1586: Escaped Mutant

In the morning Adam!

My name is Jennifer and I live in Mesa, Arizona. I wanted to give you an update on the pediatric vaccine scene here in the greater Phoenix area.

Our 2nd human resource was born this past December and part of my research for finding a pediatrician was to find a provider that did not require vaccines. I did. I have had to sign a waiver at every wellness check, but have not been harrassed in the least.

As of this past June, the practice will no longer accept any unvaccinated patients. Thankfully in our case, current patients will continue to be seen even if they are unvaccinated. But should my husband & I have another baby, that child would have to follow the vaccine schedule or a specific delayed schedule of at least 1 shot at every wellness check! (I feel the need to find another pediatrician as a backup in case they change their mind again!)

Also, right before our daughter's birth both my husband and I were laid off. so we qualified for state medicaid. I have attached a photo of the latest flyer that the insurance provider sent us. Their records showed that my daughter might not be up to date on her shots and highly suggested that we get caught up with the CDC recommendations. In fine print, you will see that financial support for this mailing was provided by Pfizer!

Thank you both for your endless deconstruction and help for us slaves to survive Gitmo Nation! Please enjoy the audio clip of my son. :)

Sincerely,

Jennifer

Germany energy depleted

France - no more access to your resources

Looks like they are trying to blame a French airline for putting the wrong value in a flight plan field and causing a system crash. If the software is that bad it’s not the airline’s fault. Also you might find a couple of my other stories interesting.

Revealed: Ageing computer system 'is to blame' for air traffic control meltdown as passengers may have been condemned to sleeping on airport floors when controller put too many DOTS in a flight plan request, expert says | Daily Mail Online

The FAA at the behest of ALPA is trying to ban airlines flying planes of 10-30 seats (terrible for small Republican cities with scant air service) with pilot with less than 1500 hours saying it is unsafe. The real goal is to make it so expensive to be a pilot that ALPA can shake down airlines for $700-800k top end wages.

And DOJ may allow Spirit to merge with JetBlue and Jack up fares 40% to protect their previous competition damaging court judgment.

UPDATE2: UK ATC Experiences System Failure | Patreon

UPDATE: DOT May Close JSX, SWC, Much of EAS | Patreon

Cliodynamics (/ˌkliːoʊdaɪˈnæmɪks/) is a transdisciplinary area of research that integrates cultural evolution, economic history/cliometrics, macrosociology, the mathematical modeling of historical processes during the longue durée, and the construction and analysis of historical databases.[1]

Cliodynamics treats history as science. Its practitioners develop theories that explain such dynamical processes as the rise and fall of empires, population booms and busts, and the spread and disappearance of religions.[2][3] These theories are translated into mathematical models. Finally, model predictions are tested against data. Thus, building and analyzing massive databases of historical and archaeological information is one of the most important goals of cliodynamics.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliodynamics

The dollar hit a 46% high last month in global transactions, but at the expense of the euro, which is at a record low of 22%.

The P+ Original documentary Superpower tells the story of how Sean Penn heads to Ukraine to learn more about comedic-actor turned president, Volodymyr Zelensky. It was to be an amusing film – it has turned into a document of history. When Penn was brought into an undisclosed bunker in the Presidential Palace, the Russian invasion had begun. Penn talked to President Zelensky as explosions rocked the city. He became an inadvertent front-row witness to this historic ‘David and Goliath’ struggle.

Through moments of levity, inspiration and on the ground storytelling, it becomes clear that Ukraine’s Superpower lies in the strength of its leader, its people, and ultimately, its heart.

Stream the new documentary on September 18, exclusively on Paramount+

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 15:40

Authored by Alan MacLeod via MintPress News,

The Taliban government in Afghanistan '' the nation that until recently produced 90% of the world's heroin '' has drastically reduced opium cultivation across the country. Western sources estimate an up to 99% reduction in some provinces. This raises serious questions about the seriousness of U.S. drug eradication efforts in the country over the past 20 years. And, as global heroin supplies dry up, experts tell MintPress News that they fear this could spark the growing use of fentanyl '' a drug dozens of times stronger than heroin that already kills more than 100,000 Americans yearly.

The Taliban Does What the US Did NotIt has already been called ''the most successful counter-narcotics effort in human history.'' Armed with little more than sticks, teams of counter-narcotics brigades travel the country, cutting down Afghanistan's poppy fields.

In April of last year, the ruling Taliban government announced the prohibition of poppy farming, citing both their strong religious beliefs and the extremely harmful social costs that heroin and other opioids '' derived from the sap of the poppy plant '' have wrought across Afghanistan.

It has not been all bluster. New research from geospatial data company Alcis suggests that poppy production has already plummeted by around 80% since last year. Indeed, satellite imagery shows that in Helmand Province, the area that produces more than half of the crop, poppy production has dropped by a staggering 99%. Just 12 months ago, poppy fields were dominant. But Alcis estimates that there are now less than 1,000 hectares of poppy growing in Helmand.

Instead, farmers are planting wheat, helping stave off the worst of a famine that U.S. sanctions helped create. Afghanistan is still in a perilous state, however, with the United Nations warning that six million people are close to starvation.

Data from Alcis shows that a majority of Afghan farmers switched from growing poppy to wheat in a single yearThe Taliban waited until 2022 to impose the long-awaited ban in order not to interfere with the growing season. Doing so would have provoked unrest among the rural population by eradicating a crop that farmers had spent months growing. Between 2020 and late 2022, the price of opium in local markets rose by as much as 700%. Yet given the Taliban's insistence '' and their efficiency at eradication '' few have been tempted to plant poppies.

The poppy ban has been matched by a similar campaign against the methamphetamine industry, with the government targeting the ephedra crop and shutting down ephedrine labs across the country.

A Looming CatastropheAfghanistan produces almost 90% of the world's heroin. Therefore, the eradication of the opium crop will have profound worldwide consequences on drug use. Experts MintPress spoke to warned that a dearth of heroin would likely produce a huge spike in the use of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, a drug the Center for Disease Control estimates is 50 times stronger and is responsible for taking the lives of more than 100,000 Americans each year.

''It is important to consider past periods of heroin shortages and the impact these have had on the European drug market,'' the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) told MintPress, adding:

Experience in the E.U. with previous periods of reduced heroin supply suggests that this can lead to changes in patterns of drug supply and use. This can include further an increase in rates of polysubstance use among heroin users. Additional risks to existing users may be posed by the substitution of heroin with more harmful synthetic opioids, including fentanyl and its derivatives and new potent benzimidazole opioids.''

In other words, if heroin is no longer available, users will switch to far deadlier synthetic forms of the drug. A 2022 United Nations report came to a similar conclusion, noting that the crackdown on heroin production could lead to the ''replacement of heroin or opium by other substances'...such as fentanyl and its analogs.''

''It does have that danger in the macro sense, that if you take all that heroin off the market, people are going to go to other products,'' Matthew Hoh told MintPress. Hoh is a former State Department official who resigned from his post in Zabul Province, Afghanistan, in 2009. ''But the response should not be reinvade Afghanistan, reoccupy it and put the drug lords back in power, which is basically what people are implying when they bemoan the consequence of the Taliban stopping the drug trade,'' Hoh added; ''Most of the people who are speaking this way and worrying out loud about it are people who want to find a reason for the U.S. to go and affect regime change in Afghanistan.''

There certainly has been plenty of hand-wringing from American sources. ''Foreign Policy,'' wrote about ''how the Taliban's 'war on drugs' could backfire;'' U.S. government-funded ''Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty'' claimed that the Taliban were turning a ''blind eye to opium production,'' despite the official ban. And the United States Institute of Peace, an institution created by Congress that is ''dedicated to the proposition that a world without violent conflict is possible,'' stated emphatically that ''the Taliban's successful opium ban is bad for Afghans and the world''.

This looming catastrophe, however, will not hit immediately. Significant stockpiles of drugs along trafficking routes still exist. As the EMCDDA told MintPress:

It can take over 12 months before the opium harvest appears on the European retail drug market as heroin '' and so it is too early to predict, at this stage, the future impact of the cultivation ban on heroin availability in Europe. Nonetheless, if the ban on opium cultivation is enforced and sustained, it could have a significant impact on heroin availability in Europe during 2024 or 2025.''

Yet there is little indication that the Taliban are anything but serious about eradicating the crop, indicating that a heroin crunch is indeed coming.

A similar attempt by the Taliban to eliminate the drug occurred in 2000, the last full year that they were in power. It was extraordinarily successful, with opium reduction dropping from 4,600 tons to just 185 tons. At that time, it took around 18 months for the consequences to be felt in the West. In the United Kingdom, average heroin purity fell from 55% to 34%, while in the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, heroin was largely replaced by fentanyl. However, as soon as the United States invaded in 2001, poppy cultivation shot back up to previous levels and the supply chain recommenced.

US Complicity in the Afghan Drug TradeThe Taliban's successful campaign to eradicate drug production has cast a shadow of doubt over the effectiveness of American-led endeavors to achieve the same outcome. ''It prompts the question, 'What were we actually accomplishing there?!''' remarked Hoh, underscoring:

This undermines one of the fundamental premises behind the wars: the alleged association between the Taliban and the drug trade '' a concept of a narco-terror nexus. However, this notion was fallacious. The reality was that Afghanistan was responsible for a staggering 80-90% of the world's illicit opiate supply. The primary controllers of this trade were the Afghan government and military, entities we upheld in power.''

Hoh clarified that he never personally witnessed or received any reports of direct involvement by U.S. troops or officials in narcotics trafficking. Instead, he contended that there existed a ''conscious and deliberate turning away from the unfolding events'' during his tenure in Afghanistan.'

Left, a US Marine picks a flower as he guards a poppy field in 2012 in Helmand Provine. Photo | DVIDS. Right, A man breaks poppy stalks as part of a 2023 campaign to target illegal drugs in Afghanistan. Oriane Zerah | APSuzanna Reiss, an academic at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the author of ''We Sell Drugs: The Alchemy of U.S. Empire,'' demonstrated an even more cynical perspective on American counter-narcotics endeavors as she conveyed to MintPress:

The U.S. has never really been focused on reducing the drug trade in Afghanistan (or elsewhere for that matter). All the lofty rhetoric aside, the U.S. has been happy to work with drug traffickers if the move would advance certain geopolitical interests (and indeed, did so, or at least turned a knowingly blind eye, when groups like the Northern Alliance relied on drugs to fund their political movement against the regime.).''

Afghanistan's transformation into a preeminent narco-state owes a significant debt to Washington's actions. Poppy cultivation in the 1970s was relatively limited. However, the tide changed in 1979 with the inception of Operation Cyclone, a massive infusion of funds to Afghan Mujahideen factions aimed at exhausting the Soviet military and terminating its presence in Afghanistan. The U.S. directed billions toward the insurgents, yet their financial needs persisted. Consequently, the Mujahideen delved into the illicit drug trade. By the culmination of Operation Cyclone, Afghanistan's opium production had soared twentyfold. Professor Alfred McCoy, acclaimed author of ''The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade,'' shared with MintPress that approximately 75% of the planet's illegal opium output was now sourced from Afghanistan, a substantial portion of the proceeds funneling to U.S.-backed rebel factions.

Unraveling the Opioid Crisis: An Impending DisasterThe opioid crisis is the worst addiction epidemic in U.S. history. Earlier this year, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas described the American fentanyl problem as ''the single greatest challenge we face as a country.'' Nearly 110,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2021, fentanyl being by far the leading cause. Between 2015 and 2021, the National Institute of Health recorded a nearly 7.5-fold increase in overdose deaths. Medical journal The Lancet predicts that 1.2 million Americans will die from opioid overdoses by 2029.

U.S. officials blame Mexican cartels for smuggling the synthetic painkiller across the southern border and China for producing the chemicals necessary to make the drug.

White Americans are more likely to misuse these types of drugs than other races. Adults aged 35-44 experience the highest rates of deaths, although deaths among younger people are surging. Rural America has been particularly hard hit; a 2017 study by the National Farmers Union and the American Farm Bureau Federation found that 74% of farmers have been directly impacted by the opioid epidemic. West Virginia and Tennessee are the states most badly hit.

For writer Chris Hedges, who hails from rural Maine, the fentanyl crisis is an example of one of the many ''diseases of despair'' the U.S. is suffering from. It has, according to Hedges, ''risen from a decayed world where opportunity, which confers status, self-esteem and dignity, has dried up for most Americans. They are expressions of acute desperation and morbidity.'' In essence, when the American dream fizzled out, it was replaced by an American nightmare. That white men are the prime victims of these diseases of despair is an ironic outgrowth of our unfair system. As Hedges explained:

White men, more easily seduced by the myth of the American dream than people of color who understand how the capitalist system is rigged against them, often suffer feelings of failure and betrayal, in many cases when they are in their middle years. They expect, because of notions of white supremacy and capitalist platitudes about hard work leading to advancement, to be ascendant. They believe in success.''

In this sense, it is important to place the opioid addiction crisis in a wider context of American decline, where opportunities for success and happiness are fewer and farther between than ever, rather than attribute it to individuals. As the ''Lancet'' wrote: ''Punitive and stigmatizing approaches must end. Addiction is not a moral failing. It is a medical condition and poses a constant threat to health.''

A ''Uniquely American Problem''Nearly 10 million Americans misuse prescription opioids every year and at a rate far higher than comparable developed countries. Deaths due to opioid overdose in the United States are ten times more common per capita than in Germany and more than 20 times as frequent in Italy, for instance.

Much of this is down to the United States' for-profit healthcare system. American private insurance companies are far more likely to favor prescribing drugs and pills than more expensive therapies that get to the root cause of the issue driving the addiction in the first place. As such, the opioid crisis is commonly referred to as a ''uniquely American problem.''

Part of the reason U.S. doctors are much more prone to doling out exceptionally strong pain medication relief than their European counterparts is that they were subject to a hyper-aggressive marketing campaign from Purdue Pharma, manufacturers of the powerful opioid OxyContin. Purdue launched OxyContin in 1996, and its agents swarmed doctors' offices to push the new ''wonder drug.''

Approximately 1 million fake pills containing fentanyl seized on July 5, 2022, at a home in Inglewood, Calif. Photo | DEA via APYet, in lawsuit after lawsuit, the company has been accused of lying about both the effectiveness and the addictiveness of OxyContin, a drug that has hooked countless Americans onto opioids. And when legal but incredibly addictive prescription opioids dry up, Americans turned to illicit substances like heroin and fentanyl as substitutes.

Purdue Pharma owners, the Sackler family, have regularly been described as the most evil family in America, with many laying the blame for the hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths squarely at their door. In 2019, under the weight of thousands of lawsuits against it, Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy. A year later, it plead guilty to criminal charges over its mismarketing of OxyContin.

Nevertheless, the Sacklers made out like bandits from their actions. Even after being forced last year to pay nearly $6 billion in cash to victims of the opioid crisis, they remain one of the world's richest families and have refused to apologize for their role in constructing an empire of pain that has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Instead, the family has attempted to launder their image through philanthropy, sponsoring many of the most prestigious arts and cultural institutions in the world. These include the Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Yale University, and the British Museum and Royal Academy in London.

One group who are disproportionately affected by opioids like OxyContin, heroin and fentanyl are veterans. According to the National Institutes of Health, veterans are twice as likely to die from overdose than the general population. One reason for this is bureaucracy. ''The Veterans Administration did a really poor job in the past decades with their pain management, particularly their reliance on opioids,'' Hoh, a former marine, told MintPress, noting that the V.A. prescribed dangerous opioids at a higher rate than other healthcare agencies.

Ex-soldiers often have to cope with chronic pain and brain injuries. Hoh noted that around a quarter-million veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq have traumatic brain injuries. But added to that are the deep moral injuries many suffered '' injuries that typically cannot be seen. As Hoh noted:

Veterans are turning to [opioids like fentanyl] to deal with the mental, emotional and spiritual consequences of the war, using them to quell the distress, try to find some relief, escape from the depression, and deal with the demons that come home with veterans who took part in those wars.''

Thus, if the Taliban's opium eradication program continues, it could spark a fentanyl crisis that might kill more Americans than the 20-year occupation ever did.

Broken SocietyIf diseases of despair are common throughout the United States, they are rampant in Afghanistan itself. A global report released in March revealed that Afghans are by far the most miserable people on Earth. Afghans evaluated their lives at 1.8 out of 10 '' dead last and far behind the top of the pile Finland (7.8 out of 10).

Opium addiction in Afghanistan is out of control, with around 9% of the adult population (and a significant number of children) addicted. Between 2005 and 2015, the number of adult drug users jumped from 900,000 to 2.4 million, according to the United Nations, which estimates that almost one in three households is directly affected by addiction. As opium is frequently injected, blood-transmitted conditions like HIV are common as well.

The opioid problem has also spilled into neighboring countries such as Iran and Pakistan. A 2013 United Nations report estimated that almost 2.5 million Pakistanis were abusing opioids, including 11% of people in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Around 700 people die each day from overdoses.

Empire of DrugsGiven their history, It is perhaps understandable that Asian nations have generally taken far more authoritarian measures to counter drug addiction issues. For centuries, using the illegal drug trade to advance imperial objectives has been a common Western tactic. In the 1940s and 1950s, the French utilized opium crops in the ''Golden Triangle'' region of Southeast Asia in order to counter the growing Vietnamese independence movement.

A century previously, the British used opium to crush and conquer much of China. Britain's insatiable thirst for Chinese tea was beginning to bankrupt the country, seeing as China would only accept gold or silver in exchange. The British, therefore, used the power of its navy to force China to cede Hong Kong to it. From there, it flooded mainland China with opium grown in South Asia (including Afghanistan).

The effect of the Opium War was astonishing. By 1880, the British were inundating China with more than 6,500 tons of opium per year '' the equivalent of many billions of doses. Chinese society crumbled, unable to deal with the empire-wide social and economic dislocation that millions of opium addicts brought. Today, the Chinese continue to refer to the period as the ''century of humiliation''.

Meanwhile, in South Asia, the British forced farmers to plant poppy fields instead of edible crops, causing waves of giant famines, the likes of which had never been seen before or since.

And during the 1980s in Central America, the United States sold weapons to Iran in order to fund far-right Contra death squads. The Contras were deeply implicated in the cocaine trade, fuelling their dirty war through crack cocaine sales in the U.S. '' a practice that, according to journalist Gary Webb, the Central Intelligence Agency facilitated.

Imperialism and illicit drugs, therefore, commonly go together. However, with the Taliban opium eradication effort in full effect, coupled with the uniquely American phenomenon of opioid addiction, it is possible that the United States will suffer significant blowback in the coming years. The deadly fentanyl epidemic will likely only get worse, needlessly taking hundreds of thousands more American lives. Thus, even as Afghanistan attempts to rid itself of its deadly drug addiction problem, its actions could precipitate an epidemic that promises to kill more Americans than any of Washington's imperial endeavors to date.

Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

Loading...

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 15:39

Glossary

Essential lessons for leaders, based on 12 additions to the language of work

Illustration by Selman Hoşg¶r

A A re you quiet quitting, or just embracing JOMO? Timeboxing, or adapting to the Triple Peak workday? From productivity paranoia to asynchronous collaboration, the language we use to describe work is changing as quickly as work itself'--The Economist even declared ''hybrid work'' the 2022 word of the year, noting that it would reshape everything from how we use cities to what we consider free time. As business leaders look to understand the new patterns of work, these terms offer insights into both the challenges and opportunities ahead.

''We've all been through this tremendous shared experience that has prompted us to find new ways to label the ways we're feeling,'' says Colette Stallbaumer, general manager of Microsoft 365 and Future of Work at Microsoft. One of those feelings, she says, is being tired. ''Humans will always want to be inventive and find new ways of doing things and reach greater heights,'' she says. ''But ambition is tired right now. It's not dead, but it needs a rest.''

Productivity paranoia: leaders being uneasy about whether people are being productive, even though people are working more than ever.

In the past, employees who admitted to feeling burned out or stuck might have faced career blockers, but by now, people have seen their colleagues' roommates and kids move in and out of the virtual frame, or had the doorbell ring during a team check-in. Transparency is in, and no group is embracing it more fully than Gen Z'--whose unvarnished approach toward everything from officewear to email etiquette has begun to influence workplace culture. ''Hybrid work encourages authentic communication,'' says Hannah McConnaughey, a 25-year-old communications manager at Microsoft, who recently broke down some Gen Z buzzwords for the WorkLab podcast. And as McConnaughey points out on the pod, hybrid work is the only work her generation has known.

The new work words listed below often reflect a particular tension'--a balancing act between the desire for ambition and excellence, and the need for boundaries and authenticity.

Asynchronous collaboration

Historically, employees did their jobs at the same time and in the same place'--9 to 5 in the office. But new patterns of work and new technology have allowed people to find ways of collaborating that transcend space and time'--9 to 5 in the office is no longer the default, and people can work together even if they are working at different times of day.

Managers can do a few things to support asynchronous work, like reimagining meeting culture (see JOMO, below), leveraging asynchronous tools like meeting transcripts and recordings, and creating new team best practices. Managers should also lead by example, establishing work-life boundaries like switching off notifications and using delay delivery options when they're typing notes on the weekend. (And they should, of course, create agreements and build habits with their teams to respect those boundaries in others.) Because being able to work anytime, anywhere should not mean working all the time, everywhere.

Generative AI

If you've played around with Dall-E 2 or ChatGPT, you've experienced the power of generative AI, which uses existing input in the form of text, images, audio, and video to create novel outputs in the same form. It's poised to transform the working world, says Kevin Scott, chief technology officer at Microsoft. He believes that in the near future, this technology will evolve to allow us to unleash our creativity, make coding and other forms of content generation more accessible, and allow for faster iteration. ''I think with some confidence I can say that 2023 is going to be the most exciting year that the AI community has ever had,'' he wrote in a blog post.

As AI continues to transform work, business leaders will need to be agile in adopting new work patterns enabled by these tools, and be ready to start measuring impact and creativity instead of antiquated metrics like time spent and presenteeism.

Goblin mode

Oxford named it the 2022 Word of the Year, defining goblin mode as ''a type of behavior which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.'' Plug the term into TikTok, however, and you'll see influencers reclaiming goblin mode as a point of pride'--a rejection of self-image and the ''immaculate self-presentation'' of the glossy Instagram era. Stallbaumer embraces this more empowering take. ''Goblin mode can look like showing up to work as more of yourself,'' she says. ''It's shedding a version of ourselves in a way that feels freeing. Being in goblin mode might be joining a video meeting in a T-shirt and hoodie with no makeup on. But appearance is not what we want to value in the workplace anyway. We want to value people's contributions, impact, and ideas.''

Embracing goblin mode can even be considered a business imperative. When leaders create cultures where people feel free to be themselves, they also lay the groundwork for the close, authentic interactions that help employees develop stronger relationships with each other'--which in turn leads to both higher productivity and better wellbeing.

Human Energy Crisis

Kathleen Hogan, chief people officer and EVP at Microsoft, used this phrase in a recent LinkedIn post to describe a collective depleted state of enthusiasm, motivation, and mental health due to social unrest, geopolitical instability, economic uncertainty, and occupational burnout.

Since the start of the pandemic, the workday span has increased more than 13 percent, and after-hours and weekend work are up 28 percent and 14 percent, respectively. To combat the Human Energy Crisis, Hogan believes business leaders should focus on six key areas, including prioritizing wellbeing and allowing employees to be, well, a little bit in goblin mode: ''It gives people permission to balance their lives in meaningful ways without feeling they must sacrifice career growth for personal priorities and vice versa.''

JOMO

The opposite of FOMO or the ''fear of missing out,'' JOMO, the ''joy of missing out,'' describes a state of happiness as a result of not doing something'--an event, a meeting, a conference. Stallbaumer says that leaders have traditionally placed value on ''presenteeism,'' the state of being present or in attendance no matter the effect on productivity levels, but new work patterns require them to trust individuals to determine when it's important to attend a meeting, and when they can skip it or catch up later. ''We want people to embrace JOMO, and not make employees feel like they're being judged for missing a meeting. Value comes from impact, not visibility.''

JOMO is a natural part of asynchronous collaboration. ''I have a colleague in the UK who's going to listen to a meeting recording tomorrow morning because she's not going to join live at two in the morning her time,'' Stallbaumer says. ''And that's okay! She embraces that. But JOMO is a new skill'--a new learned behavior'--and we're not all comfortable with it yet.'' (See the WorkLab guide to work-life balance for more tips on upping your team's JOMO.)

Stallbaumer embraces a more empowering take on goblin mode: ''It can look like showing up to work as more of yourself. It's shedding a version of ourselves in a way that feels freeing.''

NTD

Just like GTG for ''got to go'' or TTYL for ''talk to you later,'' meeting participants may type NTD (''need to drop'') in the chat when a meeting is running over time or they need to dismiss themselves'--to jump to another call, take a bio break, tend to a distressed child. McConnaughey points out that when leaders see a lot of N'ingTD or dropping off, they may want to reaffirm to their team that they should build in breaks between engagements, and that meetings should ideally not be a full 30 or 60 minutes long. Then teams should adhere to those time limits, she says: ''If meetings always ended on time, you wouldn't ever NTD.''

No-KRs

In contrast to OKRs (objectives and key results), No-KRs are tasks that should not be prioritized, and understanding them is critical. Stallbaumer recommends organizations provide short-term relief for managers by creating shared No-KRs, so leaders can audit their calendars accordingly, better understand how to develop team goals, and mitigate distractions. No-KRs provide a new way to think about productivity'--it should be a measure of impact, not just activity.

Productivity paranoia

If WorkLab had chosen a 2022 word of the year, this would be it. The Work Trend Index Report found that 87 percent of employees across industries feel that they're productive at work. And the data bears this out: the report found that hours worked, workday span, chats after hours, number of meetings, and weekend work were all on the rise. At the same time, 85 percent of leaders said that hybrid work made it challenging to have confidence that employees are being productive. This disconnect has led to what the report dubbed ''productivity paranoia,'' where leaders are uneasy about whether people are being productive, even though people are working more than ever.

Managers experiencing productivity paranoia may feel compelled to micromanage employees' time, but they should instead pivot away from worrying about whether their people are working enough to helping them focus on what's most important. They can use OKRs to create and reinforce a culture that rewards employees' impact, and collect employee feedback regularly. ''It's the job of every leader to balance employee interests with the success of the organization,'' Stallbaumer says. ''For today's talent, flexibility is table stakes. The best leaders understand that empowering people to work how, when, and where they work best is ultimately in the best interest of the organization.''

Quiet quitting

The concept of doing only what's required at work, usually to reserve energy for interests and activities outside of work, isn't new, but its name'--quiet quitting'--is, and it has cropped up everywhere. The term gets interpreted in a variety of ways, which shows an exacerbating divide between employee and employer. Quiet quitting is not a definitive precursor to actually quitting, nor does it mean that someone does not enjoy their job. Instead, the phenomenon is a reflection of employees' shifting priorities.''Our data shows people are working more than ever,'' Stallbaumer says. ''They just have a new 'worth-it equation.' People have reevaluated their priorities and are focusing more on their own wellbeing.''

Timeboxing

This productivity technique involves choosing the most important areas of your life'--from family to exercise to community to work'--and laying them out on your calendar with precise start and stop times. Jared Spataro, corporate vice president of Modern Work at Microsoft, lives by this technique. And he coaches leaders and managers to encourage their teams to take control of their schedules and ''respect the boxes.'' ''You have to have the senior-most leaders paint that picture and help people understand that, not only is this okay, this is what we want,'' he notes.

Triple peak

Knowledge workers used to have two productivity peaks in their workday: before lunch and after lunch. According to Microsoft research, the pandemic sprouted a third peak: around 9 p.m. The average Teams user sent 42 percent more chats per person after business hours, when dinner is finished, kids are asleep, and distractions are at bay. Coined by Microsoft researchers'--and later tweeted by Derek Thompson at The Atlantic and featured in The New York Times'--the ''triple peak workday'' shows that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to getting work done. Some people stick to traditional business hours; others don't. Managers and leaders should craft team agreements to establish new patterns of work that satisfy everyone.

Worth-it equation

Compared to before the pandemic, about half of the employees surveyed for a Microsoft Work Trend Index Report said they were more likely to put family and personal life over work; more than half of employees said they were more likely to prioritize health and wellbeing. What really matters? What do I want to compromise on?

It's an equation that leaders must help their teams solve effectively in the coming year'--even as they deal with economic uncertainty and ongoing change across work and life'--so that everyone can thrive. Because while ambition might need a rest, Stallbaumer says, ''I believe in the resilience of the human spirit.''

Stay up-to-date with WorkLab

New data and actionable insights, delivered right to your inbox

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 15:33

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mathematical modeling of historical processes

Cliodynamics () is a transdisciplinary area of research that integrates cultural evolution, economic history/cliometrics, macrosociology, the mathematical modeling of historical processes during the longue dur(C)e, and the construction and analysis of historical databases.

Cliodynamics treats history as science. Its practitioners develop theories that explain such dynamical processes as the rise and fall of empires, population booms and busts, and the spread and disappearance of religions. These theories are translated into mathematical models. Finally, model predictions are tested against data. Thus, building and analyzing massive databases of historical and archaeological information is one of the most important goals of cliodynamics.

Etymology [ edit ] The word cliodynamics is composed of clio- and -dynamics. In Greek mythology, Clio is the muse of history. Dynamics, most broadly, is the study of how and why phenomena change with time.

The term was originally coined by Peter Turchin in 2003, and can be traced to the work of such figures as Ibn Khaldun, Alexandre Deulofeu, Jack Goldstone, Sergey Kapitsa, Randall Collins, John Komlos, and Andrey Korotayev.

Mathematical modeling of historical dynamics [ edit ] Many historical processes are dynamic, in that they change with time: populations increase and decline, economies expand and contract, states grow and collapse, and so on. As such, practitioners of cliodynamics apply mathematical models to explain macrohistorical patterns'--things like the rise of empires, social discontent, civil wars, and state collapse.

Cliodynamics is the application of a dynamical systems approach to the social sciences in general and to the study of historical dynamics in particular. More broadly, this approach is quite common and has proved its worth in innumerable applications (particularly in the natural sciences).

The dynamical systems approach is so called because the whole phenomenon is represented as a system consisting of several elements (or subsystems) that interact and change dynamically (i.e., over time). More simply, it consists of taking a holistic phenomenon and splitting it up into separate parts that are assumed to interact with each other. In the dynamical systems approach, one sets out explicitly with mathematical formulae how different subsystems interact with each other. This mathematical description is the model of the system, and one can use a variety of methods to study the dynamics predicted by the model, as well as attempt to test the model by comparing its predictions with observed empirical, dynamic evidence.

Although the focus is usually on the dynamics of large conglomerates of people, the approach of cliodynamics does not preclude the inclusion of human agency in its explanatory theories. Such questions can be explored with agent-based computer simulations.

Databases and data sources [ edit ] Cliodynamics relies on large bodies of evidence to test competing theories on a wide range of historical processes. This typically involves building massive stores of evidence. The rise of digital history and various research technologies have allowed huge databases to be constructed in recent years.

Some prominent databases utilized by cliodynamics practitioners include:

The Seshat: Global History Databank, which systematically collects state-of-the-art accounts of the political and social organization of human groups and how societies have evolved through time into an authoritative databank. Seshat is affiliated also with the Evolution Institute, a non-profit think-tank that "uses evolutionary science to solve real-world problems."D-PLACE (Database of Places, Languages, Culture and Environment), which provides data on over 1,400 human social formations.The Atlas of Cultural Evolution, an archaeological database created by Peter N. Peregrine.CHIA (Collaborative for Historical Information and Analysis), a multidisciplinary collaborative endeavor hosted by the University of Pittsburgh with the goal of archiving historical information and linking data as well as academic/research institutions around the globe.[14]International Institute of Social History, which collects data on the global social history of labour relations, workers, and labour.[15]Human Relations Area Files (eHRAF)Archaeology[16]World Cultures[17]Clio-Infra, a database of measures of economic performance and other aspects of societal well-being on a global sample of societies from 1800 CE to the present.[18]The Google Ngram Viewer, an online search engine that charts frequencies of sets of comma-delimited search strings using a yearly count of n-grams as found in the largest online body of human knowledge, the Google Books corpus.Research [ edit ] Areas of study [ edit ] As of 2016, the main directions of academic study in cliodynamics are:

The coevolutionary model of social complexity and warfare, based on the theoretical framework of cultural multilevel selectionThe study of revolutions and rebellionsStructural-demographic theory and secular cyclesExplanations of the global distribution of languages benefitted from the empirical finding that the geographic area in which a language is spoken is more closely associated with the political complexity of the speakers than with all other variables under analysis.Mathematical modeling of the long-term ("millennial") trends of world-systems analysis,Structural-demographic models of the Modern Age revolutions, including the Arab revolutions of 2011.The analysis of vast quantities of historical newspaper content, which shows how periodic structures can be automatically discovered in historical newspapers. A similar analysis was performed on social media, again revealing strongly periodic structures.Organizations [ edit ] There are several established venues of peer-reviewed cliodynamics research:

Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution[39] is a peer-reviewed web-based (open-access) journal that publishes on the transdisciplinary area of cliodynamics. It seeks to integrate historical models with data to facilitate theoretical progress. The first issue was published in December 2010. Cliodynamics is a member of Scopus and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).The University of Hertfordshire's Cliodynamics Lab[40] is the first lab in the world dedicated explicitly to the new research area of cliodynamics. It is directed by Pieter Fran§ois, who founded the Lab in 2015.The Santa Fe Institute[41] is a private, not-for-profit research and education center where leading scientists grapple with compelling and complex problems. The institute supports work in complex modeling of networks and dynamical systems. One of the areas of SFI research is cliodynamics.[42] In the past the institute has sponsored a series of conversations and meetings on theoretical history.[43]Criticism [ edit ] Critics of cliodynamics often argue that the complex social formations of the past cannot and should not be reduced to quantifiable, analyzable 'data points', for doing so overlooks each historical society's particular circumstances and dynamics. Many historians and social scientists contend that there are no generalisable causal factors that can explain large numbers of cases, but that historical investigation should focus on the unique trajectories of each case, highlighting commonalities in outcomes where they exist. As Zhao notes, "most historians believe that the importance of any mechanism in history changes, and more importantly, that there is no time-invariant structure that can organise all historical mechanisms into a system."

