3: KeyingForeground actor extraction, compositing of the boundary.
Class 4: AnimatingAnimating the matte painting elements for realism, adding final details.
Class 5: RenderingMulti-machine rendering using After Effects Render Engine and the final polishing of the shot.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
"Standing Room Only" is not the phrase that leaps to mind when one thinks of lectures on monetary policy. But in San Diego this past winter, at a huge conference hall by the bay, no description could have been more apt.
As security agents guarded doors and TV cameras rolled tape, hundreds of economists packed the chairs and lined the walls. When the speaker approached the dais, these scholars craned their necks to catch a glimpse and held digital cameras aloft to snap his picture.
The speaker was Alan Greenspan, of course, and star power accounts for some of the excitement. The chairman is an almost mythically famous figure. But there was something more on this particular occasion. At the January 2004 meeting of the American Economic Association (AEA), Greenspan was set to review his years as chairman and to explain the art of making decisions in a world beset by doubt.
Because uncertainty is "the defining characteristic" of the monetary policy landscape, said Greenspan, "the conduct of monetary policy in the United States has come to involve, at its core, crucial elements of risk management." And because risks can be difficult to quantify, "risk management often involves significant judgment."
Critics, he acknowledged, have argued that such an approach "is too undisciplined—judgmental, seemingly discretionary, and difficult to explain." The Federal Reserve should attempt to be more formal in its operations, according to this argument, "by tying its actions ... to the prescriptions of a simple policy rule."
But Greenspan, speaking "from the perspective of someone who has been in the policy trenches," observed that while rules can serve as "helpful adjuncts" to policy, they don't permit the flexibility quintessential to coping with an uncertain world. "[A]t crucial points, like those in our recent policy history," he argued, "simple rules will be inadequate."
Greenspan thus delivered his verdict in the longstanding dispute between rules and discretion in monetary policymaking. It was a powerful message from a compelling messenger. And if the remarks of the prominent economists who followed him at the podium are any indication, his judgment carried both the day and much of the profession.
Former Fed Gov. Janet Yellen of the University of California, Berkeley, noted that the Greenspan Fed's "most important contributions probably came during episodes when policy departed from 'the rule'" in reaction to unusual conditions or large risks. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and Fed staff "earned their pay" by responding to such shocks, said Yellen, president of the San Francisco Fed as of June 2004. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, reinforced Greenspan's observations about the need for nuanced decision making under uncertainty.
And Mervyn King, Greenspan's counterpart at the Bank of England, observed that while constraints on his discretion—via explicit inflation targets—have worked well in England, the chairman's judgment was, truly, hard to fault. Joking that he'd love to play tennis with Greenspan (some 20 years his senior), King admitted, "I may move a little faster, but I expect him to make fewer mistakes."
Questioning judgment
But not all are convinced. In a November 2003 paper, Minneapolis Fed monetary adviser Patrick Kehoe, a University of Minnesota macroeconomist, has focused precisely on the question addressed by Greenspan: What is the proper amount of discretion in monetary policymaking? Should a monetary authority change direction and speed in response to economic winds and informed intuitions, or should it set forth on a track with a reasonable, tighter rein on its ability to deviate from a numerical target? Greenspan argued that Fed flexibility shouldn't be constrained. Kehoe has his doubts.
"What's the rationale for the Fed having unlimited discretion?" Kehoe asks, in an interview. "Well, in our theoretical model we argue that if the Fed doesn't have any special knowledge, any private information, then we, society, can just tell the Fed, 'here's what you should do.'"
In practice, Kehoe believes, the Fed should lay out a coherent quantitative rationale for its policy-including the model it's using; it should announce numerical targets and, most importantly, whenever it misses these targets by more than a pre-specified amount, it should have to explain to Congress in detail the reasons why.
On its surface, the paper, "The Optimal Degree of Discretion in Monetary Policy," written with Susan Athey of Stanford University and Minneapolis Fed adviser Andrew Atkeson of the University of California, Los Angeles, appears to offer a middle ground, an olive branch as it were. Optimal policymaking, it seems to say, should allow a limited measure of latitude to monetary decision makers, as long as the economy is operating within certain bounds. If conditions are more extreme, then decision makers should be constrained to implement a constant inflation rate. In practice, they show, this policy can be implemented with an inflation cap, similar to the constrained discretion that Fed Gov. Ben Bernanke advocates (see interview).
But this interpretation of their paper is superficial and misleading, says Kehoe, like taking Swift's "Modest Proposal" at face value. A deeper understanding conveys a very different and severe message: Yes, a case can be made for limited discretion in monetary policy, but that case hinges critically on an assumption that economists generally find untenable—that the Fed relies on private information unavailable to others. If you deny that assumption—as most would—the case for discretion dissolves. Monetary policy will be optimal only if rules are followed.
A long tradition
Rules vs. discretion: The phrase has launched a thousand scripts. Reams of paper and decades of argument seem to have parsed every conceivable aspect of that dichotomy, and while policymakers tend to favor discretion, a substantial tradition in economics holds that rules are required for sound monetary policymaking.
Among the first proponents of monetary rules was University of Chicago economist Henry Simons who, in 1936, published "Rules versus Authorities in Monetary Policy." The paper was a broadside against giving monetary policymakers leeway. Writing in the midst of the Great Depression and fearful that socialism or fascism might arise out of economic chaos, Simons argued, "We should not balk at bold schemes for restoring the free-enterprise system to a securely workable basis." And paramount in that scheme: "[B]ring the appropriate [monetary] agencies more closely within the control of law, through the adoption of rules."
Stable monetary rules were critical to business, noted Simons. "We must avoid a situation where every business venture becomes largely a speculation on the future of monetary policy," he argued. It was essential to "avoid reliance on discretionary (dictatorial, arbitrary) action by an independent monetary authority" by defining "a statutory rule which might be enacted by the competent legislature."
A dozen years later, Milton Friedman took up the torch of his University of Chicago colleague. The "monetary framework should operate under the 'rule of law' rather than the discretionary authority of administrators," wrote Friedman. He called for reform that would "eliminate ... discretionary control of the quantity of money by central bank authority" and said "the existing powers to engage in open market operations ... should be abolished." Among other things, discretion encouraged incumbent politicians to pressure the central bank to boost employment and output right before elections, leading to the instability of the "political business cycle."
Friedman later pointed out that discretionary control of money supply was inherently flawed because monetary decision makers can't precisely determine the right magnitude or timing for policy interventions—measurements are inexact, relationships complex and time lags inevitable. For him, the best monetary rule was a publicly stated steady rate of growth in money supply, although "the precise rate of growth, like the precise monetary total, is less important than the adoption of some stated and known rate."
In arguing that rules were needed because monetary authorities were susceptible to political influence and inaccurate data, Simons and Friedman implicitly conceded that, in theory, a policymaker could do a good job if he or she had society's best interests at heart and had good information about the economy. A wise and benevolent central banker would, in effect, substitute the golden rule for a monetary rule: Do monetary policy as you would have others do policy unto you.
Time inconsistency
In 1977, that idea too was laid to rest. In their landmark paper, "Rules Rather than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Finn Kydland, now at Carnegie Mellon University, and the Minneapolis Fed's Edward Prescott showed that even thoroughly competent policymakers with good information and the best of intentions will—if they don't commit to a policy via a rule of some sort—inevitably make decisions that lead to suboptimal outcomes. The reason is time inconsistency, a powerful but less than intuitive concept.
We all suffer from time inconsistency: We make promises to ourselves ("eat less") but break them later on because what seemed like a great idea at one point seems less great later on ("that donut sure looks good"). In a classic 1956 paper, Northwestern University economist R.H. Strotz discussed the idea as it pertained to individuals. "The optimal plan of the present moment is generally one which will not be obeyed," he observed. "The individual's future behaviour will be inconsistent with his optimal plan." Strotz's alliterative phrase for efforts to resolve such inconsistencies: "the intertemporal tussle."
But as Kydland and Prescott explained, the tussle gets tougher when two or more parties are involved. If, for example, the government wants to discourage people from building homes in floodplains, it might announce that it won't provide flood insurance for such structures. But when a flood disaster hits and people lose their homes, politicians are likely to bail them out. That's time inconsistency—what once seemed optimal no longer is. The real problem is that because the public observes this inconsistency, subsequent government announcements discouraging floodplain settlement are unlikely to be believed. Policy becomes ineffective and unpredictable.
