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Agriculture and the Environment
Steven Stoll
During the Holocene, the present geological epoch, an increasing portion of humans began to manipulate the reproduction of plants and animals in a series of environmental practices known as agriculture. No other ecological relationship sustains as many humans as farming; no other has transformed the landscape to the same extent. The domestication of plants by American Indians followed the end of the last glacial maximum (the Ice Age). About eight thousand years ago, the first domesticated maize and squash arrived from central Mexico, spreading to every region and as far north as the subarctic boreal forest. The incursion of Europeans into North America set off widespread deforestation, soil depletion, and the spread of settlement, followed by the introduction of industrial machines and chemicals. A series of institutions sponsored publically funded research into fertilizers and insecticides. By the late 19th century, writers and activists criticized the technological transformation of farming as destructive to the environment and rural society. During the 20th century, wind erosion contributed to the depopulation of much of the Great Plains. Vast projects in environmental engineering transformed deserts into highly productive regions of intensive fruit and vegetable production. Throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries, access to land remained limited to whites, with American Indians, African Americans, Latinas/os, Chinese, and peoples of other ethnicities attempting to gain farms or hold on to the land they owned.
Two broad periods describe the history of agriculture and the environment in that portion of North America that became the United States. In the first, the environment dominated, forcing humans to adapt during the end of thousands of years of extreme climate variability. In the second, institutional and technological change became more significant, though the environment remained a constant factor against which American agriculture took shape. A related historical pattern within this shift was the capitalist transformation of the United States. For thousands of years, households sustained themselves and exchanged some of what they produced for money. But during the 19th century among a majority of American farmers, commodities took over the entire purpose of agriculture, transforming environments to reflect commercial opportunity.
Agriculture, Food, and the Environment
Kathleen A. Brosnan and Jacob Blackwell
Throughout history, food needs bonded humans to nature. The transition to agriculture constituted slow, but revolutionary ecological transformations. After 1500
A History of Philippine-American Relations
Patricio N. Abinales
An enduring resilience characterizes Philippine–American relationship for several reasons. For one, there is an unusual colonial relationship wherein the United States took control of the Philippines from the Spanish and then shared power with an emergent Filipino elite, introduced suffrage, implemented public education, and promised eventual national independence. A shared experience fighting the Japanese in World War II and defeating a postwar communist rebellion further cemented the "special relationship" between the two countries. The United States took advantage of this partnership to compel the Philippines to sign an economic and military treaty that favored American businesses and the military, respectively. Filipino leaders not only accepted the realities of this strategic game and exploited every opening to assert national interests but also benefitted from American largesse. Under the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos, this mutual cadging was at its most brazen. As a result, the military alliance suffered when the Philippines terminated the agreement, and the United States considerably reduced its support to the country. But the estrangement did not last long, and both countries rekindled the "special relationship" in response to the U.S. "Global War on Terror" and, of late, Chinese military aggression in the West Philippine Sea.
The American Antinuclear Movement
Paul Rubinson
Spanning countries across the globe, the antinuclear movement was the combined effort of millions of people to challenge the superpowers' reliance on nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Encompassing an array of tactics, from radical dissent to public protest to opposition within the government, this movement succeeded in constraining the arms race and helping to make the use of nuclear weapons politically unacceptable. Antinuclear activists were critical to the establishment of arms control treaties, although they failed to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons, as anticommunists, national security officials, and proponents of nuclear deterrence within the United States and Soviet Union actively opposed the movement. Opposition to nuclear weapons evolved in tandem with the Cold War and the arms race, leading to a rapid decline in antinuclear activism after the Cold War ended.
American Environmental Diplomacy
Kurk Dorsey
From its inception as a nation in 1789, the United States has engaged in an environmental diplomacy that has included attempts to gain control of resources, as well as formal diplomatic efforts to regulate the use of resources shared with other nations and peoples. American environmental diplomacy has sought to gain control of natural resources, to conserve those resources for the future, and to protect environmental amenities from destruction. As an acquirer of natural resources, the United States has focused on arable land as well as on ocean fisheries, although around 1900, the focus on ocean fisheries turned into a desire to conserve marine resources from unregulated harvesting.
The main 20th-century U.S. goal was to extend beyond its borders its Progressive-era desire to utilize resources efficiently, meaning the greatest good for the greatest number for the longest time. For most of the 20th century, the United States was the leader in promoting global environmental protection through the best science, especially emphasizing wildlife. Near the end of the century, U.S. government science policy was increasingly out of step with global environmental thinking, and the United States often found itself on the outside. Most notably, the attempts to address climate change moved ahead with almost every country in the world except the United States.
While a few monographs focus squarely on environmental diplomacy, it is safe to say that historians have not come close to tapping the potential of the intersection of the environmental and diplomatic history of the United States.
American Environmental Policy since 1964
Richard N. L. Andrews
Between 1964 and 2017, the United States adopted the concept of environmental policy as a new focus for a broad range of previously disparate policy issues affecting human interactions with the natural environment. These policies ranged from environmental health, pollution, and toxic exposure to management of ecosystems, resources, and use of the public lands, environmental aspects of urbanization, agricultural practices, and energy use, and negotiation of international agreements to address global environmental problems. In doing so, it nationalized many responsibilities that had previously been considered primarily state or local matters. It changed the United States' approach to federalism by authorizing new powers for the federal government to set national minimum environmental standards and regulatory frameworks with the states mandated to participate in their implementation and compliance. Finally, it explicitly formalized administrative procedures for federal environmental decision-making with stricter requirements for scientific and economic justification rather than merely administrative discretion. In addition, it greatly increased public access to information and opportunities for input, as well as for judicial review, thus allowing citizen advocates for environmental protection and appreciative uses equal legitimacy with commodity producers to voice their preferences for use of public environmental resources.
These policies initially reflected widespread public demand and broad bipartisan support. Over several decades, however, they became flashpoints, first, between business interests and environmental advocacy groups and, subsequently, between increasingly ideological and partisan agendas concerning the role of the federal government. Beginning in the 1980s, the long-standing Progressive ideal of the "public interest" was increasingly supplanted by a narrative of "government overreach," and the 1990s witnessed campaigns to delegitimize the underlying evidence justifying environmental policies by labeling it "junk science" or a "hoax."
From the 1980s forward, the stated priorities of environmental policy vacillated repeatedly between presidential administrations and Congresses supporting continuation and expansion of environmental protection and preservation policies versus those seeking to weaken or even reverse protections in favor of private-property rights and more damaging uses of resources. Yet despite these apparent shifts, the basic environmental laws and policies enacted during the 1970s remained largely in place: political gridlock, in effect, maintained the status quo, with the addition of a very few innovations such as "cap and trade" policies. One reason was that environmental policies retained considerable latent public support: in electoral campaigns, they were often overshadowed by economic and other issues, but they still aroused widespread support in their defense when threatened. Another reason was that decisions by the courts also continued to reaffirm many existing policies and to reject attempts to dismantle them.
With the election of Donald Trump in 2016, along with conservative majorities in both houses of Congress, US environmental policy came under the most hostile and wide-ranging attack since its origins. More than almost any other issue, the incoming president targeted environmental policy for rhetorical attacks and budget cuts, and sought to eradicate the executive policies of his predecessor, weaken or rescind protective regulations, and undermine the regulatory and even the scientific capacity of the federal environmental agencies. In the early 21st century, it is as yet unclear how much of his agenda will actually be accomplished, or whether, as in past attempts, much of it will ultimately be blocked by Congress, the courts, public backlash, and business and state government interests seeking stable policy expectations rather than disruptive deregulation.
The American Experience during World War II
Michael C. C. Adams
On the eve of World War II many Americans were reluctant to see the United States embark on overseas involvements. Yet the Japanese attack on the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, seemingly united the nation in determination to achieve total victory in Asia and Europe. Underutilized industrial plants expanded to full capacity producing war materials for the United States and its allies. Unemployment was sucked up by the armed services and war work. Many Americans' standard of living improved, and the United States became the wealthiest nation in world history.
Over time, this proud record became magnified into the "Good War" myth that has distorted America's very real achievement. As the era of total victories receded and the United States went from leading creditor to debtor nation, the 1940s appeared as a golden age when everything worked better, people were united, and the United States saved the world for democracy (an exaggeration that ignored the huge contributions of America's allies, including the British Empire, the Soviet Union, and China). In fact, during World War II the United States experienced marked class, sex and gender, and racial tensions. Groups such as gays made some social progress, but the poor, especially many African Americans, were left behind. After being welcomed into the work force, women were pressured to go home when veterans returned looking for jobs in late 1945–1946, losing many of the gains they had made during the conflict. Wartime prosperity stunted the development of a welfare state; universal medical care and social security were cast as unnecessary. Combat had been a horrific experience, leaving many casualties with major physical or emotional wounds that took years to heal. Like all major global events, World War II was complex and nuanced, and it requires careful interpretation.
American Film from the Silent Era to the "Talkies"
Donna Kornhaber
The first forty years of cinema in the United States, from the development and commercialization of modern motion picture technology in the mid-1890s to the full blossoming of sound-era Hollywood during the early 1930s, represents one of the most consequential periods in the history of the medium. It was a time of tremendous artistic and economic transformation, including but not limited to the storied transition from silent motion pictures to "the talkies" in the late 1920s.
Though the nomenclature of the silent era implies a relatively unified period in film history, the years before the transition to sound saw a succession of important changes in film artistry and its means of production, and film historians generally regard the epoch as divided into at least three separate and largely distinct temporalities. During the period of early cinema, which lasted about a decade from the medium's emergence in the mid-1890s through the middle years of the new century's first decade, motion pictures existed primarily as a novelty amusement presented in vaudeville theatres and carnival fairgrounds. Film historians Tom Gunning and André Gaudreault have famously defined the aesthetic of this period as a "cinema of attractions," in which the technology of recording and reproducing the world, along with the new ways in which it could frame, orient, and manipulate time and space, marked the primary concerns of the medium's artists and spectators.
A transitional period followed from around 1907 to the later 1910s when changes in the distribution model for motion pictures enabled the development of purpose-built exhibition halls and led to a marked increase in demand for the entertainment. On a formal and artistic level, the period saw a rise in the prominence of the story film and widespread experimentation with new techniques of cinematography and editing, many of which would become foundational to later cinematic style. The era also witnessed the introduction and growing prominence of feature-length filmmaking over narrative shorts. The production side was marked by intensifying competition between the original American motion picture studios based in and around New York City, several of which attempted to cement their influence by forming an oligopolistic trust, and a number of upstart "independent" West Coast studios located around Los Angeles.
Both the artistic and production trends of the transitional period came to a head during the classical era that followed, when the visual experimentation of the previous years consolidated into the "classical style" favored by the major studios, and the competition between East Coast and West Coast studios resolved definitively in favor of the latter. This was the era of Hollywood's ascendance over domestic filmmaking in the United States and its growing influence over worldwide film markets, due in part to the decimation of the European film industry during World War I. After nearly a decade of dominance, the Hollywood studio system was so refined that the advent of marketable synchronized sound technology around 1927 produced relatively few upheavals among the coterie of top studios. Rather, the American film industry managed to reorient itself around the production of talking motion pictures so swiftly that silent film production in the United States had effectively ceased at any appreciable scale by 1929.
Artistically, the early years of "the talkies" proved challenging, as filmmakers struggled with the imperfections of early recording technology and the limitations they imposed on filmmaking practice. But filmgoing remained popular in the United States even during the depths of the Great Depression, and by the early 1930s a combination of improved technology and artistic adaptation led to such a marked increase in quality that many film historians regard the period to be the beginning of Hollywood's Golden Era. With a new voluntary production code put in place to respond to criticism of immorality in Hollywood fare, the American film industry was poised by the early 1930s to solidify its prominent position in American cultural life.
American Film since 1945
Joshua Gleich
Over the past seventy years, the American film industry has transformed from mass-producing movies to producing a limited number of massive blockbuster movies on a global scale. Hollywood film studios have moved from independent companies to divisions of media conglomerates. Theatrical attendance for American audiences has plummeted since the mid-1940s; nonetheless, American films have never been more profitable. In 1945, American films could only be viewed in theaters; now they are available in myriad forms of home viewing. Throughout, Hollywood has continued to dominate global cinema, although film and now video production reaches Americans in many other forms, from home videos to educational films.
Amid declining attendance, the Supreme Court in 1948 forced the major studios to sell off their theaters. Hollywood studios instead focused their power on distribution, limiting the supply of films and focusing on expensive productions to sell on an individual basis to theaters. Growing production costs and changing audiences caused wild fluctuations in profits, leading to an industry-wide recession in the late 1960s. The studios emerged under new corporate ownership and honed their blockbuster strategy, releasing "high concept" films widely on the heels of television marketing campaigns. New technologies such as cable and VCRs offered new windows for Hollywood movies beyond theatrical release, reducing the risks of blockbuster production. Deregulation through the 1980s and 1990s allowed for the "Big Six" media conglomerates to join film, theaters, networks, publishing, and other related media outlets under one corporate umbrella. This has expanded the scale and stability of Hollywood revenue while reducing the number and diversity of Hollywood films, as conglomerates focus on film franchises that can thrive on various digital media. Technological change has also lowered the cost of non-Hollywood films and thus encouraged a range of alternative forms of filmmaking, distribution, and exhibition.
American Food, Cooking, and Nutrition, 1900–1945
Helen Zoe Veit
The first half of the 20th century saw extraordinary changes in the ways Americans produced, procured, cooked, and ate food. Exploding food production easily outstripped population growth in this era as intensive plant and animal breeding, the booming use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and technological advances in farm equipment all resulted in dramatically greater yields on American farms. At the same time, a rapidly growing transportation network of refrigerated ships, railroads, and trucks hugely expanded the reach of different food crops and increased the variety of foods consumers across the country could buy, even as food imports from other countries soared. Meanwhile, new technologies, such as mechanical refrigeration, reliable industrial canning, and, by the end of the era, frozen foods, subtly encouraged Americans to eat less locally and seasonally than ever before. Yet as American food became more abundant and more affordable, diminishing want and suffering, it also contributed to new problems, especially rising body weights and mounting rates of cardiac disease.