Fiction [ edit ] Isaac Asimov invented the fictional precursor to this discipline, in what he called psychohistory, as a major plot device in his Foundation series of science fiction novels.[47][48]

See also [ edit ] Critical juncture theoryGenerations (book)Historical geographic information systemSociocultural evolutionHistorical dynamicsReferences [ edit ] Bibliography [ edit ] Burkhart, Richard H. (2016). "Applied Mathematics and Political Crises". Siam News. Currie, Thomas E.; Mace, Ruth (2009). "Political complexity predicts the spread of ethnolinguistic groups". PNAS. 106 (18): 7339''7344. Bibcode:2009PNAS..106.7339C. doi:10.1073/pnas.0804698106 . PMC 2670878 . PMID 19380740. Dzogang, Fabon; Lansdall-Welfare, Thomas; FindMyPast Newspaper Team; Cristianini, Nello (2016-11-08). "Discovering Periodic Patterns in Historical News". PLOS ONE. 11 (11): e0165736. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1165736D. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0165736 . ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 5100883 . PMID 27824911. Dzogang F, Lansdall-Welfare T, Cristianini N (2016). "Seasonal Fluctuations in Collective Mood Revealed by Wikipedia Searches and Twitter Posts" (PDF) . Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE international conference on data mining workshop (SENTIRE), Barcelona. pp. 12''15. Finley, Klint. 2013. "Mathematicians Predict The Future With Data from the Past." Wired.Goldstone, J. (1991). Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. Graber, Robert B. (2008). "Review of Andrey Korotayev, Artemy Malkov, and Darkia Khaltourina, Introduction to Social Macrodynamics (Three Volumes)". Journal of Social Evolution and History. 7 (2). Greby, James (2016). " 'Cliodynamics' Research Proves American Freaks Out Every 50 Years". Inverse. Keen, Steven; Owen, Charles (2017). "The Value of Everything: E120. Professor Steve Keen Interview - The Future of Money" '' via YouTube. (segment starts at 47:18)Kirby, Kathryn R.; Gray, Russell D.; Greenhill, Simon J.; Jordan, Fiona M.; Gomes-Ng, Stephanie; Bibiko, Hans-J¶rg; Blasi, Damin E.; Botero, Carlos A.; Bowern, Claire; Ember, Carol R.; Leehr, Dan; Low, Bobbi S.; McCarter, Joe; Divale, William (2016). "D-PLACE: A Global Database of Cultural, Linguistic and Environmental Diversity". PLOS ONE. 11 (7): e0158391. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1158391K. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0158391 . PMC 4938595 . PMID 27391016. Komlos J., Nefedov S. 2002. Compact Macromodel of Pre-Industrial Population Growth. Historical Methods. (35): 92''94.Korotayev, Andrey V. (2006). "The World System urbanization dynamics". In Turchin, Peter; Grinin, Leonid Efimovich; Korotayev, Andrey V.; de Munck, Victor C. (eds.). History & mathematics: Historical dynamics and development of complex societies. History & mathematics. Moscow: KomKniga/URSS. pp. 44''62. ISBN 978-5-484-01002-8. Korotayev, Andrey V.; Malkov, Artemy Sergeevich; Khaltourina, Daria (2006a). Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth. Moscow: URSS. ISBN 978-5-484-00414-0. Korotayev, Andrey V.; Malkov, Artemy Sergeevich; Khaltourina, Daria (2006b). Introduction to social macrodynamics: secular cycles and millennial trends. Moscow: URSS. ISBN 978-5-484-00559-8. Korotayev, Andrey V.; Khaltourina, Daria (2006). Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends in Africa. Moscow: URSS. ISBN 978-5-484-00560-4. (Excerpts) (Publisher's page)Korotayev, A.; Zinkina, J. (2011). "Egyptian Revolution: A Demographic Structural Analysis". Entelequia. Revista Interdisciplinar. 13: 139''169. Korotayev A. et al., A Trap At The Escape From The Trap? Demographic-Structural Factors of Political Instability in Modern Africa and West Asia. Cliodynamics 2/2 (2011): 1-28.Koyama, Mark (2016). "Review of Ultra Society: how 10,000 years of war made humans the greatest cooperators on earth by Peter Turchin" (PDF) . Journal of Bioeconomics. 18 (3): 239''242. doi:10.1007/s10818-016-9234-7. ISSN 1387-6996. S2CID 151743809. Lange, Matthew (2012). Comparative-Historical Methods. London: Sage. ISBN 978-1-84920-627-3. Orf, Darren (2013). "Can Math Predict the Rise and Fall of Empires?". Popular Mechanics. Parry, Marc (2013). "Quantitative History Makes a Comeback". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Peregrine, Peter N. (2003). "Atlas of Cultural Evolution". World Cultures: Journal of Comparative and Cross-Cultural Research. 14 (1). Archived from the original on 2019-12-15 . Retrieved 2016-07-20 . Schrodt, Philip A. (2005). "Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and FallHistorical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall by Peter Turchin". Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews. 34 (2): 213''215. doi:10.1177/009430610503400268. ISSN 0094-3061. S2CID 151353020. Seabright, Paul (2004). "Book Review: Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall by Peter Turchin". The Economics of Transition. 12 (4): 801''809. doi:10.1111/j.0967-0750.2004.00203.x. ISSN 0967-0750. Spinney, Laura (2012). "Human cycles: History as Science". Nature. 488 (7409): 24''26. Bibcode:2012Natur.488...24S. doi:10.1038/488024a . PMID 22859185. S2CID 29199101. Spinney, Laura (2016). "The database that is rewriting history to predict the future". New Scientist. Sussan, Remi (2013). "Au coeur de la cliodynamique (1/2): les cycles historiques". Internet Actu. Tainter, Joseph A. (2004). "Plotting the downfall of society: Review of Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall by Peter Turchin" (PDF) . Nature. 427 (6974): 488''489. doi:10.1038/427488a . Tsirel, S. V. 2004. On the Possible Reasons for the Hyperexponential Growth of the Earth Population. Mathematical Modeling of Social and Economic Dynamics / Ed. by M. G. Dmitriev and A. P. Petrov, pp. 367''9. Moscow: Russian State Social University, 2004.Turchin, P. (2003). Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Turchin, P. (2005). War and Peace and War. Plume. Turchin, P. (2009). "A theory for formation of large states" (PDF) . Journal of Global History. 4 (2): 191''217. doi:10.1017/s174002280900312x. S2CID 73597670. Turchin, P. (2011). "Warfare and the Evolution of Social Complexity: A Multilevel-Selection Approach". Structure and Dynamics. 4 (3): 1''37. Turchin P. 2006. Population Dynamics and Internal Warfare: A Reconsideration. Social Evolution & History 5(2): 112''147 (with Andrey Korotayev).Turchin, Peter; Grinin, Leonid Efimovich; Korotayev, Andrey V.; de Munck, Victor C., eds. (2006). History & mathematics: Historical dynamics and development of complex societies. History & mathematics. Moscow: KomKniga/URSS. ISBN 978-5-484-01002-8. (on Google Books)Turchin, Peter (2008). "Arise 'cliodynamics' ". Nature. 454 (7200): 34''35. Bibcode:2008Natur.454...34T. doi:10.1038/454034a . ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 18596791. S2CID 822431. Turchin, P.; Nefedov, S. (2009). Secular Cycles. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Turchin, Peter; Brennan, Rob; Currie, Thomas E.; Feeney, Kevin C.; Francois, Pieter; Hoyer, Daniel; Manning, Joseph G.; Marciniak, Arkadiusz; Mullins, Daniel; Palmisano, Alessio; Peregrine, Peter; Turner, Edward A. L.; Whitehouse, Harvey (2015). "Seshat: The Global History Databank". Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution. 6 (1): 77''107. doi:10.21237/c7clio6127917 . ISSN 2373-7530. Turchin, Peter (2015). Ultrasociety: How 10,000 Years of War Made Humans the Greatest Cooperators on Earth. Beresta Books. ISBN 978-0996139519. Zeigler, Donald (2010). "Book Review: Secular Cycles by Peter Turchin, Sergey A. Nefedov". International Social Science Review. 85 (3/4): 165''166. JSTOR 41887467. Zhao, Dingxin (2006). "Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall. By Peter Turchin". American Journal of Sociology. 112 (1): 308''310. doi:10.1086/507802. ISSN 0002-9602. Further reading [ edit ] Wood, Graeme (December 2020). "The Next Decade Could Be Even Worse". The Atlantic . Retrieved 12 November 2020 . External links [ edit ] Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural EvolutionSeshat: Global History DatabankPeter Turchin's Cliodynamics PageHistorical Dynamics in a time of Crisis: Late Byzantium, 1204-1453 (a discussion of some concepts of cliodynamics from the point of view of medieval studies)"Nature" article (August 2012): Human cycles: History as scienceEvolution Institute

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 15:25

The U.S. Department of Defense wants to make one thing clear: Our drones will blot out the sun.

Feeling threatened by China's buildup of military might, DOD officials hope to gain the upper hand by producing ''multiple thousands'' of cheap, autonomous drones and other systems, the department said Monday.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, speaking at the National Defense Industrial Association's Emerging Technologies for Defense Conference in Washington, D.C., revealed the U.S. plan to mass-manufacture inexpensive, self-piloting systems over the next two years in a bid to keep pace with the Eastern superpower.

The goal of the program, which Hicks coined the Replicator Initiative, is to ''outmatch'' China with droves of cutting-edge technology that can be quickly and easily replaced. These systems could be deployed in minutes and would be attritable, meaning they could be lost or shot down with little impact to U.S. military capabilities. This makes them ideal for high-risk operations.

''We're going to create a new state of the art'...leveraging attritable, autonomous systems in all domains'--which are less expensive, put fewer people in the line of fire, and can be changed, updated, or improved with substantially shorter lead times,'' Hicks said.

Hicks will personally oversee the Replicator program alongside Navy Admiral Christopher W. Grady, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Doug Beck, director of the DOD's Defense Innovation Unit, will also support the initiative. The buildup will span the next 18 to 24 months.

''Replicator is meant to help us overcome the [People's Republic of China's] biggest advantage, which is mass,'' Hicks said. ''More ships. More missiles. More people.''

The initiative is focused on keeping production costs low. But it will also emphasize a ''whole-of-department approach'' to innovation and the ability to quickly roll out the new tech. While the primary goal is to match China's capabilities, the systems will be deployed across multiple domains.

China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) has the world's largest Navy with more than 340 ships and submarines, according to recent DOD data. The country's military also boasts over 1 million ground force personnel and more than 2,800 aircraft, about 2,200 of which are combat aircraft. Defense leaders have characterized it as the U.S.'s biggest ''pacing challenge.''

''We'll counter the PLA's mass with mass of our own, but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit, harder to beat,'' Hicks said.

Hicks noted the private sector, including commercial, nontraditional, and traditional defense companies, will have a large role to play in Replicator. For now, though, it's unclear which systems will be covered by the program. She said more details will emerge in the coming weeks.

William LaPlante, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, on Monday told reporters the systems would be distinct from the more expensive, nonattritable Collaborative Combat Aircraft used by the Air Force. LaPlante added, however, that Replicator systems could be ''very complementary'' to those aircraft.

The DOD has requested $1.8 billion worth of artificial intelligence investments for its 2024 defense spending bill. It said Replicator will pull those investments together.

Eric Pahon, a spokesman for Hicks, shared more details, telling Defense News the program is funded by ''a reorganization of largely existing funds, and expected to cost in the range of the hundreds of millions.''

Hicks made clear the initiative won't cut into DOD efforts to produce larger aircraft, such as the Lockheed Martin C-5M Super Galaxy or the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III. Rather, it will build on what the U.S. has already developed.

''To be clear, America still benefits from platforms that are large, exquisite, expensive, and few,'' Hicks said. ''But Replicator will galvanize progress in the too-slow shift of U.S. military innovation to leverage platforms that are small, smart, cheap, and many.''

How the Systems Could Be UsedDefense officials in recent months have been sounding the alarm on China as the country bolsters its military strength. Military personnel stationed in the region fear the worst.

''We ought to look at the Chinese to understand truly where they are and what they're doing: the largest military buildup since World War II, both in conventional forces and in strategic nuclear [forces],'' said Navy Admiral John C. Aquilino, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

Aquilino called Hicks' comments Monday ''encouraging,'' noting as many as 1,000 drones could be deployed in just 24 hours. That could be a preview of routine U.S. military capabilities in the coming years.

The DOD has long invested in systems such as self-sailing ships and crewless aircraft. Hicks said these have proven to be lower-cost alternatives to manned systems, with the added advantage that they can be produced closer to the ''tactical edge,'' so to speak.

The department uses drones of all shapes, sizes, and functions, covering land, air, and sea. According to its website, it operates more than 11,000 of them, mainly to support training, surveillance, and the testing of tactics and equipment. The smallest is the RQ-11B Raven, which weighs just over 4 pounds and can fly up to 6.2 sm (5.4 nm). Already, the aircraft have logged millions of flight hours worldwide.

The U.S. also sends the occasional shipment of drones to Ukraine to combat the Russian offensive. Per the U.K.'s Royal United Service Institute, a defense and security think tank, Ukrainian forces lose some 10,000 drones every month. Replicator could take the sting out of those losses by providing an influx of ready-to-fly aircraft.

Until we learn what kinds of systems are backed by the program, it's difficult to say exactly how they'll be used. But the DOD has proposed pairing drones with larger Next Generation Air Dominance fighters to give pilots small fleets of autonomous aircraft. The buildup of thousands of small autonomous systems would certainly aid that effort.

In November, the department released the Autonomous Multi-domain Adaptive Swarms-of-Swarms (AMASS) concept, which could present another use case. The program would allow officers to command and control several different autonomous drone swarms at once'--in essence, a swarm of swarms. Cheap, mass-produced drones could serve as the pipeline.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill appear to share the DOD's enthusiasm for autonomous systems. On June 22, the House Appropriations Committee approved legislation that would create a massive nest egg to fund the technologies the DOD describes in Replicator.

The provision, first proposed by former Defense Innovation Unit director Mike Brown in 2022, would set aside a $1 billion ''hedge portfolio'' to develop low-cost drones and satellites, AI capabilities, and agile communication.

The DOD declined comment to FLYING.

Like this story? We think you'll also like the Future of FLYING newsletter sent every Thursday afternoon. Sign up now.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 15:24

Ingenuity and innovation remain at the heart of the U.S. military's strategic advantage as it confronts the pressing challenges in the Indo-Pacific, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said today as she unveiled the Defense Department's initiative aimed at directly countering the People's Republic of China's rapid buildup of its armed forces.

Hicks said as China focuses on the sheer mass of its military, the U.S. will "out-match adversaries by out-thinking, out-strategizing and out-maneuvering them."

Under the strategy, coined by Hicks as the replicator initiative, the Defense Department will field thousands of autonomous systems across multiple domains within the next 18 to 24 months.

Hicks revealed the strategy during her remarks at the National Defense Industrial Association's Emerging Technologies for Defense conference in Washington.

"Replicator is meant to help us overcome the PRC's biggest advantage, which is mass," she said. "More ships. More missiles. More people."

She said, through the initiative, the U.S. will augment its manufacturing and mobilization capabilities "with our real comparative advantage, which is the innovation and spirit of our people."

Even when mobilizing the U.S. economy and manufacturing base, rarely has the U.S. relied solely on its ability to match adversaries' scale alone, Hicks said.

"To stay ahead, we're going to create a new state of the art '-- just as America has before '-- leveraging attritable, autonomous systems in all domains '-- which are less expensive, put fewer people in the line of fire and can be changed, updated or improved with substantially shorter lead times," she said.

In doing so, Hicks said, the U.S. will counter the PRC's buildup, with "mass of our own," that will be more difficult for adversaries to plan for and beat.

"With smart people, smart concepts and smart technology, our military will be more nimble, with uplift and urgency from the commercial sector," she said.

The Defense Department has long invested in autonomous systems '' including self-piloting ships and no-crew aircraft.

Hicks said those systems have proven to be lower cost alternatives to manned platforms and can be produced "closer to the tactical edge."

"So now is the time to take all-domain, attritable autonomy to the next level: to produce and deliver capabilities to warfighters at the volume and velocity required to deter aggression, or win if we're forced to fight," she said.

Attritable capabilities refer to platforms that are unmanned and built affordably, allowing commanders to tolerate a higher degree of risk in employing them.

Under Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, defense leaders have deemed the PRC to be the United States' "pacing challenge."

The 2022 National Defense Strategy underscores the PRC's efforts to expand and modernize "nearly every aspect" of the People's Liberation Army as it aims to offset U.S. military advantages in the Indo-Pacific and, increasingly, around the globe.

Navy Adm. John C. Aquilino, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, further highlighted the PRC's military buildup during his remarks at Wednesday's conference.

"They have focused very clearly on delivering a force capable to take on the United States," Aquilino said.

"We ought to look at the Chinese to understand truly where they are and what they're doing: the largest military buildup since World War II, both in conventional forces and in strategic nuclear [forces]," he said.

Aquilino said while the buildup is concerning, the U.S. focus on competing with the PRC is critical.

"The Deputy's words on the delivery of outcomes with speed is encouraging," he said.

Hicks said during her remarks that the replicator initiative is focused not only on production, but on the whole-of-department approach to innovation and the ability to quickly field technology.

"[W]hen the time is right, and when we apply enough leadership, energy, urgency and depth of focus, we can get it done," she said. "That's what America does.

"We must ensure the PRC leadership wakes up every day, considers the risks of aggression and concludes, 'today is not the day' '-- and not just today, but every day, between now and 2027, 2035, 2049 and beyond," Hicks said.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 14:32

Copyright (C)2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 14:16

Facebook and YouTube are receding from their role as watchdogs against conspiracy theories ahead of the 2024 presidential election

Updated August 25, 2023 at 7:34 a.m. EDT | Published August 25, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

(Washington Post illustration; iStock)Social media companies are receding from their role as watchdogs against political misinformation, abandoning their most aggressive efforts to police online falsehoods in a trend expected to profoundly affect the 2024 presidential election.

An array of circumstances is fueling the retreat: Mass layoffs at Meta and other major tech companies have gutted teams dedicated to promoting accurate information online. An aggressive legal battle over claims that the Biden administration pressured social media platforms to silence certain speech has blocked a key path to detecting election interference.

And X CEO Elon Musk has reset industry standards, rolling back strict rules against misinformation on the site formerly known as Twitter. In a sign of Musk's influence, Meta briefly considered a plan last year to ban all political advertising on Facebook. The company shelved it after Musk announced plans to transform rival Twitter into a haven for free speech, according to two people familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive matters.

The retrenchment comes just months ahead of the 2024 primaries, as GOP front-runner Donald Trump continues to rally supporters with false claims that election fraud drove his 2020 loss to Joe Biden. Multiple investigations into the election have revealed no evidence of fraud, and Trump now faces federal criminal charges connected to his efforts to overturn the election. Still, YouTube, X and Meta have stopped labeling or removing posts that repeat Trump's claims, even as voters increasingly get their news on social media.

Trump capitalized on those relaxed standards in his recent interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, hosted by X. The former president punctuated the conversation, which streamed Wednesday night during the first Republican primary debate of the 2024 campaign, with false claims that the 2020 election was ''rigged'' and that the Democrats had ''cheated'' to elect Biden.

On Thursday night, Trump posted on X for the first time since he was kicked off the site, then known as Twitter, following the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Musk reinstated his account in November. The former president posted his mug shot from Fulton County, Ga., where he was booked Thursday on charges connected to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. ''NEVER SURRENDER!'' read the caption.

Musk's 'free speech' agenda dismantles safety work at Twitter, insiders say

The evolution of the companies' practices was described by more than a dozen current and former employees, many of them speaking on the condition of anonymity to offer sensitive details. The new approach marks a sharp shift from the 2020 election, when social media companies expanded their efforts to police disinformation. The companies feared a repeat of 2016, when Russian trolls attempted to interfere in the U.S. presidential campaign, turning the platforms into tools of political manipulation and division.

These pared-down commitments emerge as covert influence campaigns from Russia and China have grown more aggressive, and advances in generative artificial intelligence have created new tools for misleading voters.

Experts in disinformation say the dynamic headed into 2024 calls for more aggressive efforts to combat it, not less.

''Musk has taken the bar and put it on the floor,'' said Emily Bell, a professor at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, where she studies the relationship between tech platforms and news publishers. For the 2024 presidential election, misinformation around races is ''going to be even worse,'' she added.

The social media platforms say they still have tools to prevent the spread of misinformation.

''We remove content that misleads voters on how to vote or encourages interference in the democratic process,'' YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi said in a statement. ''Additionally, we connect people to authoritative election news and information through recommendations and information panels.''

Meta spokeswoman Erin McPike said in a statement that ''protecting the U.S. 2024 elections is one of our top priorities, and our integrity efforts continue to lead the industry.''

Changing Facebook's algorithm won't fix polarization, new study finds

Yet it is already changing what some users see online. Earlier this month, the founder of a musical cruise company posted a screenshot on Facebook appearing to show Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) falsely signing a bill that would allow undocumented immigrants to become police officers and sheriff's deputies. ''In Illinois American citizens will be arrested by illegals,'' reads the post, which has been shared more than 26o times.

Fact-checkers at USA Today, one of dozens of media organizations Meta pays to debunk viral conspiracies, deemed the post false, and the company labeled it on Facebook as ''false information.'' But Meta has quietly begun offering users new controls to opt out of the fact-checking program, allowing debunked posts such as the falsified one about Pritzker to spread in participants' news-feeds with a warning label. Conservatives have long criticized Meta's fact-checking system, arguing it is biased against them.

Meta Global Affairs President Nick Clegg said the ability to opt out represents a new direction that empowers users and eases scrutiny over the company. ''We feel we've moved quite dramatically in favor of giving users greater control over even quite controversial sensitive content,'' Clegg said. McPike added that the new fact-checking policy comes ''in response to users telling us that they want a greater ability to decide what they see.''

YouTube has also backed away from policing misleading claims, announcing in June it would no longer remove videos falsely saying the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump. Continuing to enforce the ban would curtail political speech without ''meaningfully reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm,'' the company argued in a blog post.

Inside the civil rights campaign to get Big Tech to fight the 'big lie'

These shifts are a reaction from social media executives to being battered by contentious battles over content and concluding there is ''no winning,'' said Katie Harbath, former director of public policy at Facebook, where she managed the global elections strategy across the company.

''For Democrats, we weren't taking down enough, and for Republicans we were taking down too much,'' she said. The result was an overall sense that ''after doing all this, we're still getting yelled at '... It's just not worth it anymore.''

For years, many of Meta's trust and safety teams operated like a university. Driven by curiosity, employees were encouraged to seek out the thorniest problems on the platform '-- issues such as fraud, abuse, bias and attempts at voter suppression '-- and develop systems to help.

But in the last year and a half, some workers say there has been a shift away from that proactive stance. Instead, they are now asked to spend more of their time figuring out how to minimally comply with a booming list of global regulations, according to four current and former employees.

That's a departure from the approach tech companies took after Russia manipulated social media to attempt to swing the 2016 election to Trump. The incident transformed Mark Zuckerberg into a symbol of corporate recklessness. So the Meta CEO vowed to do better.

Zuckerberg apologizes, promises reform as senators grill him over Facebook's failings

He embarked on a public contrition tour and vowed to devote the company's seemingly infinite resources to protecting democracy. ''The most important thing I care about right now is making sure no one interferes with the various '... elections around the world,'' Zuckerberg told two Senate committees in 2018, the same year a Wired cover depicted him with a bruised and bloody face.

In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, social media companies ramped-up investigative teams to quash foreign influence campaigns and paid thousands of content moderators to debunk viral conspiracies. Ahead of the 2018 midterms, Meta gave reporters tours of its so-called ''war room,'' where employees monitored violent threats in real-time.

Civil rights groups pressured the platforms '-- including in meetings with Zuckerberg and Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg '-- to bolster their election policies, arguing the pandemic and popularity of mail-in ballots created an opening for bad actors to confuse voters about the electoral process.

''These platforms were making all sorts of commitments to content moderation and to racial justice and civil rights in general,'' said Color of Change President Rashad Robinson, whose racial justice group helped organize an advertising boycott by more than 1,000 companies including Coca-Cola, The North Face and Verizon following the police murder of George Floyd.

Zuckerberg once wanted to sanction Trump. Then Facebook wrote rules that accommodated him.

They instituted strict rules against posts that might lead to voter suppression. As Trump questioned the validity of mail-in ballots in 2020, Facebook and Twitter took the unprecedented step of attaching information labels such as, ''This claim about election fraud is disputed'' to scores of misleading comments. Google restricted election-related ads and touted its work with government agencies, including the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force, to prevent election interference campaigns.

In early January 2021, rioters incited by Trump assaulted the U.S. Capitol after organizing themselves, in part, on Facebook and Twitter. In response, Meta, Twitter, Google and other tech companies suspended Trump, forcibly removing the president from their platforms.

The moment was the peak of social media companies' confrontation with political misinformation.

But as the tech giants grappled with narrowing profits, this proactive stance began to dissolve.

In the summer of 2021, Meta's Clegg embarked on a campaign to convince Zuckerberg and the company's board members to end all political advertising on its social media networks '-- a policy already in place at Twitter. Meta's decision not to fact-check politicians' speech had triggered years of controversy, with activists accusing the company of profiting off the misinformation contained in some campaign ads. Clegg argued the ads caused Meta more political trouble than they were worth.

Two years after Jan. 6, Facebook mulls if Trump is still a threat

While Zuckerberg and other board members were skeptical, the company eventually warmed to the idea. Meta even planned to announce the new policy, according to two people.

By July 2022, the proposal had been shelved indefinitely. Internal momentum to impose the new rule seemed to plummet after Musk boasted of his plans to turn Twitter into a safe haven for ''free speech'' '-- a principle Zuckerberg and some board members had always lauded, one of the people said.

After Musk's official takeover later that fall, Twitter would eventually rescind its own ban against political ads.

''Elon's position on that stuff definitely shifted the way the board and industry thought about [policy],'' said one person who was briefed on the board discussions about the ad ban at Meta. ''He came in and kinda blew it all up.''

How Mark Zuckerberg broke Meta's workforce

Almost immediately, Musk's reign at Twitter forced his peers to rethink other industry standards.

On his first night as owner, Musk fired Trust and Safety head Vijaya Gadde, whose job it was to guard the companies' users against fraud, harassment and offensive content. Soon after, just days before the midterms, the company laid off more than half of its 7,500 workers, crippling the teams responsible for making high-stake decisions about what to do about falsehoods.

The cuts and the evolving approach to moderating toxic content prompted advertisers to flee. But while advertisers were leaving, other tech companies were paying close attention to Musk's moves.

In a June interview with the right-leaning tech podcast host Lex Fridman, Zuckerberg said Musk's decision to make drastic cuts to Twitter's workforce '-- including by cutting non-engineers who worked on things such as public policy but didn't build products '-- encouraged other tech leaders such as himself to consider making similar changes.

''It was probably good for the industry that he made those changes,'' Zuckerberg said. (Meta has since laid off more than 20,000 workers, part of an industry-wide trend.)

The Elonization of Mark Zuckerberg: How the Meta CEO is playing it cool

Musk reinstated high-profile conservative Twitter accounts, including Jordan Peterson, a professor who was banned from Twitter for misgendering a trans person, and the Babylon Bee, a conservative media company. Musk also brought back Republican politicians including Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), whose personal account was banned for violating the platform's covid-19 misinformation policies. He simultaneously suspended the accounts of journalists including Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell, CNN reporter Donie O'Sullivan and others who reported on Musk.

A spike in hate speech on the site followed as users tested boundaries.

The political winds facing Silicon Valley were shifting, too. Trump's 2020 election rigging claims had inspired a slew of Republican candidates to echo his rhetoric, cementing election denialism as a core Republican talking point. In a May poll by CNN, 6 in 10 Republican voters said they believed Trump's falsehoods that the 2020 election was rigged.

Soon after Musk's Twitter acquisition, scores of Republican candidates and right-wing influencers tested Meta, Twitter and other social media platforms' resolve to fight election misinformation. In the months leading up to the midterms, far-right personalities and GOP candidates continued to spread election denialism on social media virtually unchecked.

This year, GOP election deniers got a free pass from Twitter and Facebook

Mark Finchem, the Republican candidate seeking to oversee Arizona's election system as the state's secretary of state, made a fundraising pitch on the eve of the 2022 election, falsely arguing on Facebook and Twitter that his Democratic opponent, Adrian Fontes, was a member of the Chinese Communist Party and a ''cartel criminal'' who had ''rigged elections'' before.

When Twitter, seemingly in response to journalists' questions, appeared to restrict his account, Musk declared he was ''looking into'' complaints that Finchem was being censored. Later that evening, Finchem was back to tweeting his message. He thanked Musk ''for stopping the commie who suspended me from Twitter a week before the election.''

Last year, Meta dissolved the responsible innovation team, a small group that evaluated the potential risks of some of Meta's products, according to a person familiar with the matter, and simultaneously shuttered the much-touted Facebook Journalism Project, which was designed to promote quality information on the platform.

''What was once promoted as part of an essential component of Meta's role in helping secure democracy, election integrity and a healthy information ecosystem, appears now to have been expendable,'' said Jim Friedlich, executive director of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, which served for two years as a lead partner in helping execute Facebook's journalism grantmaking.

Trump's 'big lie' fueled a new generation of social media influencers

Now, Meta is eyeing ways to cut down on having to referee controversial political content on its new Twitter-like social media app, Threads. Instagram head Adam Mosseri, who led efforts to build Threads, said earlier this year that the platform would not actively ''encourage'' politics and ''hard news,'' because the extra user engagement is not worth the scrutiny.

But even as it tries to retreat from the political culture wars, there's no hiding from the coming election.

Soon after the company launched Threads, Meta started warning users who tried to follow Donald Trump Jr. on the new social network that his account has repeatedly posted false information reviewed by independent fact-checkers. Trump Jr. posted a screenshot of the message on rival Twitter, complaining that ''Threads not exactly off to a great start.''

A Meta spokesperson responded by saying, ''This was an error and shouldn't have happened. It's been fixed.''

After the incident was over, Clegg told The Post he hopes in the future such politically fraught debates will disappear.

''I hope over time we'll have less of a discussion about what our big, crude algorithmic choices are and more about whether you guys feel that the individual controls we're giving you on Threads feel meaningful to you,'' he said.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:37

Joseph Nganga joined The Rockefeller Foundation in 2020 as the Executive Director, Power & Climate Africa. Before joining Rockefeller, Joseph co-founded and grew responsAbility Renewable Energy Holding into a $121M company that builds, owns, and operates renewable energy projects across sub-Saharan Africa. Joseph also headed up the Regional Office for Africa for responsAbility A.G., a $3B asset manager headquartered in Switzerland that invests in Energy, Agriculture and Financial Institution.

Before joining responsAbility, Joseph founded Renewable Energy Ventures (REV), a project development and advisory firm in Nairobi. REV developed renewable energy projects, provided advisory services in the renewable energy space and distributed lanterns. Joseph led some of the advisory work including developing the business plan and fundraising for the Kenya Climate Innovation Centre (KCIC), a $15m facility to support local entrepreneurs developing technology and solutions in the renewable energy and climate space. Joseph also worked with AGRA's AECF in the REACT window, advising, supporting, and investing in clean energy companies. Joseph started out his career as an Investment Banker at Bank of America, in Charlotte, NC.

Joseph graduated with a Liberal Arts degree from Queens University of Charlotte and has taken the Executive Education program on governing for nonprofits at Harvard Business School. Joseph also sits on the Board of Carolina for Kibera.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 20:40

Failures on the battlefield could push the Ukrainian military to move against President Vladimir Zelensky, retired CIA analyst Larry Johnson has said.

''Zelensky very well could be ousted in a coup within the next three to four weeks, because of the great disgruntlement among troops on the eastern front,'' Johnson told Redacted host Clayton Morris in an interview posted over the weekend.

Ukraine's grand offensive in Zaporozhye, launched in early June with Western-trained troops and NATO-supplied tanks and armored vehicles, has failed to achieve a breakthrough anywhere. Additional brigades, intended to exploit the intended breach, have been deployed to continue the frontal attacks instead, to the point that the US and its allies are publicly airing their frustrations with Ukrainian tactics.

Johnson is not the first American analyst to speculate about the military turning on Zelensky. Earlier this month, former US Marine officer Scott Ritter said the likelihood of a military coup was growing with each destroyed Ukrainian brigade.

''We could be reaching a Kerensky 1917 moment, where the military just says 'We're done','' Ritter told MOATS host George Galloway. He also brought up a recent Politico article, which laid out who would run Ukraine if Russia somehow assassinated Zelensky. According to Ritter, however, Moscow has no intention of going after Zelensky, as he might be replaced by someone even more hardline.

Johnson told Redacted that the way the conflict is going, Ukraine's survival as a country was ''in great doubt.'' Kiev is already entirely dependent on the West, and its needs will only grow while its capabilities will continue to shrink, the former CIA official said.

The US strategy for the conflict was to trap Russia in an unwinnable war and induce regime change in Moscow, according to Johnson. Instead, ''that's going to happen to Ukraine,'' and Washington will have to figure out how to ''back away'' from the conflict, because it has massively underestimated Russia's economic and military strength.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reasoned along similar lines earlier this month, saying in an interview that Ukraine's Western patrons are publicly committed to ''fight until the last Ukrainian'' but have a history of abandoning their allies and proxies, from South Vietnam to ''Ashraf Ghani's regime in Afghanistan in 2021.''

Faced with Western concerns about his legitimacy if he cancels the 2024 presidential election, Zelensky has proposed holding the vote '' but demanded funding from the West to do so.

The Ukrainian leader has also voiced fears that he might be abandoned by the West if Ukraine goes too far in attacking Russia. His aide Mikhail Podolyak has since argued that the US and its allies have given their blessing for attacks on ''occupied territories'' '' meaning Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson. Since Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in 2014 and the four regions did the same last September, Moscow considers them no less Russian territory than Belgorod or Kursk, which have also been targeted by Ukraine.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 20:27

Millions of eligible people will now be offered a covid vaccine from 11 September, in line with the latest expert guidance on the new covid variant.

This change follows an announcement by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) on the risks presented by the new BA.2.86 variant and pre-emptive measures the NHS has been asked to take.

The adult covid and flu vaccination programmes had been due to start in October to maximise protection over the winter months, but now those most at risk including adult care home residents will be vaccinated from 11 September.

The NHS has been asked to bring the programme forward and will be working quickly to ensure as many eligible people as possible are vaccinated by the end of October.