In essence, Kydland and Prescott show that because policymakers and the public are always watching one another, and making decisions based on their belief about what the other will do next, policymakers are prone—unless their hands are tied by a rule—to be time inconsistent. This temptation leads unavoidably to bad outcomes, either inefficiency or instability.
Inconsistent monetary policy
The phenomenon is ubiquitous—Kydland and Prescott provide examples of time inconsistency in patent and tax policy as well as flood control—but it is especially pertinent to monetary policy. Suppose, for example, that a labor union is negotiating a new contract and thinking about locking in a cost-of-living increase; if current inflation is 2 percent, the union might call for a 2 percent annual wage hike.
If some sort of structural problems (bad fiscal policies, for example, or monopoly practices) are causing unemployment to be higher than it should be, a well-meaning central bank might try to increase the money supply to boost inflation and—taking advantage of the short-run Phillips curve trade-off—decrease unemployment.
But the next time around, a forward-looking labor union would anticipate such central bank action and demand a wage increase to reflect its expectation of higher future inflation. Employers might agree to the wage demand but they'd have no incentive to offer more jobs. In the end, then, the central bank's actions would result in higher inflation but no gain in employment or output. Thus, time inconsistency creates a persistent inflationary bias. Still, the possibility of surprising the economy with a bit of inflation means that even benevolent policymakers are inexorably tempted to be time inconsistent—unless they're committed by rules.
"The implication of our analysis is that policymakers should follow rules rather than have discretion," wrote Kydland and Prescott. "The reason that they should not have discretion is not that they are stupid or evil but, rather, that discretion implies selecting the decision which is best, given the current situation. Such behavior either results in consistent but suboptimal planning or in economic instability."
Reputation and information
Economists have devoted substantial energy to exploring what policies or practices—short of rules—might mitigate time inconsistency. Robert Barro and David Gordon, for instance, studied the idea that by faithfully following through on announced policy, a central bank could build its credibility, and so reputation might substitute for a rule.
In 1985, Matthew Canzoneri, an economist at Georgetown University, contributed another idea. If the public and the central bank all have equal information about the economy, he said, then it should be fairly simple to solve "the precommitment problem" (that is, ensuring that the central bank sticks to its stated policy) either by the central bank building a credible reputation for adhering to its policy announcements or by Congress legislating a policy rule and policing the central bank's adherence to it.
But then Canzoneri introduced the confounding element of unequal information. "Credibility problems arise only when scope has been left for cheating," he wrote, and if one party knows more than another, that scope widens dramatically. What if the central bank—in his paper, the Fed—has private information about the state of the economy, information that the public doesn't have? "If the Fed's forecast ... is private information, then the Fed's adherence to the ideal policy rule cannot be verified directly, and efficient resolutions of the precommitment problem are much more difficult to find."
This is where Athey, Atkeson and Kehoe enter the discussion. If there is no private information, they point out, there is no way to cheat the system in Canzoneri's sense. Everyone knows what's going on and a monetary rule is optimal. But for the sake of argument, say the economists, let's give the advocates of discretion their strongest possible case: Let's assume that the central bank does have some private information about the economy.
This assumption instantly creates a tension between the rigidity of a rule that ensures no time inconsistency (but doesn't allow the bank to respond to information that might affect the economy) and the flexibility of discretion that enables the bank to use that information to society's benefit (but might also permit it to influence the economy in less constructive ways).
If society knew what the bank knows, it might wish the bank to use that information wisely in shaping monetary policy. But if society gives the bank too much freedom, it might abuse it by causing inefficient inflation. How much leash should the bank have? What is the optimal degree of discretion?
Games and mechanisms
To answer that question, the authors draw upon two distinct but related methods. The first is game theory—in which players try to do as well as possible in a game with other players by figuring out their best possible moves. The "prisoner's dilemma" in which two prisoners have to decide whether or not to confess to a crime they committed together, without knowing what their partner will do, is a well-known game theory problem, and its solution is called a Nash equilibrium, after John Nash, the mathematician portrayed in A Beautiful Mind.
The other method is mechanism design theory—in which the challenge is not to figure out the best plays given the rules of the game, but rather to discover the rules of the game that lead to the best possible outcome. Mechanism design theory was used to design airwave spectrum auctions, for example, so that the federal government could maximize revenues when it auctioned off radio frequencies.
Athey, Atkeson and Kehoe apply game theory and mechanism design theory to a monetary policy game in which one player (the central bank) has more information than the other players (the public: workers, firms and households). And as they blend these elements, they develop new techniques to address a very old problem.
First they develop a mathematical representation of the monetary policy question. The central bank's objective, they say, is to maximize social welfare, and that depends on nominal wages, the rate of growth in money supply (roughly equal to inflation), plus the Canzoneri element: the private information the central bank has about the impact of its policy stimulus on social welfare (similar to the time consistency phenomenon of the Fed boosting the economy with surprise inflation).
Given this model, the economists explore how its elements interact over time, with money supply growth, private information and wages all interdependent. "The mechanism design problem," they write, "is to choose a monetary policy, a [private information] reporting strategy, and a strategy for average wages the outcomes of which maximize social welfare subject to the constraint that these strategies are incentive-compatible [that is, no one is tempted to cheat]."
The objective is to figure out what rules of the monetary policy game will result in the best outcome. In other words, if society (via legislation) were to draw up a contract with the central bank, how much flexibility should that contract allow? The optimal contract will give the bank enough leeway to use its private information for society's benefit—stimulating the economy to avoid recession—but not so much that the bank creates the inefficient inflation or instability inherent to time inconsistent policymaking. "That's what the whole paper's about," says Kehoe. "And then there's a whole bunch of math."
Indeed. The paper is exceptionally complex, replete with esoteric mathematics that even fellow economists find daunting. With four technical appendices, three lemmas, five propositions and 59 Greek-laden formulas, the entirely theoretical piece is a virtuoso display of advanced methodology. Impressive. But how does it solve the problem?
Dynamic or static?
The most difficult part of the puzzle is determining whether this dynamic game—in which the Fed makes a move, followed by society's move, followed by the Fed's, ad infinitum—requires a dynamic or static solution.
A dynamic solution, explains Kehoe, is one in which "your future ability to do something is a function of what you did before. And the more you do of what I don't want today, the more I take it away from you in the future." Relative to monetary policy, then, a dynamic mechanism would be a contract with an incentive structure that, round by round, tightens the central bank's range of freedom if it exceeds certain limits. A static solution would be a single rule determined without reference to the central bank's previous actions.
In essence, then, the economists' intricate math determines whether society's welfare is maximized by a contract that just sets a monetary rule for the Fed and sticks to it, or one that establishes incentives for the central bank, telling policymakers that what they can do now depends on what they did last time around.
A dynamic game seems to call for a dynamic solution: Most repeated games in which one player establishes a contract with another need changing incentives to generate best outcomes. But unexpectedly, says Kehoe, "the technical work in our paper shows that it doesn't work like that. Our mechanism is static, a flat number," not a dynamically tightening band. A partial reason for the surprising result: In this game—unlike many—the conflict between the players has to do with time inconsistency, not competition over resources. The central bank is trying to maximize society's welfare, not compete for its resources, so society doesn't directly benefit by progressively restricting the bank's authority.
The character of discretion
Mathematically, once they've found that a static mechanism is optimal, the hardest work is done. They've dramatically narrowed the range of possible mechanisms. The next step is to describe the optimal static mechanism, the shape of discretionary power the central bank should be granted so that it can achieve the best societal outcome.
With another series of equations and two more proofs, they determine that giving the central bank total discretion never provides monetary policy that maximizes social welfare. Rather, welfare can be maximized if the central bank contract permits it discretion up to a limit. The bank is free to vary its policy in response to its private information (as well as public information) about the economy as long as it keeps below this explicit upper bound on monetary growth. But beyond that level, the bank is given no discretion: It must choose a constant inflation rate regardless of what it knows.
The economists then demonstrate that this optimal policy of bounded or no discretion can be implemented simply by setting an inflation cap—an upper limit for the central bank's inflation rate. Again, the bank has freedom to implement whatever inflation rate it wishes as long as it doesn't exceed that cap: Such a mechanism can maximize societal welfare.