American taste preferences themselves changed throughout the era as more people came to expect stronger flavors, grew accustomed to the taste of industrially processed foods, and sampled so-called "foreign" foods, which played an enormous role in defining 20th-century American cuisine. Food marketing exploded, and food companies invested ever greater sums in print and radio advertising and eye-catching packaging. At home, a range of appliances made cooking easier, and modern grocery stores and increasing car ownership made it possible for Americans to food shop less frequently. Home economics provided Americans, especially girls and women, with newly scientific and managerial approaches to cooking and home management, and Americans as a whole increasingly approached food through the lens of science. Virtually all areas related to food saw fundamental shifts in the first half of the 20th century, from agriculture to industrial processing, from nutrition science to weight-loss culture, from marketing to transportation, and from kitchen technology to cuisine. Not everything about food changed in this era, but the rapid pace of change probably exaggerated the transformations for the many Americans who experienced them.
American Foreign Economic Policy
Daniel Sargent
Foreign economic policy involves the mediation and management of economic flows across borders. Over two and a half centuries, the context for U.S. foreign economic policy has transformed. Once a fledgling republic on the periphery of the world economy, the United States has become the world's largest economy, the arbiter of international economic order, and a predominant influence on the global economy. Throughout this transformation, the making of foreign economic policy has entailed delicate tradeoffs between diverse interests—political and material, foreign and domestic, sectional and sectoral, and so on. Ideas and beliefs have also shaped U.S. foreign economic policy—from Enlightenment-era convictions about the pacifying effects of international commerce to late 20th-century convictions about the efficacy of free markets.
American Foreign Policy and the Space Race
Teasel Muir-Harmony
The Soviet Union's successful launch of the first artificial satellite Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, captured global attention and achieved the initial victory in what would soon become known as the space race. This impressive technological feat and its broader implications for Soviet missile capability rattled the confidence of the American public and challenged the credibility of U.S. leadership abroad. With the U.S.S.R.'s launch of Sputnik, and then later the first human spaceflight in 1961, U.S. policymakers feared that the public and political leaders around the world would view communism as a viable and even more dynamic alternative to capitalism, tilting the global balance of power away from the United States and towards the Soviet Union.
Reactions to Sputnik confirmed what members of the U.S. National Security Council had predicted: the image of scientific and technological superiority had very real, far-reaching geopolitical consequences. By signaling Soviet technological and military prowess, Sputnik solidified the link between space exploration and national prestige, setting a course for nationally funded space exploration for years to come. For over a decade, both the Soviet Union and the United States funneled significant financial and personnel resources into achieving impressive firsts in space, as part of a larger effort to win alliances in the Cold War contest for global influence.
From a U.S. vantage point, the space race culminated in the first Moon landing in July 1969. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy proposed Project Apollo, a lunar exploration program, as a tactic for restoring U.S. prestige in the wake of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's spaceflight and the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion. To achieve Kennedy's goal of sending a man to the Moon and returning him safely back to Earth by the end of the decade, the United States mobilized a workforce in the hundreds of thousands. Project Apollo became the most expensive government funded civilian engineering program in U.S. history, at one point stretching to more than 4 percent of the federal budget. The United States' substantial investment in winning the space race reveals the significant status of soft power in American foreign policy strategy during the Cold War.
American Indian Activism after 1945
Bradley Shreve
American Indian activism after 1945 was as much a part of the larger, global decolonization movement rooted in centuries of imperialism as it was a direct response to the ethos of civic nationalism and integration that had gained momentum in the United States following World War II. This ethos manifested itself in the disastrous federal policies of termination and relocation, which sought to end federal services to recognized Indian tribes and encourage Native people to leave reservations for cities. In response, tribal leaders from throughout Indian Country formed the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) in 1944 to litigate and lobby for the collective well-being of Native peoples. The NCAI was the first intertribal organization to embrace the concepts of sovereignty, treaty rights, and cultural preservation—principles that continue to guide Native activists today. As American Indian activism grew increasingly militant in the late 1960s and 1970s, civil disobedience, demonstrations, and takeovers became the preferred tactics of "Red Power" organizations such as the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC), the Indians of All Tribes, and the American Indian Movement (AIM). At the same time, others established more focused efforts that employed less confrontational methods. For example, the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) served as a legal apparatus that represented Native nations, using the courts to protect treaty rights and expand sovereignty; the Council of Energy Resource Tribes (CERT) sought to secure greater returns on the mineral wealth found on tribal lands; and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) brought Native educators together to work for greater self-determination and culturally rooted curricula in Indian schools. While the more militant of these organizations and efforts have withered, those that have exploited established channels have grown and flourished. Such efforts will no doubt continue into the unforeseeable future so long as the state of Native nations remains uncertain.
American Labor and Working-Class History, 1900–1945
Jeffrey Helgeson
Early 20th century American labor and working-class history is a subfield of American social history that focuses attention on the complex lives of working people in a rapidly changing global political and economic system. Once focused closely on institutional dynamics in the workplace and electoral politics, labor history has expanded and refined its approach to include questions about the families, communities, identities, and cultures workers have developed over time. With a critical eye on the limits of liberal capitalism and democracy for workers' welfare, labor historians explore individual and collective struggles against exclusion from opportunity, as well as accommodation to political and economic contexts defined by rapid and volatile growth and deep inequality.
Particularly important are the ways that workers both defined and were defined by differences of race, gender, ethnicity, class, and place. Individual workers and organized groups of working Americans both transformed and were transformed by the main struggles of the industrial era, including conflicts over the place of former slaves and their descendants in the United States, mass immigration and migrations, technological change, new management and business models, the development of a consumer economy, the rise of a more active federal government, and the evolution of popular culture.
The period between 1896 and 1945 saw a crucial transition in the labor and working-class history of the United States. At its outset, Americans were working many more hours a day than the eight for which they had fought hard in the late 19th century. On average, Americans labored fifty-four to sixty-three hours per week in dangerous working conditions (approximately 35,000 workers died in accidents annually at the turn of the century). By 1920, half of all Americans lived in growing urban neighborhoods, and for many of them chronic unemployment, poverty, and deep social divides had become a regular part of life. Workers had little power in either the Democratic or Republican party. They faced a legal system that gave them no rights at work but the right to quit, judges who took the side of employers in the labor market by issuing thousands of injunctions against even nonviolent workers' organizing, and vigilantes and police forces that did not hesitate to repress dissent violently. The ranks of organized labor were shrinking in the years before the economy began to recover in 1897. Dreams of a more democratic alternative to wage labor and corporate-dominated capitalism had been all but destroyed. Workers struggled to find their place in an emerging consumer-oriented culture that assumed everyone ought to strive for the often unattainable, and not necessarily desirable, marks of middle-class respectability.
Yet American labor emerged from World War II with the main sectors of the industrial economy organized, with greater earning potential than any previous generation of American workers, and with unprecedented power as an organized interest group that could appeal to the federal government to promote its welfare. Though American workers as a whole had made no grand challenge to the nation's basic corporate-centered political economy in the preceding four and one-half decades, they entered the postwar world with a greater level of power, and a bigger share in the proceeds of a booming economy, than anyone could have imagined in 1896. The labor and working-class history of the United States between 1900 and 1945, then, is the story of how working-class individuals, families, and communities—members of an extremely diverse American working class—managed to carve out positions of political, economic, and cultural influence, even as they remained divided among themselves, dependent upon corporate power, and increasingly invested in a individualistic, competitive, acquisitive culture.
American Mass Culture, 1900–1945
Daniel Borus
The story of mass culture from 1900 to 1945 is the story of its growth and increasing centrality to American life. Sparked by the development of such new media as radios, phonographs, and cinema that required less literacy and formal education, and the commodification of leisure pursuits, mass culture extended its purview to nearly the entire nation by the end of the Second World War. In the process, it became one way in which immigrant and second-generation Americans could learn about the United States and stake a claim to participation in civic and social life. Mass culture characteristically consisted of artifacts that stressed pleasure, sensation, and glamor rather than, as previously been the case, eternal and ethereal beauty, moral propriety, and personal transcendence. It had the power to determine acceptable values and beliefs and define qualities and characteristics of social groups. The constant and graphic stimulation led many custodians of culture to worry about the kinds of stimulation that mass culture provided and about a breakdown in social morality that would surely follow. As a result, they formed regulatory agencies and watchdogs to monitor the mass culture available on the market. Other critics charged the regime of mass culture with inducing homogenization of belief and practice and contributing to passive acceptance of the status quo. The spread of mass culture did not terminate regional, class, or racial cultures; indeed, mass culture artifacts often borrowed them. Nor did marginalized groups accept stereotypical portrayals; rather, they worked to expand the possibilities of prevailing ones and to provide alternatives.
American Military Assistance Programs since 1945
Jeremy Kuzmarov
Military assistance programs have been crucial instruments of American foreign policy since World War II, valued by policymakers for combating internal subversion in the "free world," deterring aggression, and protecting overseas interests. The 1958 Draper Committee, consisting of eight members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, concluded that economic and military assistance were interchangeable; as the committee put it, without internal security and the "feeling of confidence engendered by adequate military forces, there is little hope for economic progress." Less explicitly, military assistance was also designed to uphold the U.S. global system of military bases established after World War II, ensure access to raw materials, and help recruit intelligence assets while keeping a light American footprint. Police and military aid was often invited and welcomed by government elites in so-called free world nations for enhancing domestic security or enabling the swift repression of political opponents. It sometimes coincided with an influx of economic aid, as under the Marshall Plan and Alliance for Progress. In cases like Vietnam, the programs contributed to stark human rights abuses owing to political circumstances and prioritizing national security over civil liberties.
American Military Strategy in the Vietnam War, 1965–1973
Gregory A. Daddis
For nearly a decade, American combat soldiers fought in South Vietnam to help sustain an independent, noncommunist nation in Southeast Asia. After U.S. troops departed in 1973, the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975 prompted a lasting search to explain the United States' first lost war. Historians of the conflict and participants alike have since critiqued the ways in which civilian policymakers and uniformed leaders applied—some argued misapplied—military power that led to such an undesirable political outcome. While some claimed U.S. politicians failed to commit their nation's full military might to a limited war, others contended that most officers fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the war they were fighting. Still others argued "winning" was essentially impossible given the true nature of a struggle over Vietnamese national identity in the postcolonial era. On their own, none of these arguments fully satisfy. Contemporary policymakers clearly understood the difficulties of waging a war in Southeast Asia against an enemy committed to national liberation. Yet the faith of these Americans in their power to resolve deep-seated local and regional sociopolitical problems eclipsed the possibility there might be limits to that power. By asking military strategists to simultaneously fight a war and build a nation, senior U.S. policymakers had asked too much of those crafting military strategy to deliver on overly ambitious political objectives. In the end, the Vietnam War exposed the limits of what American military power could achieve in the Cold War era.
American Opposition to South African Apartheid
David L. Hostetter
American activists who challenged South African apartheid during the Cold War era extended their opposition to racial discrimination in the United States into world politics. US antiapartheid organizations worked in solidarity with forces struggling against the racist regime in South Africa and played a significant role in the global antiapartheid movement. More than four decades of organizing preceded the legislative showdown of 1986, when a bipartisan coalition in Congress overrode President Ronald Reagan's veto, to enact economic sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa. Adoption of sanctions by the United States, along with transnational solidarity with the resistance to apartheid by South Africans, helped prompt the apartheid regime to relinquish power and allow the democratic elections that brought Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress to power in 1994.
Drawing on the tactics, strategies and moral authority of the civil rights movement, antiapartheid campaigners mobilized public opinion while increasing African American influence in the formulation of US foreign policy. Long-lasting organizations such as the American Committee on Africa and TransAfrica called for boycotts and divestment while lobbying for economic sanctions. Utilizing tactics such as rallies, demonstrations, and nonviolent civil disobedience actions, antiapartheid activists made their voices heard on college campuses, corporate boardrooms, municipal and state governments, as well as the halls of Congress. Cultural expressions of criticism and resistance served to reinforce public sentiment against apartheid. Novels, plays, movies, and music provided a way for Americans to connect to the struggles of those suffering under apartheid.
By extending the moral logic of the movement for African American civil rights, American anti-apartheid activists created a multicultural coalition that brought about institutional and governmental divestment from apartheid, prompted Congress to impose economic sanctions on South Africa, and increased the influence of African Americans regarding issues of race and American foreign policy.
American Radio and Technological Transformation from Invention to Broadcasting, 1900–1945
Michael A. Krysko
Radio debuted as a wireless alternative to telegraphy in the late 19th century. At its inception, wireless technology could only transmit signals and was incapable of broadcasting actual voices. During the 1920s, however, it transformed into a medium primarily identified as one used for entertainment and informational broadcasting. The commercialization of American broadcasting, which included the establishment of national networks and reliance on advertising to generate revenue, became the so-called American system of broadcasting. This transformation demonstrates how technology is shaped by the dynamic forces of the society in which it is embedded. Broadcasting's aural attributes also engaged listeners in a way that distinguished it from other forms of mass media. Cognitive processes triggered by the disembodied voices and sounds emanating from radio's loudspeakers illustrate how listeners, grounded in particular social, cultural, economic, and political contexts, made sense of and understood the content with which they were engaged. Through the 1940s, difficulties in expanding the international radio presence of the United States further highlight the significance of surrounding contexts in shaping the technology and in promoting (or discouraging) listener engagement with programing content.
American Urban Planning Since 1850
Harold Platt
As places of dense habitation, cities have always required coordination and planning. City planning has involved the design and construction of large-scale infrastructure projects to provide basic necessities such as a water supply and drainage. By the 1850s, immigration and industrialization were fueling the rise of big cities, creating immense, collective problems of epidemics, slums, pollution, gridlock, and crime. From the 1850s to the 1900s, both local governments and utility companies responded to this explosive physical and demographic growth by constructing a "networked city" of modern technologies such as gaslight, telephones, and electricity. Building the urban environment also became a wellspring of innovation in science, medicine, and administration. In 1909–1910, a revolutionary idea—comprehensive city planning—opened a new era of professionalization and institutionalization in the planning departments of city halls and universities. Over the next thirty-five years, however, wars and depression limited their influence.
From 1945 to 1965, in contrast, represents the golden age of formal planning. During this unprecedented period of peace and prosperity, academically trained experts played central roles in the modernization of the inner cities and the sprawl of the suburbs. But the planners' clean-sweep approach to urban renewal and the massive destruction caused by highway construction provoked a revolt of the grassroots. Beginning in the Watts district of Los Angeles in 1965, mass uprisings escalated over the next three years into a national crisis of social disorder, racial and ethnic inequality, and environmental injustice. The postwar consensus of theory and practice was shattered, replaced by a fragmented profession ranging from defenders of top-down systems of computer-generated simulations to proponents of advocacy planning from the bottom up. Since the late 1980s, the ascendency of public-private partnerships in building the urban environment has favored the planners promoting systems approaches, who promise a future of high-tech "smart cities" under their complete control.