Residents of older adult care homes and those most at risk including those who are immunosuppressed will receive their covid vaccine first.

Carers, pregnant women, and health and social care staff will all be among the groups to be offered a covid jab this winter, as well as adults aged 65 and over.

Eligible people should wait to receive an invite from their local provider.

From 18 September, the NHS will start to invite people in priority order of risk and those eligible will be able to book an appointment on the National Booking Service.

The NHS winter flu and COVID-19 vaccination programme provides vital protection to those eligible and their families over winter, keeping people from developing serious illnesses, and helping to minimise hospitalisations during busy winter months.

Following the JCVI's recommendation that adults over the age of 65 and those with underlying health conditions would be eligible for a flu and COVID-19 vaccination this year, the offer was due to start from early October to maximise protection for patients right across the winter months.

Now with the increased risks presented by the COVID-19 variant BA.2.86, vaccine sites can vaccinate those eligible for both flu and covid from 11 September.

To support the accelerated programme, vaccine providers will receive an additional payment of £10 (in addition to the Item of Service (IoS) fee) for each COVID-19 vaccination administered to care home residents between Monday 11 September and Sunday 22 October 2023 inclusive; and a separate one-off additional payment of £200 for each Completed Care Home by the end of the day on Sunday 22 October.

For other eligible groups, vaccine providers will receive an additional £5 acceleration payment (in addition to the IoS fee) will be made available for each COVID-19 vaccination administered to eligible people between 11 September and 31 October 2023.

Where people had already booked an appointment for their flu vaccination earlier in September with their local provider, these appointments can go ahead. If vaccine supply has been ordered for covid and flu, sites can start vaccinating against both.

Wherever possible, vaccinations for flu and COVID-19 should still be offered at the same time, making it easier and more convenient for people to get vital protection from both viruses ahead of winter.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS England Medical Director, said: ''Vaccinations are our best defence against flu and COVID-19 ahead of what could be a very challenging winter, and with the potential for this new covid variant to increase the risk of infection, we are following the latest expert guidance and bringing the covid vaccination programme forward, with people able to get their flu vaccine at the same time to maximise protection.

''The NHS will work quickly to offer people protection against these nasty viruses as soon as possible, first going into adult care homes and inviting those most at risk including those with weakened immune systems.

''So please come forward to get your protection against both covid and flu as soon as possible once invited '' it will help protect you and those around you this winter.''

Steve Russell, NHS England Chief Delivery Officer and National Director for Vaccinations said: ''Every year NHS staff pull out all the stops to ensure those at greatest risk are vaccinated and protected against winter viruses.

''While we know that flu and covid usually hit hardest in December and January, the new covid variant presents a greater risk now, which is why we will be ensuring as many people as possible are vaccinated against covid sooner '' and to support the fast-tracked delivery, vaccine providers will be given additional payments for delivering covid vaccines before the end of October. It's vital you come forward when it's your turn.''

Chief Executive of the UK Health Security Agency, Dame Jenny Harries said: ''As we continue to live with COVID-19 we expect to see new variants emerge.

''Thanks to the success of our vaccine programme, we have built strong, broad immune defences against new variants throughout the population. However, some people remain more vulnerable to severe illness from COVID-19. This precautionary measure to bring forward the autumn programme will ensure these people have protection against any potential wave this winter.

''There is limited information available at present on BA.2.86 so the potential impact of this particular variant is difficult to estimate. As with all emergent and circulating COVID-19 variants '' both in the UK and internationally '' we will continue to monitor BA.2.86 and to advise government and the public as we learn more. In the meantime, please come forward for the vaccine when you are called.''

Last year, the NHS carried out its second biggest ever flu vaccination campaign, with more than 21 million flu vaccinations given to adults and children, while more than 17 million COVID-19 jabs were delivered last winter. As part of this, 10 million flu vaccinations and 8 million covid-19 vaccinations were in the month of October, making it by far the most popular month.

In total, more than 149 million covid-19 vaccinations have now been given by healthcare staff and volunteers since the NHS delivered the world's first COVID-19 jab outside of clinical trials to Maggie Keenan, in December 2020.

But it is important that those eligible this year come forward for their vaccinations as protection fades over time, and the virus that causes flu can change from year to year.

As in previous years, the NHS will let people know when bookings open. Adult flu and COVID-19 appointments will be available through the NHS App and website, or by calling 119 for those who can't get online. Flu vaccines will also be available through local GP practices and pharmacies.

There will be no change to flu vaccinations for children which will be offered in schools from early next month, to prevent children from getting seriously ill from flu and ending up hospital, and to break the chain of transmission of the virus to the wider population.

The nasal flu vaccine is the most effective vaccine for children aged 2-17 years but if this is not suitable the GP or practice nurse may be able to offer a flu vaccine injection as an alternative.

Health and social care workers will be invited for their vaccines through their employer.

In line with advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, those eligible for a flu vaccine this year include:

those aged 65 years and overthose aged 6 months to under 65 years in clinical risk groups (as defined by the Green Book, chapter 19 (Influenza))pregnant womenall children aged 2 or 3 years on 31 August 2023school-aged children (from Reception to Year 11)those in long-stay residential care homescarers in receipt of carer's allowance, or those who are the main carer of an elderly or disabled personclose contacts of immunocompromised individualsfrontline workers in a social care setting without an employer led occupational health scheme including those working for a registered residential care or nursing home, registered domiciliary care providers, voluntary managed hospice providers and those that are employed by those who receive direct payments (personal budgets) or Personal Health budgets, such as Personal AssistantsThose eligible for an autumn covid vaccine are:

residents in a care home for older adultsall adults aged 65 years and overpersons aged 6 months to 64 years in a clinical risk group, as laid out in the Immunisation Green Book, COVID-19 chapter (Green Book)frontline health and social care workerspersons aged 12 to 64 years who are household contacts (as defined in the Green Book) of people with immunosuppressionpersons aged 16 to 64 years who are carers (as defined in the Green Book) and staff working in care homes for older adults.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 19:42

Politiek

30 augustus 2023, 11:07 uur

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 18:29

'); doc.close(); } } this.iframeload = function () { var iframe = document.getElementById(iframeId); iframe.style.display = ''; setTimeout(function () { setIframeHeight(initialResizeCallback); }, 20); } function getDocHeight(doc) { var contentDiv = doc.getElementById("iframeContent"); var docHeight = 0; if(contentDiv){ docHeight = Math.max( contentDiv.scrollHeight, contentDiv.offsetHeight, contentDiv.clientHeight ); } return docHeight; } function setIframeHeight(resizeCallback) { var iframeDoc, iframe = document.getElementById(iframeId); iframeDoc = ((iframe.contentWindow && iframe.contentWindow.document) || iframe.contentDocument); if (iframeDoc) { var h = getDocHeight(iframeDoc); if (h && h != 0) { iframe.style.height = parseInt(h) + 'px'; if(typeof resizeCallback == "function") { resizeCallback(iframeId); } } else if (nTries

"),e.close(),a)){var r=e.createElement("script");r&&(r.type="text/javascript",r.text=a,e.body.appendChild(r))}}catch(q){n(q,"JS exception while injecting iframe")}return d},n=function(a,c){t.ueLogError(a,{logLevel:"ERROR",attribution:"A9TQForensics",message:c})},X=function(a,c,b){a={vfrd:1===c?"8":"4",dbg:a};"object"===typeof b?a.info=JSON.stringify(b):"string"===typeof b&&(a.info=b);return{server:window.location.hostname,fmp:a}};(function(a){function c(a,c,b){var d="chrm msie ffox sfri opra phnt slnm othr extr xpcm invs poev njs cjs rhn clik1 rfs uam clik stln mua nfo hlpx clkh mmh chrm1 chrm2 wgl srvr zdim nomime chrm3 otch ivm.tst ivm.clk mmh2 clkh2 achf nopl spfp4 uam1 lsph nmim1 slnm2 crtt spfp misp spfp1 spfp2 clik2 clik3 spfp3 estr".split(" ");F=ac&&"webdriver"in navigator&&(a=!0);return a?(b=43,m=c.toString(),!0):!1}];for(l=0;lf-d)){b.push({x:a.clientX,y:a.clientY});if(50b.length))){var l=b[0].x,g=b[49].x,k=b[0].y,h=b[49].y;a=h-k;for(var e=l-g,l=k*g-l*h,g=a/e*-1,s=b[49].ts-b[0].ts,k=!0,h=0;hd&&0g&&c(50,0,{xDiff:d,yDiff:g});r(a,"click",t)}catch(m){n(m,"JS exception - checkFirstClick")}};q(a,"mousemove",s,!1);q(a,"mouseup",B,!1);q(a,"mousedown",p,!1);q(a,"click",t,!1);q(a,"click",g,!1)},O=function(){if(u.isFirefox()){var a=0;void 0!==window.onstorage&&a++;var b=document.createElement("div");b.style.wordSpacing="22%";"22%"===b.style.wordSpacing&&a++;"function"===typeof b.getAttributeNames&&a++;2=a.screen.availHeight||1>=a.screen.availWidth||1>=a.screen.height||1>=a.screen.width||0>=a.screen.devicePixelRatio)&&c(10);var E=window.setInterval(function(){try{var a=b();a.isSel&&(c(a.headlessCode,!0===a.isTest?1:0,a.info),window.clearInterval(E),I(y))}catch(d){window.clearInterval(E),n(d,"JS exception - detectSelenium")}},1E3);window.setTimeout(function(){try{window.clearInterval(E),I(y)}catch(a){n(a,"JS exception - clearInterval for detectSelenium")}},1E4);var K=a.PointerEvent;a.PointerEvent=function(){c(11);if(void 0!==K){var a=Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments);return new K(a)}return null};e();N(a);L();S();0!==a.outerHeight&&0!==a.outerWidth||c(29);O();!w()||navigator.plugins&&0!=navigator.plugins.length||(x?c(38,0,"chrm"):u.isFirefox()&&c(38,0,"ff"));V(R,10);x&&w()&&a.chrome&&!a.chrome.csi&&!a.chrome.loadTimes&&c(25);z();y=J(null,Math.random().toString(36).substr(2));p=v(y,"contentWindow")?a:y.contentWindow;d(p);G(p,42);0===A(navigator,"connection","rtt")&&c(44);P();Q()}catch(Y){n(Y,"JS exception - ")}})(z)})(ue_csm,window,document);ue.exec(function(d,c){function g(e,c){e&&ue.tag(e+c);return!!e}function n(){for(var e=RegExp("^https://(.*\.(images|ssl-images|media)-amazon\.com|"+c.location.hostname+")/images/","i"),d={},h=0,k=c.performance.getEntriesByType("resource"),l=!1,b,a,m,f=0;f=a.encodedBodySize&&(b=e.exec(String(a.name)))&&3===b.length){a:{b=a.serverTiming||[];for(a=0;ah&&(m=b,h=a))}g(m,"_cdn_mp")}d.ue&&"function"===typeof d.ue.tag&&c.performance&&c.location&&n()},"cdnTagging")(ue_csm,window);}!function(n){var A;n.RXVM=function(r){var o=n([1,function(n){n.u.t[m(n)]=h(n)},2,function(n){n.o[0].t[m(n)]=h(n)},3,function(n){n.i=h(n)},4,function(n){var r=h(n),t=h(n),n=h(n);b(n)||(n[t]=r)},10,function(n){n.u.v.push(h(n))},12,function(n){for(var r=F(n);0>"),s(27,"&&"),s(28,"||"),s(30,">"),s(32,">="),s(31,">t-6],i&=255>>8-(t-=6);return 0>t-8),i&=255>>8-(t-=8);return new Uint8Array(o)}function p(){v||(setTimeout(h(A),c),v=1)}function A(){v=0,rx.ep&&0

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 18:25

The Anatomy of the Music Industry embodies an unprecedented pool of experts from all aspects of the music business. The talent noted in the book have worked with Michael Jackson, Prince, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Barbara Streisand, Whitney Houston, Elvis, Kirk Franklin, Tamela Mann, Mary J. Blige, Earth Wind & Fire, Peter White, Robert Randolph & The Family Band, India Arie and many more.

Other expertise in the book is shared by: Angelo Ellerbee, Double XXposure Public Relations New York Bill Speed, Music Video Programming Pioneer Bishop Donald Hilliard, Pastor of Cathedral International Clifford Russell, CEO of CR Marketing, Promotions & Media Dan Weiner, V. P. Western Region at Pandora David Wasserman, CEO of Latin Cool Recordings & Latin Cool Now Dorie Pride, Singer, Songwriter, Musician & Author Eunice Mosley, Freelance Associates Public Relations Gary A. Watson, Esq., Entertainment Attorney Gil Robertson, Journalist & Executive at African American Film Critics Association Greg Coakley, Music Analyst & Consultant Greg Savage, Sound Designer & Owner of DIY Music Biz Jay King, Artist, Writer, Producer, Club Nouveau Jazzy Rita Shelby, Entertainer and Media & Marketing Exec Jesus Garber, Former Exec w/Motown, A&M, Zoo Ent & Hollywood Records Jo Jo McDuffie Funderburg, Formerly of The Mary Jane Girls Jonathan Butler, Artist, Writer & Producer Kashif, Artist, Producer, Songwriter & Author Kevin Ross, Publisher of Radio Facts Magazine Larry Blackmon, Artist, Writer, Producer from Cameo Logan H. Westbrooks, Music Executive, Author of Anatomy of the Music Industry Marc Brogdon, N2U Creative Marketing Group Maryann Johnson, VP of Fox Music Administration Marquis Hill, Winner of 2015 Monk Institute International Jazz Trumpet Competition Michael Brae, CEO of Hit Man Records, Inc. Michael Corcoran, CEO of MusicSubmit.com Michael Nixon, N5 Marketing, expert in Street Team Promotions Michael White, Former Marketing Exec at Capitol Records Paul McKinney, Instructor at Stax Music Academy Ray Chew, Music Director Dancing With The Stars & American Idol Rick Scott, Great Scott Public Relations Stephanie Spruill, Singer, Songwriter, Artist Development Expert Stephen Herring, Artist, Publisher and Instructor at Musicians Institute Shannon Sanders, Grammy winning artist & producer, Music Director for India Arie The Prophet X, Artist, Writer, Producer, Hip Hop Pastor Thornell Jones, Fortress Marketing Vicki Mack Lataillade, Founder of Gospo Centric Records, CEO of Lataillade Entertainment

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 18:13

American bacteriologist (1910-1953)

Frank Rudolph Emmanuel Olson (July 17, 1910 '' November 28, 1953) was an American bacteriologist, biological warfare scientist, and an employee of the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (USBWL) who worked at Camp Detrick (now Fort Detrick) in Maryland. At a meeting in rural Maryland, he was covertly dosed with LSD by his colleague Sidney Gottlieb (head of the CIA's MKUltra program) and, nine days later, plunged to his death from the window of the Hotel Statler in New York. The U.S. government first described his death as a suicide, and then as misadventure, while others allege murder.[1] The Rockefeller Commission report on the CIA in 1975 acknowledged their having conducted covert drug studies on fellow agents. Olson's death is one of the most mysterious outcomes of the CIA mind control project MKUltra.

Biography [ edit ] Youth and education [ edit ] Olson was born to Swedish immigrant parents in Hurley, Iron County, Wisconsin.[2] Olson graduated from Hurley High School in 1927.[3] Olson enrolled at the University of Wisconsin, earning both a B.S. and, in 1938, a Ph.D. in bacteriology. He married his classmate, Alice, and would go on to have three children.[4] Olson enrolled in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps to help pay off his college costs, and was called to active duty at Fort Hood in Texas as the United States entered World War II. Olson worked for a short time at Purdue University's Agricultural Experimentation Station before being called to active duty.

Work with the Army & CIA [ edit ] Olson served as a captain in the U.S. Army Chemical Corps. In December 1942, he got a call from Ira Baldwin, his thesis adviser at UoW and the future mentor of Sidney Gottlieb, who would go on to be the CIA's leading chemist and director of MK-ULTRA. Ira had been called to leave his University post to direct a secret program regarding the development of biological weapons, and wanted Olson to join him as one of the first scientists at what would become Fort Detrick. The army transferred him to Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. A few months later, the Chemical Corps took over Detrick and established its secret Biologicals Warfare Laboratories.

At Camp Detrick, Baldwin worked with industrial partners such as George W. Merck and the U.S. military to establish the top secret U.S. bioweapons program beginning in 1943, during World War II, a time when interest in applying modern technology to warfare was high. Olson also worked with ex-Nazis who had been brought into the country through Operation Paperclip on the utilization of aerosolized anthrax.[1]

Olson was discharged from the Army in 1944 and remained at Detrick on a civilian contract, continuing his research into aerobiology. In 1949, he joined many other Detrick scientists in Antigua for Operation Harness, which tested the vulnerability of different animals to toxic clouds. In 1950, he was a part of Operation Sea-Spray, where the bacterium "Serratia marcescens" was released into the coastal mists of San Francisco through a minesweeper, reaching all of San Francisco's 800,000 residents, as well as people living in eight surrounding cities. Olson traveled often to Fort Terry, a secret army base off Long Island, where toxins too deadly to be brought onto the U.S. mainland were tested.

This was the period where senior military officials and CIA officers were becoming deeply troubled at Soviet progress, and feared they were heading towards mastery of microbe warfare. Their alarm led to the forming of the Special Operations Division at Detrick in spring of 1949, with the purpose of conducting research on covert ways to utilize chemical weapons. SOD was known as a "Detrick within a Detrick" due to its level of secrecy. Olson became acting chief of SOD within a year of its creation, originally invited to join by colleague and SOD's first chief, John Schwab.

At some point while assigned as a civilian U.S. Army contractor, Olson began working as a CIA employee.[1] In May 1952, Frank Olson was appointed to the committee for Project Artichoke, an experimental CIA interrogation program.[5]

Disaffection [ edit ] By the time Olson stepped down as chief of SOD in early 1953, citing "pressures of the job" that aggravated his ulcers, he had officially joined the CIA after working closely with them for years. He did stay with SOD, which functioned as a CIA research station hidden within a military base. Olson did a lot of work at Detrick that his children said had a lasting effect on his psyche. Olson witnessed and assisted in the poisoning, gassing, and torture of laboratory animals at Detrick, which his son Eric recalled having a deep effect on Olson: "He'd come to work in the morning and see piles of dead monkeys. That messes with you. He wasn't the right guy for that." Olson also witnessed multiple torture sessions in international CIA safe-houses, where people were "literally interrogated to death in experimental methods combining drugs, hypnosis, and torture to attempt to master brainwashing techniques and memory erasing."[6]

On February 23, 1953, the Chinese broadcast charges that two captured American pilots had claimed the U.S. was conducting germ warfare against North Korea.[7] Other captured Americans such as Colonel Walker "Bud" Mahurin made similar statements.[8][9] The United States government threatened to charge some POWs with treason for cooperating with their captors.[10] After their release, the prisoners of war would publicly repudiate their confessions as having been extracted by torture.[11] On 27 July 1953, the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, launching Operation Big Switch, the repatriation of Korean War POWs. Twenty-one American POWs refused repatriation and defected, and the returning POWs were viewed as potential security risks. As a result, debriefings became "hostile investigations in search of possible disloyalty".[12] The day the armistice was signed, Olson, a bacteriologist, arrived in Northolt, UK. Olson's home movies from the trip indicate he traveled to London, Paris, Stockholm, and Berlin.[13] Upon his return, Olson's mood was noticeably changed, according to his family.[14][15][16] According to coworker Norman Cournoyer, Olson had witnessed interrogations in Europe and become convinced that the United States had used biological weapons during the Korean War.[13][17] Journalist Gordon Thomas claims that Olson subsequently visited William Sargant, a British psychiatrist with high level security clearances. According to Thomas, Sargant reported that Olson had become a security threat and his access to military facilities should be limited.[14]

Olson had spent a decade at Detrick and knew all the secrets of the Special Operations Division. He frequently traveled to Germany to witness interrogation sessions in multiple secret prisons (Evidence places Olson in Frankfurt, Berlin, and Heidelberg), where the victims would occasionally die from trauma of the tactics used. Olson was one of the several SOD scientists who traveled to, or through, France in the summer of '51 when the French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit was poisoned by naturally occurring ergot, the fungus from which LSD was derived. If American forces did use biological weapons during the Korean War (there is circumstantial evidence but no concrete proof), Olson would know. The prospect that he might reveal what he had seen or done was a terrifying thought.[18]

Drugging of Olson [ edit ] A semi-monthly retreat of the men closest to MK-ULTRA was scheduled at a cabin at Deep Creek Lake for Wednesday, November 18, to Friday, November 20, 1953. A tentative participants list included twelve names:[19][20]

Fort Detrick participantsOlson, a scientist with the Special Operations Division of the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories at Fort Detrick, who was suspected of being a security risk.Lt. Col. Vincent Ruwet, Olson's supervisor, the head of the Special Operations Division.John L. Schwab, who had founded the division and in 1953 served as its lab chief[21]John Stubbs, one of the Fort Detrick personnel[21]Benjamin Wilson, a member of the Special Operations Division.Herbert "Bert" Tanner, one of the Fort Detrick personnel[21]John C. Malinowski, a Detrick staffer who didn't drink alcohol and thus was not dosed.[22]Gerald Yonetz, a Special Operations Division scientistCIA participantsSidney Gottlieb, a CIA chemist responsible for Project MKUltra.[23]Robert Lashbrook, Gottlieb's deputy, who dosed the liquor everyone was drinking along with Gottlieb.A. Hughes, suspected to be CIA[21]Henry Bortner, of the CIA[21][24]Aftermath of drugging [ edit ] On Thursday evening around 7:30, Olson and some of the other participants were drugged with a "potential truth serum", decades later discovered to be LSD.[25][26] The next morning, Olson headed back to Maryland a changed man. Having dinner with his family, Olson refused to eat, and seemed distant from his family, not speaking about his trip or attending to his children. He blurted out to his wife, "I've made a terrible mistake." MK-ULTRA had been underway for seven months at this time, and barely two dozen men knew the true nature and intentions of the project.

On November 23, Olson and his boss, Lt. Col. Vincent Ruwet, arrived to work at Detrick, both still in bad shape from the retreat. Ruwet later recalled that Olson appeared to be agitated, and asked if Ruwet should fire him or if he should quit. While Ruwet was able to calm him down for the day, Olson only worsened by the next day. Ruwet later testified Olson was "disoriented," felt "all mixed up" about the work he had been doing, and felt "all mixed up" and "incompetent" in his field.

Attempted resignation [ edit ] On Tuesday, November 24, Olson went to work as usual, but unexpectedly returned home before noon, accompanied by a coworker, John Stubbs. Olson explained Stubbs's presence, saying "They're afraid I might hurt you." Olson informed his wife that he had agreed to undergo psychiatric treatment.[5]

That same day, Olson, Ruwet, and CIA chemist Robert Lashbrook flew to New York City. In New York, Olson and Lashbrook met with Harold Abramson, a CIA-linked medical doctor, who had worked with Olson years earlier on studies of aerosolization.[26]:'Š158'Š [27]

Death [ edit ] The Hotel Pennsylvania, NYC (called the Hotel Statler in 1953).Around 2 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, November 28, 1953, Olson plummeted onto the sidewalk in front of the Hotel Pennsylvania. (At that time it was called the Statler Hilton Hotel.) The night manager rushed to Olson, who was still alive and who "tried to mumble something". Olson died before medical help arrived.[14] Years later, the night manager recalled "In all my years in the hotel business, I never encountered a case where someone got up in the middle of the night, ran across a dark room in his underwear, avoiding two beds, and dove through a closed window with the shade and curtains drawn."[15]

When police entered the hotel room, they found Robert Lashbrook sitting on the toilet in the room he shared with Olson.[14]

The motel's switchboard operator reported having connected a call from room 1018A to a number listed as belonging to Dr. Harold Abramson. According to the operator, who overheard the entirety of the brief call, the occupant in 1018A reported "Well, he's gone." to which the call's recipient had replied "Well, that's too bad."[14]

Lashbrook's wallet contained the initials, address, and phone number of magician-turned-CIA asset John Mullholland. Lashbrook claimed he and Olson had visited Mulholland, although this is disputed by author H.P. Albarelli.[20][28][29]

At the scene, and in their written report, the two police officers discussed similarities to the 1948 Laurence Duggan case, in which a high-level government official suspected of espionage died after plummeting from his New York office.[30][31] The ensuing police report said that on his last night in Manhattan, Olson purposely threw himself out of the window of his tenth-floor hotel room at the Hotel Statler, which he had been sharing with Lashbrook, and died shortly after impact.[32]

Murder and wrongful death allegations [ edit ] 1975 [ edit ] Although Olson's family told friends that he "fell or jumped" and had suffered "a fatal nervous breakdown" which resulted in the fall,[1] the family had no real knowledge of the specific details surrounding the tragedy, until the Rockefeller Commission uncovered some of the CIA's MKULTRA activities in 1975. That year, the government admitted that Olson had been dosed with LSD, without his knowledge, nine days before his death. After the family announced they planned to sue the Agency over Olson's "wrongful death," the government offered them an out-of-court settlement of $1,250,000, later reduced to $750,000 (about $3.8 million in 2021 value [33]), which they accepted.[34] The family received apologies from President Gerald Ford and CIA director William Colby.[35]

1994''1996 [ edit ] In 1994, Eric Olson had his father's body exhumed to be buried with his mother. The family decided to have a second autopsy performed. The 1953 medical report completed immediately after Dr. Olson's death indicated that there were cuts and abrasions on the body.[36] Theories that sparked about Olson having been assassinated by the CIA led to the second autopsy, which was performed by James Starrs, Professor of Law and Forensic Science at the George Washington University National Law Center. His team searched the body for any cuts and abrasions and found none, though did find a large hematoma on the left side of Olson's head and a large injury on his chest. Most of the team concluded that the blunt-force trauma to the head and the injury to the chest had not occurred during the fall, but most likely before the fall (one team member dissented).[1] Starrs called the evidence "rankly and starkly suggestive of homicide."[35]

Also in 1994, Eric Olson testified before the U.S. House of Representatives' "Legislation and National Security Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations" hearings on the US Government's "Cold War Era Human Subject Experiments". He spoke about how the sudden and mysterious death of his father deeply affected his family and appealed to the Congress to help with their ongoing battle to get the CIA to release more details of his father's final days.[37]

In 1996, Eric Olson approached the U.S. District Attorney in Manhattan, Robert Morgenthau, to see if his office would open a new investigation. Stephen Saracco and Daniel Bibb of the office's "cold case" unit collected preliminary information, including a deposition of Lashbrook, but concluded that there was no compelling case to send to a grand jury.[1] In 2001, Canadian historian Michael Ignatieff wrote for The New York Times Magazine an account of Eric's decades-long campaign to clear his father's name.[1][38][39] Eric Olson asserts that the forensic evidence of death is suggestive of a method used by the CIA found in the first manual of assassination that says "The most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface."[40]

2012''2013 [ edit ] On November 28, 2012, sons Eric and Nils Olson filed suit in the US District Court in Washington, D.C.,[41] seeking unspecified compensatory damages as well as access to documents related to their father's death and other matters that they claimed the CIA had withheld from them.[42][43] The case was dismissed in July 2013, due in part to the 1976 settlement between the family and government.[44] In the decision dismissing the suit, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote, "While the court must limit its analysis to the four corners of the complaint, the skeptical reader may wish to know that the public record supports many of the allegations [in the family's suit], farfetched as they may sound."[45]

2017''2018 [ edit ] Netflix released a documentary miniseries, entitled Wormwood (2017), based on the mystery of Olson's death; it was directed by Errol Morris.[46] In the miniseries, journalist Seymour Hersh says the government had a security process to identify and execute domestic dissidents (perceived to pose a risk). He said that Frank Olson was a victim of this and an ongoing cover-up after his death. However, Hersh explained that he cannot elaborate or publish on the facts because it would compromise his source.[40]

Writing for The New York Review of Books, scholar Michael Ignatieff concludes "Though I still resist the facts, the facts, as [Eric] Olson's research has established, are that Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, and other unnamed persons at the highest levels of the American government ordered the death of Eric's father [Frank Olson] because they feared he knew too much about US biological warfare during the Korean War and about the torture and execution of Soviet agents and ex-Nazi "expendables" in black sites in Europe during the early 1950s. Having killed him, the CIA confected the story that Olson's death was a suicide brought on by stress, and later attributed his jump from the window to the effects of a cocktail laced with LSD. It now appears that the LSD was administered, at a CIA retreat in Maryland, to discover exactly what Olson knew. When this experiment revealed that he was indeed "unreliable," he was taken to New York and disposed of."[47] Academic Milton Leitenberg strongly disputed Ignatieff's conclusions, arguing that "there was no biological warfare carried out by any agency of the US government during the Korean War, or for that matter by anyone else."[48]

See also [ edit ] Harold BlauerLaurence DugganReferences [ edit ] ^ a b c d e f g Ignatieff, Michael (April 1, 2001). "What did the C.I.A. do to Eric Olson's father?". The New York Times Magazine . Retrieved January 17, 2013 . ^ "Dr. Frank R. Olson Dies in New York City". Iron County Miner. December 4, 1953. p. 1 . Retrieved August 2, 2018 '' via Newspapers.com. ^ "Dr. Frank R. Olson Dies In New York City". Montreal River Miner. December 4, 1953. ^ "Family Statement on the Murder of Frank Olson". Frank Olson Project. Archived from the original on February 11, 2003 . Retrieved January 2, 2018 . ^ a b A Terrible Mistake ^ Kinzer, Stephen (2019). Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control. New York: Henry Holt. pp. 112''113. ^ "Red Germ Charges Cite 2 U.S. Marines" (PDF) . New York Times. February 23, 1954 . Retrieved January 19, 2013 . ^ Harris, Sheldon H.; Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932''45, and the American Cover-up; Taylor & Francis; 2002 ISBN 978-0-203-43536-6[page needed ] ^ "Marine Ex-P.O.W. Backs Schwable" (PDF) . The New York Times. March 3, 1954 . Retrieved March 13, 2020 . ^ "Dirty little secrets". Al Jazeera. Government of Qatar. April 4, 2010 . Retrieved May 21, 2019 . ^ Lech, Raymond B. (2000), Broken Soldiers, Chicago: University of Illinois, pp. 162''163, ISBN 0-252-02541-5 ^ Oldenburg, Don (April 15, 2003). "Tending to the Psychic Wounds of POWs" '' via www.washingtonpost.com. ^ a b 27 July departure per Codename Artichoke, The CIA's Secret Experiments on Humans ^ a b c d e Ignatieff, Michael (April 1, 2001). "C.I.A.; What Did the C.I.A. Do to His Father? (Published 2001)". The New York Times. ^ a b Kinzer, Stephen (September 6, 2019). "From mind control to murder? How a deadly fall revealed the CIA's darkest secrets". The Guardian '' via www.theguardian.com. ^ Dead Silence, p. 95 ^ Wormwood episode 2[time needed ] ^ Kinzer, Stephen (2019). Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control. New York: Henry Holt. pp. 116''117. ^ "Deep Creek Lake Memorandum". Frank Olson Project. ^ a b "The Search for the Manchurian Candidate - Chapter 5". www.druglibrary.net. ^ a b c d e "Olson Frank". The Weisberg Archive, Beneficial-Hodson Library, Hood College '' via Internet Archive. ^ Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act. Penguin. July 21, 2020. ISBN 9780735215771. ^ Weinberger, Sharon (September 10, 2019). "When the C.I.A. Was Into Mind Control". New York Times . Retrieved December 15, 2019 . ^ Times, Nicholas M. Horrock Special to The New York (July 18, 1975). "Destruction of LSD Data Laid to C.I.A. Aide in '73 (Published 1975)". The New York Times. ^ A Terrible Mistake, timeline ^ a b Regis, Ed (1999). The Biology of Doom: America's Secret Germ Warfare Project. New York: Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 978-0-80505-764-5. ^ Wormwood ep 2[time needed ] ^ Terrible Mistake ^ Treaster, Joseph B. (August 3, 1977). "C.I.A HIRED MAGICIAN IN BEHAVIOR PROJECT (Published 1977)". The New York Times. ^ Wormwood, ep 1[time needed ] ^ A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson ^ Hersh, Seymour (July 10, 1975). "Family Plans to Sue C.I.A. Over Suicide in Drug Test". The New York Times . Retrieved March 16, 2008 . The widow and children of a researcher who committed suicide in 1953 after his participant in a Central intelligence Agency drug experiment said today that they planned to sue the agency over what they claimed was his "wrongful death." ^ "Inflation Calculator | Find US Dollar's Value from 1913-2022". www.usinflationcalculator.com. ^ Coen, Bob; Nadler, Eric (2009). Dead Silence: Fear and Terror on the Anthrax Trail. Berkeley: Counterpoint Press. p. 97. ISBN 978-1-58243-509-1. ^ a b Brown, Matthew Hay (December 8, 2012). "Six decades later, sons seek answers on death of Detrick scientist". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved September 24, 2016 . ^ "CIA Documents Concerning The Death of Dr. Frank Olson" (PDF) . Frank Olson Project. January 11, 1975 . Retrieved January 6, 2019 . ^ "USA Cold War Era Human Subject Experiments - Prepared Testimony of Dr. Eric Olson" (PDF) . Friends of WikiLeaks Chicago. September 28, 1975. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 11, 2021 . Retrieved March 11, 2021 . ^ Fischer, Mary A. (January 2000). "The Man Who Knew Too Much". GQ. Archived from the original on February 5, 2002 . Retrieved May 10, 2018 '' via Frank Olson Project. ^ Ignatieff, Michael (February 22, 2018). "Who Killed Frank Olson?". The New York Review of Books . Retrieved January 6, 2019 . ^ a b Scherstuhl, Alan (December 12, 2017). "Errol Morris's "Wormwood" Descends Into Time-Killing Conspiracy Fanfic". The Village Voice . Retrieved December 17, 2017 . ^ The case was Olson v. U.S., 12-cv-01924, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington). ^ Frommer, Frederic J. (November 28, 2012). "Family Sues US Over Scientist's Mysterious Death". Associated Press. Archived from the original on December 2, 2012 . Retrieved November 29, 2012 . ^ McVeigh, Karen (November 29, 2012). "CIA sued over 1950s 'murder' of government scientist plied with LSD". The Guardian. London, UK . Retrieved January 12, 2013 . ^ Gaines, Danielle (July 18, 2013). "Lawsuit by family of drugged Detrick employee dismissed". Frederick News-Post . Retrieved October 20, 2013 . ^ Schoenberg, Tom (July 17, 2013). "CIA Cover-Up Suit Over Scientist's Fatal Fall Dismissed". Bloomberg News . Retrieved February 22, 2014 . ^ Scott, A. O. (December 14, 2017). "Review: 'Wormwood' Confirms That Errol Morris Is Our Great Cinematic Sleuth". The New York Times . Retrieved December 15, 2017 . ^ "Who Killed Frank Olson? | by Michael Ignatieff | the New York Review of Books". www.nybooks.com. Archived from the original on April 22, 2018 . Retrieved January 17, 2022 . ^ Ignatieff, Michael. "No, They Didn't". Further reading [ edit ] Andrews, George (2001). MKULTRA : The CIA's Top Secret Program in Human Experimentation and Behavior Modification. Healthnet Press. ISBN 0-9616475-8-2. Marks, John D. (1979). The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate": The CIA and Mind Control. Times Books. ISBN 0-8129-0773-6. Ronson, Jon (2005). The Men Who Stare At Goats. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-7060-6. External links [ edit ] Shane, Scott (September 12, 2004). "Son probes strange death of WMD worker". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved May 10, 2021 '' via sfgate.com. The Frank Olson Project - explores the circumstances of Olson's death and the political and ethical issues embedded in them LSD A Go Go on YouTube, Short documentary about the Frank Olson case"Did the CIA Drug Paul Robeson? '' a Look at the Secret Program Mk Ultra" Part 1. 23:16 minutes. Amy Goodman interviews Paul Robeson, Jr., Dr. Eric Olson, Martin Lee. Democracy Now!. Thursday, July 1, 1999. Retrieved August 22, 2010.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 18:09

Since 1994, BitCon Corporation has been providing paving services across Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. We are a family owned business that has the experience and equipment to service the public, commercial, and residential construction sectors.