"One interpretation of our work," write the economists, "is that we solve for the optimal inflation targets." And indeed, inflation targeting—in which a central bank publicly announces a numerical target for inflation and conducts policy so as to hit that target—is an increasingly popular monetary mechanism, adopted in perhaps a dozen countries. As the Bank of England's Mervyn King noted in San Diego, it works for him.
The Greenspan Fed has resisted the trend, but some FOMC members favor it. Fed Gov. Bernanke, for instance, has suggested that a variation of inflation targeting that he calls "constrained discretion" would improve Fed policymaking. The connection isn't lost on Athey, Atkeson and Kehoe. "Indeed," they write, "our work here provides one theoretical rationale for the type of constrained discretion advocated by Bernanke and [his collaborator, Frederic] Mishkin."
When sirens beckon
The final step is to explore how the level of allowable discretion varies relative to the time inconsistency problem faced by the economy. Some economies—those with structural problems like bad tax policies, rigid labor unions or entrenched monopolies that inhibit investment, labor mobility and price flexibility—face greater temptation than others to use monetary policy to inflate away unemployment or debt problems.
And as expected, Athey, Atkeson and Kehoe (AKK) find that the more temptation a monetary authority faces to create "surprise" inflation, the less discretion it should have. It's like that resolution about eating less. Your dietary leash should be a lot tighter if you work in a bakery. As Strotz put it, the more enticing the sirens, the more tightly Ulysses should be bound to the mast.
Kehoe explains it with an international example: Take two countries, let's call them Argentina and Chile. Think of Argentina as having such an inefficient tax system that trying to pay its national debt by raising taxes is politically very costly. "So it has a huge incentive to pay for things by using inflation rather than taxes," says Kehoe. "But think of Chile as having a better tax system so it's not so costly to pay for its debts by raising taxes." In this hypothetical situation, Argentina has a worse time inconsistency problem, a greater temptation to use monetary policy in a way that would be expedient but ultimately harmful.
"What would our model say about the way their central banks should operate? Well, in Argentina they should have a really low inflation cap or really tightly constrained rule because as soon as you give the Argentine central bank a little bit more leash to do what they want, boom, inflation will skyrocket." Chile, on the other hand, faces less temptation to inflate its debt problems away. "So if you give them a little bit of room, they won't abuse it so much. You can give them a wider band. That's the idea."
Reaction formation
Last November, not long before Greenspan's AEA speech, Kehoe presented his paper at a high-level conference on monetary policy in Washington, D.C. Given the venue—the Federal Reserve Board—perhaps it was predictable that reactions were mixed.
Bennett McCallum, a Carnegie Mellon University macroeconomist, was one of the paper's designated discussants at the meeting, and in an e-mail to The Region he describes the paper as "extremely skillful but not highly relevant." In his conference remarks, McCallum expressed several reservations. "I find unpersuasive the notion that a CB [central bank] cannot commit its actions, but someone else can constrain it to behave in a committed manner," he writes. (Kehoe responds that society often creates constraints by imposing costs, financial or otherwise. "Our Constitution is a perfect example," he notes. "It's a device created by society to define and constrain the powers of government.") In addition, the AAK model doesn't include "forward-looking behavior" by individuals, a feature that McCallum has developed in some of his recent work. (Kehoe says that its inclusion would complicate the math but not change the results.)
But it's most telling that McCallum and the paper's other discussant, Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University, seem especially concerned with another element of the AAK model: It hinges on the tenuous assumption that central banks rely on private information.
"Overall, it is a terrific paper," observes Rogoff by e-mail. "In my remarks, however, I did question the emphasis their paper (and Canzoneri's earlier paper) puts on the FOMC knowing more than the private sector does." The Fed may be better informed than others about its own intentions and preferences, Rogoff acknowledges, but he doubts it has a real information advantage about the state of the economy. McCallum agrees: "To me it seems doubtful that such information is of first-order importance," he remarks. "My position seems to be rather standard among monetary economists."
Hearing these comments again, months later, Kehoe appears frustrated. It's clear that the paper's underlying message hasn't come across. He doesn't believe the Fed depends on private information any more than McCallum or Rogoff do. Rather, he says, the paper shows that only by embracing such a questionable assumption can one make a case for central bank discretion. And even then, it's constrained discretion.
"The deep message of our paper is really a critique of the whole idea of discretion," he explains. "The real purpose was to say, 'you keep telling me there should be discretion. Well, for you to believe that, you have to believe the Fed knows all this information that the private sector doesn't know. And if you don't believe that, then you'd better argue with me that the Fed should indeed not have much discretion. It should have tight rules.' That's the real meaning."
Indeed, for all its algebraic obscurity, the paper is quite lucid on this point. "Here the rationale for discretion depends in a critical way on the monetary authority having some private information that the other agents in the economy do not have," write the economists. "Of course, if the amount of such private information is thought to be very small in actual economies, then our work argues that in such economies the logical case for a sizable amount of discretion is weak, and the monetary authority should follow a rather tightly specified rule."
Dark Knights
At the Washington conference, Kehoe recalls, those participants who tried to sustain these conflicting ideas—that private information isn't important but the Fed should have discretion—experienced "a dissonance, a cognitive dissonance" and they reacted by invoking "Knightian uncertainty."
As they used the term (inaccurately, says Kehoe) it refers to unforeseen events (a 9/11 disaster, for example, or an October 1987 stock market crash). Given that such events will occur—unpredictably—the Fed shouldn't be held to a strict rule; it needs to be able to respond. Without flexibility, central banks become stones that sink a weakened economy.
Kehoe responds that Knightian uncertainty is a rather vague concept. "To many," he says, "it means events which are ex ante zero probability, but which actually happen. And I mean truly zero probability. Not small; literally zero. They happen and you could never have even dreamed them up. Those kinds of events are so rare they're irrelevant." (Irrelevant, at least, to making decisions.)
By contrast, terrorist attacks and stock market crashes are, regrettably, not so rare. We've experienced them before, can imagine them happening again, and, to some degree, we've actually prepared for them. It isn't that difficult to estimate the probability that such things might happen. Kehoe refers to these unusual (but not zero-probability) occurrences, as "exotic events." If they happen and the Fed wants to raise inflation above the inflation cap to accommodate them, says Kehoe, that's reasonable. But exotic events don't vitiate the argument for limiting discretion. They're exceptions that prove the rule.
And in such cases, the Fed should be required to publicly and clearly explain why it needs to exceed the limit. "Anything above, say, 4 percent," Kehoe says, hypothetically, "the Fed chairman should have to trot up to Congress and explain clearly why the Fed deviated." Alternatively, policymaking rules could require a unanimous vote of the FOMC to implement a policy that exceeds the rule. "Something that ups the ante for breaking it," says Kehoe, "so there's a cost to deviating."
There are other views of Knightian uncertainty, Kehoe remarks. "Some envision events that have high ex ante probability, but which we could never hope to describe before they happen. Society could deal with these in the same way: Allow the Fed to deviate but make sure there is a clear cost to doing so."
A structured debate
Kehoe has spent years studying optimal monetary policy. Often collaborating with Atkeson or V.V. Chari at the Minneapolis Fed, he has developed, tested and refined mathematical models to better understand central bank policies and the macroeconomy they influence. In that sense, "The Optimal Degree of Discretion in Monetary Policy" is not unique. His goal in this and a dozen other papers has been to clarify the links between policy and outcome—or as he might put it, the mapping between actions and objective functions.
Fed decision making could be improved if these theoretical links were clearer, Kehoe believes, but the clarity now lacking has more to do with the Fed's methods than with its models. "Most economists who interact with the Fed, academic economists, are somewhat surprised by ..."
He pauses—uncharacteristically—looking for a phrase both accurate and diplomatic.
"... by the lack of coherent statement of what exactly the Fed's objective function is, in an almost quantifiable way, and how current policies are chosen so as to maximize that objective."
Economists are trained in that language, he notes. State your objectives; write down a model describing the relationship between economic variables and those objectives; estimate the relevant parameters. And then, focusing on the variables that can be influenced by policy, set them so as to maximize the objectives.
"Almost all economists I know would be much more comfortable if the Fed moved toward that language and method because then we would know what we're really arguing about," he explains. "We could say, 'that's not the right objective function.' Or 'I disagree with that coefficient.'"