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Hazelnut-Apricot Windows
By á-170456
- 1 cup hazelnuts toasted, husked
- 1 tablespoon sugar plus
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 14 tablespoons unsalted butter - (1 3/4 sticks) room temperature
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
- Apricot jam
- Powdered sugar
Servings 4
Step 1
Combine hazelnuts and 1 tablespoon sugar in processor; grind nuts finely. Using electric mixer, beat remaining 2/3 cup sugar and butter in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in hazelnut mixture, then egg, egg yolk, lemon peel, lemon extract, salt, and cinnamon. Beat in flour. Gather dough into ball. Divide into 4 pieces. Flatten each into disk and wrap in plastic. Chill at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll out 1 dough piece between sheets of waxed paper or parchment to scant 1/4-inch thickness, sprinkling dough with flour to prevent sticking and occasionally peeling off top paper to remove wrinkles. Peel off top sheet. Using 2-inch-diameter fluted cutter, cut out cookies. Transfer to prepared sheets, spacing 1/2 inch apart.
Gather dough scraps and reroll, cutting out more cookies and placing on sheets. Using 1-inch-diameter fluted cutter, cut out centers from half of cookies, making rings. Gather centers as scraps. Bake cookies 5 minutes. Reverse sheets; bake cookies until light golden, about 6 minutes longer. Cool cookies on sheets 2 minutes. Transfer to racks; cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.
Arrange whole cookie rounds on work surface. Drop generous 1/2 teaspoon jam in center of each. Arrange cookie rings on work surface. Sift powdered sugar over. Place 1 ring cookie on each whole round, forming sandwich with jam in cutout center. (Can be made 3 days ahead. Store airtight between sheets of waxed paper in refrigerator up to 3 days.)
This recipe yields about 4 dozen.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Find the bottom of the cup every time. Browse golf putters for men to discover the club that gives you confidence and better performance on each hole.
Choose from hundreds of putters of various lengths. Pick between standard putters, belly putters and counterbalance putters.
Get the clubhead that fits your game. Select a traditional blade for great feedback, a heel-toe clubhead with added perimeter weighting to help boost MOI or a large mallet clubhead for maximum forgiveness.
Shop for men's putters from great golf brands like TaylorMade, PING, Cleveland, Scotty Cameron, Odyssey, Nike, SeeMore, STX and Yes.
Buying Tips
Select from different face and insert options. Metal putters are common, durable and offer a high-level of control. Also consider putters that allow for inserts to improve feel and create a smoother roll. Inserts vary in color, firmness and material. Personalize your putter so it matches your game.
For a blend of feel and mechanical precision, use a conventional putter.
If you like the anchoring and extra weight of a long putter, consider a counterbalance putter. Crafted with extra weight in the grip area and clubhead, counterbalance putters add stability and smoothness.
Expert Advice
Choose a putter with the right balance style for your swing. If you lay the putter shaft in your hand with the shaft parallel to the ground and the face is facing the sky, you have a face-balanced putter. Face-balanced putters suit golfers who have a tendency to have straight strokes that go back and through, also known as barn door swings.
If the toe is hanging toward the ground, you have a toe-balanced putter. A toe-balanced putter benefits you if you have an arc stroke.
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|Date of Build
|Port of Regestry
|Training Ship
|IMO Number
|Official Number
|Call Sign
|Gross tonnage
|Net tonnage
|Deadweight tonnage
KONGSØY Owner, Manager, Shipyard
Maritime News
Höegh Xiamen Declared 'Total Loss' After Jacksonville Fire
Höegh Xiamen car carrier has been declared "a constructive total loss" following a fire that broke out on the vessel in early June in Jacksonville, USA.The Höegh Xiamen car carrier is owned by Ocean Yield and is on a bareboat contract to Höegh Autoliners. The fire broke out on June 4, shortly after the vessel had completed loading operations at Blount Island, Jacksonville, Florida. It was extinguished late on June 12.During the initial response, several firefighters sustained serious injuries.
Baltic Index Posts 7th Straight Weekly Gain
The Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index rose to register a seventh straight weekly gain on Friday, as demand gained steam across all vessel segments.The Baltic dry index, which tracks rates for ships ferrying dry bulk commodities and reflects rates for capesize, panamax and supramax vessels, rose 71 points, or 3.9%, to 1,894, climbing to its highest since mid-October 2019 and rising 8.3% for the week.Easing virus-led lockdowns in China have boosted demand for iron-ore, helping the index to gain 73.8% so far this year.The Baltic capesize index gained 176 points, or 4.1%, to 4,440.
Costa Cruises Extends Operations Halt to Aug. 15
Carnival Corp unit Costa Cruises on Friday extended its pause on operations to Aug. 15 and canceled all cruises in Northern Europe for the rest of the 2020 summer season.Genoa-based Costa, which had earlier suspended trips until July 31, also cancelled all future Costa Victoria cruises."The decision is linked to the uncertainty on the gradual reopening of ports to cruise ships and the restrictions that may still be in place for the movements of people due to the COVID-19 global pandemic," the company said.
Towboat Crewman Missing After Going Overboard
The U.S. Coast Guard said it is searching for a towboat crewman in the water in the Ohio River near Alton, Ind., Sunday.Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Ohio Valley received a report around 12 p.m EST that a deckhand from a towing vessel had gone overboard without a life jacket, somewhere between mile marker 675 and mile marker 700.The male deckhand is described to be in his 50s, about 280 pounds, and 5 feet 10 inches tall.The Coast Guard is coordinating the search with local agency partners, including the Meade County Fire Department and Indiana Department of Conservation.
ClassNK Amends Class Rules
Classification society ClassNK has released amendments to its Rules and Guidance for the Survey and Construction of Steel Ships.The 48 amendments were issued on 3June 30, including the following items:Regarding "Oil-lubricated Propeller Shafts Kind 1", the notation requirements to affix "1C" to the classification characters of the ships fitted with oil-lubricated propeller shafts (Kind 1C), which have a reputation for being highly reliable by various means not only to prevent corrosion damage to stern tube bearings but also to facilitate general maintenance and management more easily, are stipulated.