Founder and President Philip Knowles has nearly 50 years of experience in the construction and paving industries. Under his leadership, and over the course of nearly two decades, BitCon has grown from a small, one man operation into a full service paving company fulfilling the needs of a wide range of customers.

Please give us a call at

(978) 777-1133or email us at

info@bitconcorp.com.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 18:08

Fresh & Fit Podcast Photo Credit: Screenshot/TikTok*Webbies, Social Heat, sets the standards and raises the bar. The hosts of the ''Fresh & Fit Podcast,'' Myron Gaines and Walter Weekes announced to their listeners that YouTube demonetized and banned their channel from its YouTube Partner Program. Even the location where the distasteful duo shoot their content wants them out of the building. Walter and Myron have spewed anti-Black women rhetoric, alleged hate speech, and misogynistic controversial statements. Walter once said, ''I don't really date Black girls'...most Black girls are annoying, how do I put this, ratchet, and they don't know how to [be] reserved.'' Actress Erika Alexander posted, ''Don't cry for me, Argentina. I think fox and friends will pick them up. The sad part is that they'll use it as an excuse to become more radicalized '' toxic. I believe that if they find a path towards a life of good and redemption this could be a life raft. Because it's not about a show, or money, it's about your life, dignity, decency and legacy. It's about what you stand for. #standup Bon voyage gentleman.'' We would also like to send our condolences for the end of Fit and Fresh reign of terror, sorrows, sorrows, prayers.

NBA vet Matt Barnes posted a Kobe Bryant tribute to honor his birthday today. He added to the caption, ''Happy heavenly birthday Kobe '¾¸ The ultimate competitor since day 1. We have a special Kobe tribute dropping tomorrow on the @shobasketball YouTube. Stay tuned for more.'' We look forward to the episode.

No Lauryn Hill will not be tolerated; Ms. Hill revealed she will host The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill 25th Anniversary Tour to honor her 1998 solo album. The tour includes 17 dates and will stop at Brooklyn's Barclays Center, Chicago's United Center, and Los Angeles' Kia Forum; she will also perform for her fans down under in Australia and New Zealand. Her hip-hop group, The Fugees, will co-headline the tour in the United States and Canada.

Syria Smith pranked her mother, the vocal bible, Brandy, using the lyrics by Kaliii's song ''Area Codes.'' Brandy becomes increasingly concerned that her little girl is stepping into the dark side as the conversation progresses. Fans are tripping out to see Brandy, whom they grew up listening to, become a full-fledged mother, ''It's so weird hearing Brandy sound like a whole fed-up momma. I feel so old. This is cute.''

Get the visuals to these stories, below.

@bwdivest Poor banditos #demonetized #themsthebreaks #winteriscoming #protectblackwomen #youtubers #blacktiktok #podcasters #freshandfitpodcast '¬ original sound '' BWdivest'¸Ž@syraismith @brandy does not play. #prank '¬ original sound '' RaiMORE NEWS ON EURWEB: Nia Long Files for FULL Custody of Son w/Ime Udoka '' Twitter Comes for Jennifer Aniston's Neck For Her Remarks on Cancel Culture + More | PicsVIDEOs

We Publish News 24/7. Don't Miss A Story. Click HERE to SUBSCRIBE to Our Newsletter Now!

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 18:01

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

American businessman (1889''1974)

H. L. Hunt

From print ad for Hunt's 1965 book Hunt for Truth: A Timely Collection of the Stimulating Daily Newspaper Columns of H. L. Hunt.

BornHaroldson Lafayette Hunt Jr.

( 1889-02-17 ) February 17, 1889DiedNovember 29, 1974 (1974-11-29) (aged 85)NationalityAmericanOccupationPetroleum industrySpousesLyda Bunker

'‹

'‹

(

m. 1914; died 1955)

'‹

Frania Tye(m. 1925''1941) (bigamy)Children15, including Margaret, Caroline Rose, Nelson Bunker, William Herbert, Lamar, Ray Lee, June, Helen and Swanee HuntRelativesHaroldson Lafayette Hunt Jr. (February 17, 1889 '' November 29, 1974) was an American oil tycoon.[1] By trading poker winnings for oil rights according to legend, but more likely through money he gained from successful speculation in oil leases, he ultimately secured title to much of the East Texas Oil Field, one of the world's largest oil deposits. He acquired rights to East Texas oil lands initially through a $30,000 land purchase from oil speculator Dad Joiner, and founded Hunt Oil in 1936.[2] From it and his other acquisitions, which included diverse interests in publishing, cosmetics, pecan farming, and health food producers, he accrued a fortune that was among the world's largest. In the 1950's, his Facts Forum Foundation supported highly conservative newspaper columns and radio programs, some of which he authored and produced himself, and for which he became known.[2] At his death, he was reputed to have one of the highest net worths of any individual in the world, a fortune estimated between two and three billion dollars.[2]

Life [ edit ] Hunt was born near Ramsey, in Carson Township, Fayette County, Illinois, the youngest of eight children.[1] He was named after his father, Haroldson Lafayette Hunt, who was a prosperous farmer-entrepreneur. His mother was Ella Rose (Myers) Hunt.

Hunt was homeschooled. He did not go to elementary school or to high school. Later, he said that education is an obstacle to making money.[3] As a teenager, Hunt traveled to different places before he settled in Arkansas, where he was running a cotton plantation by 1912. He had a reputation as a math prodigy and was a gambler. It was said that after his cotton plantation was flooded, he turned his last $100 into more than $100,000 after he had gambled in New Orleans. With his winnings, he purchased oil properties in the neighborhood of El Dorado, Arkansas. He was generous to his employees, who, in turn, were loyal to him by informing him of rumors of a massive oil field to the south, in East Texas. In negotiations over cheese and crackers, at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, with the wild-catter who discovered the East Texas Oil Field, Columbus Marion "Dad" Joiner, Hunt secured title to what was the largest known oil deposit in the world. Hunt had agreed to pay Joiner $1,000,000 and to protect him from liability for his many fraudulent transactions surrounding the property.

In 1957, Fortune estimated that Hunt had a fortune of $400''700 million,[4] and was one of the eight richest people in the United States. J. Paul Getty, who was considered to be the richest private citizen in the world, said of Hunt, "In terms of extraordinary, independent wealth, there is only one man'--H. L. Hunt."[5]

Personal life [ edit ] Hunt had fifteen children by three wives.

He married Lyda Bunker of Lake Village, Arkansas, in November 1914 and remained married to her until her death in 1955.[6] His seven children by her were: Margaret (1915''2007), Haroldson ("Hassie", 1917''2005), Caroline (1923''2018), Lyda (born and died in 1925), Nelson Bunker (1926''2014), William Herbert (1929), and Lamar (1932''2006). Their home on White Rock Lake in Dallas was styled after Mount Vernon though much larger.

His first son, Hassie, who was expected to succeed him in control of the family business, was lobotomized in response to increasingly erratic behavior. He outlived his father. Lamar founded the American Football League and created the Super Bowl, drawing on the assistance of his children in selecting the game's name. Two other children, Herbert and Bunker, are famous for their purchasing much of the world's silver, in an attempt to corner the market. They ultimately owned more silver than any government in the world before their scheme was discovered and undone. Bunker Hunt was briefly one of the wealthiest men in the world, having discovered and taken title to the Libyan oil fields, before Muammar Gaddafi nationalized the properties.

While still married to Lyda, H. L. Hunt is said to have married Frania Tye of Tampa, Florida, in November 1925 by using the name Franklin Hunt. Frania claimed to have discovered the bigamous nature of her marriage in 1934, and in a legal settlement in 1941, Hunt created trust funds for each of their four children, and she signed a document stipulating that no legal marriage between them had ever existed. About the same time, she briefly married then divorced Hunt's employee, John Lee, taking the last name Lee for herself and her four children.[7] Her four children by Hunt were: Howard (born 1926), Haroldina (1928), Helen (1930), and Hugh ("Hue", 1934). Frania Tye Lee died in 2002.[8]

Hunt supported and had children by Ruth Ray of Shreveport, Louisiana, whom he had met when she was a secretary in his Shreveport office. They married in 1957 after the death of Hunt's wife Lyda. His four children by her were: Ray Lee (born 1943), June (1944), Helen (1949), and Swanee (1950).[9] His youngest son, Ray Lee, ultimately inherited the business and was a major supporter of President George W. Bush.

His 15 children in birth order are:

Margaret Hunt Hill (October 19, 1915 '' June 14, 2007): philanthropist and co-owner of Hunt Petroleum.H. L. "Hassie" Hunt III (November 23, 1917 '' April 20, 2005): diagnosed with schizophrenia in the early 1940s; co-owner of Hunt Petroleum.Caroline Rose Hunt (January 8, 1923 '' November 13, 2018): Founder and Honorary Chairman of Rosewood Hotels & Resorts which operates The Mansion on Turtle Creek.Lyda Bunker Hunt (February 19, 1925 '' March 20, 1925) (Died as an infant).Nelson Bunker Hunt (February 22, 1926 '' October 21, 2014): A major force in developing Libyan oil fields. Eventually attempted to corner the world market in silver in 1979, and was convicted of conspiring to manipulate the market. Legendary owner-breeder [10] of Thoroughbred racehorses.Howard Lee Hunt (October 25, 1926 '' October 13, 1975)Haroldina Franch Hunt (October 26, 1928 '' November 10, 1995)William Herbert Hunt (born March 6, 1929) A major and defining force in the oil industry, he was also a legendary businessman and oilman. At times, ran Hunt Oil, Hunt Petroleum, Hunt Energy, Placid Oil, etc. The founder of Petro-Hunt LLC.Helen Lee Cartledge Hunt (October 28, 1930 '' June 3, 1962) died in the Air France Flight 007 disaster, the worst single aircraft disaster up until that time.Lamar Hunt (August 2, 1932 '' December 13, 2006): co-founder of the American Football League and the North American Soccer League; owner of the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League; owner of the Columbus Crew and FC Dallas of Major League Soccer; backer of World Championship Tennis; impetus behind 1966 AFL-NFL merger, coined the name "Super Bowl".Hugh S. Hunt (October 14, 1934 '' November 12, 2002): lived in Potomac, Maryland, founder of Constructivist Foundation.Ray Lee Hunt (born c. 1943): chairman of Hunt Oil.June Hunt (born c. 1944): host of a daily religious radio show, Hope for the Heart.Helen LaKelly Hunt (born c. 1949): a pastoral counselor in Dallas; co-manager of the Hunt Alternatives Fund, one of the family's charitable arms.Swanee Hunt (born May 1, 1950): former U.S. ambassador to Austria; now head of the Women and Public Policy Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and president of Hunt Alternatives Fund.A scandal emerged in 1975, after his death, when it was discovered that he had a hidden bigamous relationship, with his second wife living in New York.[11]

After marriage to Ruth Ray, Hunt became a Baptist and was a member of the First Baptist Church of Dallas.[12] He was a major financial contributor toward the establishment of the conservative Christian evangelical Criswell College in Dallas.

After several months at Baylor Hospital in Dallas, Hunt died at age 85,[13][14] and was buried in Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery.[15]

The founder of the "transcendental black metal" band Liturgy, Haela Hunt-Hendrix, is his grandchild.[16]

Hunt served as inspiration behind the character J. R. Ewing from the television show Dallas.[17]

Connection to white supremacy [ edit ] Multiple sources, including American civil rights icon Malcolm X, implicate Hunt, a Democrat, as a lifelong racist who provided major financial assistance to several far-right organizations, such as the Minutemen and the John Birch Society. Hunt considered African Americans a political threat and made this clear in his radio interviews and broadcasts.[18] One of Hunt's chief allies, Allen Zoll, said that since 1936 Hunt advocated deporting all African Americans to Africa. For this reason, Hunt supplied Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad continuous financial support due to the latter's belief in racial separation from whites.[19]

In 1965, Hunt encouraged the Democrat Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace, a white supremacist, to use the scheme of running his wife, Lurleen Wallace, for election as governor in a bald effort to evade the state's constitutional rule that a governor could not succeed himself.[20]

JFK conspiracy allegations [ edit ] Madeleine Duncan Brown, an advertising executive who claimed to have had both an extended love affair and a son with President Lyndon B. Johnson, said that she was present at a party at the Dallas home of Clint Murchison Sr. (another oil tycoon), on the evening prior to the assassination of John F. Kennedy that was attended by Johnson as well as other famous, wealthy, and powerful individuals including Hunt, Murchison, J. Edgar Hoover, and Richard Nixon.[21]

According to Brown, Johnson had a meeting with several of the men after which he told her: "After tomorrow, those goddamn Kennedys will never embarrass me again. That's no threat. That's a promise."[21][nb 1] Brown's story received national attention and became part of at least a dozen John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories.[21]

This conspiracy theory was debunked by Kennedy assassination investigator Dave Perry. Evidence showed neither President Johnson nor Hoover were in Dallas at the time of the alleged party and Murchison had not lived in his Dallas home for a number of years. Witnesses place Murchison at his East Texas ranch.[23]

Publications [ edit ] Books

Fabians Fight Freedom. Dallas: H. L. Hunt Press.Alpaca. Dallas: H. L. Hunt Press (1960)Alpaca Revisited. Dallas: HLH Products (1967)H. L. Hunt: Early Days. Dallas: Parade (1973)Hunt Heritage: The Republic and Our Families. Dallas: Parade (1973)Right of Average. Dallas: HLH Products (1960s)Articles

"From H. L. Hunt." American [Odessa, Texas] (February 2, 1967)."Reducing Hospital Costs." Life Lines, vol. 16, no. 4 (January 9, 1974), p. 4. JSTOR community.28146704.See also [ edit ] Walter L. Buenger, historian at Texas A&M University, in 1994 wrote the Hunt biography in Dictionary of American Biography.Hunt Oil CompanyList of richest Americans in historyExplanatory notes [ edit ] ^ Brown provided a similar account on A Current Affair stating: "On the day of the assassination, not but a couple of hours prior to the assassination, he said that John Kennedy would never embarrass him again and that wasn't a threat '' that was a promise."[22] Citations [ edit ] ^ a b Ford, Robert E. (November 30, 1974). "H.L. Hunt, among world's riches, dies". St. Petersburg Times. (Florida). Associated Press. p. 1A. ^ a b c Enclopedia Britannica online, "H. L. Hunt", Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Feb. 2022, Retrieved July 24, 2022. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "Ð'Ð>>адыки без масок. ÐÐ"Ñок на ОÐ>>имÐе". YouTube . Retrieved October 26, 2021 . ^ "Seven Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount - 1790 to Present". Measuringworth.com . Retrieved October 26, 2021 . ^ Lohr, Steve (August 20, 1981). "Books of the Times". The New York Times . Retrieved June 13, 2012 . ^ Brown, pp. 40 & 191. ^ Brown, pp. 78''79 & 156''157. ^ Burrough, p. 437. ^ Brown, pp. 192''193. ^ Nelson Bunker Hunt biography Archived September 23, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, National Thoroughbred Racing Association. ^ Palmer, Jerrell Dean. "Hunt, Haroldson Lafayette." In: Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Archived from the original. ^ Porterfield, Bill. "H.L. Hunt's Long Goodbye." Texas Monthly (February 28, 1975). Archived from the original. ^ "Billionaire H.L. Hunt". Lewiston Morning Tribune. (Idaho). Associated Press. November 30, 1974. p. 1A. ^ Weil, Martin (November 30, 1974). "Billionaire Hunt succumbs". Victoria Advocate. (Texas). (Washington Post). p. 1A. ^ Charrier, Emily (September 20, 2016). "Ghosts of Sparkman-Hillcrest: Mickey Mantle, Mary Kay Ash and H.L. Hunt". The Advocate . Retrieved June 18, 2023 . ^ "Archived copy" (PDF) . Archived from the original (PDF) on June 17, 2020 . Retrieved May 13, 2020 . {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) ^ "Forbes Profile: The Hunt family" . Retrieved June 13, 2023 . ^ Washington Post, May 6, 1967, p. E-15, July 2, 1967, January 30, 1975, p. B7. ^ Hakim Jamal, From the Dead Level, p. 247-248; Louis Lomax, To Kill a Black Man, p. 108-109; Karl Evanzz, The Judas Factor, p. 284-286, The Messenger, p. 303. ^ Carter, Dan T. (1995). The politics of rage : George Wallace, the origins of the new conservatism, and the transformation of American politics. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 273. ISBN 0-684-80916-8. OCLC 32739924. ^ a b c Aynesworth, Hugh (November 17, 2012). " 'One-man truth squad' still debunking JFK conspiracy theories". The Dallas Morning News. Dallas . Retrieved February 6, 2013 . ^ "Celebrity". Boston Herald. Boston. February 24, 1992. p. 015 . Retrieved February 6, 2013 . [permanent dead link ] ^ name=Aynesworth General sources [ edit ] Brown, Stanley H. (1976) H. L. Hunt. Chicago: Playboy Press. ISBN 978-0872234499. OCLC 2164939.Burrough, Bryan. (2010) The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes. New York: Penguin Press. ISBN 978-0143116820. OCLC 430052039.Further reading [ edit ] Buckley, Tom. "Just Plain H. L. Hunt." Esquire (January 1967), pp. 64+. Portrait photograph by Diane Arbus."The richest American would like to be no different from you and me. He wears shiny blue suits, cuts his own hair and carries his lunch in a brown paper bag."Curington, John, and Michael Whitington. H. L. Hunt: Motive & Opportunity. Foreword by Cyril Wecht, M.D., J.D. 23 House (2018). ISBN 978-1939306241.Curtis, Adam. "YOU THINK YOU ARE A CONSUMER BUT MAYBE YOU HAVE BEEN CONSUMED". BBC (March 5, 2013).Hendershot, Heather. What's Fair on the Air? Cold War Right-Wing Broadcasting and the Public Interest. University of Chicago Press (2011).Honorable Mention for the Prose Book Award, Association of American Publishers. Covers the rise and fall of prominent right wing radio hosts: H. L. Hunt, Dan Smoot, Carl McIntire, and Billy James Hargis.Hurt, Harry (III). Texas Rich: The Hunt Dynasty, From the Early Oil Days Through the Silver Crash. New York: W.W. Norton (1981). ISBN 978-0393013917. OCLC 6916014.Glaser, Vera. "Millionaire H. L. Hunt Talks Politics." News [Chicago, Ill.] (August 27, 1964)."Interview with H. L. Hunt". Playboy (August 1966), pp. 47+.This article can be collected in the video game Mafia 3 on the PlayStation 4 and read in its entirety.Tuccille, Jerome. Kingdom: The Story of the Hunt Family of Texas. Beard Books (2004).Vertical Files. Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.External links [ edit ] Hunt OilH. L. Hunt at Find a GraveFiles on Hunt at the Harold Weisberg ArchiveMirrored at Internet ArchiveH.L. Hunt's Boys and the Circle K CowboysHunt Heirs fight over EstateBiography of H. L. Hunt by Jerrell Dean Palmer in the Handbook of Texas OnlineA Matter of Trust [permanent dead link ] by Gretel C. Kovach . D Magazine (c. February 2008).Hunt's FBI files at Internet ArchivePart 1.Part 2.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 17:59

It is one of the most famous moments in sports history: the February 1964 match when a braggadocious 22-year-old named Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston in Miami Beach to win the world heavyweight boxing championship.

Yet what happened in the hours that followed is little known: Clay '-- soon to be known as Muhammad Ali '-- celebrated his triumph in a room at the Hampton House, a motel in Miami's Black Brownsville neighborhood that was frequented by Black celebrities.

Accompanying Clay to the two-story lodge were three friends who had been in the smoky, crowded Convention Hall when Liston surrendered: Nation of Islam minister Malcolm X, crossover soul singer Sam Cooke and Cleveland Browns running back and future Hall of Famer Jim Brown, then all in the prime of youth.

But what did the men rap about? Very little is known about that, which makes the conversation a perfect playground for an imaginative writer. That would be Kemp Powers, who penned the well-praised 2013 play ''One Night in Miami'' before writing a screenplay for the movie of the same name. The film, the first directed by Regina King, debuted on Amazon Friday to strong reviews.

Malcolm X didn't fear being killed: 'I live like a man who is dead already'

The fictional debate that unfolds between the four men centers on a much more consequential fight than the one in the ring: the real-life struggle for Black equality or, at its most elemental, merely to be treated as human beings. But how to win that battle? The opinions in the hotel room and in the broader Black society were various, just as they are now.

In 1964, the rising clout and salaries of star Black athletes were granting them a new freedom to speak out on racial injustice, and with it came a new pressure to do so, said Aram Goudsouzian, a professor of history at the University of Memphis who has written about the intersection of race, sports and culture. ''There is a new generation of Black superstars who can sort of write their own tickets,'' he said.

In the film, Malcolm X aggressively prods the men in his hotel room to use their talent and stature to help Black people, taking particular (and some critics say unfair) aim at Sam Cooke. The back and forth between the friends, at turns passionate, poignant and funny, serves as a kind of fictional preamble to what happened afterward in the lives of the four men. Here's the full story:

Muhammad Ali: 'Free to be what I want'

On the morning of Feb. 26, 1964, the day after he won the championship, Cassius Clay emerged in the Miami Convention Hall and proclaimed to the throng of reporters that he had joined the Nation of Islam.

''I believe in Allah and in peace,'' he said. ''I don't try to move into White neighborhoods. I don't want to marry a White woman. I was baptized when I was 12, but I didn't know what I was doing,'' he said. ''I'm not a Christian anymore. I know where I'm going, and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want.''

It was classic Ali, defying racist expectations of the Black athlete as an integrationist hero who in his dignity and determination was a ''credit to his race '... the human race,'' as boxing sportswriter Jimmy Cannon referred to early Black boxing great Joe Louis. That is, as long as he stayed focused on his sport and didn't get riled up publicly about racial injustice.

'Shoot them for what?' How Muhammad Ali won his greatest fight

At that time, ''the model for the Black athlete is one who is exceptional to achieve equality, and that's kind of in line with the notion of nonviolent protesters '... that you have to be on higher moral plane,'' Goudsouzian said. At the very vanguard of change, Brown, Clay and other star Black athletes ''were just making it up as they went along.''

In a week's time, Clay's words would also turn out to be a declaration of freedom from Malcolm X. As Clay's spiritual mentor who had recruited him to Islam, Malcolm X had tried to persuade the boxer to join him in leaving the Nation of Islam. He had grown disillusioned by its leader, Elijah Muhammed. Rumors swirled that Ali would soon follow him.

On March 4, Malcolm X and Clay toured the United Nations, where Clay told African delegates that he was looking forward to touring their countries and visiting Mecca, according to author Jonathan Eig in his book ''Ali: A Life.'' But just two days later, Muhammad announced in a radio address that Ali would receive the honor of a full Muslim name.

''This Clay name has no divine meaning,'' he said. ''Muhammad Ali is what I will give to him as long as he believes in Allah and follows me.''

Malcom X: Endangered icon

By the night of the Clay-Liston match, Malcolm X was well aware of the talk that he would be assassinated for breaking with the Nation of Islam. After Ali chose Muhammad over their friendship, Malcolm X openly expressed his fears to the press. According to a late-March 1964 FBI report quoted in Eig's book, Muhammad had warned that the only way to stop Malcolm X is ''to get rid of him the way Moses and others did their bad ones.''

Even so, Malcolm X moved with rebellious speed to establish the Muslim Mosque, positioning it as an alternative to Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent civil rights movement. ''Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself,'' he said. And yet he also began to support desegregation and soon voiced regret for his earlier condemnation of the entire White race.

Martin Luther King Jr. met Malcolm X just once. The photo still haunts us with what was lost.

As he recruited members to his new organization, Malcolm X appeared hopeful that his former friend and protege would return to him. In April 1964, Malcolm embarked on the Muslim spiritual pilgrimage to Mecca known as the Hajj. Later staying at the Hotel Ambassador in Accra, Ghana, he caught a glimpse of Ali, who had also been touring Africa.

''Brother Muhammad!'' Malcolm X exclaimed to Ali, who was traveling with Herbert Muhammad, the son of Elijah, according to Eig.

Ali turned to Malcolm X in the hotel lobby. ''You left the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,'' he said sternly. ''That was the wrong thing to do.'' He later made fun of Malcolm X's long white robe and walking stick, according to news reports at the time.

On Feb. 21, 1965, just a few days shy of the first anniversary of the Ali-Liston fight, Malcolm X was shot to death at the age of 39 as he took the stage for a rally at the Audubon Ballroom in upper Harlem.

Nation of Islam members Muhammad Aziz, Mujahid Abdul Halim and Khalil Islam were later convicted of killing the civil rights leader and sentenced to life in prison, although some have questioned whether the true killers were ever brought to justice.

Decades later, in his 2004 autobiography, ''The Soul of A Butterfly,'' Ali wrote that spurning Malcolm X ''was one of the mistakes that I regret most in my life.''

''I wish I'd been able to tell Malcolm I was sorry, that he was right about so many things,'' Ali, who died in 2016 at 74, wrote. ''But he was killed before I got the chance.''

Sam Cooke: A song of hope and pain

In ''One night in Miami,'' Powers portrays Malcolm X as aggressively pushing Cooke to stop using his formidable songwriting talent to appeal to White audiences and instead train it on the cause of Black equality. He tells Cooke that he should have already written a civil rights anthem like Bob Dylan's ''Blowin' in the Wind,'' which had been performed by Peter, Paul and Mary at the March on Washington the previous August and had managed to climb to the top of the pop charts.

Powers said in an interview with The Washington Post that the debate over the song was purely fictional. However, it was also grounded in history. Despite their vastly different personalities and faiths '-- Cooke had grown up a church boy and was uninterested in joining the Nation '-- Malcolm X had a great influence on Cooke. The minister's message of ''Black pride and self-determination, the principle of ownership, the need above all to control your own destiny'' resonated with the lessons Sam's father had taught him in childhood, wrote Peter Guralnick in his 2005 book ''Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke.''

Cooke was indeed envious of ''Blowin' in the Wind,'' as soon as he heard it on the newly released ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'' album. Cooke was ''so carried away with the message, and the fact that a White boy had written it, that '... he was almost ashamed not to have written it himself,'' Eig wrote.

''I'm going to write something,'' Cooke told his friend and mentor, Black musician J.W. Alexander. Long after the civil rights movement, that song of pain and hope, ''A Change is Gonna Come,'' has the frustrating ring of a prophecy that must still be fulfilled. ''I think my Daddy would be proud,'' Alexander recalled Cooke saying, in an interview with Guralnick.

Students from Dorothy I. Height Elementary School sang Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come" during their virtual winter concert. (Video: The Washington Post)

Cooke performed the song live only once, on ''The Johnny Carson Show'' on Feb. 7, 1964, two weeks before he joined Ali, Brown and Malcolm X in the Miami hotel.

Ten months later, on Dec. 11, the 33-year-old Cooke was shot to death at the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles by the motel's manager, who said Cooke had attacked her in search of a woman he had brought to his room. The woman said Cooke, who was drunk, had forced her to come to the hotel and attempted to rape her before she fled. Contradictory reports and conspiracy theories followed in the wake of the killing.

In the seat of Cooke's candy-red Ferrari parked outside the motel, police found a bottle of whiskey and a copy of Muhammad Speaks, the official newspaper of the Nation of Islam '-- a detail, Powell noted, that spoke to Cooke's connection to Malcolm X and his own internal tensions.

Jim Brown: The quest for equality

By the time of the meeting at the Hampton House, famed Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown had finished filming his first movie, ''Rio Conchos,'' a Western action flick in which he played a buffalo soldier. The film premiered eight months later at Cleveland's Hippodrome Theater, on Oct. 23, 1964.

In 1966, Brown starred in the box office hit ''The Dirty Dozen,'' in which he played one of 12 convicts sent to France during World War II to assassinate German officers before the D-Day invasion.

Not coincidentally, in July of that year, he announced his retirement from the NFL at the height of his career to pursue acting full time at the age of 30.

In an interview with writer Alex Haley for Playboy Magazine, Brown talked about the role of Black actors in combating racism, a stance that probably would have made Malcolm X proud.

''There's a crying need for more Negro actors, because for so long, ever since the silent screen, in fact, the whole world has been exposed to Negroes in stereotype roles,'' he said. ''That's why I feel so good that Negroes are finally starting to play roles that other Negroes, watching, will feel proud of '... instead of being crushed by some Uncle Tom on the screen.''

Brown also believed, much like Booker T. Washington, that Black people needed to become economically powerful to achieve equality. In 1966, the same year he retired, he founded the Negro Industrial Economic Union to support entrepreneurship in the African American community.

His political conservatism '-- he has supported President Trump in recent years '-- set him apart from Ali, Cooke and Malcolm X, but that did not appear to affect their friendship, Powers said.

''The most important thing I would love people to take away is that it's possible to disagree with one another and still fight for the same things, to still maintain our friendships and still be allies despite the fact that we disagree,'' he said. ''These guys disagree pretty vocally and pretty viciously over the course of this night, but at the end of it all, they still want the same things, and they still want to get there together.''

With Malcolm X and Cooke both gone, Brown had Ali's back. He convened a meeting in Cleveland of some of the nation's most prominent Black athletes '-- among them Boston Celtic Bill Russell and the UCLA basketball center Lewis Alcindor (who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) '-- to discuss lending their support to the boxing champion. Ali had just been stripped of his heavyweight title and faced charges of draft dodging for his refusal as a Black Muslim to serve in the Vietnam War.

''I felt with Ali taking the position he was taking, and with him losing the crown, and with the government coming at him with everything they had, that we as a body of prominent athletes could get the truth and stand behind Ali and give him the necessary support,'' Brown, now the only survivor among the four friends, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 2012.

The men at the Cleveland summit did not all agree with Ali's stance on the war, and the gathering reportedly became impassioned at points. Yet they were all of the same mind in one way: They had the right as Black athletes and Black men to speak out about injustice, foreshadowing the actions of another NFL star, who a half-century later led his teammates to take a knee.

Read more Retropolis:

'Shoot them for what?' How Muhammad Ali won his greatest fight

Malcolm X didn't fear being killed: 'I live like a man who is dead already'

Martin Luther King Jr. met Malcolm X just once. The photo still haunts us with what was lost.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 17:18

American businessman (1931 '' 2009)

Allen Klein

Klein (center) signing the Beatles in 1969

Born ( 1931-12-18 ) December 18, 1931DiedJuly 4, 2009 (2009-07-04) (aged 77)Alma materUpsala CollegeOccupation(s)Accountant, record label executive, business managerYears active1956''2009OrganizationABKCO RecordsAllen Klein (December 18, 1931 '' July 4, 2009) was an American businessman whose aggressive negotiation tactics affected industry standards for compensating recording artists. He founded ABKCO Music & Records Incorporated. Klein increased profits for his musician clients by negotiating new record company contracts. He first scored monetary and contractual gains for Buddy Knox and Jimmy Bowen, one-hit rockabillies of the late 1950s, then parlayed his early successes into a position managing Sam Cooke, and eventually managed the Beatles and the Rolling Stones simultaneously, along with many other artists, becoming one of the most powerful individuals in the music industry during his era.

Rather than offering financial advice and maximizing his clients' income, as a business manager normally would, Klein set up what he called "buy/sell agreements" where a company that Klein owned became an intermediary between his client and the record label, owning the rights to the music, manufacturing the records, selling them to the record label, and paying royalties and cash advances to the client. Although Klein greatly increased his clients' incomes, he also enriched himself, sometimes without his clients' knowledge. The Rolling Stones' $1.25 million advance from the Decca Records label in 1965, for example, was deposited into a company that Klein had established, and the fine print of the contract did not require Klein to release it for 20 years. Klein's involvement with both the Beatles and Rolling Stones would lead to years of litigation and, specifically for the Rolling Stones, accusations from the group that Klein had withheld royalty payments, stolen the publishing rights to their songs, and neglected to pay their taxes for five years; thus had necessitated their French "exile" in 1971.

After years of pursuit by the IRS, Klein was convicted of the misdemeanor charge of making a false statement on his 1972 tax return, for which, in 1980, he was jailed for two months.

Early life [ edit ] Klein was born in Newark, New Jersey, the fourth child and only son of Jewish immigrants. His mother died of cancer soon afterward, and Klein lived for a time with his grandparents, then subsequently in a Jewish orphanage, until his father remarried shortly before Klein's 10th birthday. An indifferent student, he graduated from Weequahic High School in 1950; fellow graduate Philip Roth was the only classmate to sign his yearbook.[12]

In early work experience with a magazine and newspaper distribution company he showed skill with numbers, and learned about how profits were often concealed from those who had been crucial in generating them. Eventually he would realize that much the same situation existed in popular music, where labels routinely took much profit from the transitory careers of the artists who created the profit-generating music, paying them less than what Klein thought they should.