Current Fed decision making is too hazy, in Kehoe's view. And discretion is part of the problem—it limits the transparency of the decision-making process. "The Fed does what it wants and then crafts some words about why it makes sense," he observes. "There's a much less tight connection to economic theory, models and quantitative data than most of us are comfortable with."
Kehoe's objective function, then, is not only to improve theory, but to persuade policymakers that they'd be better served by dropping the veil that obscures the decision-making process. "The Fed should be saying, 'Here's our objective function. Here's how we think our policy maps into outcomes,'" he argues. "If it's in that language, then at least, economists can have a structured, concrete debate. The way it is now, the profession could go on for years and just run in circles."


text:
June 2021 General Meeting
With a year having passed since the murder of George Floyd, much attention has been paid to the re-ignition of the civil rights movement, its tactics, and comparisons with civil rights groups and figures of the past. However, a massive pitfall of these discussions is that they frequently ignore and even whitewash the radical politics underlying the civil rights movement; were you aware that many civil rights figures from Fred Hampton to Robert F. Williams were influenced by the anti-capitalist politics of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and other socialist figures and philosophies? Without understanding these roots, it is impossible to have a full picture of the goals and tactics of the civil rights movement both past and present.
Come join Our Revolution Arlington on Monday, June 14th at 7:00 P.M. on Zoom, where we will be hearing from Assistant Professor of Auburn University Austin McCoy about The Black Radical Tradition: A History!
If you missed the meeting, you can watch a recording of it here.
May 2021 General Meeting
As progressives and leftists, we are unified in our opposition to America's endless wars, regime change efforts, and the military-industrial-complex as a whole. We recognize the disastrous impacts of American imperialism and seek to put an end to the global oppression and chaos America's foreign policy creates.
Currently, one of the most pressing foreign policy questions that America faces is what the nature of its relationship with China should look like. This creates a very challenging dilemma for the Left: the Chinese government has come under fire internationally for its oppression of the country's Uyghur ethnic minority in Xinjiang, it continues to crack down violently on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, and has displayed imperialist ambitions of its own throughout the Global South, particularly in Africa. These human rights abuses are appalling, and Washington has cynically weaponized concerns over these abuses as part of its justification for further inflating its already obscene military budget and reinforcing its military hegemony on the global stage. How can the Left show solidarity with those facing oppression and imperialist threats from China while avoiding the trap of supporting American imperialism in the process?
Join Our Revolution Arlington on Monday, May 10th at 7:00 P.M., where we will be hearing from speaker Tobita Chow for our monthly meeting topic: China: A Progressive Foreign Policy Approach. Tobita is the director of Justice is Global, a grassroots non-profit dedicated to building an international movement to fight global economic inequality, rising right-wing nationalism, and climate change.
If you missed the meeting, you can view the recording of it here.
May Day Rally to Pass the PRO Act
This May 1st at 11:00 A.M., join Our Revolution Arlington, Our Revolution Northern Virginia, DSA NOVA, and many other local activists at Windmill Hill Park in Old Town Alexandria for a rally to pressure Senator Mark Warner to co-sponsor the PRO Act. Senator Warner is one of only three remaining Democratic senators to not do so, making this a high-stakes event that could very well be decisive in getting him to support this crucial piece of pro-labor legislation. However, our strength is in numbers so we hope that as many of you as possible will attend; when we organize, we win!
More details about the event can be found on the event's Facebook page here.
April 2021 General Meeting
Come join Our Revolution Arlington this Monday, April 12th via Zoom for our April 2021 monthly general meeting, where we will be hearing from state-level Our Revolution organizer Kristin Hoffman on strategies and tactics for transforming the Democratic Party!
After Kristin finishes her presentation, we will also be hearing a brief speech by Our Revolution-endorsed lieutenant governor candidate Elizabeth Guzman about her campaign. Lastly, we will be hearing updates on some exciting news: Our Revolution Arlington is officially part of the Arlington Civic Association!
If you missed the meeting, you can watch the recording of it on the ORA Youtube channel here.
March 2021 Meeting
Trans rights have received a significant amount of attention in the news lately, with the House of Representatives passing the Equality Act— which bans discrimination in housing, public education, and other aspects of everyday life on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, and the Virginia General Assembly passing a bill introduced by Del. Danica Roem which bans the "gay panic" defense from being used in cases of assault and murder against transgender people. However, with the Democratic Party and many liberal organizations making the advancement of trans rights a priority in their platforms, it is very easy and very common for progressives to take the advancement of those rights for granted and neglect to educate themselves on exactly why it is that trans people and their needs are valid: what is the correct terminology to use when referring to trans people, and why is it important to use that terminology? Why is it that trans women participating in sports alongside cis women is not the issue that many make it out to be? How exactly do puberty blockers work?
Join Our Revolution Arlington this Monday, March 8th at 7:00 P.M. on Zoom for our March monthly general meeting: Trans Rights: Debunking Myths and Misconceptions, where will be hearing from Amber Beichler, a local progressive activist and board member of the Transgender Education Association of Greater Washington.
After the presentation, we will be hearing from Del. Alfonso Lopez, who like his opponent Karishma Mehta is seeking ORA's endorsement in the primary race for the 49th Virginia House District seat. **IMPORTANT**: The meeting will be followed by an e-mail to our regular members with a link to the endorsement vote, which will remain open for a week after the e-mail is sent. Be sure to keep an eye open for the e-mail.
If you missed the meeting, you can watch the recording of it on the ORA Youtube channel here.
February 2021 Meeting
Former President Trump's draconian immigration restrictions, ICE crackdowns, and treatment of asylum seekers shined a harsh light on the many brutal aspects of America's broken immigration system. This led to a passionate national discourse on immigrant rights, perhaps most notably former Democratic presidential primary candidate Julian Castro's call to decriminalize border crossings, a call quickly echoed by many of the other Democratic primary candidates. Despite these widespread calls, now-President Joe Biden stood out in refusing to support Castro's proposed policy on the campaign trail. Join Our Revolution Arlington on Monday, February 8th at 7:00 P.M. on Zoom, where we will be hearing from Adam Bates, a local immigration advocate and refugee attorney for our February 2021 general meeting: No Human is Illegal: The Case for Open Borders. Adam has also been interviewed on C-Span to discuss the implications of former President Trump's Refugee Admissions Reduction policy.
Additionally, we have an important announcement to make: one of the members of our Steering Committee has stepped down, meaning we now have an opening for anyone interested. If you're a member of ORA and you're interested in stepping up to the plate, come join us for the meeting and let us know!
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January 2021 Meeting
Please join us for our first monthly meeting of 2021 this Monday, January 11 from 7-9 p.m. The meeting will be conducted on Zoom. See below description for Zoom coordinates. If you can't join us that night, keep an eye out here for a recording.
With president-elect Joe Biden's rapidly approaching inauguration, liberals and progressives have spent months waiting anxiously to see the outcome of the Georgia Senate run-off elections, which will determine not only which party gains majority control over the Senate, but also the mere ability of the incoming Biden administration to enact its agenda. In the scramble to take control of the Senate however, one very important question is being overlooked:
Isn't the Senate itself an egregiously anti-democratic institution, one which shares many of the same issues as the widely-reviled Electoral College? And what about the Supreme Court? Has it truly been the stalwart defender of civil rights and harbinger of social progress that it's so often made out to be? When the Constitution was written, it was drafted with the interests of wealthy landowners in mind; to what extent does this legacy hinder the ability of progressives to enact the kinds of sweeping reforms we're fighting tooth-and-nail for today?
Join us on Zoom this coming Monday, January 11th from 7:00-9:00 P.M. for Our Revolution Arlington's January 2021 general meeting, where journalist and author Daniel Lazare will be exploring these questions in-depth. After the presentation, we will also be hearing from Virginia House of Delegates candidate Karishma Mehta about her primary challenge against Del. Alfonso Lopez for Virginia's 49th House District.
Update: Owing to the shocking and unprecedented coup attempt carried out by supporters of outgoing president Donald Trump, we imagine that many of you are feeling overwhelmed, distressed, and frightened. For that reason, we will be devoting the final part of our monthly meeting to an open discussion about those events, as a way for each of you to express those feelings and let off some steam. We hope each of you are safe.