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George Michael may have found a father figure of sorts in the form of rehab.
The British pop star completed a quiet stint at a treatment facility as a response to a July 6 incident in which he drove his car through a storefront in an upscale London neighborhood, reports E! Online.
The former Wham! front man released an open letter on his website on August 27 about the events of that day and their immediate aftermath.
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
"I feel you should know that on the day after the incident I checked in to a clinic for a 14-day detox program here in London," he wrote to his fans. "Personal problems which I had tried to deal with myself had clearly got the better of me, and I am sorry that my pride has prevented me from seeking help before now."
Michael is still receiving outpatient drug counseling "several times a week," according to the missive.
He is due in court September 24 for sentencing after pleading guilty last week to driving under the influence of drugs and cannabis possession.
Michael, 47, was barred from driving for two years after a 2007 incident where he obstructed traffic while high on a "cocktail" of drugs. He also crashed his Range Rover into a truck in August of 2009.
Selected Reading: E! Online, George Michael.com, Daily Mail


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Shannon Donahue
Class of 2008
Spanish Major, Education Minor
"In the fall of my senior year, I decided to add a Women's and Gender Studies minor to my Spanish major and Education minor - it is one of the best decisions I have made as it has opened my eyes in more ways than I could have ever expected. As a student at Merrimack College, and a future graduate student of psychiatric counseling at The George Washington University, I was given the opportunity to spend my Tuesday nights at N.A.G.L.Y. as an internship through the department. N.A.G.L.Y. stands for the North Shore Alliance for Gay and Lesbian Youth, a nonprofit organization that serves as a safety net for LGBTQ youth and a place where they can be themselves free of adversity. This has been one of the most eye-opening experiences that I have ever had. As someone who plans to work as a counselor, this experience has allowed me to try to comprehend some of the things that today's youth face, and even if I can't grasp how they feel, I can begin to understand what I can do to help now and in the future.
When at N.A.G.L.Y., I serve as a supportive listener, something that unfortunately a lot of these students are lacking in life. I have also been able to do my part in helping N.A.G.L.Y. financially via applying to and receiving a grant so that the organization can continue to help today's youth without facing financial restrictions.
If I had not chosen a Women's Study and Gender Studies minor, I never would have had this experience. I am so thankful for the helpful and supportive faculty in the department who gave me the resources to make this opportunity happen. I strongly recommend a minor in the Women's Studies and Gender Studies field. It will make you see the world and the people in it in a different way!"