Klein enlisted in the US Army in 1951 where he served as a clerk typist on Governors Island, New York. After military service, and with the assistance of the G.I. Bill, Klein majored in accounting at Upsala College, graduating in June 1957, and was hired by a Manhattan accounting firm, Joseph Fenton and Company. He was assigned to assist Joe Fenton in an audit of a music publishers' organization, the Harry Fox Agency, and several record companies, including Dot Records, Liberty Records, and Monarch Records. In an early setback to Klein's career, he was fired by Joseph Fenton and Company after four months because of chronic lateness. The company wrote to the State of New Jersey urging officials not to approve him as a Certified Public Accountant, and Klein chose not to take the examination. He briefly attended law school but soon dropped out.

Aided by his friendship with music publisher Don Kirshner, a fellow alumnus of Upsala College, Klein worked as an accountant for the next several years, assisted by Henry Newfeld, a CPA who was a friend from school and the Army, and Marty Weinberg, another CPA, under the name Allen Klein and Company. Klein's clients included Ersel Hickey, Dimitri Tiomkin, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorm(C), Sam Cooke, Buddy Knox, Jimmy Bowen, Lloyd Price, Neil Sedaka, Bobby Darin, Bobby Vinton, Scepter Records, and the estate of Mike Todd. A key early contact was attorney Marty Machat, who frequently performed legal work for Klein over the years.

In June 1958, Klein married Betty Rosenblum, a Hunter College student seven years his junior. The couple had three children: Robin, Jody, and Beth.[29]

Klein acquired a reputation as a tough negotiator who could bring money to his clients. Two of them, rockabilly singers Knox and Bowen, were owed royalties by Roulette Records. Morris Levy, co-owner of Roulette, was feared because of his organized crime connections. He was known to pay artists as little as possible. Klein persuaded him to pay Knox and Bowen the royalties they were owed over a four-year period. Klein's success with the Knox and Bowen negotiation brought him new clients, and he and Levy became lifelong friends.[29][31]

Sam Cooke [ edit ] In 1963, Klein began a business partnership with Jocko Henderson, an urbane black disc jockey who had daily radio shows in both Philadelphia and New York. Henderson hosted lavish, profitable live rhythm and blues shows at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and formed a partnership with Klein to begin doing the same in Philadelphia. As Henderson's partner, Klein was introduced to Sam Cooke, a pre-eminent talent who was equally adept at writing, producing, and performing his numerous hit records. Cooke had scored four top ten hits between 1957 and 1963, including his number one hit, "You Send Me," among 33 records in the top 100 in that period. Although Cooke was clearly making his label, RCA Records, a great deal of money, label executives nonetheless repeatedly refused to honor his many requests for a review of his accounts. Klein forced the reluctant label to open its books for a thorough audit. Shortly afterward, RCA agreed to re-negotiate Cooke's contract.

Klein secured for his client a genuinely groundbreaking deal. Cooke created a holding company, Tracey Ltd., which was named after Cooke's middle daughter. Klein, Cooke's manager, sneakily changed paperwork and listed himself as owner instead (and Sam Cooke as his employee). Sam Cooke trusted him to protect him against crooked music executives but Klein used that trust to his advantage.

Tracey would manufacture Cooke's recordings and give exclusive rights to RCA to sell them for 30 years, after which the rights would revert to Tracey. Cooke would receive a cash advance of $100,000 per year for three years, followed by $75,000 for each of two option years. Instead of being paid the first $100,000 in cash, Cooke was paid in Tracey preferred stock, which would be taxed only when he sold it. While the deal benefited Cooke, it also greatly benefited Klein, who ended up owning the rights to all of Cooke's recordings made since the contract re-negotiation when Cooke was killed in 1964 and his widow sold Cooke's remaining rights to Klein.

Klein's successful negotiations on behalf of Cooke brought him new clients, including Bobby Vinton and the Dave Clark Five. As with Cooke, Klein arranged for his clients to be paid over a period of time to reduce their tax liability. This also benefited Klein, who took advantage of the earning potential of money over time to "make money from the money."

According to the 2019 documentary Lady You Shot Me: The Life and Death of Sam Cooke, Klein was a predator in his relationship with the singer. As of 2019, Cooke's family received no royalties or benefits from his music. All royalties and publishing profits go to the Klein's corporation.

Mickie Most and the British Invasion [ edit ] In 1964, Klein became the American business manager of Mickie Most, a former singer who was the savvy producer of hits for the Animals and Herman's Hermits. Klein extended to Most a million-dollar promise, adding that if he failed to deliver in only one month, Most owed him nothing. Klein did deliver, through strategic re-negotiations of existing contracts and new producing opportunities for RCA, including offers for Most to produce for both Sam Cooke and Elvis Presley. Though the latter two prospects did not materialize, Most was suddenly one of the most talked-about and financially gratified figures in the English recording industry, and Klein was a step closer to eventual agreements with both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

His victories for Most won Klein access to several key English musicians. He eventually negotiated vastly improved deals for The Animals, Herman's Hermits, the Kinks, Lulu, Donovan, and Pete Townshend of the Who. However, Klein's help came at a price. To shelter his clients' money from Britain's high taxation rate on income earned abroad, Klein held the money for them at the Chemical Bank in New York City and paid it to them over periods of time of up to 20 years. Klein invested that money, which earned far more than Klein was obligated to pay to his clients, and he kept the difference in the accounts, thereby maintaining control over the money.

The Rolling Stones [ edit ] In the spring of 1965 Andrew Loog Oldham, co-manager of the Rolling Stones, saw in Klein a terrific business adviser and ally, one who could help him win an incipient power struggle with Eric Easton, a music business veteran who was then the other half of the band's management team. Barely 21, Oldham was profoundly important in the development of the Stones' image, and in initiating the songwriting partnership of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. After some management mishaps, blame for which fell at Easton's feet, and Jagger's ascension in the band's hierarchy following "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", the Stones' first number one record in America, Oldham sought and received Jagger's blessing to bring Klein aboard for re-negotiation of the group's contract with Decca Records. The label offered the band the opportunity to make $300,000 if their records continued to sell. Klein countered with, and quickly secured, an arrangement paying the Stones twice as much, in the form of an advance. He also forced London Records, Decca's American subsidiary, to sign a separate contract. It too was for $600,000. By the time Klein subsequently re-negotiated the deal one year later, Easton having been removed as co-manager, the Stones were guaranteed $2.6 million'--more than the Beatles were making.

When Klein examined the Stones' management contract with Easton and Oldham he found that the two were receiving a disproportionate share of the group's income: not only did Easton and Oldham receive an 8 percent royalty on sales of the Stones' singles'--the Stones themselves received only 6 percent'--but they also received a 25 percent commission on the Stones' income. At Klein's insistence, Oldham increased the Stones' royalties to 7 percent and relinquished his commission. Klein offered the Stones a million-dollar minimum guarantee, paid over a 20-year period to reduce the Stones' tax liability, to let him become their music publisher, based on his faith in the Jagger-Richards songwriting team. He also arranged for a level of tour support and publicity far above anything the band had ever previously experienced for the Stones' 1965 American tour in support of the album December's Children.

Jagger, who had studied at the London School of Economics, gradually became distrustful of Klein, particularly for the latter's ability to insert himself as a profit participant in the group's ever-growing financial affairs. For example, in 1968 Klein very profitably bought out Oldham's share in the band for $750,000.[63][65] By 1968 the Stones were so concerned with how their finances were being handled by Klein that they hired a London law firm, Berger Oliver & Co, to look into their financial situation and Jagger hired the titled merchant banker Prince Rupert Loewenstein to be his personal financial adviser. Another possible factor in the Stones' dissatisfaction with Klein was that when the latter began to manage the Beatles he focused more of his attention on that band's affairs than on the concerns of the Stones. In 1970, on the occasion of needing to negotiate a new contract with Decca, Jagger announced that Klein would be replaced as manager by Loewenstein.

The split between Klein and the Stones led to years of litigation. In 1971 the Stones sued Klein over U.S. publishing rights. The suit was settled the following year, with the Stones receiving $1.2 million as a settlement of all American royalties earned up to that point (and was essentially the $1.25 million advance that Decca had paid the Stones in 1965 that Klein had been withholding since August 1965). However, the Stones were unable to break their contract with Klein, who held an additional $2 million of the Stones' money to be paid over a 15-year period, ostensibly for tax purposes. Klein's company, ABKCO, continued to control the rights to publish the Stones' music and it was Klein who made a fortune off the band's all-time best-selling album, Hot Rocks 1964''1971.

In 1972, Klein alleged that some of the songs on their album Exile on Main Street had been composed while the Stones were still under contract with ABKCO. As a result, ABKCO acquired ownership of the disputed songs and was able to publish another Rolling Stones album, More Hot Rocks (Big Hits and Fazed Cookies). In 1974 negotiations over royalties led to a payment of $375,000 to the Stones and ABKCO's release of an additional Rolling Stones album, Metamorphosis. In 1975 more lawsuits and negotiations resulted in a $1 million payment to the Stones for non-payment by Klein of songwriting royalties, and the release of four Rolling Stones albums including Rock and Roll Circus and Rolled Gold: The Very Best of the Rolling Stones.[71] In 1984 Jagger and Richards sued to break their publishing agreement with ABKCO because of non-payment of royalties. The judge encouraged the two sides to reach a settlement.

Starting in 1986, when the introduction of compact discs brought great profits to the music industry, relations began to improve between Klein and the Stones. In 2002, the Stones' album Forty Licks and the Licks Tour, celebrating the band's 40th anniversary, incorporated songs owned by ABKCO. The Stones agreed to a five-year payment plan suggested by Klein's son, Jody. In 2003, Klein negotiated with Steve Jobs to make ABKCO's Rolling Stones songs available on iTunes.

Cameo-Parkway and ABKCO [ edit ] In February 1967, with an eye toward producing films and finding a way to invest his clients' money, Klein attempted to acquire Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His hopes were blunted when Edgar Bronfman, Sr., heir to the Seagram fortune, instead took control of the firm. Klein then turned his attention to Cameo-Parkway Records, a Philadelphia-born, Los Angeles-based label which had enjoyed hits in the late 1950s and early 1960s, thanks to Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell, Dee Dee Sharp and others, but which by 1967 was no longer prospering. It was one of the first publicly traded record companies, making it ideal for a financial maneuver Klein had in mind, known as a reverse acquisition. It was meant to take Allen Klein and Company public via its being acquired on paper by Cameo-Parkway. By July 1967, Klein and his associate Abbey Butler had acquired a controlling interest and filed to rename Cameo-Parkway as ABKCO, which is an acronym for "The Allen and Betty Klein Company." Fueled by speculation, the stock price increased from $1.75 a share in July 1967 to a peak of 76'…' in February 1968 before the SEC halted trading. The American Stock Exchange declined to reinstate the stock; instead, ABKCO continued to trade over the counter, and the stock price dropped to more realistic levels. In 1987, Klein made ABKCO a privately held company.

The Beatles [ edit ] In 1964 Klein approached the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, with an offer for the Beatles to sign with RCA for $2 million but Epstein was not interested, saying that he was loyal to EMI. After Epstein died in August 1967, the group formed Apple Corps in January 1968. They hoped it would provide the means for correcting Epstein's unfortunate business decisions, which had both limited their incomes and ensured high tax burdens. Although "Hey Jude", the Beatles' first Apple release, was an enormous success, the label itself was a financial mess, with little accountability for how money was being spent.

Klein contacted John Lennon after reading his press comment that the Beatles would be "broke in six months" if things continued as they were.[82] On January 26, 1969, he met with Lennon, who retained Klein as his financial representative, and the next day met with the other Beatles. Paul McCartney preferred to be represented by Lee and John Eastman, the father and brother respectively of McCartney's girlfriend Linda, whom he married on March 12. Given a choice between Klein and the Eastmans, George Harrison and Ringo Starr preferred Klein. Following rancorous London meetings with both Eastmans, in April, Klein was appointed as the Beatles' manager on an interim basis, with the Eastmans being appointed as their attorneys. Continued conflict between Klein and the Eastmans made this arrangement unworkable. The Eastmans were dismissed as the Beatles' attorneys, and on May 8 Klein was given a three-year contract as business manager of the Beatles. McCartney refused to sign the contract but was outvoted by the other Beatles.

Once in charge of Apple, Klein fired a large number of the organization's employees, including Apple Records president Ron Kass, and replaced them with his own people. He closed Apple Electronics, which was headed by Alexis Mardas. Mardas resigned his directorship in May 1971.[87] Klein's attempt to fire Neil Aspinall, a longtime confidant of the Beatles, was immediately thwarted by the band.[31]

Klein was hit with his first crisis in managing the Beatles when Clive Epstein, brother of Brian Epstein and chief heir to NEMS, the management company his brother had founded, sold NEMS to Triumph, a British investment group managed by Leonard Richenberg. NEMS held a 25% stake in the Beatles' earnings, which Klein as well as the Beatles themselves desperately wanted to buy out. This led to tough negotiations with Triumph. Klein ultimately secured the Beatles' rights in their previous work for just four annual payments amounting to 5% of their earnings. However, in the lead-up to those negotiations Richenberg commissioned a hostile investigative report on Klein, which The Sunday Times ran under the headline "The Toughest Wheeler-Dealer in the Pop Jungle".

An even more important battle to secure the Beatles a financial situation commensurate with their worldwide popular acclaim was with Northern Songs Ltd., the publishing company. Northern Songs was managed by Dick James, whom Brian Epstein had rewarded with the Beatles' publishing rights in return for his helping them get placed on a TV show, Thank Your Lucky Stars, early in their career. But James had constructed a contract that gave him an outsized share, and Epstein had not understood its implications. James knew that Klein would soon eliminate his perks, so he quickly offered to sell Northern Songs to ATV, run by entertainment mogul Lew Grade, rather than allow Lennon and McCartney an opportunity to buy back publishing rights to their own songs. Klein worked feverishly to pull together a consortium which would beat Grade's offer, but ultimately his efforts were derailed by infighting between McCartney and Lennon themselves.

In September 1969, while Klein was in the midst of renegotiating the Beatles' unsatisfactory recording agreements with EMI, Lennon told him of his plans to quit the group. It was agreed that this was the wrong time to either make or announce such a move. EMI was loath to re-negotiate, but their American subsidiary, Capitol Records, was so impressed by Abbey Road that they agreed to vastly improved royalty terms. McCartney joined his bandmates in endorsing the deal Klein had secured.

Abbey Road proved to be the Beatles' last true collaboration, but Klein recognised an opportunity in the band's shelved January 1969 album and related documentary project, both titled Get Back, to get another album release out of the splintered group while also fulfilling their obligation to provide one more film to United Artists, the studio that had previously released both A Hard Day's Night and Help! Phil Spector, the producer famous for his "wall of sound" recordings with artists such as the Ronettes and the Righteous Brothers, was eager to sign on as producer for the album, which was eventually titled Let It Be. McCartney did not approve of Spector, but the other Beatles did. This proved to be McCartney and Klein's last face-to-face meeting. However, Apple made $6 million in the first month following the May 1970 release of the record and the film.

Unhappy with production decisions on the Let It Be album and the other Beatles' decision to hire Klein as their manager, McCartney went public with his plans to leave the Beatles in April 1970. He wanted to be released from his partnership with Lennon, Starr, and Harrison, who had in recent months proved a steady three-to-one majority against McCartney's proposals. The Eastmans convinced McCartney to file suit against his former bandmates for dissolution of the Beatles' partnership, which he did on December 31, 1970.

The judge ruled in McCartney's favor in March 1971. He decided that the combined financial affairs of the former Beatles should be placed in the care of a receiver until mutually acceptable terms for their break-up could be found. Klein thereby retained a position in the post-breakup solo careers of Harrison, Starr, and Lennon, but was no longer in charge of their affairs as a partnership.

Solo Beatles [ edit ] For the first few years after the Beatles' contentious break-up, George Harrison was widely seen as the most accomplished and artistically successful former Beatle.[102][103][104] His November 1970 three-disc set, All Things Must Pass, was a sales triumph, and produced hit singles in "My Sweet Lord" and "What Is Life". In the spring of 1971, Harrison learned from his friend and mentor, Ravi Shankar, about the desperate people of Bangladesh, who had been devastated both by military violence and a vicious cyclone. Harrison immediately set about organizing an event which would take place in Madison Square Garden within just five weeks'--the Concert for Bangladesh'--from which a live album could raise further funds for the Bangladeshi refugees. Klein hustled to get the invited artists, including Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton, to play for free while donating their shares of royalties to charity, and convinced Capitol Records to grant an unprecedented 50% royalty rate. The Concert for Bangladesh live album and film raised over $15 million. Klein had failed to register the shows as a UNICEF charity event, however; as a result, the proceeds were denied tax-exempt status in Britain and the US. The IRS attempted to tax the income, and $10 million of that amount was held back for years.

Both Harrison and John Lennon soon became disenchanted with Klein. By mid 1972, Harrison was incensed at the outcome of Klein's handling of the Bangladesh relief effort. Aside from the question of its charity status, unwelcome attention had been drawn to the project after an article published in New York magazine accused Klein of pocketing $1.14 on each copy of the live album (priced at $10)[111]'--allegations that raised suspicions among the three former Beatles with regard to his conduct in their business affairs. Lennon also felt betrayed by Klein's lack of support for his and Yoko Ono's increasingly politically focused work, which was typified by the couple's 1972 album Some Time in New York City.[nb 1] In early 1973 Lennon, Harrison and Starr served notice that they would not be renewing Klein's management contract when it expired in March. Early the following month, Lennon told an interviewer: "Let's say possibly Paul's suspicions were right '... and the timing was right."

Klein responded by suing the Beatles and Apple in New York, in order to recoup the loans he had made to his three former clients and other costs owing to ABKCO. They then sued him in the London courts, citing excessive commission fees, the mishandling of the Concert for Bangladesh, his misrepresentation of their individual financial standings, and his failure to ensure that the roster of artists at Apple Records prospered under his control.[nb 2] While the suits were ongoing, Klein made a play for the US portion of Harrison's publishing company, Harrisongs, in late 1974, without success. He also attempted to influence the outcome of Lennon's arrangement with music publisher Morris Levy regarding an alleged copyright infringement (of the Chuck Berry song "You Can't Catch Me") in Lennon's 1969 Beatles composition "Come Together". Lennon's song "Steel and Glass" from the 1974 album Walls and Bridges was his thinly veiled dig at Klein.[nb 3]

Klein's 1973 lawsuit against the Beatles was settled out of court in January 1977, with Ono representing the former bandmates. Klein received a lump sum payment of approximately $5 million in lieu of future royalties and as repayment of the loans that ABKCO had made to the Beatles.

Harrison had been sued for copyright infringement in 1971 because of the alleged similarity of his song "My Sweet Lord" to "He's So Fine", which had been recorded by the Chiffons in 1963 and was owned by Bright Tunes Music. The case was still pending in 1976; as an alternate strategy to access Harrison's US publishing, Klein now purchased Bright Tunes and thus became the plaintiff in the lawsuit against Harrison. The judge ruled that Harrison had infringed on Bright Tunes' copyright, and the ruling was upheld on appeal. The judge initially assessed damages of $2,133,316, which Harrison would have to pay to Klein, then reduced the figure to $1,599,987, but finally ruled in 1981 that Klein still had a fiduciary responsibility to Harrison and should not be allowed to profit from his acquisition of Bright Tunes. Klein was ordered to hold "He's So Fine" in trust for Harrison provided that Harrison reimburse him the $587,000 that it had cost Klein to purchase the company.

Films and theater [ edit ] The multi-Academy Award-winning 1955 film Marty, an independently produced movie that undercut the Hollywood studio system, provided a business template which Allen Klein closely studied and later adapted to the recording industry. In the late 1950s Klein shared an office with press agent Bernie Kamber, who represented Burt Lancaster, one of Marty's producers. Klein absorbed much from Kamber on how the producers had structured their business model, a paradigm whose strength derived from the fact that artists, not film studios or record labels, drove marketplace success and that intense preparation and canny negotiation could lavishly reward artists and their representatives. In 1961 Klein did accountancy work for an independent film, Force of Impulse, where he formed lasting relationships that he would turn to for many film projects of his own. In 1962 Klein produced a film called Without Each Other. He took it to the Cannes Film Festival and later claimed that it had won the "Best American Picture Award" there, though no such award actually existed. A distributor never materialized, but Klein's enthusiasm for film persisted.

Starting in 1967 Klein produced four films in the Spaghetti Western genre, a lean-and-mean style of cowboy movie with taciturn heroes and explosive violence. Klein utilized actor Tony Anthony, whom he'd met on Force of Impulse, in all four. Their films included a trilogy comprising A Stranger In Town, The Stranger Returns (1967), and The Silent Stranger (shot in 1968 but not released until 1975 by United Artists).[132][133] Blindman (1970) featured Ringo Starr as a Mexican bandit, Anthony as its lead, and Klein as an extra. The first two "Stranger" films were released by MGM the studio where Klein produced Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter starring the popular Herman's Hermits. Klein, who had tried to purchase MGM in the mid '60s, became involved with a lawsuit against MGM with each accusing the other of not performing on their contracts with each other.[136]

In 1971, John Lennon directed Klein's attention to El Topo, a surrealistic western by the Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky. Inspired by Lennon's enthusiasm, Klein bought the film and put it in American release. He then produced and financed Jodorowsky's next film, The Holy Mountain, an allegorical journey with psychedelic overtones. Later the producer and the director's planned collaboration on a proposed film version of Story of O was halted when Jodorowsky refused to make the film and to return substantial advance monies. Klein retaliated by withdrawing both El Topo and The Holy Mountain from distribution. In 2008 Jodorowsky released the films in Europe and was sued by Klein. After a face-to-face reconciliation between the two men Klein dropped his lawsuit and ABKCO released the films on video, paying Jodorowsky to remaster them.

Klein's legs appeared in Lennon and Yoko Ono's 1971 film Up Your Legs Forever.[139] With George Harrison, Klein co-produced the 1972 concert film The Concert for Bangladesh. Klein also produced the 1978 film The Greek Tycoon, in which Anthony Quinn and Jacqueline Bisset played characters based on Aristotle Onassis and Jacqueline Kennedy. In the early 1980s Klein produced two Broadway plays. It Had to be You, a romantic comedy starring Ren(C)e Taylor and Joseph Bologna, ran for barely a month. Next Klein produced The Man Who Had Three Arms, written by Edward Albee. Although Albee had also written big successes in The Zoo Story and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, the play Klein produced had an even shorter run than his previous attempt.

Criminal conviction and jail time [ edit ] In 1977, Klein and ABKCO's former head of promotion, Pete Bennett, were each charged with three felony counts of income tax evasion for 1970, 1971, and 1972, and related misdemeanor counts of making false statement on their income tax returns for each of those years. The IRS, which had been investigating Klein for several years, claimed that Klein and Bennett had sold promotional copies of Beatles and post-Beatles albums'--common practice in the music industry at the time'--without declaring the sales on their tax returns. Klein was alleged to have received over $200,000. Bennett pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge and became a witness against Klein. Klein testified that he had not instructed Bennett to sell promotional copies of albums and that although he'd received cash payments from Bennett the payments were a return of cash advances which Bennett had been given. Klein's first trial ended in a mistrial because the jury was deadlocked. At his second trial in 1979, the jury found Klein not guilty of the felony charges, but guilty of a single misdemeanor charge for false statements on his 1972 tax return. Klein was fined $5,000 and sentenced to two months in jail, which he served in July''September 1980.[63]

Phil Spector [ edit ] In 1988 Klein began managing Phil Spector's business affairs, including his publishing and recording assets. Although Spector had not been active as a producer for several years, his early work was still frequently broadcast and also licensed for film soundtracks. Spector's publishing company, Mother Bertha Music, Inc, was controlled by Trio, a Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller company, which was in turn administered by Warner/Chappell Music. Warner/Chappell was making appropriate payments, but significant amounts were not being passed on to Spector. Klein's goal was to get Spector all the money owed him, and also to wrest a concession allowing Spector to co-administer the future licensing of his music. Klein and Spector brought suit in federal court where a courtroom win would secure the first goal but not the second. Klein accordingly then advised a settlement strategy which proved successful.

The Verve [ edit ] On their 1997 single "Bitter Sweet Symphony", the English band the Verve sampled a 1965 orchestral version of the Rolling Stones song "The Last Time" by the Andrew Oldham Orchestra.[144] Klein, who owned the copyrights to the Rolling Stones' early work, refused clearance for the sample; following a lawsuit, the Verve ceded the songwriting credits and royalties. In 2019, Klein's son and the Rolling Stones returned the credits and royalties to Richard Ashcroft of the Verve.[145]

The song became a hit, popular for use at sporting events, and it was a big money-maker for ABKCO, which licensed its use for commercials advertising Nike shoes and Opel automobiles. In 1999, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Song, even though "Bitter Sweet Symphony" actually bears little resemblance to the Rolling Stones's "The Last Time."

Death [ edit ] Klein was diagnosed with diabetes at age 40. He suffered several heart attacks over the years, of varying severity. In 2004, the same year that ABKCO collected a Grammy Award for a Sam Cooke documentary, Legend, Klein fell and broke bones in his foot, requiring surgery. He was subsequently diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He died on July 4, 2009 in New York City. The cause of his death was respiratory failure. Yoko Ono and Sean Ono Lennon attended Klein's funeral. Andrew Loog Oldham commented at a subsequent memorial service that Klein had greatly magnified the success of the Rolling Stones.

In June 2015, American journalist Fred Goodman published a biography of Klein, Allen Klein: The Man Who Bailed Out the Beatles, Made the Stones, and Transformed Rock & Roll.[150]

Legacy [ edit ] In the 1978 television mockumentary The Rutles: All You Need is Cash, which parodies the career of the Beatles, Allen Klein is portrayed as "Ron Decline", played by John Belushi. Introduced as "the most feared promoter in the world", Decline is so intimidating to his colleagues that they choose to throw themselves out of skyscraper windows rather than face him.

In his book You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle for the Soul of the Beatles, Peter Doggett says that Klein has come to be seen as one of the controversial "intruders" in the Beatles' story. Doggett writes:

Suspected for their motives, hated for their disruptive power, they all arrived from America and were all regarded as suspects for the crime of breaking up the Beatles, on the assumption that without them the group would have continued happily in each other's company until their dying days. The first of these intruders was Yoko Ono; the second was Linda Eastman; and the third was Allen Klein.

With the possible exception of Alexis Mardas, who occupied a far less central role, nobody in the Beatles' milieu has received a more damning verdict from historians than Allen Klein. He was, one said, "a tough little scorpion"; for another, "fast-talking, dirty-mouthed '... sloppily dressed and grossly overweight"; again, "short and fat, beady-eyed and greasily pompadoured". Beatles aide Alistair Taylor said, "He had all the charm of a broken lavatory seat" ... So consistent was the vilification that when biographer Philip Norman merely described Klein as "a tubby little man", it sounded like a compliment.

'... No such rehabilitation [as was later afforded Ono and Eastman] was available for Allen Klein, who entered the Beatles' story as a villain from central casting, and never escaped that role. Yet we are asked to believe that three of the four Beatles found this "beady-eyed" "grossly overweight" "scorpion" such an attractive figure that they were prepared to trust him with their futures. Clearly the Demon King didn't always exude the stench of sulphur.

Notes [ edit ] ^ Klein's opposition to Some Time in New York City was based on the likelihood that its US sales would fall short of 500,000 units, which would disqualify the former Beatles from receiving their second royalty increase, under the terms of their agreement with Capitol. Before its release, Klein negotiated with the record company to have the album discounted from this contractual stipulation, so demonstrating a degree of foresight that, author Peter Doggett writes, "Lennon never gave him credit for" when discussing Klein's contribution. ^ Klein immediately countersued in London, in November 1973, for $19 million in unpaid fees. He also sued McCartney separately, for $34 million, but the suit was thrown out of court. ^ In 1970, Harrison had included the line "Beware of ABKCO" in an early demo version of the song "Beware of Darkness". During his 1974 North American tour'--the end of which he spent avoiding Klein's process server in New York'--Harrison introduced a gag in the lyrics to "Sue Me, Sue You Blues": "Bring your lawyer and I'll bring Klein / Get together and we could have a bad time." References [ edit ] ^ Distinguished Weequahic Alumni, Weequahic High School Alumni Association. Accessed December 19, 2019. "Allen Klein (1950) a music producer with Sam Cooke, the Beatles and Rolling Stones as clients." ^ a b Laing, Dave (July 5, 2009). "Allen Klein: US business manager who made sure the Rolling Stones and the Beatles got paid". The Guardian . Retrieved January 16, 2016 . ^ a b Perrone, Pierre (July 5, 2009). "Allen Klein: Notorious business manager for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones" . The Independent. Archived from the original on July 9, 2009 . Retrieved October 20, 2017 . ^ a b Sisario, Ben (July 5, 2009). "Allen Klein, 77, Dies; Managed Music Legends". The New York Times . Retrieved April 23, 2010 . ^ Todd, Patrick (August 11, 2010). "Who/What Is Nanker Phelge?". rollingtimes.org. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016 . Retrieved January 21, 2016 . ^ News staff (June 5, 1975). "Stones Settle With Allen Klein: Four More Albums". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on February 3, 2013 . Retrieved February 4, 2016 . ^ Staff writer (July 5, 2009). "Allen Klein". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved October 21, 2017 . ^ "John Alexis Mardas". The Independent. August 21, 2006. Archived from the original on April 1, 2011 . Retrieved October 21, 2017 . ^ Goodman 2015, p. 232: "the former Beatle was now a huge artistic and commercial power in his own right ... [Lennon] hated the idea that George Harrison was suddenly the most popular and successful Beatle." ^ Rodriguez 2010, p. 159: "[Band on the Run] restored Paul's good name and put him back in the game for good, redefining perceptions of who was the ex-Beatle most capable of carrying on their legacy. Until Band on the Run, that ex-Fab had been widely assumed to be George." ^ Inglis 2010, pp. 23, 36: "[All Things Must Pass] elevate[d] 'the third Beatle' into a position that, for a time at least, comfortably eclipsed that of his former bandmates ... By mid-1972, Harrison, his music, and his humanitarian concerns were universally acclaimed ... his efforts to draw attention to the tragedies in Bangladesh had propelled him to the position of popular music's first statesman." ^ Fong-Torres, Ben (March 30, 1972). "Did Allen Klein Take Bangla Desh Money?". Rolling Stone . Retrieved October 21, 2017 . ^ Marco Giusti (2007). Dizionario del western all'italiana. Mondadori, 2007. pp. 157''158. ISBN 978-88-04-57277-0. ^ Mavis, Paul (May 6, 2015). "The Stranger Trilogy (Warner Archive Collection: A Stranger in Town, The Stranger Returns, The Silent Stranger)". DVDTalk.com . Retrieved January 22, 2016 . ^ News staff (July 4, 1970). "Not So, Says AKKCO in Reply to MGM Pact Breach Charge". Billboard. p. 4 . Retrieved October 21, 2017 . ^ Jonathan Cott (2013). Days That I'll Remember: Spending Time With John Lennon & Yoko Ono. Omnibus Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-1-78323-048-8. ^ Fricke, David (April 16, 1998). "The Verve: Richard Ashcroft's bittersweet triumph". Rolling Stone . Retrieved July 14, 2022 . ^ Beaumont-Thomas, Ben (May 23, 2019). "Bittersweet no more: Rolling Stones pass Verve royalties to Richard Ashcroft". The Guardian . Retrieved July 14, 2022 . ^ Greene, Andy (June 26, 2015). "Reconsidering Music-Business Boogeyman Allen Klein". Rolling Stone . Retrieved October 20, 2017 . Sources [ edit ] Badman, Keith (2001). The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After the Break-Up 1970''2001. London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0-7119-8307-6. Beatles, The (2000). The Beatles Anthology . San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books. ISBN 0-8118-2684-8. Clayson, Alan (2003). George Harrison. London: Sanctuary. ISBN 1-86074-489-3. Coleman, Ray (1984). Lennon . McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-011786-1. Doggett, Peter (2011). You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup. New York, NY: It Books. ISBN 978-0-06-177418-8. Goodman, Fred (2015). Allen Klein: The Man Who Bailed Out the Beatles, Made the Stones, and Transformed Rock & Roll. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-547-89686-1. Inglis, Ian (2010). The Words and Music of George Harrison. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. ISBN 978-0-313-37532-3. McMillian, John (2013). Beatles vs. Stones. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-14391-5969-9. Rej, Bent (2006). The Rolling Stones: In the Beginning. New York, NY: Firefly Books. ISBN 978-1-55407-230-9. Rodriguez, Robert (2010). Fab Four FAQ 2.0: The Beatles' Solo Years, 1970''1980. Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-1-4165-9093-4. Soocher, Stan (2015). Baby You're a Rich Man: Suing the Beatles for Fun and Profit. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England. ISBN 978-1-61168-380-6. External links [ edit ] Allen Klein '' Daily Telegraph obituaryAllen Klein at IMDbBeaumont, Mark (September 12, 2017). " 'I signed Bitter Sweet Symphony away for one dollar': the unholy rows behind The Verve's Urban Hymns" . Daily Telegraph.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 17:08

American singer and songwriter (1931''1964)

Musical artist

Samuel Cook[5] (January 22, 1931[6] '' December 11, 1964),[5] known professionally as Sam Cooke, was an American singer and songwriter. Considered one of the most influential soul artists of all time, Cooke is commonly referred to as the "King of Soul" for his distinctive vocals, pioneering contributions to the genre, and significance in popular music.[7]

Cooke was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and later relocated to Chicago with his family at a young age, where he began singing as a child and joined the Soul Stirrers as lead singer in the 1950s. Going solo in 1957, he released a string of hit songs, including "You Send Me", "A Change Is Gonna Come", "Cupid", "Wonderful World", "Chain Gang", "Twistin' the Night Away", "Bring It On Home to Me", and "Good Times". During his eight-year career, Cooke released 29 singles that charted in the Top 40 of the Billboard Pop Singles chart, as well as 20 singles in the Top Ten of Billboard 's Black Singles chart.

In 1964, Cooke was shot and killed by the manager of a motel in Los Angeles.[8] After an inquest and investigation, the courts ruled Cooke's death to be a justifiable homicide.[9] His family has since questioned the circumstances of his death.