Daniel Lazare is a journalist who has written articles for such publications as The Nation, Jacobin, and Common Dreams. He is also the author of several books, such as The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution is Paralyzing Our Democracy, The Velvet Coup: The Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the Decline of American Democracy, and America's Undeclared War: What's Killing Our Cities and How We Can Stop It.
If you missed the meeting, you can watch the recording of it on the ORA Youtube channel here.
December 2020 Meeting
Recording of panel here:
Audio-only version here:
Please join us for an exciting and informative panel discussion on how local and state governments can help protect small business during the COVID-19 pandemic and strengthen them over the long term. This event is being cosponsored by Arlington Branch NAACP, Arlington Dems Labor and Business Outreach Team, ArlFiber, Our Revolution Alexandria, and Our Revolution Falls Church.
Some of the biggest victims of the COVID-19 pandemic have been small and independent businesses, with businesses owned by people of color being disproportionately affected. With new lockdowns looming and federal support stalled indefinitely, what options do state and local governments have to keep small businesses afloat in the months ahead. In addition, how might we strengthen small business over the long term as part of more inclusive community development strategies? We have assembled a panel of experts to help us answer those questions.
Kennedy Smith
Senior Researcher, Institute for Local Self Reliance . Kennedy is one of the nation's foremost experts on commercial district revitalization and independent business development. She brings her considerable expertise and experience to the position of Senior Researcher with ILSR's Independent Business Initiative. Her work focuses on analyzing the factors threatening independent businesses and developing policy tools that communities can use to address these issues and build thriving, equitable local economies. Kennedy will be speaking on her report "Safeguarding Small Business During the Pandemic"); Full bio here.
Marjorie Kelly
Marjorie Kelly is the senior fellow and executive vice president of The Democracy Collaborative. She is a leading theorist in "next-generation enterprise design," specializing in the theory and practice of companies with embedded social mission and broad-based ownership. She is coauthor of The Making of a Democratic Economy: Building Prosperity for the Many, Not Just the Few (2019, Berrett-Koehler Publishers) and Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution, among other books. Marjorie will be speaking on her report "Local Economy Preservation Funds";
Full bio here.
Donna J. Gambrell
President & CEO of Appalachian Community Capital. As President & CEO of Appalachian Community Capital, Donna is responsible for attracting and directing investments to Community Development Financial Institutions (or CDFIs) and other mission-driven lenders in Appalachia. Previously, Ms. Gambrell served as Director of the Treasury Department's CDFI Fund, and in executive positions with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Currently, she is a board member for several organizations specializing in community development finance. Donna will be speaking on the disproportionate impact of the pandemic/lockdowns on minority owned businesses and the potential role of CDFIs in providing relief.
Full bio here.
Tony Hernandez
Director, Dudley Neighbors Incorporated. Dudley Neighbors Incorporated is a community land trust established by Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative in Roxbury MA in the late 1980s. Dudley Neighbors Incorporated (DNI) is a subsidiary organization that promotes affordable housing and community control of development and land in the Dudley Neighborhood. Tony is a leader in advancing Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative and the organization's work to reclaim brownfields in the community while avoiding resident displacement. Tony will be speaking on how the community land trust model can be used to support equitable commercial development.
Christopher Mitchell
Director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at ILSR. Christopher is a leading national expert on community networks and Internet access. On a day-to-day basis, he runs MuniNetworks.org, the comprehensive online clearinghouse of information about local government policies to improve Internet access. Their interactive community broadband network map tracks more than 500 such networks. He also hosts podcasts, including Community Broadband Bits and Building Local Power. Christopher will be speaking on how community broadband can provide affordable, high speed internet access to support businesses and stimulate new economic activity.
Full bio here.
Link to RSVP on Zoom:
If you miss out on registration, you can watch the event live on our Youtube page at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMDLU_loP-QSZ2VeWcYizbQ
Link to submit a question for the panel:
November 2020 Meeting:
Recording of this meeting here:
Please join us for us for some post-election commentary and book talk with David Dayen.
David is the executive editor of The American Prospect and author of several highly acclaimed books. His COVID-19 daily report Unsanitized is the best daily newsletter there is on American politics under the pandemic. In addition to sharing his thoughts on the results (or current state) of the election, David will talk to us about his most recent book Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power about how the concentration of economic power in the hands of a small number of mega corporations is making life miserable for us all (and degrading democracy).
In addition to our speaker, we will have some updates on local efforts by ORA members on housing and municipal broadband and state level efforts on a Green New Deal for VA.
October 2020 Meeting:
We're taking the month off. Check back for November's meeting details later this month.
September 2020 Meeting:
If you missed this meeting, see the recording here:
Join us for our September 2020 General Meeting this coming Monday, September 14 from 7 to 9 p.m. on Zoom.
We will hear from scholar and activist Bill Fletcher Jr. about the origins of our racist political economy, and what it means for worker organizing today in the U.S.
We will also hear from ORA member Tim Dempsey about the ArlFiber campaign to bring community broadband to Arlington.
As always, there will be an open forum for members and other community members to share information with us.
We look forward to seeing you there.
August 2020 Meeting:
There will be no general meeting in August. Instead we encourage you all to watch this forum on the digital divide and community broadband that we held on August 19:
The pandemic has made it clear that the digital divide is a national emergency. Here in Arlington, as many as 10% of households have no home internet. These are primarily low-income families and people of color who cannot afford home service. With children set to return to school in an online format in the fall, this is an unacceptable state of affairs. This forum will discuss the nature of the digital divide and possible solutions, particularly a public option for broadband. Please sign our petition here. For more details on community broadband, click here.
Moderator: Maya Jones (ArlDems Black Caucus), Tim Dempsey (ArlFiber)
1) Gigi Sohn, Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy and a Benton Senior Fellow and Public Advocate. Topic: Federal Policy and the Digital Divide.
2) Francella Ochillo, Executive Director at Next Century Cities. Topic: The digital divide and racial/digital equity;
3) Holly Hartell, Assistant CIO for Strategic Initiatives at Arlington County Department of Technology. Topic: The digital divide in Arlington;
4) Robert Bridgham, Executive Director of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Broadband Authority. Topic: The broadband authority model in Virginia;
5) Bruce Patterson, Technology Director, City of Ammon Fiber Optics. Topic: The Ammon model;
July 2020 Meeting:
If you missed this meeting, you can watch a recording on our YouTube page:
"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal"- Emma Goldman
These words have been a rallying cry of radicals the world over for decades, but they overlook an important fact: for a huge segment of the population, it is illegal. All throughout the country, politicians at all levels of government make decisions affecting the millions of non-citizen immigrants living here on a daily basis while those affected have zero say over those policies or the politicians implementing them, leaving them vulnerable to all sorts of abuses, exploitation, xenophobia, and race-baiting. While the idea of non-citizen residents voting is often portrayed as a threat to American democracy, can a system which excludes millions of the people living under it from having a say be called a democracy in the first place? And did you know that prior to the mid-19th century, non-citizen voting was not only allowed in America, but even encouraged? Or that expanding the right to vote to non-citizens has already occured in many cities throughout the country? Join Our Revolution Arlington this Monday, July 13th from 7:00-9:00 P.M. on Zoom for our July general meeting: "Universal Suffrage: Non-Citizen Residents and the Right to Vote", a presentation which will be hosted by Ron Hayduk, a professor of political science at San Francisco State University who has written extensively on the topic. Here is the Zoom link to join Monday's meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84789503168?pwd=ZHNsKzZMSTMvZDVkOXYvVWJhSUxOZz09
Additionally, LaColectiVA will be holding a teach-in webinar on efforts and demands to #DefundThePolice in NOVA tonight at 7:00 P.M. We strongly encourage everyone to sign up for this webinar. Register here: http://form.jotform.com/201844678342157
Finally, as a reminder to anyone who is nervous about going out to grocery shop during this pandemic and/or wants an alternative to relying on services like Instacart, we have set up a mutual aid network for grocery deliveries that you can take advantage of. Just read the guidelines and contact any of the volunteers on the spreadsheet:
Guidelines: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gYgQlEy533aS_WczKwcqrKXH5SnJp9_ByrghCKzRcFY/edit?fbclid=IwAR0jmzhjsu9R2uMv1VSs6zlU-A74UiZqce0QwuEbE-qUOf6mqUGMY_D-K2g
Volunteer Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XIDE9KL-xEAuMhLH9ahUYIEbxzdBICN_wWygAeWAYA8/edit?fbclid=IwAR0xXTXC9trad7yJq12zOOu-GFRhDnK16vaxzqjqB1A2e-K76hw-PI0tVEc#gid=0
June 2020 Meeting:
Please join us for our June 2020 monthly meeting on Monday, June 8 from 7-9 p.m. **This is a zoom meeting, so you will need to RSVP below to get the meeting ID and password.**
We'll be hearing from Geoff Gilbert, an Associate General Counsel at The Working World, who will be talking to us about his vision for building a solidarity economy in a post-COVID world. Geoff is an attorney committed to helping to build out the practices of non-extractive finance and solidarity economy lawyering. He joined The Working World as a volunteer in 2017 and started working at TWW in 2018 after graduating from Georgetown University Law Center. Outside of TWW, Geoff is also involved with progressive political organizing in Washington, DC, where he lives. Geoff has published a number of articles in Truthout, which you can read here.