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THE knotless knot used to confuse loads of anglers, thinking that it's nonsense. "What... a knot... with no knots?!"
Of course, the knotless knot is now as famous as a blood knot or grinner knot.
It's ideal for creating a hair rig for boilies and carp fishing, but also useful for mounting all manner of baits.
It leaves the bait itself clear of the hook point – maximising chances of connecting with fish!
Here's a closer look at the steps to tie a perfect knotless knot…
1 Start off by tying a simple overhand loop at one end of the hook length; this loop is the end of the hair and will act as the anchor point for the hair stop which will hold your bait in place.
2 Using a baiting needle thread your chosen bait over the loop and onto the hair then secure it in place with a hair stop.
3 Thread the hook length through the eye of the hook from the back to the front then adjust the length of the hair to suit the hook bait you are using and your requirement. Allow a gap of at least 5 mm from the top of your bait to the bend of the hook but experiment to find what works best.
4 Keeping the hair trapped tightly to the back of the hook take the other end of the hook length and begin to whip it downwards along the shank, trapping the hair beneath a series of tight, even coils.
5 Keep whipping downwards, stopping when the whipping is roughly opposite the point of the hook. How many turns this will require depends upon the shank length of the hook you are using but try to ensure you get a minimum of five or six turns.
6 Once you have completed the turns trap the whipping firmly between finger and thumb and pass the end of the hook length back through the eye of the hook from back to front, ensuring the line comes out from the front of the hook.
7 Gently pulling the hook length tight locks the turns of line against the shank of the hook and completes the knot. You can now tie the other end of the hook length to a swivel or make a loop in it to allow it to be attached to a hook length clip to finish your rig.
Get great advice every week by reading Angler's Mail print magazine! AM has the best team of exclusive experts, covering all the main regions and types of coarse fishing.


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Refill for catalytic lamp 500 ml, to be used only with lamp and/or burner Crespi Milano.
1. Place the catalytic lamp on a steady surface, away from any heat. Using the funnel, fill 2/3 of the lamp with a Catalytic fragrance Crespi Milano.
2. When using a new lamp insert the catalytic burner into the lamp, place the small snuffer cap on top and leave it to soak for at least 20 minutes.
3. Uncover the snuffer cap and light the burner. Do not leave a burning lamp unattended as the flame may reach 5".
4. Blow out the flame after 2 to 4 minutes. Place the decorative cap on top . The catalytic lamp is now active, it is absorb odours and scents your home.
5. To stop the scents, remove the decorative cap ( CAUTION this may be hot ) and cover the burner with the snuffer cap. Leaving the lamp actively working for 15 mins is usually enough for a medium-sized room.


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During the course of a long baseball season, there are always a few games that stand out for their wild, unpredictable nature.
The Orioles' 7-3 victory over the Cleveland Indians on Thursday evening qualifies — but only because of one ridiculously weird inning that included an out that wasn't, a safe base runner who jogged off the field, and the end of Manny Machado's consecutive-innings streak with an ejection by an umpire making his big league debut behind the plate.
Machado's first major league ejection seemed to spark his club, which feels it has been victimized by bad calls recently. The Orioles (44-36) rallied for five runs in the bizarre fifth to salvage a split in the four-game series with the Indians (40-38).
"That was awesome. Manny protected himself," Orioles center fielder Adam Jones said. "I think some of the players here are fed up with getting bad calls called on them and, hey, I applaud Manny and his fight back. I don't applaud him for getting ejected, because we need him. But he was just fighting back. I tip my cap to him. You've got to protect yourself."
The strange night was punctuated by torrents of rain that fell in the middle of the seventh inning, sending much of the announced 33,036 under cover and delaying the game for 1 hour, 18 minutes.
But it will be remembered for the mild-mannered Machado's ejection.
With the Orioles down 3-2 in the bottom of the fifth, Ryan Flaherty and Nate McLouth opened with consecutive singles against Cleveland starter Corey Kluber (6-5).
Machado, the Orioles' 20-year-old third baseman, then came to the plate and struck out on four pitches, the last a swing on a curveball in the dirt. Machado apparently thought he tipped the pitch, but home plate umpire Will Little didn't agree.
Walking away shaking his head, Machado cursed at Little, who was umpiring his fourth game in the majors — and first at home plate — after being temporarily promoted from the Triple-A International League on Monday.
"It's something I said wrong to the umpire, and now I have to pay the consequences for it," said Machado, who believes he has been ejected one other time in his pro career. "I let my team down, and obviously it is something that won't happen again."
Little immediately ejected Machado — the Orioles' second player ejection this year (Jason Hammel was thrown out June 1 against Detroit) .
"It was an expletive, and then something directed at" Little, said umpire crew chief Ted Barrett of Little's decision. "So that's an automatic ejection. He knows that."
The ejection took a little history with it.
It ended Machado's consecutive-innings streak of 1,206 — which began in the first inning of his first big league game Aug. 9, 2012. That was the longest streak in the majors.
"Obviously, when I heard about it, the streak I had going, obviously, it's devastating, but I just caused that on myself," Machado said.
The ejection was even more intriguing considering it was done by Little, who also blew a call at first base Wednesday night when Machado slid headfirst into the bag ahead of Cleveland pitcher Scott Kazmir's foot but was ruled out.
Machado said his frustration Thursday was about not getting the foul-tip call, not from Wednesday's mistake by Little.
"I thought I tipped that ball. That's where it came from," Machado said. "I don't hold grudges against anybody. Everybody makes a bad call. It just happens."
On Thursday, Orioles manager Buck Showalter came out to argue the ejection before heading back to the dugout to watch his team rally for five runs.
Nick Markakis tied the game with an RBI single, and Jones loaded the bases with a bloop to right.
And things got goofy again.
Chris Davis hit a grounder to second for a potential double play, but he beat the relay throw to first to keep the inning alive and force in the go-ahead run.
Jones, who made a hard slide into second, didn't hear a call, assumed he was out and jogged off the field. But second base umpire Mike DiMuro ruled that Cleveland shortstop Mike Aviles wasn't close enough to the bag when he tried to turn the double play. Oftentimes, if a fielder is in the "neighborhood" of the bag, the umpire awards him the out.
So Jones was safe. But he was in the dugout.
"Ninety-nine percent of the time, that's a neighborhood play," Jones said. "That 0.1percent my [butt] is not on the bag. I'm just glad it didn't cost us. I don't make too many base-running mistakes. I made a mistake. But an honest mistake."
Jones was ruled out for leaving the field, Aviles was charged with an error and Davis had a fielder's choice and RBI.
Once the chaos subsided, Matt Wieters doubled to right field to score two more runs. He ended up on third when Drew Stubbs misplayed the ball and scored when J.J. Hardy hit a dribbler that Kluber kicked to the visitor's dugout railing.
That was it for Kluber, who allowed 11 hits and seven runs (six earned) despite giving up only two runs before the fifth
In all, the Orioles sent nine batters to the plate in the inning and scored five runs (four earned) on six hits (five singles).
Orioles starter Miguel Gonzalez (6-3) took over from there.
After Aviles' homer in the fifth, Gonzalez retired eight of the next nine batters he faced. He left with two outs in the seventh, after notching his ninth strikeout to set a season high and tie a career best (Aug. 31, 2012 against the New York Yankees).
Gonzalez allowed nine hits and walked none in getting his fourth win in five decisions. The Orioles have won their past 11 home games that Gonzalez started.
"He made some adjustments as he went along. He was elevating the ball a lot for Miguel, but it's a tribute to him," Showalter said. "He finds a way. I think it was 50-something pitches in two innings and you didn't like the chances of him pitching seven innings, but he did."
Gonzalez's primary blemishes were two solo home runs — the fourth time in 14 starts this year that Gonzalez had allowed multiple long balls.
More important, though, the Orioles won for just the second time in seven tries — thanks, in part, to the strangest inning of the season.
"It seemed like a long time ago, doesn't it?" Showalter said of the bottom of the fifth. "What were some of the bizarre things … besides Adam being called safe? You can see how it happens. He calls safe, and nobody can hear because the crowd is reacting to the close play at first. I've seen guys not know the guy was considered off the base. I've seen umpires miss calls. I've seen players and managers make mistakes. Orioles won, and get some sleep and [we'll] do it again tomorrow."
During the course of a long baseball season, there are always a few games that stand out for their wild, unpredictable nature.


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Defrancesca Gallardo+Favorites
Defrancesca Gallardo
Date of Birth:11/15/88
Height:5 ft 9 in (175 cm)
View Defrancesca Gallardo's Media:
Czech porn stars are some of the most sexually uninhibited of all, and Defrancesca Gallardo is no different in that respect. Born in 1988, she made her first porno in 2007 and has appeared in dozens of films, also using the names Defraceska Gallardo, Susanna So, Isabelli, Belly Fontana, Gia Lorenzo, Gia L'Orenzo, Katrin, Valentina Rossini, and Francesca Gallardo. Her 5'9", 38C-25-36 figure is statuesque and stunning. She will hypnotize you with her bubble butt and bright blue eyes. Once you see her opening up her ass for some cock, you'll be hooked on this girl!
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Choose between convenient
Velcro® brand or stylish lace fastenings. Pamper and protect your feet with Drew Shoe women's boots.
To start shopping for therapeutic women's boots , click on the items above. You can place your order online
or shop at a retailer near you. If you can't find the
women's boots you're looking for or if you have any questions about our selection of therapeutic footwear , feel
free to contact us. Our friendly and knowledgeable customer
service representatives are happy to assist you.