Cooke's contributions to soul music contributed to the rise of Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Billy Preston, and popularized the work of Otis Redding and James Brown.[10][11][12] AllMusic biographer Bruce Eder wrote that Cooke was "the inventor of soul music", and possessed "an incredible natural singing voice and a smooth, effortless delivery that has never been surpassed".[13]

Cooke was also a central part of the civil rights movement, using his influence and popularity with the White and Black populations to fight for the cause. He was friends with boxer Muhammad Ali, activist Malcolm X and football player Jim Brown, who together campaigned for racial equality.[citation needed ]

Early life [ edit ] Sam Cooke was born Samuel Cook in Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1931 (he added the "e" to his last name in 1957 to signify a new start to his life).[14][15] He was the fifth of eight children of the Rev. Charles Cook, a Baptist minister in the Church of Christ (Holiness), and his wife, Annie Mae. One of his younger brothers, L.C. (1932''2017),[16][17] later became a member of the doo-wop band Johnny Keyes and the Magnificents. Cooke was raised Baptist.[19]

Cooke's family moved to Chicago in 1933. There he attended Doolittle Elementary and Wendell Phillips Academy High School, the same school that Nat "King" Cole had attended a few years earlier. Cooke sang in the choir of his father's church and began his career with his siblings in a group called the Singing Children when he was six years old. He first became known as lead singer with the Highway Q.C.'s when he was a teenager, having joined the group at the age of 14. During this time, Cooke befriended fellow gospel singer and neighbor Lou Rawls, who sang in a rival gospel group.

Career [ edit ] The Soul Stirrers [ edit ] In 1950, Cooke replaced gospel tenor R. H. Harris as lead singer of his gospel group the Soul Stirrers, who had signed with Specialty Records on behalf of the group. Their first recording under Cooke's leadership was the song "Jesus Gave Me Water" in 1951. They also recorded the gospel songs "Peace in the Valley", "How Far Am I from Canaan?", "Jesus Paid the Debt" and "One More River", among many others, some of which he wrote.[4] Cooke was often credited for bringing gospel music to the attention of a younger crowd of listeners, mainly girls who would rush to the stage when the Soul Stirrers hit the stage just to get a glimpse of Cooke.

Billboard ' s 2015 list of "the 35 Greatest R&B Artists Of All Time" includes Cooke, "who broke ground in 1957 with the R&B/pop crossover hit 'You Send Me' ... And his activism on the civil rights front resulted in the quiet protest song 'A Change Is Gonna Come'."[27]

Crossover pop success [ edit ] Cooke had 30 U.S. top 40 hits between 1957 and 1964, plus three more posthumously. Major hits like "You Send Me", "A Change Is Gonna Come", "Cupid", "Chain Gang", "Wonderful World", "Another Saturday Night", and "Twistin' the Night Away" are some of his most popular songs. Twistin' the Night Away was one of his biggest selling albums.[28] Cooke was also among the first modern Black performers and composers to attend to the business side of his musical career. He founded both a record label and a publishing company as an extension of his careers as a singer and composer. He also took an active part in the Civil Rights Movement.[29]

Cooke in Billboard, 1965, released posthumouslyHis first pop/soul single was "Lovable" (1956), a remake of the gospel song "Wonderful". It was released under the alias "Dale Cook"[30] in order not to alienate his gospel fan base; there was a considerable stigma against gospel singers performing secular music. However, it fooled no one[9] '-- Cooke's unique and distinctive vocals were easily recognized. Art Rupe, head of Specialty Records, the label of the Soul Stirrers, gave his blessing for Cooke to record secular music under his real name, but he was unhappy about the type of music Cooke and producer Bumps Blackwell were making. Rupe expected Cooke's secular music to be similar to that of another Specialty Records artist, Little Richard. When Rupe walked in on a recording session and heard Cooke singing Gershwin, he was quite upset. After an argument between Rupe and Blackwell, Cooke and Blackwell left the label.

"Lovable" was neither a hit nor a flop, and indicated Cooke's future potential. While gospel was popular, Cooke saw that fans were mostly limited to low-income, rural parts of the country, and sought to branch out. Cooke later admitted he got an endorsement for a career in pop music from the least likely man, his pastor father. "My father told me it was not what I sang that was important, but that God gave me a voice and musical talent and the true use of His gift was to share it and make people happy." Taking the name "Sam Cooke", he sought a fresh start in pop.[citation needed ]

In 1957, Cooke appeared on ABC's The Guy Mitchell Show. That same year, he signed with Keen Records. His first hit, "You Send Me", released as the B-side of "Summertime",[30] spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart.[33] The song also had mainstream success, spending three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart.[34] It elevated him from earning $200 a week to over $5,000 a week.[35]

In 1958, Cooke performed for the famed Cavalcade of Jazz concert produced by Leon Hefflin held at the Shrine Auditorium on August 3. The other headliners were Little Willie John, Ray Charles, Ernie Freeman, and Bo Rhambo. Sammy Davis Jr. was there to crown the winner of the Miss Cavalcade of Jazz beauty contest. The event featured the top four prominent disc jockeys of Los Angeles.[14]

Billboard advertisement, May 29, 1961Cooke signed with the RCA Victor record label in January 1960, having been offered a guaranteed $100,000 (equivalent to $990,000 in 2022) by the label's producers Hugo & Luigi.[36][37] One of his first RCA Victor singles was "Chain Gang", which reached No. 2 on the Billboard pop chart. It was followed by more hits, including "Sad Mood", "Cupid", "Bring It On Home to Me" (with Lou Rawls on backing vocals), "Another Saturday Night", and "Twistin' the Night Away".

In 1961, Cooke started his own record label, SAR Records, with J. W. Alexander and his manager, Roy Crain.[44] The label soon included the Simms Twins, the Valentinos (who were Bobby Womack and his brothers), Mel Carter and Johnnie Taylor. Cooke then created a publishing imprint and management firm named Kags.[45]

Like most R&B artists of his time, Cooke focused on singles; in all, he had 29 top 40 hits on the pop charts and more on the R&B charts. He was a prolific songwriter and wrote most of the songs he recorded. He also had a hand in overseeing some of the song arrangements. In spite of releasing mostly singles, he released a well-received blues-inflected LP in 1963, Night Beat, and his most critically acclaimed studio album, Ain't That Good News, which featured five singles, in 1964.[46]

In 1963, Cooke signed a five-year contract for Allen Klein to manage Kags Music and SAR Records and made him his manager. Klein negotiated a five-year deal (three years plus two option years) with RCA Victor in which a holding company, Tracey, Ltd, named after Cooke's daughter, owned by Klein and managed by J. W. Alexander, would produce and own Cooke's recordings. RCA Victor would get exclusive distribution rights in exchange for 6 percent royalty payments and payments for the recording sessions. For tax reasons, Cooke would receive preferred stock in Tracey instead of an initial cash advance of $100,000. Cooke would receive cash advances of $100,000 for the next two years, followed by an additional $75,000 for each of the two option years if the deal went to term.

Personal life [ edit ] Cooke was married twice.[48] His first marriage was to singer-dancer Dolores Elizabeth Milligan Cook, who took the stage name "Dee Dee Mohawk" in 1953; they divorced in 1958.[49] She was killed in an auto collision in Fresno, California in 1959. Although he and Dolores were divorced, Cooke paid for his ex-wife's funeral expenses.[49][48] She was survived by her son Joey.[14]

In 1958, Cooke married his second wife, Barbara Campbell (1935''2021), in Chicago.[49] His father performed the ceremony.[49] They had three children, Linda (b. 1953), Tracy (b. 1960), and Vincent (1961''1963), who drowned in the family swimming pool.[48][49] Less than three months after Cooke's death, his widow, Barbara, married his friend Bobby Womack.[57][58] Barbara and Womack divorced after she discovered Womack was having an affair with Cooke's 17-year-old daughter Linda.[59] Linda married Womack's brother, Cecil, and they became the duo Womack & Womack.[44]

Cooke also fathered at least three other children out of wedlock. In 1958, a woman in Philadelphia, Connie Bolling,[14] claimed Cooke was the father of her son. Cooke paid her an estimated $5,000 settlement out of court.[49]

In November 1958, Cooke was involved in a car accident en route from St. Louis to Greenville, Mississippi. His chauffeur Edward Cunningham was killed, while Cooke, guitarist Cliff White, and singer Lou Rawls were hospitalized.[49]

Death [ edit ] "Lady, you shot me" redirects here. For the Har Mar Superstar song, see

Bye Bye 17.

Cooke was killed on December 11, 1964 at the Hacienda Motel at 91st and South Figueroa streets in South Central Los Angeles. Answering separate reports of a shooting and a kidnapping at the motel, police found Cooke's body. He had sustained a gunshot wound to the chest, which was later determined to have pierced his heart.[61]

The motel's manager, Bertha Franklin, said she shot him in self-defense. Her account was immediately disputed by Cooke's acquaintances.[62] The motel's owner, Evelyn Carr,[note 1] said she had been on the telephone with Franklin at the time of the incident. Carr said she overheard Cooke's intrusion and the ensuing conflict and gunshot, and called the police.

The police record states that Franklin fatally shot Cooke, who had checked in earlier that evening.[65] Franklin said Cooke had banged on the door of her office, shouting "Where's the girl?!", in reference to Elisa Boyer, a woman who had accompanied Cooke to the motel, and who had called the police that night from a telephone booth near the motel minutes before Carr had.

Franklin shouted back that there was no one in her office except herself, but an enraged Cooke did not believe her and forced his way into the office, naked except for one shoe and a sport jacket. He grabbed her, demanding again to know the woman's whereabouts. According to Franklin, she grappled with Cooke, the two of them fell to the floor, and she then got up and ran to retrieve a gun. She said she then fired at Cooke in self-defense because she feared for her life. Cooke was struck once in the torso. According to Franklin, he exclaimed, "Lady, you shot me", in a tone that expressed perplexity rather than anger, before advancing on her again. She said she hit him in the head with a broomstick before he finally fell to the floor and died. A coroner's inquest was convened to investigate the incident.

Boyer told the police that she had first met Cooke earlier that night and had spent the evening in his company. She said that after they left a local nightclub together, she had repeatedly requested that he take her home, but it appeared he was intoxicated and drove her against her will to a place to have sex. As they sped down Harbor Freeway, Boyer noted they had passed a number of hotels and motor courts.

Cooke ended up at the Hacienda Motel, a black-owned business in south central Los Angeles. Boyer noted Cooke's familiarity with the layout as if he had been a repeat customer. She said that once in one of the motel's rooms, Cooke physically forced her onto the bed, and then stripped her to her panties. She said she was sure he was going to rape her. Cooke allowed her to use the bathroom, from which she attempted an escape but found that the window was firmly shut. According to Boyer, she returned to the main room, where Cooke continued to molest her. When he went to use the bathroom, she quickly grabbed her clothes and ran from the room. She said that in her haste, she had also scooped up most of Cooke's clothing by mistake.

She said she ran first to the manager's office and knocked on the door seeking help. However, she said that the manager took too long to respond, so, fearing Cooke would soon be coming after her, she fled from the motel before the manager opened the door. She said she then put her clothes back on, hid Cooke's clothing, went to a telephone booth, and called the police.

Boyer's account is the only one that exists of what happened between her and Cooke that night, and it has long been called into question due to inconsistencies between her version of events and details reported by diners at Martoni's Restaurant, where Cooke dined and drank earlier in the evening. [65]

According to restaurant employees and friends, Cooke was carrying a large amount of money at Martoni's. However, a search of Boyer's purse by police revealed nothing except a $20 bill (about $197 in 2023), and a search of Cooke's Ferrari found only a money clip with $108 (about $1,063 in 2023), as well as a few loose coins near the ashtray.[70]

As Carr's testimony corroborated Franklin's version of events, and because both Boyer and Franklin later passed polygraph tests,[49][71] the coroner's jury ultimately accepted Franklin's explanation and returned a verdict of justifiable homicide.[9] With that verdict, authorities officially closed the case on Cooke's death.

Some of Cooke's family and supporters, however, have rejected Boyer's version of events, as well as those given by Franklin and Carr. They believe that there was a conspiracy to murder Cooke and that the murder took place in some manner entirely different from the three official accounts.[73][74][75][77][78][79]

On the perceived lack of an investigation, Cooke's close friend Muhammad Ali said: "If Cooke had been Frank Sinatra, the Beatles or Ricky Nelson, the FBI would be investigating".[80]

Singer Etta James viewed Cooke's body before his funeral and questioned the accuracy of the official version of events. She wrote that the injuries she observed were well beyond the official account of Cooke having fought Franklin alone. James wrote that Cooke was so badly beaten that his head was nearly separated from his shoulders, his hands were broken and crushed, and his nose mangled.[81]

Some have speculated that Cooke's manager, Allen Klein, had a role in his death. Klein owned Tracey Ltd, which ultimately owned all rights to Cooke's recordings. However, no concrete evidence supporting a criminal conspiracy has been presented.[77][78]

Aftermath [ edit ] Grave of Sam Cooke in the Garden of Honor at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, CaliforniaThe first funeral service for Cooke was held on December 18, 1964, at A. R. Leak Funeral Home in Chicago; 200,000 fans lined up for more than four city blocks to view his body.[48][83]

Afterward, his body was flown back to Los Angeles for a second service, at the Mount Sinai Baptist Church on December 19,[84] which included a much-heralded performance of "The Angels Keep Watching Over Me" by Ray Charles, who stood in for a grief-stricken Bessie Griffin. Cooke was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.[48][85]

Two singles and an album were released in the month after his death. One of the singles, "Shake", reached the top ten of both the pop and R&B charts. The B-side, "A Change Is Gonna Come", is considered a classic protest song from the era of the civil rights movement.[86] It was a Top 40 pop hit and a top 10 R&B hit. The album, also titled Shake, reached the number one spot for R&B albums.

Bertha Franklin said she received numerous death threats after shooting Cooke. She left her position at the Hacienda Motel and did not publicly disclose where she had moved.[87] After being cleared by the coroner's jury, she sued Cooke's estate, citing physical injuries and mental anguish suffered as a result of Cooke's attack. Her lawsuit sought $200,000 ($1,937,200 in 2023) in compensatory and punitive damages.[87] Barbara Womack countersued Franklin on behalf of the estate, seeking $7,000 ($67,802 in 2023) in damages to cover Cooke's funeral expenses. Elisa Boyer provided testimony in support of Franklin in the case. In 1967, a jury ruled in favor of Franklin on both counts, awarding her $30,000 ($274,050 in 2023) in damages.[88] The business reputation of the Hacienda Motel was sufficiently damaged that Evelyn Carr sold it. The new owner had it demolished to make way for a gas station and tenement, both of which are extant as of 2023.

Legacy [ edit ] Portrayals [ edit ] Cooke was portrayed by Paul Mooney in The Buddy Holly Story, a 1978 American biographical film which tells the life story of rock musician Buddy Holly.

In the stage play One Night in Miami, first performed in 2013, Cooke is portrayed by Arinz(C) Kene. In the 2020 film adaptation, he is played by Leslie Odom Jr., who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal.

Posthumous honors [ edit ] In 1986, Cooke was inducted as a charter member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[89]In 1987, Cooke was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.[90]In 1989, Cooke was inducted a second time to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when the Soul Stirrers were inducted.[91]On February 1, 1994, Cooke received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the music industry, located on 7051 Hollywood Boulevard.[92][93][94]Although Cooke never won a Grammy Award, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999,[95] presented by Larry Blackmon of funk super-group Cameo.In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Cooke 16th on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".[96][97]In 2008, Cooke was named the fourth "Greatest Singer of All Time" by Rolling Stone.[98]In 2008, Cooke received the first plaque on the Clarksdale Walk of Fame, located at the New Roxy theater.[99]In 2009, Cooke was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Clarksdale.[100]In June 2011, the city of Chicago renamed a portion of East 36th Street near Cottage Grove Avenue as the honorary "Sam Cooke Way" to remember the singer near a corner where he hung out and sang as a teenager. Many of his family was also in attendance, as many of them are living in the Chicago area.[101]In 2013, Cooke was inducted into the National Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, at Cleveland State University.[102] The founder of the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame, LaMont Robinson, said he was the greatest singer ever to sing.[103]The words "A change is gonna come" from the Sam Cooke song of the same name are on a wall of the Contemplative Court, a space for reflection in the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture; the museum opened in 2016.[104]Cooke is inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame.[105]In 2020, Dion released a song and music video as a tribute to Cooke called "Song for Sam Cooke (Here in America)" (featuring Paul Simon) from his album Blues with Friends. American Songwriter magazine honored "Song for Sam Cooke" as the "Greatest of the Great 2020 Songs".[106]In 2023, Cooke was named the third "Greatest Singer of All Time" by Rolling Stone.[107]Discography [ edit ] Sam Cooke (1958)Encore (1958)Tribute to the Lady (1959)Cooke's Tour (1960)Hits of the 50's (1960)Swing Low (1961)My Kind of Blues (1961)Twistin' the Night Away (1962)Mr. Soul (1963)Night Beat (1963)Ain't That Good News (1964)Notes [ edit ] ^ Some sources identify the motel owner's last name as "Card", according to Guralnick References [ edit ] ^ Eagle, Bob; LeBlanc, Eric S. (2013). Blues '' A Regional Experience. Santa Barbara: Praeger Publishers. p. 199. ISBN 978-0-313-34423-7. ^ Cooke's death certificate gives his year of birth as 1932 while his gravestone gives his year of birth as 1930. However, the Social Security Death Master File (number 329-26-4823) indicates 1931. ^ "Report '' HPLA". ^ a b "Jesus Gave Me Water". Songsofsamcooke.com. March 1, 1951. Archived from the original on February 16, 2013 . Retrieved February 13, 2013 . ^ a b David Ritz. "Sam Cooke". Encyclop...dia Britannica . Retrieved September 28, 2008 . ^ Cooke's death certificate gives 1932 as his year of birth while his gravestone gives 1930 as his year of birth. Copy of death certificate available midway through scrolling down. However, the Social Security Death Master File (number 329-26-4823) indicates 1931. ^ Janovitz, Bill. "Cupid '' Sam Cooke". AllMusic . Retrieved September 5, 2014 . ^ "Manager of motel shoots singing star". Lewiston Morning Tribune. (Idaho). Associated Press. December 12, 1964. p. 10. ^ a b c Bronson, Fred (2003). The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits: The Inside Story Behind Every Number One Single on Billboard's Hot 100 from 1955 to the Present. Billboard Books. p. 30. ISBN 0-8230-7677-6. ^ Appiah, Kwame Anthony; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., eds. (2004). Africana: An A-to-Z Reference of Writers, Musicians, and Artists of the African American Experience. Running Press. p. 146. ISBN 0-7624-2042-1. {{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link) ^ DeCurtis, Anthony; Henke, James (1992). The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll: The Definitive History of the Most Important Artists and their Music. Random House. p. 135. ISBN 0-679-73728-6. ^ Nite, Norm N. (1992). Rock On Almanac: The First Four Decades of Rock 'n' Roll: A Chronology. New York: HarperPerennial. pp. 140''142. ISBN 0-06-273157-2. ^ Eder, Bruce. "Sam Cooke: Biography". AllMusic . Retrieved September 2, 2014 . ^ a b c d Guralnick, Peter (2005). Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-37794-5. ^ Note: His headstone gives his birth year as 1930. ^ "L.C. Cooke December 14, 1932 '' July 21, 2017". abkco.com. July 21, 2017 . Retrieved June 22, 2022 . ^ "About Sam". Official Sam Cooke. {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) ^ Williams, Ken (March 6, 2006). "Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on August 11, 2023. ^ "The 35 Greatest R&B Artists Of All Time". Billboard. November 12, 2015. ^ Eder, Bruce. "Sam Cooke AllMusic". AllMusic . Retrieved August 21, 2017 . ^ Guralnick, Peter (September 22, 2005). "The Man Who Invented Soul". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on February 6, 2009 . Retrieved August 8, 2008 . ^ a b "Show 17 '' The Soul Reformation: More on the evolution of rhythm and blues". Pop Chronicles. Digital Library, University of North Texas. June 22, 1969 . Retrieved September 22, 2010 . ^ "Sam Cooke". Rock & Roll Hall of Fame . Retrieved October 10, 2017 . ^ Dean, Maury (2003). Rock 'N' Roll Gold Rush: A Singles Un-cyclopedia. Algora Publishing. p. 176. ISBN 0-87586-207-1. ^ "Sam Cooke Finds Single Click Leads to Big Payoff On One-Nighters, Video". Variety. February 5, 1958. p. 2 . Retrieved September 25, 2021 '' via Archive.org. ^ "Sam Cooke Signs With Hugo-Luigi". Billboard. January 18, 1960 . Retrieved May 2, 2020 . ^ "RCA Victor Signs Sam Cooke" (PDF) . Cash Box. New York. January 23, 1960 . Retrieved May 2, 2020 . ^ a b Warner, Jay; Jones, Quincy (2006). On This Day in Black Music History. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 10. ISBN 0-634-09926-4. ^ Goodman, Fred (2015). Allen Klein: The Man Who Bailed Out the Beatles, Made the Stones, and Transformed Rock & Roll. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-547-89686-1. ^ "Sam Cooke '' Billboard Charts". 2019 Billboard . Retrieved January 3, 2019 . ^ a b c d e Robinson, Louie (February 1965). The Tragic Death of Sam Cooke. Ebony. pp. 92''96 . Retrieved December 21, 2013 . ^ a b c d e f g h Robinson, Louie (December 31, 1964). "Tragedy-Filled Love of Singer Sam Cooke: Death Shocks Singer's Fans". Jet. Vol. 27, no. 13. pp. 56''65. ^ "Sam Cooke's Widow To Wed Hubby's Guitarist-Pal This Month". Jet. February 18, 1965. pp. 54''59. ^ "Sam Would Want It This Way'--Barbara Cooke: Widow of Slain Singer Marries Friend 77 Days After His Death". Jet. Vol. 27, no. 23. March 18, 1965. pp. 46''49. ^ Hyman, Dan (June 29, 2014). "Remembering Bobby Womack: A Passionate, Reckless Soul Man to the End". Time. ^ Krajicek, David. "The Death of Sam Cooke". Crime Library. Archived from the original on February 10, 2015 . Retrieved September 9, 2016 . ^ "Singer Sam Cooke Shot To Death". Jet. December 24, 1964. pp. 62''63. ^ a b Wolff, Daniel (1995). You Send Me: The Life and Times of Sam Cooke. New York City: William Morrow. ISBN 0-688-12403-8. ^ Krajicek, David. "The Death of Sam Cooke". CrimeLibrary.com. Archived from the original on February 10, 2015 . Retrieved September 9, 2016 . ^ "Shooting of Sam Cooke Held 'Justifiable Homicide' ". The New York Times. United Press International. December 16, 1964. ^ Milicia, Joe (December 6, 2005). "Sam Cooke's story told from 'the inside out' '-- A thorough effort to give him his due". Associated Press. Archived from the original on November 5, 2012 '' via Highbeam Research. That he was killed after being scammed by a prostitute just didn't make sense to many people. It's an end that his sister, Agnes Cooke-Hoskins, still discounts. 'My brother was first class all the way. He would not check into a $3-a-night motel; that wasn't his style', she said while attending a recent tribute to Cooke at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum ^ Greene, Erik (2006). Our Uncle Sam: The Sam Cooke Story from His Family's Perspective. Victoria, Canada: Trafford Publishing. ISBN 1-4122-0987-0. ^ James, Gary (January 27, 1992). "Interview with Solomon Burke". Classic Bands. I've always felt there was some sort of conspiracy there. ... I listened to the reports and I listened to the story of what happened and I can imagine Sam going after his pants. I can imagine Sam going up to the counter and saying 'Hey, somebody just took my pants.' And he's standing there, seeing the woman with his pants. I can imagine him saying 'Give me my pants.' But I can't imagine him attacking her. He wasn't that type of person to attack somebody. That wasn't his bag. He was a lover, OK. He wasn't a fighter. He wasn't a boxer. You never heard of Sam Cooke beating up his women. ^ a b Gordon, Ed (November 16, 2005). " 'Dream Boogie': The Life and Death of Sam Cooke". NPR. ...I would say within the community there is not a single person that believes that Sam Cooke died as he is said to have died: killed by a motel owner at a cheap motel in Los Angeles called the Hacienda which he had gone to with a prostitute named Elisa Boyer. I could have filled 100 pages of the book with an appendix on all the theories about his death. Central tenet of every one of those theories is that this was a case of another proud black man brought down by the white establishment who simply didn't want to see him grow any bigger. I looked into this very carefully. I had access to the private investigators' report, which nobody had seen and which filled in a good many more details. And no evidence has ever been adduced to prove any of these theories. ^ a b Hildebrand, Lee (April 10, 2007). "Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick tackles another music legend: Sam Cooke". San Francisco Bay Guardian. 'In the course of the two or three hundred different interviews with different people that I did for the book, there are two or three hundred different conspiracy theories,' he said. 'While they were all extremely interesting, and while every one of them reflected a basic truth about prejudice in America in 1964 and the truth of the prejudice that has continued into the present day, none of them came accompanied by any evidence beyond that metaphorical truth.' ^ Drozdowski, Ted (March 14''21, 2002). "Soul man, Sam Cooke's fulfilling late period". The Boston Phoenix. Archived from the original on May 28, 2006 . Retrieved May 19, 2006 . It's hard to buy into conspiracy theories, though several swirl around this incident that paint Cooke as the victim of a plot by white supremacists to silence the country's most popular self-empowered black man. ^ Runtagh, Jordan. "Why Mystery Still Shrouds Singer Sam Cooke's Shooting Death Nearly 60 Years Later". People . Retrieved April 4, 2022 . ^ James, Etta; Ritz, David (2003). Rage To Survive: The Etta James Story. New York City: Da Capo Press. p. 151. ISBN 0-306-81262-2. ^ Fontenot, Robert. "Today in Oldies Music History: December 18". about.com. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015 . Retrieved August 31, 2015 . ^ "Crowd at Sam Cooke's Funeral". Corbis Images . Retrieved August 31, 2015 . ^ O'Connell, Sean J. (March 13, 2014). "Here's Where Five Soul Legends Are Buried in L.A." LA Weekly. ^ "Sam Cooke's Swan Song of Protest". NPR. December 16, 2007 . Retrieved August 8, 2008 . ^ a b "Cooke's killer sues his estate". Washington Afro-American. April 6, 1965. p. 1. ^ "Will Sam Cooke's widow appeal?". The Afro-American. June 10, 1967. p. 10. ^ "Sam Cooke". rockhall.com . Retrieved August 8, 2008 . ^ "Sam Cooke Biography". Songwriters Hall of Fame. 2015. Archived from the original on February 20, 2012 . Retrieved February 21, 2015 . ^ "The Death of Sam Cooke '' Crime Library on truTV.com". Archived from the original on February 7, 2009 . Retrieved April 25, 2020 . ^ "Sam Cooke | Hollywood Walk of Fame". www.walkoffame.com . Retrieved June 12, 2016 . ^ "Walk of Fame (1994)". IMDb . Retrieved June 12, 2016 . ^ "Sam Cooke". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved June 12, 2016 . ^ "Sam Cooke". Recording Academy Grammy Awards. November 19, 2019. ^ "The Immortals: The First Fifty". Rolling Stone (Issue 946). April 15, 2004. Archived from the original on March 16, 2006. ^ Art Garfunkel (December 2, 2010). "100 Greatest Artists: 16. Sam Cooke". Rolling Stone. ^ "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". Rolling Stone (Issue 1066). November 27, 2008. ^ Gage, Justin; Gage, Melissa (2009). Explorer's Guide Memphis & the Delta Blues Trail: A Great Destination (Explorer's Great Destinations). The Countryman Press. p. 143. ISBN 978-1-58157-923-9. ^ "Sam Cooke". Mississippi Blues Trail. ^ "Chicago Honors Sam Cooke With His Own Street". News One. June 20, 2011 . Retrieved February 10, 2012 . ^ Nash, JD (January 20, 2015). "This Week in Blues Past: Janis Joplin, sam Cooke, BB King's Record Collection '' American Blues Scene". American Blues Scene . Retrieved October 10, 2017 . ^ "Clarksdale beats Memphis and Detroit for R&B Music Hall of Fame Museum". WREG.com. November 5, 2014 . Retrieved October 10, 2017 . ^ Keyes, Allison (2017). "In This Quiet Space for Contemplation, a Fountain Rains Down Calming Waters". Smithsonian Magazine . Retrieved March 10, 2018 . ^ "Inductees: Rhythm and Blues (R & B)". Mississippi Musicians Music Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on July 27, 2020 . Retrieved November 4, 2019 . ^ Zollo, Paul (November 22, 2020). "Greatest of the Great 2020 Songs: Dion with Paul Simon, "Song for Sam Cooke (Here In America)" ". American Songwriter . Retrieved December 11, 2021 . {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) ^ "The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time". Rolling Stone. January 1, 2023. Further reading [ edit ] Guralnick, Peter (2005). Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke. Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-37794-5. Our Uncle Sam: The Sam Cooke Story from His Family's Perspective by Erik Greene (2005) ISBN 1-4120-6498-8You Send Me: The Life and Times of Sam Cooke by Daniel Wolff, S. R. Crain, Clifton White, and G. David Tenenbaum (1995) ISBN 0-688-12403-8One More River to Cross: The Redemption of Sam Cooke by B. G. Rhule (2012) ISBN 978-1-4675-2856-6External links [ edit ] Sam Cooke (ABKCO Homepage)Sam Cooke at AllMusicSam Cooke at IMDbRosco Gordon interview at the Wayback Machine (archived November 14, 2007)"Black Elvis" by The Village Voice"Sam Cooke". Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 17:05

Over the past six decades, rock 'n' roll music has played a central role in American popular culture. Armed with a fun-loving and rebellious ethos, rock has had a liberating effect on generations of young people and inspired many of their more significant social movements.

Indeed, rock has been so important to American life that its influence has come to rival that of larger and more ancient institutions. One of these, the Church, has responded to this challenge in different ways at different times. After unwittingly inspiring rock 'n' roll, Christian forces in the United States demonized, racialized, otherized, and fought the music passionately before trying to wield it to their own ends.

In his new book,

The Devil's Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock 'n' Roll, historian Randall J. Stephens documents the turbulent relationship between Christian faith and popular music in the twentieth century United States.

How did Christians inspire rock 'n' roll?

I focus quite a bit on Pentecostalism; especially in chapter one, which focuses on the origins of rock 'n' roll. I argue that, in part, the music and the worship styles of Pentecostal churches proved instrumental in inspiring the first generation of rock 'n' roll musicians. In particular, you have Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, James Brown, B.B. King, and others who grew up in Pentecostal churches or attended Pentecostal worship services throughout their formative years. Fortunately, we have good documentation of them speaking about their youth in these churches and about how influential it was for them.

Elvis, for instance, grew up in the congregation of Memphis First Assembly of God, and he talked often about his admiration for the gospel quartets who came through, including the white Statesmen Quartet and the Stamps Quartet, along with African-American groups like the Golden Gate Quartet. Asked by a reporter about why he moved the way he did on stage, Elvis replied simply, ''I just sing like they do back home.'' And continued: ''When I was younger, I always liked spiritual quartets and they sing like that.

Ray Charles, too, was famous for retooling spirituals and black gospel music into love songs and releasing them as secular mega hits.

Why then, were Christians so quick to demonize'--and racialize'--rock?

Betty Friedan identified the Beatles as raising a middle finger to the masculine mystique.

Well, they demonized it, in many cases, because of what they saw as a sort of sinful appropriation. Black and white Christians accused Ray Charles of blasphemy because of how he was secularizing sacred music. Blues legend Big Bill Broonzy certainly believed Charles had gone too far. A former pastor in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Broonzy claimed that Charles had ''got the blues,'' but ''he's cryin' sanctified. He's mixing the blues with the spirituals.'' Or, as the critic Hollie West said about Aretha Franklin, whereas she ''once said Jesus, she now cries baby. She hums and moans with the transfixed ecstasy of a church sister who's experiencing the Holy Ghost.''

There were some white Pentecostals who thought that rock and rollers were thieving from church music. One of these, the Pentecostal youth pastor and author of the Cross and the Switchblade, David Wilkerson, called it ''Satan's Pentecost'' and portrayed rock 'n' roll concerts as a kind of inverted Pentecostal worship, with demonic speaking in tongues. A lot of this was in the vivid imagination of believers, of course, but it shows that, for many of these observers, there was a thin but important line that was being crossed. In the 1950s, white and black conservative Christians worried that even their church music was becoming too ''worldly'' or too vulgar.

On the race end of things, because I focus largely on the American South, I looked at the white Southern Baptist Convention, Southern Presbyterians, and Southern Pentecostals, and found that their reaction to rock was almost uniformly negative and very often racialized. They attacked rock as ''jungle music,'' ''congo rhythms,'' and ''savagery.''

In some cases this is ironic because these are some of the very things that Pentecostals were criticized for themselves'--for race mixing and having ''debased'' music in their services, whether that be Hillbilly, boogie-woogie, or some kind of hybrid black and white styles. So there were all of these interesting, and specific, interconnections that I thought deserved more attention.

Is this racist impulse inherent to evangelicalism? Or southern evangelicalism? Or was it just a sign of the times?

It's indicative of the times, in a way, because that kind of racist rhetoric about rock and roll also appeared in national newspapers and magazines. But what I found in the case of the American South was that there was often this funny discourse about the missionary enterprise of these organizations'--the experiences that their missionaries had had in the field'--and how these experiences were supposedly applicable to the music. They referenced the ''caterwauling'' and the driving tribal drums that they had heard in the jungles of the southern hemisphere, and noted how this had a parallel in the music now blasting out of the mean streets and teenage hangouts of American cities.

So for white fundamentalists and conservatives it took on this different kind of religious dimension. There was also a lot of talk about witchcraft and demon possession'--I even remember hearing some of this as a kid in the 1970s and 80s in the Church of the Nazarene. Some of that rhetoric persisted for decades after the 50s.

Why were they so threatened by the Beatles?

In part it had to do with their look, and also with their being from Britain'--being foreign. But I think the hard thing for us to wrap our heads around now is that, at the time, the hair length of the Beatles'--which they had borrowed from these sort of Beatnik existentialists in Germany'--was viewed as such a radical departure from how young men were supposed to look and to behave.

There was a lot of talk about how tight their clothes were and how their hair was effeminate. But most of all, evangelicals, and some Catholics, had a pervasive fear about the hysteria that they inspired in young girls. In all of this, there was this view that teenagers looked to the Beatles as a kind of replacement for religion. And in worshipping the Beatles, they lost interest in the Bible and teachings of the church and the lessons of their parents.