We will also hear from Jessie Patton from SURJ NOVA about the NOVA mutual aid network and Kellen MacBeth from the Arlington Tenant-Landlord Commission on his initiative to form tenant unions in Arlington.
Lastly, we will have an open forum to discuss the racial justice protests and police riots and how to respond to them as a group.


text:
You know, that quote about the future already being here. I saw a tweet at the end of last year about an airport in Helsinki that had already gone 5G replete with welcoming robots. All this progress in various stages of 5G planning, rollout, development, and, well, freakout (conversations we were having in back channels) prompted me to wonder if the time was right to revisit the idea of launching a "5G Adoption Council." The market conditions were similar. At least here in the U.S., they were very similar.
A heck of a lot of change is coming fast to the Enterprise and all I see out there are vendors and high paid experts driving the conversation on what customers should be doing. Large enterprises can benefit now by sharing notes and intelligence at this early stage of technology transformation.
World's first #5G airport Helsinki gets 5G robot to help travelers and staff@Finavia @nokia @nokianetworks https://t.co/mDjmdmabva pic.twitter.com/hk0kesqXPr
— Telia Company (@TeliaCompany) December 3, 2018
There's no better way to learn how to innovate than to learn how to innovate together with your peers, across industries and geographies in a transparent and generous network of like-minded individuals who share the same values.
If that sounds like fun and something interesting to you, and you work for a large enterprise of more than 10K employees, consider joining us.
We started putting together a team of interested individuals. We're calling it The 5G Enterprise Council. You need to fill out this form to apply. But, that's it. We've got plans for a variety of programs and learning opportunities, especially for charter members. If you were a member of The 2.0 Adoption Council, you will appreciate this new and improved Council. Imagine… we will venture outside of the cloud for field trips!
Everyone says 5G is going to change everything. It is. But it won't change what happens when a group of people get together to enjoy each other's company and help each other grow.
Come grow with us into the future.


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Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education
Faculty of Community Services, Education and Social Sciences
School of Communications and Multimedia
This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of: Herrington, A. J., Herrington, J. A., Oliver, R. G., Stoney, S. B., & Willis, J. A. (2001). Quality guidelines for online courses: the development of an instrument to audit online units. Proceedings of 18th Conference of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education. (pp. 263-270). Melbourne, VIC. Biomedical Multimedia.
Institutional, national and global pressures demand that universities address issues of quality in teaching and learning. The maintenance of existing courses and the imperative to offer new courses online necessitates the development of measures and guidelines that can inform instructional designers and academics. A number of quality guidelines have been produced that reflect different contexts and purposes. Some focus on school learning, some on pedagogy alone and some that reflect the designs of particular courseware management software. This paper sets out to describe a workable set of guidelines for academic and support staff in the development and benchmarking of online course quality across the institution that emphasised current approaches to teaching and learning in higher education supported by appropriate content and delivery strategies.
Access Rights


text:
Knowledge Circle
The Sankofa Bookstore offer a library service that we call the knowledge Circle (book club). We have group discussion and offer books/dvds for rent.
Mobile Bookstore
We also offer a mobile bookstore, bringing the bookstore to people at different events, whether it be festivals, school presentations, church events or even dances at a nightclub, Sankofa is willing to be there and get the knowledge accessible.
Community Lectures
Sankofa also offers a the platform to bring lectures to the community, whether it be local lecturers, or lecturers from out of town, it is important to have a chance to sit down and meet with the people who are doing a lot of the research these days and fully discuss what is going on.
Premium Paid Content
Sankofa also hosts movie nights, at which we watch a movie, usually a lecture or documentary and we discuss about the topic. We then upload the content and discussion online and make it available via pay per view or on a subscription basis.


text:
A well-groomed pet is a healthy and happy pet.
Furrific is here for all your dog grooming needs. From bathing and drying to clippering, trimming and styling we've got you covered.
Furrific is Kemptville's premier dog grooming salon. Want to know the difference between a dog groomer and a dog stylist?
Come experience the Furrific difference.
Brita is a senior dog who loves the hydro-massage tub and the special care and cuddles she gets at Furrific. Kathryn keeps her on her feet on slippery floors with Soft Claws.
Miss Sara got a haircut today! Thanks Furrific Dog Grooming.
Amazing with people and especially the dog! Cricket had a hard time with grooming but is now happy to walk in and see Kathryn! Her personal touches make it worth every penny!!
I am so happy to have found Kathryn for my boy Bowie. She does such a great job on him, he comes home handsome, and smelling so fresh and clean!
Wednesday and Thursday
12:30 pm — 8:30 pm
10:00 am — 6:00 pm
Saturday and every second Sunday
8:30 am – 5:30 pm
All appointments are by appointment only and the salon will be closed on Mondays*, Tuesdays and holidays.
*The salon will be open one Monday evening per month (typically the first Monday of the month) for nail trims only.


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Few in the United States would recognize Charlene Barshefsky or remember what she did. Not so in China where the former Trade Representative says she is stopped in the streets by ordinary people and thanked.
Her gift to the Chinese people was leading the U.S. delegation that negotiated China's entry to the World Trade Organization in December 2001. The removal of trade barriers heralded unprecedented economic growth for China, vaulting it in a decade to the second largest economy in the world and helping slash its rural poverty rate from 10.2 percent in 2000 to 2.8 percent in 2010.
"The Chinese consider WTO entry the most historic achievement in U.S.-China relations since (U.S. President Richard) Nixon's visit to China," in 1972, Barshefsky said.
It is a different story in the United States where, 10 years on, China's entry into the club of world trading nations is having equally huge ramifications.
The flood of cheap manufactured goods gives an extra $600 a year for the average American family to spend on clothing, shoes, household goods and electronics. But Made in China has hastened the decline of U.S. manufacturing. Factory jobs have shrunk in number by 25 percent the past decade to 11.5 million today, and average factory wages adjusted for inflation have virtually stagnated.
Chinese imports meanwhile have ballooned the U.S.-Sino trade deficit to $273 billion, four times that with any other country. It has stirred anti-China sentiment, a labor union backlash and legislation in Congress to try and force China to let its currency strengthen more rapidly to lower its export advantage.
Now American business, lured a decade ago by the promise of a fast-growing Chinese middle class, is starting to shift gears and rethink what the China dream can deliver. Some chief executives are questioning whether the United States is pressing China hard enough to hold up its side of the bargain in joining the elite trade club.
"I think by any definition -- if you look at the raw numbers -- we've made a lot of progress. But by the same definition, we'd be fooling ourselves if there isn't a lot of frustration," said the man who now holds Barshefky's old job, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.
The reconsideration of China is taking place while the United States struggles with an economic slump that has brought high unemployment and doubts about the country's long-term fiscal health. It is also taking place in an election year, and while China is a regular target in presidential campaigns, even Mitt Romney, with the strongest corporate credentials of all the Republican candidates, has made a point of criticizing China.
Almost 10 years to the day that China joined the WTO on December 11, 2001, Washington is growing concerned that China has lost its commitment to freer trade and that as new leaders prepare to take over next year, China is abandoning its march toward market capitalism in favor of state mercantilism.
"There's competition between the American economic model and the more state-centered economic model of China and other countries," said Robert Hormats, U.S. Undersecretary of State for economic affairs in an interview last month.
For the United States, toughening its economic stance toward the world's emerging superpower is a delicate balancing act and carries with it geopolitical risks as China flexes its muscle across Northern Asia, Africa and Latin America.