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The Aberdare Country Club started out as a property given to a lord by the King of England. Back in the 'twenties, it was built and nurtured by the lord and his family in a grand colonial style. Part of its beauty was its surroundings of huge acreage—hills, animals, and the natural beauty that is the Aberdare forest and surrounding areas.
This part of Kenya is rich with lush jungly trees and vegation and animals that enjoy living there. Just 2 ½ hours from bustling, traffic-spewn Nairobi, the Aberdare is a glorious escape into rich nature.
"As will happen with rich lords who own many properties," explained the charming story-teller-- of 25-year general manager, Phillip Nyagah, "what is now known as the Aberdare Country Club eventually got transferred to others and at one point became haven for cooperative of members." And indeed, it had membership opportunities for the well-heeled who wanted a luxurious getaway.
The scope of the huge property grew and eventually incorporated a golf course, gym and spa, swimming pool, lush landscaping as one finds today. This includes a 1,300 acre wildlife sanctuary teeming with Thomson's and Grant's gazelles, zebras, giraffes and the more reclusive leopards.
In order to have a more intimate experience with nature, the club eventually also built The Ark, modeled on Noah's Ark, only about 15 minutes away, right in the midst of the thick foliage of the Aberdare National Park.
The Aberdare National Park is among the top beauties I have seen in Kenya: waterfalls, moorlands, the views of Mt. Kenya, and just the spectacular thick green foliage everywhere.
Accommodations at the Aberdare Country Club include cottages with fireplaces, along with a couple of very large suites. The dining room is of the original domicile of the lord and his family, as are many other areas. Besides safari drives, golf, swimming and spa facilities, conference facilities and lounge bar, mountain climbing and horseback riding are also available. The safari game drives are wonderful and they are available both througout the sanctuary and in the Aberdare National Park.
The Ark was designed in the 1960s in such a way that every floor has lounges, patios and big viewing windows for wildlife. All the bedrooms at the Ark are "cabin-style" as though on a ship, on different "decks" as well as sitting and viewing rooms and open verandas.
The Ark shares the same gourmet chef with the Aberdare Country Club. We experienced the stylings of Deepak Kashyap who introduced himself to us and was most eager to accommodate all dietary requirements. Imagine gluten free chapattis!
There is a large staff in the formal dining rooms of both lodges who wear black and white uniforms with bow ties and are very accommodating in a somewhat formal style and yet very personable and sweet as we have found the majority of Kenyans to be.
A large watering hole was put in front of the viewing side, along with an area which would become known as a salt lick. Every day the staff puts out natural salts and nutritious additives the animals love all around the grounds. A few floodlights shine down on the area. And voila! Every night many wonderful creatures magically appear, usually with their companions and family members, to enjoy the salt and the water.
The Ark has devised a unique system with an all-night game viewer on duty who will buzz the bedrooms: one buzz for elephant, two for rhinoceros, three for leopard, and four for an actual kill or unusual other sighting. It is up to the patrons if they wish to get out of bed and welcome to come to the viewing area in their pajamas. There is a small bunker room with an open window on ground floor for good photo shooting.
The night we were there, a herd of elephants as well as two rare black rhinos and a pair of African cape buffalo showed up early, just before dinner, as we were getting an orientation talk. Quickly all the guests sprang to the lounges and windows to catch the action outside. You are so close to the animals and yet they cannot see you. You can observe them for long periods of time with their natural behaviors. I was lucky to catch an amusing encounter between a young elephant and a buffalo that were sharing the same space:
I was in the bunker taking photos and video, and at times the big elephants would come very close, look right at me and put up their trunks sniffing the air. They could smell me but not see me. It was fascinating.
I stayed up quite late observing. The night watchman said he would not ring the buzzer for elephants again since everyone had seen the herd of a dozen early in the evening. But I assured him that as an avid elephant lover I would love to see more. So he agreed to knock on my door three times should another large herd appear.
They did not disappoint! At midnight a herd of 27 jumbos appeared and lingered for over an hour. I had a unique and solo viewing experience and took much video. For an animal lover, this is close to paradise!
So if you are traveling with someone who enjoys the luxuries of a massage or a round of golf, and you enjoy nature and animals, you can both be completely satisfied with the combination of these two wonderful places. You can spend a night at each.
If you decide to stay just at the Ark, most of the time you will be brought back to the Aberdare Country Club for lunch, as at the Ark you cannot walk around outside except on the long wooded walkway. It really is in the middle of the jungle with lots of large animals. Game drives are available from both lodges, and all registrations are done at the Aberdare Country Club. Full board costs approximately $280 per person per night.
Both properties have been taken over by Marasa Africa, a leading safari hotel group in East Africa.
Georja Umano is an actor and animal advocate.
Marasa Africa Kenya Central Reservations Office
Simco Plaza, 5th Floor, Suite 501, Lusaka road, Industrial Area
PO Box 48995, 00100 GPO
Nairobi, Kenya
Email: [email protected]
Published on Jan 04, 2013


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Green Giant has came out with some yummy and convenient line of frozen Green Giant Seasoned Steamers. Green Giant Seasoned Steamers™ are chef-inspired vegetables that are seasoned to perfection without sauce.
With a dash of imagination, a pinch of culinary skill, and a heap of flavor, Green Giant Seasoned Steamers™ are giving you a new reason to enjoy eating your vegetables. Shake up your vegetable routine with these flavorful, chef-inspired options that are seasoned to perfection, without a drop of sauce. Now, more than ever, you can leave your family craving more vegetables with every meal and break through meal monotony with a new palate-pleasing vegetable option for everyone! With new Green Giant® Seasoned Steamers™, eating vegetables just got easier and more delicious!
- Available in six different varieties, Green Giant Seasoned Steamers™ are one of the first sauce-free seasoned vegetables to bring unique chef-inspired seasonings and premium cut vegetable blends to your dining room table
- These tasty Seasoned Steamers are bound to spice up any meal with six varieties including: Mediterranean Blend, Tuscan Seasoned Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts with Sea Salt and Cracked Pepper, Honey Roasted Sweet Corn, Honey Dijon Carrots and Backyard Grilled Potatoes
I tried the "Backyard Grilled Potatoes" to use for a side item during our dinner. They went really well with it, and made the meal complete! I loved how easy it was just to put the bag in the microwave and a few minutes later they were ready to be served.
You can click here to download a printable coupon for $1.00 off the purchase of one package of Green Giant Seasoned Steamers™.
You can stay updated with all the delicious food that Green Giant offers by following them on Facebook.
The wonderful people over at Green Giant have offered one lucky reader a chance to win their very own gift package that I was sent. The gift pack includes the following:
(1) VIP coupon for one free package of Green Giant Seasoned Steamers™
Green Giant Serving Spoon
Mixing Bowl
Bag of Green Giant Seasoned Steamers™
For your chance to win all you need to do is the, "Mandatory Entry".
I have offered extra entries, for a better chance at winning!
– "Like" Green Giant on Facebook and Mommy's Little Rugrat Princess on Facebook
– Follow me on Twitter
– Follow me on Networked Blog
-Subscribe by email
-What Green GIant Seasoned Steamer would you try?
This giveaway is opened to US residents only (No P.O. Boxes). You must be 18 years of age or older to enter. This giveaway will end on November 24th, 2012 at 11:59 pm EST. Winner will be chosen at random.org and will be emailed once the giveaway has ended. The winner will be given 48 hours before another winner will be chosen.
Disclosure: My gift pack, information, and additional gift pack have been provided by Green Giant through MyBlogSpark. Facebook is in no way associated with this giveaway and released from any and all liability.


text: Our expanding Healthcare Benefits Company is seeking 2 Independent Work from Home Consultants to work P/T on our growing team. Computer and phone is required and must be USA Home Based to apply. Must be self motivated, possess leadership skills, and organized. Responsibilities: Helping clients with benefit plans and also duties in marketing, recruiting, and training. Full training offered, family dental/health benefits, and competitive compensation + bonuses! Perfect opportunity for a stay at home parent/caregiver. USA Applicants ONLY. To qualify apply online today at http://www.topcareersolution.com/WorkHalal


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|David H. Ready,
Esq., Ph.D.
City Manager
3200 E Tahquitz Canyon Way
Phone: (760) 322-8362
Fax: (760) 323-8207
Welcome to the City of Palm Springs! Thank you for visiting us at our website. It was designed with you in mind - whether a Palm Springs resident, a "future resident," or a visitor - to allow you access to City information in an easy to navigate site.
At City Hall, we are very proud of our community and strive to provide superior customer service. Quality of life issues shape our goals and policy initiatives as we look to continuously improve our city and community. Just a reminder, City Hall is open for business Monday-Thursday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. I also strongly encourage residents to sign up for community public safety alerts and E-notification alerts for the latest City news from departments.
Please feel free to call me at (760) 322-8350 with any concerns you may have, or just to say hello. I'm interested in your opinions about city government and how we may better serve you.
If you are a Palm Springs resident, I look forward to meeting you. If you are a visitor, on behalf of all of us at City Hall, we look forward to welcoming you to Palm Springs on your next visit.
Since 1994, Palm Springs has been governed as a charter city, and operates under a Council-Manager form of government. The Council-Manager form is a system of local government that combines the strong political leadership of elected officials in the form of a council or other governing body, with the strong managerial experience of an appointed local government manager. Other appointed officers are the City Attorney and City Clerk.
The City Manager serves as Chief Executive Officer of the City and the Executive Director of the Redevelopment Agency. He serves as an advisor to the City Council on policy items impacting the community and the City organization. The City Manager appoints the City's department heads and is responsible for ensuring that city services are performed to the highest standard in accordance with Council policies. The City Manager is responsible for the submission of the City's budget and implementation in support of City Council goals.
- Implement policy direction of the City Council
- Administer the affairs of the City and direct staff in the implementation of the City Council's policies
- Oversee the proper application and enforcement of City laws and ordinances
- Provide overall daily supervision, management and direction to City departments
- Build and maintain relationships with City employees, as well as meet and confer with the six established employee bargaining units
- Maintain an open environment which encourages residents and business input on City operations and programs
- Maintain effective management relationships with surrounding city, county, state and federal agencies
- Coordinate and provide timely and accurate information to the public and media regarding City events and activities
- Promote organizational effectiveness and greater customer satisfaction through citywide implementation of Team Palm Springs
Shari Wrona, Executive Services Administrator