From our eyes today, in 2018, it just looks like they're these four guys with bowl cuts and these neo-Edwardian, tight collarless suits. But there really was a lot of talk back then about hair styles and comportment and what these meant for youngsters.

I found this great interview from the Canadian Broadcast Corporation from the mid 1960s in which Betty Friedan identified the Beatles as raising a middle finger to the masculine mystique'--they were declaring that they had had enough of the crew cut, Prussian-style militarism of hyper-masculinity. So even on the other side of the aisle, there were people who believed the Beatles to be important agents of change.

Timothy Leary, too, made a number of pretty hyperbolic statements about the Beatles ushering in a new religious sensibility'--a new way of being for young people. When the four came under the tutelage of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, it confirmed the worries of many.

Eventually, after a few decades of desperately fighting rock 'n' roll, evangelicals moved to appropriate it for themselves. What was the turning point?

I make the case that one important turning point'--among a series of turning points'--came with a powerful fear about the growing ''generation gap.'' Conservative Christians became profoundly concerned that their young people were being led astray by worldly influences. When John Lennon claimed that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ, Christians attacked him fiercely, even as they worried that, for the Baby Boom generation, he might have been right.

''If you like Huey Lewis and the News then you might also like DeGarmo & Key.''

They worried that young people were being swept away by rock music and its accompanying celebration of drugs and bohemian lifestyle. As a member of the Missouri Synod Lutheran denomination asked: ''when and where and how are local churches giving their 12-to 16-year-old members such markedly special attention that they feel: 'This is for us'?''

So, in the early years, in 1966 and '67, young men and women, countercultural Christians, experimented with rock music that had Christian lyrics. Similar innovation had already been taking place in England. In the US, groups like Mind Garage, the Crusaders, or Larry Norman made up the first wave.

Other early bands and musicians included Andra(C) Crouch and the Disciples, Randy Matthews, the Armageddon Experience, Agape, Sound Foundation, and Honey Tree. Some of these were more awkward and less successful than others, but they all hoped that they could appeal to young people and potentially pull them back into churches.

I remember that, when I was a kid in the early 90s, I once asked my parents for a Vanilla Ice tape and they bought me DC Talk's Nu Thang instead.

Yeah, by that time there were just all sorts of different versions of Christian rock that followed on the heels of their secular counterparts.

They were always accused of being kind of derivative and lame.

Yes, exactly. And I think there was a lot of truth to that, because when you listen to some of it you find that it's basically imitative. In 2004 John Jeremiah Sullivan quipped that ''Christian rock is a musical genre, the only one I can think of, that has excellence-proofed itself.'' Some evangelical and Pentecostal groups even produced charts that were supposed to help teens and their parents find a Christian alternative to a favorite secular band or solo artist. So, you know, if you like Huey Lewis and the News then you might also like DeGarmo & Key. If you like the Beatles or Wings, you'll appreciate Phil Keaggy.

The evangelicals you document seem to live in a constant state of moral panic. They freak out about Elvis' hips, the Beatles' haircuts, Amy Grant's sex appeal. Why all the anxiety?

Some of it probably has to do with evangelicalism's eagerness to employ the latest means and technologies and forms of entertainment to appeal to young people, both inside and outside of the church. I think sometimes they have come to think of themselves as in competition with'--if not diametrically opposed to'--Hollywood and the entertainment industry as well as popular music because they are trying to reach similar mass audiences. It's little wonder that Billy Graham's crusades used to air on network television in the primetime slot. He also toured with DC Talk, however unlikely that might seem.

There are also a lot of resentments that fuel evangelicalism. (I'm thinking in particular of Billy Graham's son, Franklin, and his bellicosity.) I think you can see this in end-times theology as a kind of revenge fantasy in which all of your enemies will get their just desserts. Maybe I'm reading too much into this and the new reality that we live in, but I don't think it should be too surprising that evangelicals rushed to the side of Trump. He speaks in the same language of the culture war and resentment/grievance that they have harbored for a very long time.

It seems to me, too, that the evangelical commitment to non-stop moral panics has helped to give us Trump. They are constantly identifying social evils that will lead to the end of Western civilization'--rock 'n' roll, of course, but more recently same-sex marriage, national health care, etc. What can this study teach us about evangelical cultural engagement more broadly?

In the book, I wanted to talk about evangelicalism in a way that went beyond politics, because there has already been quite a bit of focus on conservative Christianity and politics'--to a considerable extent, historians care about these religious groups specifically because they are politicized. But a lot of their activity is directly concerned with pop culture and cultural engagement outside of the explicitly political realm. A typical Christian bookstore, with its shelves of Christian kitsch and sanctified consumer goods, definitely fits this pattern.

White evangelical political behavior is just one of many facets of the modern movement. Certainly, it's an important facet, with 81% of white evangelicals voting for Trump. But evangelicals also define themselves by what kind of goods they purchase, the music they listen to, the kinds of books and magazines they read, etc. I wanted to capture a little more of that aspect.

Has the uneasy relationship between Christianity and rock 'n' roll changed either in a significant way?

In the epilogue, I use U2 and Bono to speak more broadly about some of these transformations. The members of U2 were part of the charismatic movement in the 1970s in Ireland, looking across the Atlantic to the Jesus People and to some of the exciting things that were happening'--especially California. When you listen to early U2 records now, you find that they are just chockfull of religious imagery.

Surely, the same is true of Bob Dylan's born-again trilogy of records. Dylan, U2'--along with Donna Summer, Van Morrison, Arlo Guthrie, and Johnny Cash'--have, or had, a kind of authenticity and a critical reception that Christian rock artists just didn't have. But groups like that, and other mainstream performers who have worked in some kind of Christian context, have changed rock 'n' roll. In them, rock has found faith in ways that it had not before'--at least not as overtly.

As for the church, David Stowe and Larry Eskridge have both written about how the Baby Boomers and especially the Jesus People had an enormous impact on Christian worship in America'--the style of music that is played, the lyrics, etc. I recently visited a church in Colorado called Flatirons Community Church, and the worship is heavily driven by rock 'n' roll. The music is extremely loud, and it's hard to imagine that reality without the earlier experiments with pop culture in the early 60s.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 16:39

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Folklore character

John Henry

Born1840s or 1850sKnown forAmerican folk heroJohn Henry is an American folk hero. An African American freedman, he is said to have worked as a "steel-driving man"'--a man tasked with hammering a steel drill into rock to make holes for explosives to blast the rock in constructing a railroad tunnel.

The story of John Henry is told in a classic blues folk song about his duel against a drilling machine, which exists in many versions, and has been the subject of numerous stories, plays, books, and novels.[1][2]

Legend [ edit ] Plaque celebrating the legend of John Henry (Talcott, West Virginia)According to legend, John Henry's prowess as a steel driver was measured in a race against a steam-powered rock drilling machine, a race that he won only to die in victory with a hammer in hand as his heart gave out from stress. Various locations, including Big Bend Tunnel in West Virginia,[3] Lewis Tunnel in Virginia, and Coosa Mountain Tunnel in Alabama, have been suggested as the site of the contest.

The contest involved John Henry as the hammerman working in partnership with a shaker, who would hold a chisel-like drill against mountain rock, while the hammerman struck a blow with a hammer. Then the shaker would begin rocking and rolling: wiggling and rotating the drill to optimize its bite. The steam drill machine could drill but it could not shake the chippings away, so its bit could not drill further and frequently broke down.

History [ edit ] The historical accuracy of many of the aspects of the John Henry legend are subject to debate.[1][2] According to researcher Scott Reynolds Nelson, the actual John Henry was born in 1848 in New Jersey and died of silicosis and not due to exhaustion of work.[4]

Several locations have been put forth for the tunnel on which John Henry died.

Big Bend Tunnel [ edit ] Location: 37°38'²56'"N 80°46'²04'"W >> / >> 37.64889°N 80.76778°W >> / 37.64889; -80.76778

Sociologist Guy B. Johnson investigated the legend of John Henry in the late 1920s. He concluded that John Henry might have worked on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway's (C&O Railway) Big Bend Tunnel but that "one can make out a case either for or against" it.[5][3] That tunnel was built near Talcott, West Virginia, from 1870 to 1872 (according to Johnson's dating), and named for the big bend in the Greenbrier River nearby.

Some versions of the song refer to the location of John Henry's death as "The Big Bend Tunnel on the C. & O."[3] In 1927, Johnson visited the area and found one man who said he had seen it.

This man, known as Neal Miller, told me in plain words how he had come to the tunnel with his father at 17, how he carried water and drills for the steel drivers, how he saw John Henry every day, and, finally, all about the contest between John Henry and the steam drill.

"When the agent for the steam drill company brought the drill here," said Mr. Miller, "John Henry wanted to drive against it. He took a lot of pride in his work and he hated to see a machine take the work of men like him.

"Well, they decided to hold a test to get an idea of how practical the steam drill was. The test went on all day and part of the next day.

"John Henry won. He wouldn't rest enough, and he overdid. He took sick and died soon after that."

Mr. Miller described the steam drill in detail. I made a sketch of it and later when I looked up pictures of the early steam drills, I found his description correct. I asked people about Mr. Miller's reputation, and they all said, "If Neal Miller said anything happened, it happened."[6]

When Johnson contacted Chief Engineer C. W. Johns of the C&O Railroad regarding Big Bend Tunnel, Johns replied that "no steam drills were ever used in this tunnel." When asked about documentation from the period, Johns replied that "all such papers have been destroyed by fire."[5]

Talcott holds a yearly festival named for Henry, and a statue and memorial plaque have been placed in John Henry Historical Park at the eastern end of the tunnel.[7]

Lewis Tunnel [ edit ] In the 2006 book Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend, historian Scott Reynolds Nelson detailed his discovering documentation of a 19-year-old African-American man alternately referred to as John Henry, John W. Henry, or John William Henry in previously unexplored prison records of the Virginia Penitentiary. At the time, penitentiary inmates were hired out as laborers to various contractors, and this John Henry was notated as having headed the first group of prisoners to be assigned tunnel work. Nelson also discovered the C&O's tunneling records, which the company believed had been destroyed by fire. Henry, like many African Americans, might have come to Virginia to work on the clean-up of the battlefields after the Civil War. Arrested and tried for burglary, John Henry was in the first group of convicts released by the warden to work as leased labor on the C&O Railway.[8]:'Š39'Š

According to Nelson, objectionable conditions at the Virginia prison led the warden to believe that the prisoners, many of whom had been arrested on trivial charges, would be better clothed and fed if they were released as laborers to private contractors. (He subsequently changed his mind about this and became an opponent of the convict labor system.) In the C&O's tunneling records, Nelson found no evidence of a steam drill used in Big Bend Tunnel.[9]

The records Nelson found indicate that the contest took place 40 miles (64 km) away at the Lewis Tunnel, between Talcott and Millboro, Virginia, where prisoners did indeed work beside steam drills night and day.[10] Nelson also argues that the verses of the ballad about John Henry being buried near "the white house," "in the sand," somewhere that locomotives roar, mean that Henry's body was buried in a ditch behind the so-called white house of the Virginia State Penitentiary, which photos from that time indicate was painted white, and where numerous unmarked graves have been found.[11]

Prison records for John William Henry stopped in 1873, suggesting that he was kept on the record books until it was clear that he was not coming back and had died. Nelson stresses that John Henry would have been representative of the many hundreds of convict laborers who were killed in unknown circumstances tunneling through the mountains or who died shortly afterwards of silicosis from dust created by the drills and blasting.

In other media [ edit ] The tale of John Henry has been used as a symbol in many cultural movements, including labor movements[12] and the Civil Rights Movement.[13]

John Henry is a symbol of physical strength and endurance, of exploited labor, of the dignity of a human being against the degradations of the machine age, and of racial pride and solidarity. During World War II his image was used in U.S. government propaganda as a symbol of social tolerance and diversity.[14]

Film [ edit ] In 1995, John Henry was portrayed in the movie Tall Tale by Roger Aaron Brown. A former slave, John Henry appears to a runaway farmer's son named Daniel to both protect him from ruffians (alongside fellow folk hero figures Daniel's father told his son about, Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan) and impart life lesson wisdom to him.In the 1996 film Basquiat, the story of John Henry was told to Basquiat by his friend Benny as words of wisdom.In 2018, a film centered around characters from classic America Folklore titled John Henry and the Statesmen was announced to be in development. Intended to be the start of a new film franchise, it includes Dwayne Johnson cast to portray John Henry. Jake Kasdan will serve as director, based on original story by Tom Wheeler and Hiram Garcia. Johnson, Garcia, Kasdan, and Beau Flynn will serve as producers. The project will be a joint-venture production between Seven Bucks Productions, Netflix Original Films, and Flynn Picture Company; and distributed by Netflix as a streaming exclusive movie.[15] In November 2021, producer Hiram Garcia stated that development on the project continues, while confirming that the most recent draft of the script had been completed while it requires additional work.[16]In 2020, Terry Crews played a modern-day adaptation of the character in John Henry. The plot centers around a former gang member who takes in two young teens who are on the run from the leader of his past. The film was released by Saban Films.[17]Animation [ edit ] In 1946, animator George Pal adapted the tale of John Henry into a short film titled John Henry and the Inky-Poo as part of his theatrical stop-motion Puppetoons series. The short is considered a milestone in American cinema as one of the first films to have a positive view of African-American folklore.[18][19]In 1974, Nick Bosustow and David Adams co-produced an 11-minute animated short, The Legend of John Henry, for Paramount Pictures.[20]The character later appeared in a Walt Disney Feature Animation short film, John Henry (2000). Directed by Mark Henn, plans for theatrical releases in 2000 and 2001 fell through after having a limited Academy Award qualifying run in Los Angeles,[21] a shorter version was released as the only new entry in direct-to-video release, Disney's American Legends (2002). It was eventually released in its original format as an interstitial on the Disney Channel, and later as part of the home video compilation Walt Disney Animation Studios Short Films Collection in 2015.In the Transformers: Rescue Bots episode "The Other Doctor", Cody Burns recounts the story of John Henry to the Rescue Bots to raise their spirits when they are facing a similar dilemma of being replaced by Doctor Morocco's Morbots. He initially leaves out the ending, worrying it will discourage them, until Boulder later reads the story and discovers the truth.[22]The 88th episode of season 5 of SpongeBob SquarePants, titled "SpongeBob vs. The Patty Gadget", is a reference to the story of John Henry. It features SpongeBob competing against a machine called the Patty Gadget in an attempt to keep his job at the Krusty Krab.John Henry is featured in the 20th episode of the season 5 of Teen Titans Go!, "Tall Titan Titles".The third episode of The Simpsons titled Homer's Odyssey has Bart sing ''John Henry was a Steel Driving Man'' in front of the class as punishment.John Henry appears in the Pinky and the Brain episode "An American Tail".Television [ edit ] Danny Glover played the character in the series, Shelley Duvall's Tall Tales & Legends from 1985 to 1987. Shelley Duvall served as the series' creator, presenter, narrator, and executive producer. The show aired on Showtime Network as well as Disney Channel, and received a Primetime Emmy Award.John Henry was mentioned in the season 7 premiere of Cheers.The story of John Henry was prominently featured in a 2008 episode of the CBS crime drama, Cold Case.In season 2 of the Smart Guy episode "TJ versus the Machine", Floyd and TJ mentioned John Henry and his victory over the steam drill.John Henry is briefly mentioned in an episode of 30 Rock, during season 6 titled ''The Ballad of Kenneth Parcell''.In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles season 2 episode 10 John Henry is introduced both as the name of ZeiraCorp's A.I. and as the tale of a man who is unable to halt progress.On the adult swim series, Saul of the Mole Men, John Henry (played by Tommy "Tiny" Lister) has been living at the centre of the Earth since his victory over the steam drill, having become a cyborg at sometime in the intervening centuries. He befriends and later sacrifices himself to save protagonist Saul Malone.[23]John Henry is also referenced in episode 4 of season 6 of the television show How I Met Your Mother, his legend briefly told through Marshall's song.In the season 3 finale, "Kimmy Bites an Onion!", of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt a version of The "Ballad of John Henry" is played with lyrics surmising the fight between Kimmy and a robot to become a crossing-guard. Like the legend, Kimmy gives her all to beat the robot and in doing so, effectively sacrifices her life.In the Gravity Falls season 2 episode "The Golf War", an anthropomorphic golf ball named "Big Henry" undertakes the task of pushing a golf ball through a cave which has experienced a gas leak, as the only person who is strong enough to perform such a task. Once he reaches the other side and delivers the ball to its destination, he collapses due to gas inhalation.In the season 5 episode 15, "Mr. Monk and the Really, Really Dead Guy" of Monk, Dr. Kroger sings a couple of stanzas to Monk during Monk's therapy session to remind him that Monk never needed technology before as he became a phenomenal detective.Radio [ edit ] Destination Freedom, a 1950's American old time radio series, featured John Henry in a July 1949 episode.[24]

Music [ edit ] The story of John Henry is traditionally told through two types of songs: ballads, commonly called "The Ballad of John Henry", and "hammer songs" (a type of work song), each with wide-ranging and varying lyrics.[2][25] Some songs, and some early folk historian research, conflate the songs about John Henry with those of John Hardy, a West Virginian outlaw.[25] Ballads about John Henry's life typically contain four major components: a premonition by John Henry as a child that steel-driving would lead to his death, the lead-up to and the results of the legendary race against the steam hammer, Henry's death and burial, and the reaction of his wife.[25]

The well-known narrative ballad of "John Henry" is usually sung in an upbeat tempo. Hammer songs associated with the "John Henry" ballad, however, are not. Sung more slowly and deliberately, often with a pulsating beat suggestive of swinging the hammer, these songs usually contain the lines "This old hammer killed John Henry / but it won't kill me." Nelson explains that:

... workers managed their labor by setting a "stint," or pace, for it. Men who violated the stint were shunned ... Here was a song that told you what happened to men who worked too fast: they died ugly deaths; their entrails fell on the ground. You sang the song slowly, you worked slowly, you guarded your life, or you died.[8]:'Š32'Š

There is some controversy among scholars over which came first, the ballad or the hammer songs. Some scholars have suggested that the "John Henry" ballad grew out of the hammer songs, while others believe that the two were always entirely separate.

Songs featuring the story of John Henry have been recorded by many musical artists and bands of different ethnic backgrounds. These include:

They Might Be Giants named their fifth studio album after John Henry.

The American cowpunk band Nine Pound Hammer is named after the traditional description of the hammer John Henry wielded.

Bengalee singer-songwriter and musician Hemanga Biswas (1912''1987), considered to be as the Father of the Indian People's Theater Association Movement in Assam inspired by 'John Henry', the American ballad translated the song in Bengali as well as the Assamese language and also composed its music for which he was well recognized among the masses.[51][52] Bangladeshi mass singer Fakir Alamgir later covered Biswas' version of the song.[53][54]

Literature [ edit ] Henry is the subject of the 1931 Roark Bradford novel John Henry, illustrated by noted woodcut artist J. J. Lankes. The novel was adapted into a stage musical in 1940, starring Paul Robeson in the title role.[2] According to Steven Carl Tracy, Bradford's works were influential in broadly popularizing the John Henry legend beyond railroad and mining communities and outside of African American oral histories.[2]In a 1933 article published in The Journal of Negro Education, Bradford's John Henry was criticized for "making over a folk-hero into a clown."[55] A 1948 obituary for Bradford described John Henry as "a better piece of native folklore than Paul Bunyan."[56]Ezra Jack Keats's John Henry: An American Legend, published in 1965, is a notable picture book chronicling the history of John Henry and portraying him as the "personification of the medieval Everyman who struggles against insurmountable odds and wins."[13]Colson Whitehead's 2001 novel John Henry Days uses the John Henry myth as story background. Whitehead fictionalized the John Henry Days festival in Talcott, West Virginia and the release of the John Henry postage stamp in 1996.[57]In his nonfiction account Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend (Oxford University Press 2008), historian Scott Reynolds Nelson attempts to find the real man behind the legend, with a particular focus on Reconstruction-era Virginia and the use of prison labor for building railroads.The textbook titled American Music: A Panorama by Daniel Kingman displays the lyrics of the ballad titled "John Henry", explores its style and relates the history of the hero. That's in Chapter 2: The African''American Tradition.Elements of John Henry's legend were featured in DC Comics.In the comic series DC: The New Frontier, an African-American man named John Wilson becomes a vigilante named John Henry in order to battle the Ku Klux Klan after his family is lynched.The superhero Steel's civilian name "John Henry Irons" is inspired by John Henry.[58] The story of John Henry is further referenced by Steel's weapon of choice, a sledgehammer.In DC's Super Friends #21 (January 2010), Superman encountered the actual John Henry after being placed in the folk tale by the Queen of Fables.Issue #6 of "Flashpoint Beyond" and issue #1 of The New Golden Age revealed that there was a Golden Age superhero named John Henry Jr.Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame M'balia is a juvenile fantasy novel about seventh grader Tristan Strong who travels to another world, Alke, and encounters black African and African-American gods. These include Br'er Rabbit, Anansi, and John Henry. John Henry is a protector and defender of the inhabitants of Alke against 'haints' and monsters. In the second novel of the trilogy, John Henry is nearly defeated by his own hammer, wielded by a spirit gone mad with grief.John Henry the Revelator[59] by Constantine von Hoffman is a magical realist novel, in which a teenage boy in 1930s Alabama, Moses Crawford, acquires superpowers and helps challenge the nation's white power structure. The black community calls Crawford John Henry, after the folk hero, because no one is aware of his true identity.He appears as a character in Peter Clines' novel Paradox Bound.He makes an appearance in the IDW Publishing miniseries The Transformers: Hearts of SteelUnited States postage stamp [ edit ] In 1996, the US Postal Service issued a John Henry postage stamp. It was part of a set honoring American folk heroes that included Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill and Casey at the Bat.[60]

Video games [ edit ] John Henry was featured as a fictional character in the 2014 video game Wasteland 2. The story is referenced by various NPCs throughout the game and is also available in full as a series of in game books which tell the story of the competition between John Henry and a contingent of robotic workers.[61]He also appeared as a playable character in the 3DS game Code Name: S.T.E.A.M..In the story of the Team Fortress 2 comics, he was the first Heavy of the original BLU team.[62]In Civilization IV, the quote "Before that steam drill shall beat me down, I'll die with my hammer in my hand." appears when steel is researched.[63]The Big Bend Tunnel is a location of the multiplayer videogame Fallout 76, set in Appalachia region. The story surrounding the Miner Miracles quest is a reference to John Henry's competition.See also [ edit ] John HenryismAlexey Stakhanov, Soviet minerPaul BunyanRosie the RiveterReferences [ edit ] ^ a b Stephen Wade (2 September 2002). "John Henry, Present at the Creation". NPR. Archived from the original on 12 July 2012. ^ a b c d e f g Tracy, Steven C.; Bradford, Roark (2011). John Henry: Roark Bradford's Novel and Play. Oxford University Press, US. ISBN 978-0199766505. ^ a b c Giles Oakley (1997). The Devil's Music. Da Capo Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-0306807435. ^ Grimes, William (2006-10-18). "Taking Swings at a Myth, With John Henry the Man (Published 2006)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-02-08 . ^ a b Johnson, Guy B. (1929). John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend. Chapel Hill: UNC Press. pp. 44''49. ^ Johnson, Guy (2 February 1930). "First Hero of Negro Folk Lore". Modesto Bee and News-Herald. p. 22 . Retrieved 5 September 2014 '' via Newspapers.com. ^ "Park Map". John Henry Historical Park . Retrieved June 12, 2023 . ^ a b Nelson, Scott Reynolds (2006). Steel drivin' man: John Henry, the untold story of an American legend. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195300109. ^ Grimes, William. "Taking Swings at a Myth, With John Henry the Man", The New York Times, Books section, 18 October 2006. ^ Downes, Lawrence. "John Henry Days", The New York Times, Books section, 18 April 2008. ^ "John Henry '' The Story '' Lewis Tunnel". Ibiblio.org. 13 July 2006 . Retrieved 20 July 2010 . ^ Singer A (Winter 1997). "Using Songs to Teach Labor History". OAH Magazine of History. 11 (2): 13''16. doi:10.1093/maghis/11.2.13. JSTOR 25163131. ^ a b Nikola-Lisa W (Spring 1998). "John Henry: Then and Now". African American Review. 32 (1): 51''56. doi:10.2307/3042267. JSTOR 3042267. ^ a b c d e f g Bicknell J (Spring 2009). "Reflections on "John Henry": Ethical Issues in Singing Performance" (PDF) . The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 67 (2): 173''180. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6245.2009.01346.x. ^ Kroll, Justin (October 9, 2018). "Dwayne Johnson to Star in Netflix's 'John Henry and the Statesmen' ". Variety . Retrieved January 12, 2022 . ^ Meyer, Joshua (November 5, 2021). "Dwayne Johnson's John Henry Movie, Which Released A Trailer Three Years Ago, Is 'Still Totally Happening' [Exclusive]". Slash Film . Retrieved January 12, 2022 . ^ "John Henry: Official Trailer". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-11-11. ^ Shadow and Act (20 April 2017). "Have You Seen 'John Henry and the Inky-Poo'? ("1st Hollywood Film to Feature African American Folklore in a Positive Light")". Shadow and Act. Shadow & Act . Retrieved 22 May 2019 . ^ Lehman, Christopher (7 January 2019). "The George Pal Puppetoons and Jasper '' Part 4". Cartoon Research. Jerry Beck . Retrieved 22 May 2019 . ^ Lenburg, Jeff (2006). Who's Who in Animated Cartoons: An International Guide to Film and Television's Award-Winning and Legendary Animators. New York: Applause Books. ISBN 978-1557836717. ^ Hill, Jim (22 February 2001). "A black hero comes up short". Orlando Weekly . Retrieved 3 November 2015 . ^ Pontac, Ken; Graff, Warren (May 19, 2012). "The Other Doctor". Transformers: Rescue Bots. Season 1. Episode 12. Event occurs at 10:43. Discovery Family. ^ Saul of the Mole Men: 'A Hammer in His Hand' , IGN, 9 April 2007 , retrieved 2021-08-01 ^ " "The Legend of John Henry" ". Archived from the original on 2022-11-12 . Retrieved 2022-11-12 . ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Cohen, Norm (2000). Long steel rail: the railroad in American folksong. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0252068812. ^ Haddox, John Christopher. "The Williamson Brothers and Curry". West Virginia University . Retrieved 11 June 2023 . ^ Ann Arbor Blues Festival 1969: Vols 1&2, Third Man Records, Americana Music Productions, Inc. 2019 ^ "Josh White- John Henry | For Old Times Sake". Reddevillye.wordpress.com. 2008-01-07. Archived from the original on 2015-11-18 . Retrieved 2015-10-07 . ^ "The New Christy Minstrels '' Land of Giants Album Reviews, Songs & More | AllMusic". AllMusic. ^ "The Legend of John Henry's Hammer" and "Nine Pound Hammer", both on Blood, Sweat and Tears; Cash also recorded a shorter version of the former as "John Henry" with a different account of the legend for Destination Victoria Station ^ Merle Travis '' John Henry, Composed by Traditional at AllMusic. Retrieved 18 September 2015. ^ Harry Belafonte '' John Henry at AllMusic. Retrieved 18 September 2015. ^ Mississippi John Hurt '' Folk Songs And Blues at Discogs (list of releases) ^ Giles Oakley (1997). The Devil's Music. Da Capo Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-0306807435. ^ Flipside of "Rock Island Line" ^ album Long Time Gone 1979 ^ "Songs: Ohia '' John Henry Split My Heart Lyrics". SongMeanings. ^ Album: Rescattermastered '' 2016 ^ Song: John Henry '' Album: Waiting For The Day '' 1997 ^ "Nine Pound Hammer" on the 1968 LP The Voice of the Turtle ^ "They Killed John Henry" on his 2009 album, Midnight at the Movies ^ "C(C)cile McLorin Salvant '' John Henry". Genius.com. ^ "Those Poor Bastards '' John Henry Gonna" '' via genius.com. ^ "When I Get My New House Done Western North Carolina Fiddle Tunes and Songs" '' via mustrad.org.uk. ^ "G. B. Grayson '' Henry Whitter '' The Nine-Pound Hammer / Short Life Of Trouble". Discogs.com. ^ "John Henry" on his 2017 album "Folksinger Vol. 2" ^ "John Henry" on their 2003 album "House Band Feud" ^ https://open.spotify.com/track/6ibj963SmyltB0rP8TSbpS?si=Ss65EE28R2aSIbAYARZgMg&dd=1 ^ Kozinn, Allan (22 November 2009). "The John Henry Who Might Have Been". The New York Times . Retrieved 28 September 2015 . ^ Reinthaler, Joan (23 November 2009). "Review: Bang on a Can All-Stars and Trio Mediaeval Perform 'Steel Hammer' ". The Washington Post . Retrieved 28 September 2015 . ^ John Henry Hemanga Biswas, archived from the original on 2021-11-11 , retrieved 2020-05-15 ^ Hujuri, Raktima (15 July 2015). "Shodhganga : a reservoir of Indian theses @ INFLIBNET". hdl:10603/45142 . Retrieved 15 May 2020 . ^ "Fakir Alamgir performs live on RTV". 26 February 2010. ^ "Fakir Alamgir holds sway". 5 May 2013. ^ Sterling A. Brown. "Negro Character as Seen by White Authors", The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Apr., 1933), pp. 179''203 ^ "Bradford was one of Immortals", Robert C. Ruark, The Evening Independent, 22 November 1948 ^ "Freeloading Man", Jonathan Franzen, New York Times, 13 May 2001 ^ Action Comics #4 (February 2012) ^ "John Henry the Revelator", Constantine von Hoffman, Kirkus Reviews 18 March 2022 ^ Associated Press (July 24, 1996). "NEW STAMPS TELL TALL TALES OF FOLK HEROES". desertnews.com. Archived from the original on October 21, 2013. ^ "The Story of John Henry '' Official Wasteland 3 Wiki". wasteland.gamepedia.com . Retrieved 24 May 2017 . ^ "Non-playable characters '' BLU Team (original)". wiki.teamfortress.com . Retrieved 30 July 2017 . ^ "Tech Quotes from Civilization IV '' Industrial Era Technologies". levelskip.com . Retrieved 21 January 2019 . Further reading [ edit ] Johnson, Guy B. (1929). John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina PressChappell, Louis W. (1933). John Henry; A Folk-Lore Study. Reprinted 1968. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat PressKeats, Ezra Jack (1965). John Henry, An American Legend. New York: Pantheon Books.Williams, Brett (1983). John Henry: A Bio-Bibliography by Brett Williams. Westport, CT: Greenwood PressNelson, Scott. "Who Was John Henry? Railroad Construction, Southern Folklore, and the Birth of Rock and Roll", Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas Summer 2005 2(2): 53''80; doi:10.1215/15476715-2-2-53Garst, John F. (2022). John Henry and His People: The Historical Origin and Lore of America's Great Folk Ballad. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company.External links [ edit ] Wikimedia Commons has media related to

John Henry

.

John Henry at The Seeger Sessions at the Wayback Machine (archived 13 October 2016)Lyrics to various versions of "John Henry"Survey of books about the legend of John HenryWebsite on racial protest and resistance in the John henry ballad.John Henry bibliography compiled by the Archive of Folk Culture staff at the Library of CongressHistoric American Engineering Record (HAER) No. WV-93, "Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, Great Bend Tunnel, Talcott, Summers County, WV"

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 16:27

Gandy Dancers ''Gandy dancers'' was a nickname for railroad section gangs in the days before modern mechanized track upkeep. The men were called dancers for their synchronized movements when repairing track under the direction of a lead workman known as the ''caller'' or ''call man.'' The name ''gandy'' supposedly arose from a belief that their hand tools once came from the Gandy tool company in Chicago (though no researcher has ever turned up such a company that made railroad tools). The name may also have derived from ''gander'' because the flat-footed steps of the workmen when lining track resembled the way that geese walk. There is, however, no consensus on the origin of the name.

Each group of railroad workers, known as section gangs, typically maintained 10 to 15 miles of track. The men refilled the ballast (gravel) between the railroad ties, replaced rotted crossties, and either turned or replaced worn rails, driving spikes to lock them to the crossties. Spike driving required no group coordination, but the heavy rails had to be carried by teams of men with large clamps called ''rail dogs.'' A lead singer coordinated the effort with so-called ''dogging'' calls. A good half of a typical workday was spent on the constant chore of straightening out the track (known as lining), and it was from this activity that ''gandy dancers'' earned their name. When leveling the track, workmen jacked up the track at its low spots and pushed ballast under the raised ties with square-ended picks, often leaning shoulder-to-shoulder in pairs while the caller marked time with a four-beat ''tamping'' song.

Gandy Dancer In the South in general and Alabama specifically, at least through the 1950s, the foreman of a section gang was invariably white and the members of the gang itself almost exclusively African American. The foreman typically positioned himself 50 yards or more from the section gang, squatted down, and examined the length of track for problems. He used visual signals to tell the caller where the track was out of alignment and when it was ''lined'' properly. At the time, rails typically came in 13-yard (12-meter) lengths. The section gang systematically aligned the rails at the joints and at specified points along its length in a well-defined order.

Section gangs were made up of as few as four men but might include as many as 30 men, depending on the workload. Each workman carried a lining bar, a straight pry bar with a sharp end. The thicker bottom end was square-shafted (to fit against the rail) and shaped to a chisel point (to dig down into the gravel underneath the rail); the lighter top end was rounded (for better gripping). When lining track, each man would face one of the rails and work the chisel end of his lining bar down at an angle into the ballast under it. Then all would take a step toward their rail and pull up and forward on their pry bars to lever the track'--rails, crossties and all'--over and through the ballast.

Gandy Dancers Lining track was difficult, tedious work, and the timing or coordination of the pull was more important than the brute force put forth by any single man. It was the job of the caller to maintain this coordination. He simultaneously motivated and entertained the men and set the timing through work songs that derived distantly from sea chanteys and more recently from cotton-chopping songs, blues, and African-American church music. Typical songs featured a two-line, four-beat couplet to which members of the gang would tap their lining bars against the rails, as in this example:

1 2 3 4 ''O joint ahead and quarter back''1 2 3 4 ''That's the way we line this track''

When the liners were tapping in perfect time, he would call for a hearty pull on the third beat of a four-beat refrain:

1 2 3 4 ''Come on, move it! Huhn! (pause)'' 1 2 3 4 ''Boys, can you move it! Uhmm! (pause)''

and so on until the foreman signaled that the track was properly aligned. A good caller could call all day and never repeat the same phrase twice. Veteran section gangs lining track, especially with an audience, often embellished their work with a one-handed flourish and with one foot stepping out and back on beats four, one, and two, between the two-armed pulls on the lining bars on beat three.