"We have a challenge in dealing with China," said Hormats, one of the Obama administration's top economic diplomats. "On one hand, the global system won't work well if we and China can't cooperate and productively resolve our differences. On the other hand, we have real differences, many of which are awfully difficult to resolve."
Tensions mount
The U.S. complaints about China are well known -- widespread theft of intellectual property, a lack of transparency about its regulations, missed WTO deadlines for opening markets, foot-dragging in allowing its currency to rise in value and subsidies such as low-interest state loans that favor domestic industries.
China argues that as a developing economy, it needs to protect its nascent industries and help them grow. It also retorts that the United States blocks its companies in key sectors.
Huawei Technologies, for instance, withdrew its $2 million bid this year for 3 Leaf Technologies when the U.S. government raised national security concerns, and oil giant CNOOC canceled an $18.5 billion bid for American oil company Unocal Corp in 2005 after a political backlash in the United States.
As trade frictions grow, corporate America for the first time is publicly voicing concern that the trade deal with China is lopsided, and pressure is building on President Barack Obama to toughen his stance.
Jim McNerney, Boeing Co's chief executive, touched upon the issue in November, speaking of a "dilemma" in China relations when he asked Obama at the APEC business summit how he would assess the U.S.-China relationship when both the left and the right are calling for a harder line.
Obama gave his administration's standard response of pursuing constructive engagement and a strong policy with a key partner, but the subtle criticism appeared to have hit home. Later, after a private meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao, he called for China to stop "gaming" the world trade system.
Business can be a far more powerful lobby than trade unions, the traditional voices that have complained of China's trade practices. Its influence, particularly in a presidential election year, could lead to increasingly adversarial relations.
"The level of business support for stable U.S.-China relations is beginning to fracture," said Nick Consonery, China expert at the EurAsia Group, a political risk institute that works closely with corporations.
"It is definitely happening because the business perspective is changing and they are less willing to get out in front of (and support) the administration's 'strong and stable' relationship."
In October, the U.S. Senate passed for the first time a bill designed to punish Chinese imports with levies, unless China allows its currency to rise more rapidly in value. Many U.S. economists and lawmakers believe China's yuan is kept artificially cheap by as much as 10-25 percent -- another subsidy to Chinese exporters that helps them undercut foreign competition.
Never before has a currency measure, brought forward multiple times in the past, won U.S. Senate support. No action has yet been taken in the U.S. House, where it is expected to founder.
Business complains
The policy that perhaps most frustrates American business stems from a 2008 announcement by China's State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. It identified "economic lifeline" sectors that China says it must dominate.
The list is long -- aviation, air freight, coal, oil and petrochemicals, power generation, telecommunications and weapons. Industries such as chemicals, equipment and auto manufacturing, electronic communications, steel and nonferrous metals are set as state controlled to varying degrees. These state-owned enterprises enjoy a monopoly or oligopoly in the Chinese market; subsidies for land, water and power; and below-market cost of capital.
Until recently, American business leaders had been loath to speak of China's practices for fear it would lose them lucrative contracts or result in regulatory scrutiny that harms their China operations. Several have gone public in the past few months.
"The Chinese government is not going to allow a non-Chinese Internet company to succeed... It is a weapon in the 21st century national security games," eBay Inc chief executive John Donahue said in October at a Web 2.0 summit.
EBay has abandoned its efforts to build a Chinese marketplace where people bid for goods online after it ran into stiff competition from a free Chinese site. Its new strategy is to sell goods from Chinese companies to international buyers. "It was about finding a business model that works in China," said Daniel Feiler, spokesman for its China operations.
Google Inc. last year pulled back to Hong Kong on concerns Chinese were hacking the Internet search giant and a row with China over censorship.
Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive of General Electric Co which has multibillion dollar contracts in turbines, railroad engines and aircraft parts with China, also faced choices in how to compete. "The notion was, if we're part of the Chinese economy, we should be allowed to win."
But finding ways to win means that companies have to avoid confrontations with Chinese authorities, he said. "We're not naive or stupid about these things. We really do think a lot about it," said the CEO, who advises Obama on business competitive issues. "There is a multitude of ways to succeed in China."
China's policies have helped vault its industries to global prominence. It has 61 companies today among the global Fortune 500 list, almost quadruple the number in 2005. The U.S. tally over the same period has fallen to 133 from 176. What American business finds disturbing is that most of the Chinese companies are state-owned, including the three in Fortune's Top Ten -- China Petroleum and Chemical Corp, China National Petroleum and State Grid.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in a joint report with the Coalition of Services Industries that China and other countries lavish regulatory favors and generous subsidies on their state-owned firms, making it very difficult to compete.
"No adequate and effective international disciplines now exist to deal with this problem," it said.
Fighting back
In the past three years, the United States has brought five cases against China at the WTO, more aggressive than the seven cases during the eight years of former President George W. Bush's administration. By March 2010, the United States had won three WTO cases against China, four were resolved before WTO action, and four were pending.
Apart from negotiations at WTO complaints, the United States also is working to draw other big Asian trading nations into regional or bilateral trade pacts, which are designed to open markets and serve as a hedge or counterweight against Chinese trade policies. It ratified a free trade agreement with South Korea recently and has breathed new life into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 9-nation free-trade group that gained new heft in November when Japan, Canada and Mexico announced plans to join negotiations. U.S. officials want TPP to set new standards on free trade and become a template for future international trade deals.
What remains unclear in Washington is whether China's new leadership in 2012 will resume market opening or turn further inward.
The country took a huge leap in the 1990s as it prepared for WTO entry, slashing red tape, removing layers of protection for domestic factories and farms and opening its markets. That work is widely credited inside and outside China with turning the country into the industrial dynamo of today.
The U.S. ambassador to the WTO Michael Punke said China made "impressive steps" to bring its laws and regulations into line with global rules in the five years after WTO entry.
Some trade experts say reform fatigue then set in and they expect opening measures to resume. Other U.S. experts say China turned away from market liberalization as early as 2003, when the reform-minded team of President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji retired and handed power to the more cautious current leadership of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, respectively.
"Nobody who was watching China enter the WTO back then saw this change coming," said China trade analyst Derek Scissors of the Heritage Foundation. "It was as if a different government with different priorities came in," he said.
Hu and Wen are due to retire from their state posts in March 2013 and hand over power to successors, most likely led by current Vice President Xi Jinping. The next generation of leaders has not expressed economic or trade policy views that depart from current statist orthodoxy, and are expected to proceed cautiously once in power.
The cost could be high, said Long Yongtu, who negotiated China's WTO entry in the late 1990s. He told a recent symposium he was extremely worried that "essentially, after 10 years, it seems China is drifting away from the WTO."
A statist model that denies fair competition for all enterprises, domestic and foreign, could stifle China's economic growth, Long said.
"We cannot only have large-scale and state-owned enterprises. That is only the skeleton of the economy. We need thousands upon thousands of small and medium-sized private enterprises. They are the flesh and blood of the Chinese economy."


text:
This puzzle is a sample from 100 puzzles that form the game 'ESL ESCAPE ROOM`
Escape Room is designed for teachers of Intermediate English Language who want to liven up their classes with fun, engaging and competitive puzzle solving. It includes a variety of vocabulary and grammar points that are key to intermediate English so regardless of which curriculum you're following, you'll find puzzles, that are relevant to your class.
The answer to this puzzle is a single-digit number. If you download the full Escape Room from TpT you'll be able to combine puzzles so that students have to discover a code.
You can find Escape Room at -
Upload date: 2020-09-15 20:11:10


text:
My Mum died in September and I would like to keep our text history to remind me of her. Is there a way of doing it? I have an iPhone 6 Plus, Macbook Air and external 2TB hard drive. Very little knowledge of what I'm doing! Thank you in advance!
I am sorry to hear that. But obviously, this user needs to keep all text message history from his mom just to view them when miss her. In other words, how to back up those messages received from his mom? To most people, it is not a difficult problem to keep all those text messages on iPhone, for when it comes to backup, you have two alternatives: iCloud and iTunes. Yeah, both of them can keep all your iPhone messages. However, the problem is that it is hard for you to access and view those backed up messages when you need to. So is there other way to keep those message history from iPhone for better experience? Absolutely. Keep reading here.