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Actor, writer, director, artist and activist Paul Sorvino chats with Paula Jessop - NYC Splash on his newest film release, acting, art and knighthood.
How did you become involved the newly released film 'How Sweet It Is'?
They sent the script to my agent. I liked it and that's how I became involved.
What drew you to the character of Big Mike?
He was very well written. He was also different from the mobster roles people associate me with, films like Goodfellas and couple of other movies. I've done over 150 movies and only about 8 or 9 are mobsters (roles) but they remember those. What appealed to me was (laughing) Big Mike had a love for musicals. And the character Joe Piscopo plays was his favorite guy. A has been Broadway Musical writer, director, producer. He was his hero worship. He had a shrine to him in his house. It was really a very interesting take on it and Big Mike is not a dope he's a smart guy and that appealed to me too. Joe Piscopo is a really nice guy we've known each other a long time and it was a chance to work with him.
I was going to ask you about playing the Mafia types and wanted to know your take on it. It's interesting to me because I really thought you had played more of those characters than just 8 or 9. I wanted to know your take on playing that kind of a stereotype of character?
The reason I liked that role (Big Mike in 'How Sweet It Is') was as I said it wasn't that stereotype. He's a mob boss that has a tremendous love of musicals. And so I thought that was a very interesting conflation. Putting that together was very interesting for me. Everybody has to do roles that their offered and you pick the best of those that are offered. As far as the mob roles it's very interesting because my family is noble, our coat of arms goes back to the 12th century. I'm actually an Italian Knight. I think its interesting that if my noble family could see far into the future they would look and say what is he doing? There was a time when I said no more Mafia that's it, because it's so far from me. I am a poet, a musician, a pianist. I play the guitar, I sing, I write, I'm a director, and a sculptor. There are so many things I do and none of them is gangster. You know it can get a little tiring. But then in the last couple of years the roles got better. So you just take the better role. I realized you can't categorize yourself or a form of writing. You have to look at what's best. You can't say this is all I do, and that is what I don't do. You take the best material that you can get and you do it.
Most people don't associate you with being musical or musicals. But you got your start in a stage musical. You're an Opera singer and have done movie musicals as well as stage. As a musician and performer is there one form you prefer over another?
I've sung in opera as you said and I am going to start doing some touring in Canada and Australia doing songs from the American Song Book and Neapolitan Italian songs. I like what I'm doing. It's kind of funny I do a great many things. I like what I'm doing when I'm doing it. It's hard to answer your question because when I am doing what I am doing, I like that the best.
I am intrigued with the fact that you are a Knight in Italy.
I am a member of the 'Order of the Carinzia' which was started by Saint George in the 3rd century for the protection of the Pope. We can be called on ceremonially to protect the Pope. It hasn't happened but I actually would like to do that. I am the highest ranking knight in the Order its called 'Cavaliere di Gran Croce' which means 'Knight of the Grand Cross' I was knighted by Count Morano mostly from my work with asthmatics.
I wrote a best selling book in 1985 called 'How To Become A Former Asthmatic'. I've worked with asthmatics. I have an asthma foundation called the Sorvino Asthma Foundation. We are doing a big event in Nappa at the Whitehall Winery on July 14th. I am always doing things involving that particular charity and lots of others. I have been honored twice by the Pope and had special papal blessings, as have my family over the last several hundred years.
Being a knight is an interesting thing because in a certain sense you do carry that with you even though in America that doesn't get you on the subway without two bucks. It still has something to do with the family history. I didn't know my family was noble until I was knighted and they looked back into the family history. There is apparently a good chance that family were Templars because on our coat of arms there are lions. You can't have a lion with the coat of arms unless you are close to the king which presupposes a hefty title. I was asking a genealogist about where the title was and he said that's easy a lot of people had to run for their lives and the likelihood is that when the Templars were pretty much wiped out in the 12 and 13th century the surviving ones ran for their lives. Giving up their tittles and took to the hills. So that's the likelihood. But I was knighted again so it's nice, it's very nice. I get to go to official functions as I am 'Sir Paul' its very fun.
I was really intrigued by the fact that you were a sculptor and an artist. I was wondering what kind of mediums you work with?
I work in clay I use Italian clay called coterie it's the clay potters use. Then I take it and have it bronzed. I will send you pictures of a couple that I have recently finished and one or two that I am just finishing. And maybe one or two that are bronzes. I have done over 20-25 bronzes in the last 13 years since I turned professional.
Places I have sculptures are: in the Courthouse Square in Scranton, PA, there is a sculpture of my dear, dear departed friend Jason Miller. At the Boca Raton Community Hospital's Pediatric Heart Unit, there is a statue of a little girl holding her hand out called 'She is Peace'. Above the door of the Versace House, which is the second most photographed house in the country next to the White House, there are two lions on the flag pole, which I designed and sculpted.
I will send a picture of a sculpture of my brother, a gift to my dear brother and another of a commission from a beautiful young lady.
I have been so active in acting, 'How Sweet It Is' is the second movie I have done in the last few months. I am involved in another called 'Careful What You Wish For' with Nick Jonas. You know the famous singing Jonas Brothers? It is also with Dermot Mulroney and Isabelle Lucas. Then I go to Chicago to do a picture called 'Precious Metal' where I play a captain of detectives. Right now I am playing a southern sheriff. Who is a benevolent, good guy, not a mean southern sheriff, but a really good guy with a big (assuming a southern drawl) "you know where he plays the guitar and sings in the local band. He keeps the peace and he keeps everybody safe and happy his name is Big Jack. It's been interestin' there's an insurance agent and all kinds of complications it's a lot fun. It goes on and on" (back to natural voice). That's what I'm doing now. The last movie I made I played Marley Matlin's father. You know the great deaf actress? She's such a marvelous person, a marvelous actress, so that was great.
When you get a script in front of you for the first time, how do you go about approaching a character?
I'm a writer as well as an actor. Many years ago I was a rather prominent ad writer in the ad business. I was a creative director and eventually vice president of an agency. I was very successful at that and so I am a trained writer. And as I said, I wrote a best selling book. I've been writing all my life. I've redone scripts. I've written scripts. So when I see script I look at it three ways, writer, actor and director. I am also a director. I've directed three films and lots of stage. I have my own theatre. I don't look at a script just as an actor I look at it as a writer and a director. Simultaneously, I am watching three elements of the script and I am used to it. I can feel very quickly if something is right for me and I know what to do with it, pretty much when I first read it. Very few things have ever been a problem for me to understand how to go about it. And how I go about it is. I decide if there is an external necessary and by that I mean let's say for instance when I played Henry Kissinger in the movie Nixon. I could imitate Kissinger right away but when Kissinger becomes emotional he doesn't leave and that takes a lot of practice on the externals. That's something the English actors are very good at I just saw 'The Fighter' with Christian Bale and he's they are very good at doing that. The great actresses Maggie Smith and Judy Dench when they have a character they don't waste time, they go and they get it. Completely, they really nail it. My idols were Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers these are the masterful and great actors, of course Marlon Brando as well.
I have always been the kind of fellow who believes that work is more important than talent. I believe in labor, so when I do a role it's very often month or two in preparation. In practicing the externals, the speech, the walk, whatever things that you could see, but of course then there is the internal part. That's the development behavior that is native to this character the kind of emotions he is going to have. So you get all that lined up that's how you go about it. Mostly it is a matter of practice. Practicing until that character becomes so solid with you that it doesn't shake if you weep or you laugh it will stay with you that's when you know you're ready. But I don't start with the words, see that's the difference between the English actors and me, they start with the words, I finish with the words. I'm of the opinion, being somewhat of a phrase maker since I was an ad man. I feel that "Words are passengers on the vehicle of the behavior that the actor must create". You don't just give life to the words. You have behavior and emotion and then put the words on top of them. That's the way they come out sounding like they have never been spoken before. And they are filled up rather than pushed out. The words do not propel themselves, behavior and emotion propel words. Or else you are just saying words and slapping on emotion. That's the backwards way to do it. The real way to do it is to be ready even if there were no words. To have the behavior and task that you must accomplish as Stanislavski would say or as Sanford Meisner says "acting is doing". Or as Paul Sorvino says "acting is verbs", its things you do and once you are doing something truthfully, then you put the words on top of that and they sound like they have never been spoken before. And you look like it is all fresh and happening on the moment. There is a lot of art in it, there is a lot of craft in it and I have spent a lifetime working at that to try to perfect it. To honor the great ones who come before me and try to be part of that club if I can, each time out.
I am an actress. I have done some training in England and I am very drawn to that form of acting. One of the things I have loved about it you just put a hole in, in the starting off with the words. Because I feel like it has been a kind of doorway into then weaving pulling me down into the character. So, you don't even use the words like for example the color black and what that would envoke in you to then kind of just go in from there?
No. No, no, not at all, I don't do that. Because, that leads to this kind of acting: "well, I was very happy yesterday" (his voice rising in excitement) "But I'm awfully sad today" (his voice dropping). I mean that's making the words make some kind of sense and pushing the meanings of the individual words. That's not going to give you the character. You should be able to do the character without a word. You have to divine what the character is. I never learn the lines before I go to a movie. Because that will just get you speaking them in a kind of routine way. In a word patterned way. That's not what you want. That's why most good actors American actors anyway do a lot of improvisation. They paraphrase because no one can make something they learned last night sound like it is the first time they are saying it. That takes time you can do that in a play because you have weeks and weeks of preparation. But if you throw in a paraphrase of the line or add to it in your own way that will add to the reality of it. Because it is you speaking those lines. Even through the filter of the character. Is this getting to complicated, I don't know?
Well I'm fascinated by it. I hope my readers are. I am totally enthralled here.
Let me say this there is more than one way to skin a cat though I have never skinned one nor would I ever want too. There are great English actors like Michael Gamblin, Judy Dench, Maggie Smith, and Tony Hopkins so many wonderful British actors but they started with the words. Now we all have to come from a synthesis to form a content. However they got to it, it's Ok with me. Alec Guinness certainly had it and in comedy Peter Sellers had it. I am not saying the only way to go about this is the way I go about it. But a lot of these people I am mentioning are near or actual geniuses. So no matter what technique they use, they are going to find the truth because there is truth in art. I do 5 or 6 different arts and so I feel I am sort of qualified to say what it is in art you see there are universal truths and they all involve form and content.
If you look at a painting by Van Gogh there is a huge amount of content but there is also a form, he created his own form. If you look at Rembrandt you will see a great amount of form, absolute reality. But the content, the emotion that's what differentiates him from a lot of other artists who may paint as well.
Most of the Dutch masters painted equally well but none of them had what Rembrandt had. Not one of them had the human quality. Or you look at a Howells, fantastic Howells, the ones who really come out; El Greco, Raphael, Tishen, Rodane, Michael Angelo the greatest sculptor of all time. These people all have something just like great actors or great artists of every kind. Great musicians; Horowitz played the piano, he could play faster than anybody else but it touched you. There's a lot of people who can play the piano quickly you know they can play anything. But it doesn't touch your heart. Artists who do that maybe highly accomplished but as far as I am concerned they are technically brilliant but they don't have the technique of making you feel something. If you don't feel something when you look at a work of art, I don't care how technically good it is. It may as well be a Durer etching. The reason that Vermeer is not the painter that Rembrandt is, is not because he doesn't paint as well. Because he certainly does, he doesn't have as much heart. That's the thing which differentiates great artists from good artists.
It goes in acting, it goes in singing, it goes in playing, it goes in painting, sculpting, everywhere if you don't have both form and content. In acting form is the way it sounds and the way it looks and content is the emotion. And it's that way in all arts as far as I can see. This is my belief anyway. It's my story and I am sticking to it.
Eventually if you are really good you are going to put it all together. There's a great farceur that we all know, who is the most underrated actor in all America, his name is Eddie Murphy. Nobody is as good as he is. He's just fantastic; the way he does the characters is such reality. Now that's form and content they are real and they are full and they sound great, they look great, his characters are brilliant he is a great artist and a very underrated artist as far as I am concerned. He is like the new Peter Sellers. Peter Sellers could do any dialect you know. I'd like to think I can too. I don't put myself in that league of the Alec Guiness or Peter Sellers but I try to do the best I can. I have a good ear and what's more; I have a good work ethic. And that's what I would advise for anybody that wants to do it. You have to be willing to do the labor.
Part of the joy is in the doing that.
Recently I mastered Chopin's 'Military Polonaise in A Major".
Acting is nothing but another art that calls for form and content and dedication and respect for yourself in it. A lot of people love themselves in the art as Stanislavsky said you have to love the art in yourself"
Tell me about the charity event you mentioned coming this July.
The Sorvino Asthma Foundation is having an event at the Winterhawk Winery in Nappa Valley this July 14th. They are being really great and donating their whole facility to us. We will have a celebrity auction, where we will be auctioning something off from Nick Jonas and other celebrities. There will be a really good band, people will drink wonderful wine and have a great day.