If you need to access and view those text messages, I think you have two options: one is to transfer all those text messages from iPhone to your computer so that you can view them at your computer conveniently; the other one is to use backup extractor software to view those messages backed up in iTunes or iCloud. The good news, iFonebox can not only help you view messages backed up in iTunes or iCloud, but transfer messages from iPhone to your computer.
It is known that iFonebox is a professional iPhone data recovery which allows you to recover deleted messages, contacts, notes, etc, from iPhone and iPad. Besides, it is a great helper to extract and view what's been backed up in iTunes or iCloud. Also, if you want to transfer iPhone data to computer, it will also do you a favor. Next, I will show you how to keep those messages on your computer.
How to keep text messages from a contacts on iPhone?
It is necessary to download and install iFonebox on your computer: Windows version and Mac version.
Run iFonebox. Choose Recover from iOS Device mode. Please connect your iPhone to the computer so as to scan and keep those messages to your computer. Click Start button to begin.
Scan messages from iPhone. Click on Messages item to start scanning and analysis.
Preview and select all messages to transfer. Now you can choose all scanned messages and then, click Recover to PC button to transfer them to your computer. You can access and view them as you wish.
Notes: if you have an iTunes or iCloud backup for those messages and you want to read them, just choose Recover from iTunes Backup or Recover from iCloud backup mode to read and view messages via iFonebox.
In short, it is quite simple to keep all text message history from a contact on iPhone with the help from iFonebox.


text:
Group Booking Terms and Conditions
Because you are making a Group Booking, there are additional Terms and Conditions that apply. Please read them and click 'I Accept' below to continue with your booking
General Group Booking Terms
By making a group reservation through Hostelworld.com you agree to the following terms and conditions as set by Hostelworld.com and as set by the hostel in question.
- In order to make a group reservation on Hostelworld.com it is necessary to pay a deposit. The balance is due directly to the hostel according to their payment conditions.
- The booking deposit is non-refundable.
- Please note that any cancellations must be notified directly to the hostel at least 24 hours in advance of your scheduled arrival date, unless otherwise stated in the hostel's conditions.
- Hostelworld.com are not responsible for changes or amendments to your reservation once it has been processed. All correspondence with regard to changes to your booking need to be dealt with directly with the hostel.
- Cancellations for reservations must be made directly with the hostel and must conform with the individual hostels cancellation policy (see below)
- It is your responsibility to pay the balance of your accommodation cost to the hostel in accordance with their payment conditions (see below). Failure to do so may result in your reservation being cancelled by the hostel.
- Individual hostels may have special booking conditions relating to group stays, please read the hostel booking conditions carefully before making your reservation.
Hostel Specific Terms & Conditions
The remainder of the amount due will be charged to your credit card on arrival. Should numbers or room selection change, the per person deposit times the number of people who actually travelled will be deducted from the total accommodation charge levvied by the hostel.
Cancellation / No Show & Reduction in Numbers Policy
Cancellations must be done 2 weeks prior to arrival. After that the group will be liable for part or all of their monies paid.
The following group types are not accepted by this hostel: Junior / Primary School, High / Secondary School, Stag/Hen/Bachelor Party If you have misrepresented the type of group you are booking for, your booking may be cancelled by the hostel."
Any cancellations resulting from agreement to these terms and conditions under false pretences will result in loss of deposit.
Du musst die Bedingungen annehmen, um die Buchung zu bestätigen
Wir lieben dieses Hostel! Daumen hoch für eine durchweg hohe Kundenbewertung und ausgezeichnete Qualität.
Gratis WiFi
Astor Kensington
Hostelworld sagt
The moment you walk through our doors you become part of our family and we want you to have an incredible experience! We want every detail - from our super clean bathrooms and comfortable pillows to our unforgettable social events - to be perfect, giving you a London adventure that is 10 out of 10!
Winner of No.1 Small Hostel Group Worldwide and a Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence in the Hostel Industry. We thrive on ensuring every guest comes satisfied, and if you have any problems along the way, we are always there, ready to help! For this and many other reasons staying at Astor Hostels is the top choice for anyone exploring London on a budget!
Reception hours (24 hours)
Check-in is available from 2 pm.
Check-out is from any time until 10 am. Please ensure you check out before 10 am; otherwise, you may be charged for an extra night.
We cater for travellers between 18 and 40 years.
Proof of identification: A valid proof of ID must be shown on arrival, including a passport, driving license, and national identity cards. The property cannot accept paper driving licenses and student or employee IDs as proof of identity. Failure to show proof of ID upon arrival will result in cancellation of the reservation without a refund.
Key Card: You will be required to give us a GBP 5 key deposit for your room access card at check-in time.
Breakfast: We provide Breakfast every morning, which costs just GBP 3.
Dairy-free Milk: Coconut/soy/almond/
Regular Milk: skimmed and semi-skimmed
Juices: Orange and apple
Instant coffee, tea and hot chocolate
Cereals: granola, rice pop, choco pop, honey hoop and cornflakes
Bread: White and Wholemeal
Spreads: White and milk chocolate (Nutella style), peanut butter, regular butter, plant base/dairy-free (butter style) honey, fruit jam (strawberry, raspberry, blackcurrant and apricot) and marmite.
(Items may vary depending on availability and hostel)
Common Areas: The kitchen/dining room and common areas are all back open to enjoy a meal or meet fellow travellers (The kitchen and lounges will be shut at midnight and reopening at 8 am).
Facilities: Please be aware that our building has no lift and that you may be assigned to one of our top floors and a top bunk bed.
Events: The hostel organises events aimed at backpackers between the ages of 18-40 years.
Please note that all bookings are subject to the signing of the property's terms and conditions via a rental agreement which will be emailed to the guest following their reservation. Please note that all guests must be aged over 18. Underage guests who book will not be accommodated and will not be refunded. When booking for 12 persons or more, different policies will apply.
Luggage storage is free on the day of arrival and costs GBP 2 per bag on the day of departure. An extra fee of GBP 7.5 per bag per day applies for the days following check-out. Storage lockers for small valuables are available for GBP 2 per day. Towels are available for rent for GBP 3.
At our fantastic hostel, you will have full access to:
Free Fast Wi-Fi throughout the building
24-hour reception for anything you may need (including late check-in/early check-out)
CCTV is in operation 24 hours a day
Storage Lockers available for your valuables GBP 2 per locker per day
Laundry facilities are available 24 hours
Hairdryers and ironing facilities free to use
Beautiful lounge area with comfy sofas and an enormous projector screen for movies and sports!
Helpful Extras
Free City Maps
Tourist Information, walking tours and advice on local attractions and transport (24hrs)
Padlocks and Adaptors are available for sale for GBP 5 each
Discounts at local restaurants and coffee shops
Towels are available for hire at GBP 3
Printing 0.20p per sheet
Clean, crisp linen on your bed, ready to sleep on!
Late Check-Out is available to sleep in a little more until Midday (book in advance at reception)!
Please Note: For the safety of others, anyone exhibiting symptoms of Covid-19 will be unable to stay at the hostel. Therefore, we recommend you return home if travelling domestically or to use specialist self-isolation accommodation. Self-Isolation - Guests who wish to self-isolate in the hostel must do so in a private room; guests must not perform the self-isolation period if coming from abroad in shared dorms. Hausregeln anzeigen
Verfügbarkeit prüfen
- Bettwäsche im Preis inbegriffen
- Gratis WiFi
- kostenlose Stadtpläne
- Adapter
- Befolgen Sie die Covid-19-Hygieneanweisungen
- Duschen mit Warmwasser
- Gemeinschaftsraum
- Haartrockner zum Ausleihen
- Kabelfernsehen
- Küche
- Schließfächer
- Sicherer Nachttresor
- Waschmaschine
- Zugang mit Schlüsselkarte
- 24-Stunden-Sicherheitsservice
- Gepäckaufbewahrung
- Handtücher zum Ausleihen
- Internetzugang
- Waschmöglichkeiten
- Zimmerreinigung
- Tee- und Kaffeeecke
- Verkaufsautomat
3., Hostelkette
1., Kleine Hostelkette
1., Lifetime Achievement Award
1., Kleine Hostelkette
1., Lifetime Achievement Award
3., Hostelkette
Astor Kensington sagt
Sitzung abgelaufen
Sitzung abgelaufen
Bitte geben Sie das Passwort für das Konto <% email %>