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EVENT DATE: Sunday 6 November 2016
This internationally acclaimed trio are coming to town riding a murder ballad of junkyard theatre, visual trickery, dark humor and rag'n'bone live music. The Ballad of Backbone Joe tells a hilariously daft and gruesome tale of a murder set in a small country town, in their unique, comedic, Mighty Boosh-esque style.
Undefeated bare-knuckle boxer Backbone Joe has a right hook "as quick as a spun tea-bag" but repeated blows to the head have left him a bit slow to process little details. Like, did he really kill his wife by throwing her off a bridge? Abattoir owner and fight promoter Messy Dimes Dan is only too happy to fill in the blanks. Can Detective Von Trapp ease poor Joe's troubled mind?
When they are not performing, operating their own lights and triggering primitive visual effects, the actors morph into musicians, pick up drums, guitar and double bass and rattle off foot-stompin' street blues from side of stage.
Event: Ballad of Backbone Joe by the Suitcase Royale (theatre show)
Date: Sunday 6 November
Venue: Moyhu Soldiers Memorial Hall
Address: 24-26 Bartley St, Moyhu
Time: 7.30pm (doors open 6.30pm)
Bookings: Presented by the King Valley Arts Show. Book tickets here.
This event forms part of Regional Arts Victoria's Connecting Places program.


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My idea for a JSON based SQL schema tool that I wrote about some time ago has been on the backburner as I wanted to finish two other projects:
- A better JSON import tool to substitute the old mysqljsonload.
- Fix up mysqljsonexport to align it with mysqljsonimport.
These two projects are now done and the program are ready for download from Sourceforge, mysqljsonimport from here and mysqljsonexport from here. There is some serious changes to these program here, for example, the multi-threading in mysqljsonimport is now "dynamic", so that as many threads as needed (up to a user specified limit) are created to support faster loads and in case of mysqlexport, mainly this now has it's options aligned with mysqlimport. This means that now you can export and import a whole database in JSON with these tools with a single command.
As usual with my tools, there are A LOT of options and a lot of flexibility, you can specify fixed values for certain MySQL columns to import or export, and both tools also support an automatic internal increment feature. Also, MySQL columns imported may now contain MySQL functions or constants, basically anything that is allowed as a value in a MySQL INSERT can be used.
Hope you enjoy these tools, there is still a few things missing, like better documentation and more tests and stuff, and also better parallel export for mysqljsonexport, but that is for another version of these tools.
As you might remember, these tools started off as a tool to do some InnoDB, NDB and MongoDB benchmarking. I never got as far with that as I wanted to, but now I have the tools to complete those benchmarks. Also I will soon start working on a tool for that database-schema-in-JSON tool, so stay tuned to this channel folks, and don't touch that dial!


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Back-to-Back Credit(redirected from Back to Back Credit)
Back-to-Back Credit
An agreement by a bank to guarantee payment by a seller made at the same time another bank guarantees performance by a buyer. Back-to-back credit is intended to reduce the risk of a transaction to a minimum. Back-to-back credit is also called countervailing credit or reciprocal credit. See also: Back-to-Back Letter of Credit.


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Oracle's hardware business typically builds systems with either Intel silicon or its own SPARC. For the most part, the Engineered Systems portfolio is made up of Exa-class systems running on Intel x86 with Oracle Linux.
Then there are the SPARC-based systems that run on Oracle's own silicon typically running Solaris UNIX. Now Oracle is debuting a new system that melds the best of both SPARC and the Intel-powered Exa-class systems.
Oracle is expanding its engineered systems portfolio this week with the launch of the new SPARC SuperCluster T5-8. The new SuperCluster is powered by the SPARC T5 processor that Oracle first announced in March of this year. The T5 has 16 SPARC v9 cores per processor and 8 MB of shared level 3 cache per core.
At the time of the SPARC T5 launch, Oracle also announced a SPARC T5-8 server. The SPARC T5-8 is an 8 socket system that can deliver up to 128 processor cores in total. The new SPARC SuperCluster T5-8 builds off that initial server base.
An Oracle spokesperson explained to ServerWatch that the Oracle SuperCluster T5-8 is an engineered system that delivers server, storage, networking and system software in an optimized and ready-to-run solution.
The SuperCluster T5-8 integrates two SPARC T5-8 servers, Oracle Exadata database storage, a Sun ZFS Storage Appliance and InfiniBand network fabric with Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, Oracle Solaris and Oracle Enterprise Manager software.
In total, the system delivers 256 compute cores and 4 TB of memory from the two SPARC T5-8 compute nodes.
While the SPARC SuperCluster is powered by SPARC compute, the integrated Exadata database storage sever is powered by a pair of 6-core Intel Xeon E5-2630L chips for SQL processing. In terms of storage capacity a full rack configuration with high capacity disks can be configured with up to 288 TB of raw disk capacity.
The SPARC SuperCluster T5-8 also includes Oracle Solaris 11.1, which can be used to support a variety of applications including databases. According to Oracle, with the SuperCluster T5-8 companies can deploy an entire multi-tier enterprise application with web, database, and application components on one highly efficient, highly available system.
While Oracle's overall hardware business has been slumping, its Engineered Systems business has been a bright spot. During Oracle most recent fiscal quarter, CEO Larry Ellison reported that the Exa-class systems all had their best quarters ever. Ellison did not specifically call out or mention the SPARC SuperCluster class of engineered systems during the earnings call.
The first generation of SPARC SuperCluster was announced in September of 2011 powered by the SPARC T4.
According to Oracle, the new SPARC SuperCluster T5-8 is now Oracle's fastest engineered system.
"SuperCluster is Oracle's only engineered system that combines Exadata and Exalogic capabilities with zero overhead virtualization," Oracle's spokesperson said. "In addition, only SuperCluster supports running older software without modification using Oracle Solaris and connecting to legacy SAN storage allowing organizations to incrementally migrate their applications over time."
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.