In a ceremony at the Smithsonian in 1996, John Henry Mealing (who had worked on the Western and then the Frisco lines) and Cornelius Wright (who had worked on U.S. Steel's 1,100 miles of track), two former callers of this kind of work song in central Alabama, received National Heritage Fellowship Awards as ''Master Folk and Traditional Artists'' for their demonstrations of this form of African-American folk art.

Additional Resources

Courlander, Harold. Negro Songs from Alabama. Rev. & enl. 2nd ed. New York: Oak Publications, 1963.

Corn Bread Crumbled in Gravy: Historical Alabama Field Recordings from the Byron Arnold Collection of Traditional Tunes. Audiocassette. Produced by Joy D. Baklanoff and John Bealle. Montgomery: Alabama Folklife Association, 1992.

Gandy Dancers. VHS. Directed by Maggie Holtzberg-Call and Barry Dornfield. New York: Cinema Guild, 1994.

Lomax, Alan. The Folk Songs of North America in the English Language. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960.

Traditional Musics of Alabama: A Compilation. Compact disc. Produced by Steve Grauberger. Montgomery: Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, Alabama State Council on the Arts, 2002.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 16:06

Informal English " holy tone A method of utterance, often used in their sermons by Primitive Baptist preachers,

in which the sound "ah" occurs at the end of each breath pause, and the taking of fresh breath is intentionally made audible. Also

holy whine

.

"

Also described in

chapter about "the mountain people" in a 1918 book put out by the Home Mission Board of the SBC!

"In many remote sections the preachers in speaking still affect...the 'holy whine'....many of the older mountain church members regard this method of delivery by the preacher as a hallmark of downright earnestness"

"A mountain woman who had been brought up under the recurrent sermonic 'a-ahs' of old Brother Jones, after hearing Dr. John A. Broadus, who was reckoned the foremost American Baptist preacher of his day, remarked: 'I'd ruther hear Brother Jones...'."

Click to expand...

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 16:01

I am by no means an expert on whooping, but I noticed that there is little information available on the web so I decided to write up a few posts ont he subject.

It is usually spelled either as ''hooping'' or ''whooping.'' Go into many African American Baptist or Pentecostal churches and you will hear it. There is even a white version called the ''holy whine.'' Some churches don't think you have preached unless you have done it. Others look down on it as problematic. I have looked on the web and seen it referred to as a ''carnival.'' I have even heard some preaching instructors say that it is nothing more than an increase in intensity for your sermons. While there is often an increase in intensity, a ''whoop'' usually means more than just that.

Whooping is when the words of the preacher begins taking on a musical quality. The preaching blends into musicality. Jasper Williams believes that the ''whoop'' is always unique to an individual. He also suggests that all who wish to whoop should just practice it and listen to other whoopers for inspiration.

It is very difficult to describe it in words so here are two examples of whooping found on youtube. First is a Baptist example from the Rev Jasper Williams preaching the Eulogy of one of the greatest whoopers of them all C. L. Franklin:

Now here is an example from a Pentecostal pastor Bishop Norman Wagner

In my view, whooping is a part of our own African American heritage that should not be put down out of hand, neither should it be made to be the end-all of great preaching. Some of the greatest preachers do not whoop, but then again some great preachers of today and yesterday whoop. It is a part of our heritage that can be a tool for the effective preaching of the gospel.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 15:40

Derogotory term for "

colored people".

Basically the same as saying

NiggerDude...look at those

mooncrickets in that

back alley playing dice.

by

Andrew September 28, 2004

Flag Get the Mooncricket mug.MooncricketSlang for a black person. It has gained popularity on the eastern

coast of the United States as it is drastically less offensive than the commonly used ''nigger''.

Also used is the less common ''Cricket of the Moon''.

White guy greeting

black friend: ''

Whats good,

mooncricket?''

by

The Emperor of Time and Space January 29, 2012

Flag Get the Mooncricket mug.MooncricketAnother word for a

Black person or

African American.

That

mooncricket smells like

spoiled bologna.

by

_Jon_Doe_ December 24, 2020

Flag Get the Mooncricket mug.mooncricketanother word for a

nigger.

Damn

Marcus you're a fucking mooncricket!

by

Bananuhhhzzz October 25, 2006

Flag Get the mooncricket mug.mooncricketA

racial slur, or

derogatory term usually associated with

black people.

Oh my gosh,

look out! That mooncricket is about to

shoot you!

by

DA20 Pilot March 20, 2008

Flag Get the mooncricket mug.MooncricketsA typical person of African descent. A

black person, but not the

Condoleezza type. Usually those of a less

articulate nature.

"Dude, we better

get outta here before we lose our

wallets, this place is filled with

mooncrickets."

by

advocates diaboli March 17, 2017

Flag Get the Mooncrickets mug.mooncricketMoon-CricketA small black

bug that comes out

at night.

Another word for

nigro,

black person,

african americanby

cambridgegal July 13, 2003

Flag Get the mooncricket mug.1 2Next 'ºLast >>More random definitions Urban Dictionary is written by you

Define a Word Twitter Facebook Help Subscribe (C) 1999-2023 Urban Dictionary ®

adshelpprivacyterms of servicedmcaaccessibility statementreport a buginformation collection noticedata subject access request

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 15:31

Also found in:

Dictionary,

Thesaurus,

Medical,

Encyclopedia.

AcronymDefinitionHIPHOPHomeless and Indigent Population Health Outreach Project (New Jersey)HIPHOPHealthy Individual People Helping Other PeopleWant to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content.

Link to this page:

References in periodicals archive?She whose longtime partnership with Timbaland has made major changes in the

hiphop

community.

In February 2013, the next three CDs will be released every Tuesday beginning on February 5th with the Lounge Party CD, the

HipHop

Party (Old School) CD comes out on February 12th and then the Dance Party CD hits stores on February 19th.

"We had the idea of doing a

hiphop

interpretation of a ballet, as we noticed that people were always redoing classic texts like Shakespeare.

Asked how the music has changed from his heyday, Andrew E observed that the sound hasn't changed that much, except that

hiphop

artists are now incorporating more instruments into their work.

The Bronx based

hiphop

label has its devoted following of fans anticipating brand new videos, of the single and a couple other songs on the fourteen (14) song full length CD.

It started with 15 youngsters in 2003 and now works with more than 400 each week, on activities including football, basketball, dancing,

hiphop

, singing and performing arts.

The Hip-Hop Studies Reader (0415969190, $35.00), a

hiphop

studies reader by a hip-hop scholar and culture critic.

Eminem, below, won best

hiphop

act, while Coldplay's Chris Martin, bottom, was delighted with the best group gong.

CARDIFF'S vibrant

hiphop

scene has spawned a fanzine.

They go to a studio that has

hiphop

classes and eventually find that they can't audition anywhere because they can't do anything else.

We forget that Kanye West is considered to be one of the alltime greatest living

hiphop

artists already.

The couple showed the world a united front at

hiphop

legend Timbaland's Grammy party in LA, though the host himself was nearly turned away.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 14:36

An ageing computer system was today blamed for the air traffic control meltdown, as an expert claimed the chaos may have erupted from a controller putting too many dots in a flight plan request.

The widespread disruption which started on Monday is understood to have been caused by a single rogue flight plan and continues to affect dozens of services two days on.

Controllers need basic information on each flight to populate their display, such as the flight number, aircraft type, destination and route.

If these details are not spaced and formatted in a certain way, and the computer does not recognise the data, it can cause a system collapse - a failure described this morning as 'staggering' by former British Airways boss Willie Walsh.

Many affected travellers are being told to wait as long as 10 days for flights home, with some forced to sleep on airport floors or take long routes by land after their flights were cancelled.

Airlines have been criticised for failing to book hotel rooms for many people who were delayed overnight.

Michele Robson, who has worked in air traffic control for more than 20 years, told the Sky News Daily podcast: 'When there have been failures in the past, it's normally something to do with a bad information that's been input in the incorrect format.

A passenger sleeps on the floor at Stansted Airport today as the ongoing flight chaos continues

Families, including those with young babies, have been forced to sleep on the floor in airports

Frustrated flyers wait at Heathrow as the ongoing air traffic chaos continues today

Families patiently wait for their flight at Heathrow follow Monday's air traffic control meltdown

'It's a very old system, it's been running for many years and generally we've been very lucky and we don't often have failures, or if we do, we get it back during that backup time, which is what it's there for.

'There have been other instances where something has been incorrectly formatted and the flight plan computer behaves in a way they're not expecting and effectively causes it to a fail, so that could be enough to potentially crash the system in effect if it was formatted incorrectly.

'You have to space things in a certain way using a certain number of dots, as an example. They do it in a very unique way that's never been done before, otherwise it would happen every day.

'So it has to be something pretty unusual that they've input for it to happen, but it's an old system and perhaps something was input yesterday that it's never seen before and that's what caused it to have this reaction where it's failed.'

Ms Robson, who now runs the Turning Left For Less site, told MailOnline: 'It could be something like a small operator - not a name like British Airways - doing something unusual.

'That can be something like where an aircraft is crossing boundaries between UK and French air space several times. Also, if it is a small operator, they may not be as used to filing plans. It's unlikely to be one dot in the wrong place.

'I describe it as the Swiss Cheese model, lots of things added together causing the system to accept that message. For some reason, because it's never been seen before, it accepted it, and caused the system to fail.

'I've been through failures and had to go to a manual system and I think people assume it's like in a film where there are people running around and shouting on the phone, but these people are used to working in a high pressured job.

'They have emergency training at least once a year, so they know exactly what to do, and take it in their stride.

Martin Rolfe, chief executive of National Air Traffic Services told BBC Radio Four's Today programme, was asked this morning why the problematic flight data was not rejected by Nats 'like a piece of spam'.

He replied: 'Our systems are safety-critical systems, they are dealing with the lives of passengers and the travelling public.

'So even things like just throwing data away needs to be very carefully considered.

'If you throw away a critical piece of data you may end up in the next 30 seconds, a minute or an hour with something that then is not right on the screens in front of the controller. So it is nothing like throwing away spam.'

Quizzed on the age of the system and how frequently it needs to be updated, Mr Rolfe added: 'We have a full programme and we invest £100m a year in new systems and we are constantly evaluating which systems need to be replaced and when.

'This is an obviously complex system with safety at the heart of it and the piece of the system we are discussing was replaced quite recently, about five years ago.'

Michele Robson has worked in air traffic control for more than 20 years

Martin Rolfe, chief executive of National Air Traffic Services, said the widespread disruption which started on Monday 'relates to some of the flight data we received'

Passengers stranded overnight at Gatwick Airport because of NATS failure sleep on the seats

When the failure was first flagged on Monday morning, the system went into its back-up mode - which stores up to four hours of data - rather than risk air-traffic controllers being presented with false information.

As bosses quickly realised the problem wouldn't be fixed within that four-hour period, they decided to switch to a manual system, where all flight plans have to be entered individually.

This time-consuming process meant that controllers were unable to handle even a percentage of the usual number of aircraft moving in and out of UK airports.

The system was fully restored by 2.30pm on Monday, Mr Rolfe said, but the knock-on effect continues to be felt by passengers, who have been condemned to sleeping on airport floors while desperately waiting for their rescheduled flights.

Aviation analytics company Cirium said 64 flights due to serve UK airports today were cancelled as of 9am - after some 1,585 flights were axed on Monday and a further 345 on Tuesday.

Former British Airways boss Willie Walsh said it was 'staggering' that the system was allowed to collapse by a piece of incorrect data.

Mr Willie, director-general of global airline body the International Air Transport Association (Iata), told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I find it staggering, I really do.

'This system should be designed to reject data that's incorrect, not to collapse the system.

'If that is true, it demonstrates a considerable weakness that must have been there for some time and I'm amazed if that is the cause of this.

'Clearly we'll wait for the full evaluation of the problem but that explanation doesn't stand up from what I know of the system.'

It comes as it emerged that Martin Rolfe, chief executive of National Air Traffic Services, saw his pay double last year to more than £1.3m, after receiving pensions benefits, a £281,000 annual bonus, and a backdated £555,000 long-term incentive plan.

Mr Rolfe declined to answer on whether NATS - or he himself following his personal windfall - should pay as a result of the disruption.

'At this point, my focus has been entirely on making sure we have recovered the system, which we did on Monday, we were running as normal by 2.30pm,' he said.

'We have been supporting and working very closely with the airline CEOs many of whom I've spoken to directly to make sure we absolutely get everyone to their destinations as quick as we possibly can, but most importantly, as safely as we possibly can.'

Mr Walsh estimated that the chaos will cost airlines around £100million.

He said: 'It's very unfair because the air traffic control system which was at the heart of this failure doesn't pay a single penny.'

Passengers are pictured at London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 as the air traffic chaos continues

The impact continued today with at least a further 42 flights to or from Heathrow cancelled.

Many affected travellers are being told to wait several days for flights home.

Some have been forced to sleep on airport floors or take long routes by land after their flights were cancelled.

Airlines were criticised for failing to book hotel rooms for many people who were delayed overnight.

Rory Boland, editor of consumer magazine Which? Travel, said: 'We're seeing worrying reports of passengers being left stranded without support, and airlines failing to properly communicate with their passengers or fulfil their legal obligations such as offering timely rerouting or providing overnight accommodation.

'In particular, travellers should be aware that their airline has a responsibility to reroute them as soon as possible, even if that means buying them a ticket with a rival carrier - a rule that some airlines appear to be ignoring.

'Passengers should also be given food and refreshments and overnight accommodation if required.'

EasyJet is operating five repatriation flights to Gatwick, with the first two setting off today.

The airline said: 'During this traditionally very busy week for travel, options for returning to the UK are more limited on some routes and so easyJet will be operating five repatriation flights to London Gatwick over the coming days from Palma and Faro on August 30, and Tenerife and Enfidha on August 31, and from Rhodes on September 1.

'We are also operating larger aircraft on key routes including Faro, Ibiza, Dalaman and Tenerife to provide some additional 700 seats this week.'

There is speculation the ATC failure was caused by a French airline submitting a flight plan to Nats in the wrong format.

Downing Street did not rule out that possibility, while Nats declined to comment on whether that was what happened.

The problem resulted in flights to and from UK airports being restricted for several hours on Monday afternoon while flight plans were checked manually.

This caused the cancellation of around 1,500 flights on Monday, with a further 300 axed on Tuesday due to aircraft and crews being out of position.

Mr Rolfe said Nats is working closely with the Civil Aviation Authority to provide a preliminary report into what happened to Transport Secretary Mark Harper.

The conclusions of the inquiry will be made public, he added.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 20:55

A Russian political analyst has claimed warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin is alive after his body double was killed in last week's plane crash - not the Wagner chief himself.

Prigozhin is 'alive, well, and free' in an unnamed country, according to Dr Valery Solovey, even as Russia stages his funeral which Vladimir Putin is refusing to attend.

The astonishing assertion holds that Prigozhin cheated an assassination bid sanctioned by Putin and drawn up by his security council.

Prigozhin is now plotting his revenge, says the political analyst, a former professor at Moscow's prestigious Institute of International Relations [MGIMO], a training school for spies and diplomats.

Dr Solovey accuses the Russian authorities of lying over Prigozhin's DNA being found at the crash site in Tver region, while being aware the bid to kill the Wagner supremo had failed because a body double - which the warlord was known to use - got on the plane in his place.

A Russian political analyst has claimed warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin (pictured) is alive after his body double was killed in last week's plane crash - not the Wagner chief himself

This image circulating on Russian Telegram channels purports to show the fake passport of a Prigozhin body double

The site of the plane crash in Russia's Tver region last Wednesday

Prigozhin is 'alive, well, and free' in an unnamed country, according to Putin critic Dr Valery Solovey, even as Russia stages his funeral which Vladimir Putin is refusing to attend

'First, the plane in which Yevgeny Prigozhin was supposed to fly was downed by a Russian air defence system,' he said, challenging US intelligence claims that the plane was destroyed by a blast on board.

'There was no explosion on board. It was downed from the outside.'

The secret operation to carry out this strike 'was developed in [Russia's] Security Council, and was sanctioned personally by the Russian president [Vladimir Putin].'

The warlord is now 'alive, well, and free', Solovey claims.

'Prigozhin himself was not on board. His double was flying instead of him. By the way, Vladimir Putin is perfectly aware of that.

'If you believe official statements of the Russian authorities, then what can I say'...?'

Dr Solovey said he would reveal Prigozhin's supposed country of exile early next month but denied it was in Africa where the Wagner private army has multiple interests.

However, Prigozhin - whose funeral is expected imminently and which Putin is refusing to attend - aimed to show himself by the end of this year.

Putin's spokesman said: 'The presence of the President is not provided. We don't have any specific information on funerals. Still, the decision on this matter is made by relatives and friends.'

Exiled Prigozhin was 'preparing for revenge', insisted Dr Solovey.

'How did he end up alive while his close people died? This is the choice he [Prigozhin] was faced with.

'I'm not talking about the moral side of this choice. God forbid any of us face such a choice.

'He intends to take revenge for having been faced with such a choice. He intends to take revenge on people who were intending to destroy him, and destroyed people close to him.'

Among those who died were Wagner military commander Dmitry Utkin, 53, and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova, 39, who had revealed to her relatives both a delay in the flight and that the plane had undergone repairs before its doomed final journey.

Prigozhin has access to £1.6 billion in bitcoin, Solovey said - a fund he will use to strike back.

'That is more than enough for revenge. As for ambition, energy, and courage, he has plenty of that.'

Prigozhin's remains were positiviely identified in the wake of the plane crash according to Russian officials

A view shows a makeshift memorial for Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, and Dmitry Utkin, the group commander, in Moscow, Russia August 29, 2023

Prigozhin used wigs and fake beards for disguises in Africa and the Middle East as he furthered Putin's interests and deployed Wagner forces

Dr Solovey has long claimed to have inside Kremlin knowledge and frequently claims that Putin is seriously ill, and also uses body doubles to mask his condition.

Pictures emerged in the wake of the June coup led by Prigozhin showing the warlord's purported doubles.

One was pictured in a Russian passport with Prigozhin's name. Prigozhin was also pictured in a passport with a fake name.

He used wigs and fake beards for disguises in Africa and the Middle East as he furthered Putin's interests and deployed Wagner forces.

One disguise showed him as an Employee of the Ministry of Defence in Sudan, another as an assistant diplomat from Abu Dhabi.

In a third he was mocked up as a Senior Lieutenant from Benghazi in Libya.

The versatile Prigozhin - whose Wagner forces have been used in many countries - also posed as a colonel from Tripoli, a 'merchant from Syria', and a field commander named Mohammed.

But the Russian Investigative Committee insisted he was dead as proven by his DNA being found on a corpse at the air crash site.

Others have speculated on Prigozhin being still alive.

Political scientist Ekaterina Shulman said: 'In order to hide forever, taking one of the many spare passports, a burned-out plane is also a good reason.'

And former Russian presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak - known as Putin's goddaughter - said: 'My feeling is we are burying [Prigozhin] too early.'

A survey by Brief Telegram channel found 38 per cent believe Prigozhin is still alive.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 20:04

Ancient Roman brothers known for their social reforms

Depiction of the two brothers made during the 19th century by Eugene Guillaume, today located at the Mus(C)e d'Orsay in Paris. The brothers lay their hands on a document titled "property", consistent with then-current interpretations of their lives.[1]The Gracchi brothers were two brothers at the start of the late Roman Republic: Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus. They served in the plebeian tribunates of 133 BC and 122''121 BC, respectively. They have been received as well-born and eloquent advocates for social reform who were both killed by a reactionary political system; their terms in the tribunate precipitated a series of domestic crises which are viewed as unsettling the Roman Republic and contributing to its collapse.

Tiberius Gracchus passed legislation which established a commission to survey Roman public land, reassert state claims to it, and redistribute it to poor rural farmers. These reforms were a reaction to a perceived decline in Italy's rural population. A decade later, Gaius Gracchus' reforms, among other things, attempted to buttress Tiberius' land commission and start Roman colonisation outside of Italy. They also were far more broad, touching on many topics such as assignment of provincial commands, composition of juries for the permanent courts, and letting of state tax farming contracts. Both brothers were killed during or shortly after the conclusion of their respective tribunician terms.

More recent scholarship on the Roman economy has viewed the Gracchi agrarian reforms as less impactful than claimed in the ancient sources. It is also clear that the vast majority of their reformist legislation was left intact rather than repealed. Some modern scholars also connect the agrarian reforms to degrading Rome's relations with its Italian allies and the Social War, as the reforms were a reassertion of Roman claims on public land that had been for decades largely occupied without title by Rome's Italian allies. Gracchan claims of Italian rural depopulation also are contradicted by archaeological evidence. The impact of the violent reaction to the two brothers, however, is of substantial import: it set a dangerous precedent that violence was an acceptable tool against political enemies.

The Gracchi exerted a substantial influence on later politics. They were viewed alternately as popular martyrs or dangerous demagogues through the late republic. They were also portrayed as social revolutionaries and proto-socialists during the French Revolution and afterwards; in that vein, they motivated social revolutionaries such as Fran§ois-Nol "Gracchus" Babeuf and opposition to enclosure in Britain. Scholars today view these socialist comparisons as unapt.

Background [ edit ] It used to be standard view that through the second century BC, the number of free farmers in rural Italy suffered a precipitous decline. This traditional view, transmitted from the ancient sources, "has been much overstated"; the narrative connecting military service to the decline of the yeomanry, moreover, "has to be rejected".[8] The main driver for this reevaluation is archaeological evidence of Italian settlement patterns from the 1980s onwards: "impressive methodological advances that have been achieved in survey archaeology have ... done much to undermine the credibility of earlier claims concerning the spread of slave-staffed estates and the survival or otherwise of subsistence-oriented smallholders".

Rural conditions, 159''33 BC [ edit ] Through the second century, there is documented some difficulty in raising men and some resistance against levies. This starts in the Third Macedonian War and continues through Roman campaigns in Spain from 151 BC. The property qualification for service in the legions was also reduced some time in this period from some 10,000 asses down to some 4,000.[11] Roman censuses '' which were conducted largely to tally men for conscription '' starting in 159 BC started to also to note a reduction in the free population of Italy, falling from 328,316 in 159''58 BC down to a low of 317,933 in the census of 136''35 BC. Politicians reacted to these constraints by securing volunteers for service; the reforms of the Gracchi were related to solving this problem and also minimising the impacts of conscription.

However, state difficulties in raising men for war did not mean that there were actual quantitative reductions in the populations of rural Italy. While the census reported a reduction in the republic's citizen population through the 130s BC, these population reductions were not at the time connected to unwillingness to serve in Rome's unpopular campaigns in Spain. Because the easiest way to dodge the draft was to avoid registration by the censors, no actual decline in population is necessary to explain censorial reports thereto. The later results of the censuses of 125''24 BC and 115''14 BC, indicate large increases which are incompatible with any actual decline in Italian rural populations.[16][17]

Archaeological evidence of small farms attested all over Italy in the second century and the general need for free labour during harvest time has led scholars to conclude that "there are no good grounds for inferring a general decline of the small independent farmer in the second century". The Gracchan narrative of rural population decline through 133 BC '' "long since... shown to be false" '' likely emerged not from a general and actual decline in rural free-holding, but rather, generalisation from a local decline in coastal Etruria where commercial slave plantations were dominant. And while Gracchan observations of rural poverty were likely true; this, however, was not a result of slave-dominated plantations crowding out poor farmers, but overpopulation under Malthusian conditions.

In rural areas closer to Rome, expanding population and partible inheritance led to the splitting of previously modest farms into plots too small to support families. Many of these small farms were not economically viable. Coupled with the high price of land near Rome, many of these farmers sold their lands to rich men and engaged instead in wage labour. "There is ample evidence to show that the temporary labour of free men was very important to large estates" especially around harvest-time. In the years before 133 BC, a pause in construction of large public monuments also reduced demand for urban labour, triggering a prolonged period of poor labour market conditions. This general economic downturn was likely compounded by years of high food prices due to the ongoing slave revolt in Sicily, an island from which substantial amounts of grain were shipped to Rome.

Public land [ edit ] This map shows Roman lands '' the ager Romanus '' on the eve of the Social War, some thirty years after the death of Gaius Gracchus. The anachronism notwithstanding, the ager was largely intermingled with allied lands and required substantial surveying work to disentangle.Through the conquests of Italy in the fourth and third centuries BC, the Roman state had acquired legal rights to large amounts of land ceded by the subjugated Italian allies. Their former lands, the ager publicus, were not heavily exploited by the Roman state. Rather, the land "had been regarded as a sort of beneficium to the allies, who had been allowed to continue to work the land which had been confiscated from them". Through Roman conquests, the Italians who were allied to Rome were de facto confirmed in their lands and also gained substantially from the influx of booty and wealth from Roman conquest.

The traditional narratives in the ancient sources which described the emergence of commercial latifundia (enormous slave-staffed plantations owned by the elite) on the public land itself is also largely unattested to by the archaeological evidence in this period. Moreover, evidence indicates that the ager publicus was largely located outside of the traditional farmlands close to Rome and instead located in non-Roman Italy closer to the Italian allies. Public land redistribution was therefore necessarily at the expense of the allies, who would be evicted from ancestral lands still occupied.

Early life of the Gracchi [ edit ] Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was born c. 163 BC.[31] His younger brother Gaius was born c. 154 BC.[32] They were the sons of the Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus who had been consul 177 and 163 BC as well as censor in 169 BC.[36] He had triumphed twice in 178 and 175 BC.[37] Their mother was Cornelia, the daughter of the renowned general Scipio Africanus, the hero of the Second Punic War. Their sister Sempronia also was the wife of Scipio Aemilianus, another important general and politician. Later Roman historians painted Cornelia as an "archetypical Roman matron", "heavily idealised and inevitably quite distance from the historical Cornelia", which may be a product of her son Gaius' own political presentation.

Tiberius' military career started in 147 BC, serving as a legate or military tribune under his brother-in-law, Scipio Aemilianus during his campaign to take Carthage during the Third Punic War. Tiberius, along with Gaius Fannius, was among the first to scale Carthage's walls, serving through to the next year. A decade later, in 137 BC, he was quaestor under the consul Gaius Hostilius Mancinus in Hispania Citerior. The campaign was part of the Numantine War and was unsuccessful; Mancinus and his army lost several skirmishes outside the city before a confused night-time retreat that led them to the site of a camp from a former consular campaign in 153 BC where they were surrounded. Tiberius negotiated a treaty of surrender, in part to his inheriting Spanish connections from his father's honourable and good dealings in the area during his praetorship in 179''78 BC; Tiberius' treaty, however, was later humiliatingly rejected by the senate after his return to Rome.[46]

Reforms [ edit ] Various reforms had been attempted in the years prior to 133 BC. One of the ones that was successful was the establishment of a secret ballot in 139 BC by the tribune Aulus Gabinius. The circumstances of the reform are no longer known: it was probably presented as an expansion of public liberty and a check against corruption (no longer would those who bribed be able to ensure that recipients voted as instructed). Legislation extending the secret ballot was passed in 137, the lex Cassia, extending the secret ballot to capital cases after Scipio Aemilianus convinced an opposing tribune to heed the people and withdraw his veto.

The introduction of secret ballot was probably one of the necessary conditions for the later Gracchan programme by insulating the popular assemblies from elite control. For this reason, the historian Harriet Flower, in the 2010 book Roman republics, demarcates a political watershed and new phase of the Roman republic at 139 BC. Shortly before Gabinius' law, in 140 BC, agrarian reforms were proposed by the consul Gaius Laelius Sapiens; but he withdrew his proposals after an invasion (he was assigned as consul to lead the response) and the opposition of the senate, earning him the cognomen Sapiens.

The ancient historians, especially Plutarch, viewed the Gracchan reforms and brothers as a single unit. Modern scholars have started to view them separately and in their own political contexts.[52]

Tiberius [ edit ] Views on Gracchus' motives differ. Favourable ancient sources attribute his reforms to spirited advocacy for the poor. Less favourable ancient sources, such as Cicero, instead attribute his actions to an attempt to win back dignitas and standing after the embarrassing treaty he was forced to negotiate after defeat in Spain. It cannot be doubted that, even if he was a true believer in the need for reform, Tiberius hoped to further his fame and political standing among the elite.

Agrarian reforms [ edit ] Map of Gracchan land distributions. In red, distributions are attested to by archaeological finds of the boundary stones (cippi). In yellow, cippi are very likely.Denarius of Gaius Minucius Augurinus, 135 BC, depicting the columna Minucia, which itself showed a grain distribution by Lucius Minucius Augurinus. It shows that grain distribution was already a hot topic several years before Tiberius' tribunate. He or his brother Tiberius probably replaced Octavius as tribune in 133.The main goal of Tiberius' agrarian proposal was three-fold:

establish a commission to investigate, survey, and catalogue the land owned by the state,limit the amount of public land any one possessor could hold to about 500 jugera, possibly up to 1,000 jugera for those with two children, andprivatise all remaining land by distributing it to poor Roman citizens (Italians were excluded).[56]The purpose of the reform was to stimulate population growth and expand the number of people who would meet the property qualifications for service in the Roman army. The inclusion of the limit of 500 jugera was for the purpose of painting the law as a return to mos maiorum and the Sextian-Licinian rogations so to avoid any charges of novelty. Whether the Sextian-Licinian rogations in fact had such a clause is unclear; what mattered to Tiberius and his allies was that they believed it did.[59]

Land distributed was likely done so with a vectigal (rent) and a prohibition on alienation: this latter portion was to prevent recipients from simply reselling the land. If a citizen walked away from their allotment, the rent would also go unpaid, causing the land to revert to the state, who would then be able to settle someone else on the land. The veteres possessores (old possessors) also would receive security of tenure over their lands, up to the 500 or 1,000 jugera limit.

Tiberius was supported in his endeavour by likeminded aristocrats who also viewed the perceived problem of rural depopulation seriously '' among those in support of the proposal were the consul of 133 BC, Publius Mucius Scaevola, and Scaevola's brother, Publius Licinius Crassus Dives Mucianus, '' he may have been put up to pass the proposals by those allied statesmen. He was also successful in rallying large numbers of rural plebs to Rome to vote in favour of the plan. The proposals were likely not appealing to the urban plebs, who would not have had the agricultural skills necessary to capitalise on the programme.

He was opposed in the assembly by one of the other tribunes, Marcus Octavius. There were largely three grounds for opposition: first, the dispossession would harm the ruling classes of both Rome and the Italian allies; second, the law unfairly dispossessed people who had put money into the improvement of the land; third, that dispossession also would unsettle dowries pledged against the land and inheritances made under the assumption tenure was secure. When the vote arrived and Octavius interposed his tribunician veto, the matter was brought before the senate, but no settlement was reached. Unwilling to back down, Tiberius had the assembly depose Octavius from office and vote the legislation through.

Death [ edit ] Violent opposition to Tiberius' agrarian policy did not come to a head until he moved legislation to use the inheritance of Attalus III of Pergamon for the land commission. The ancient sources differ on the question of what Attalus' bequest was to be dedicated: Plutarch claims it was to be used to help land recipients purchase farm equipment; Livy, via epitome, claims that it was to be used to purchase more land for distribution after there turned out to be little land available.[67]

This second proposal infringed on senatorial prerogatives over foreign policy and public finances. Senators also feared that these financial handouts would give Tiberius substantial personal political power. Tiberius then announced his intention to stand for re-election; according to Livy, this was illegal, due to a law which forbade holding the same magistracy within ten years. The sources allege that Tiberius also announced plans for a significantly more broad set of reforms, but these may be retrojections of his brother Gaius' later-consummated proposals. On the day of the election, Tiberius seized the Capitoline hill, possibly to intimidate the voters; Tiberius' opponents accused him of having kingly aspirations and attempted to induce the consul in the senate to use force to stop his re-election. The consul refused to act extralegally, but one of the other senators, Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio, found this reply unacceptable and led an impromptu military levy of senators, which included one of Tiberius' colleagues in the plebeian tribunate; with Nasica, who was pontifex maximus, reenacting an archaic sacrificial ritual, they then stormed the Capitoline and bludgeoned Tiberius and a number of his supporters to death.

It was largely constitutional issues which impelled the violent reaction, not the agrarian laws. The reaction was motivated in part by Greek constitutional thought which created a narrative of popular mobilisation leading inexorably to popular tyranny.[73] Such beliefs were compounded by the recent example of tyranny in Sparta, led by Nabis, which had come to power with a reform programme of cancelling debts and redistributing lands.

Effects [ edit ] Tiberius' lex agraria and the commission survived his death. Opposition was to Tiberius' methods rather than his policies; it is likely that most senators agreed with the reform programme in principle. Archaeologists have recovered the commission's boundary stones (cippi), which largely name the three commissioners from 133''30 BC.[76] The boundary locations and descriptions imply the distribution over just a few years of some 3,268 square kilometres of land to Roman citizens, concentrated in southern Italy and benefitting some 15,000 households.

The cippi largely name Tiberius' younger brother Gaius, Appius Claudius Pulcher, and Publius Licinius Crassus. Tiberius appointed himself to the commission, but after his death, Crassus was elected in his place. After the natural deaths of Appius Claudius and Crassus by 130 BC, Marcus Fulvius Flaccus and Gaius Papirius Carbo were elected in their place.

Because one of the commission's goals was in reasserting Roman claims to land which by that time had long been occupied by the Italian allies, the allies started to complain of unfairness and inaccurate rushed surveying. In 129, those complaints were heard by the senate, who also took the opportunity to limit the agrarian commission's powers. Scipio Aemilianus proposed and received from the senate a decree which assigned the power to determine contested ownership to the consuls. By 129 BC, the commission had over some three years already distributed all the available uncontested land. Archaeological finds of Gracchan cippi largely stop after 129 BC.

Gaius [ edit ] Discontent among the Italian allies had grown between Tiberius' land commission and the later 120s BC. One of the land commissioners elected in the early 120s BC, Marcus Fulvius Flaccus had served as consul in 125 BC and '' according to Appian '' proposed a compromise giving the allies Roman citizenship in exchange for acquiescence to Roman reassertion of claims to the ager publicus. This proposal, however, fell through when Flaccus was dispatched to war in Transalpine Gaul; relations with the allies were also not helped by the revolt and destruction of the Latin colony of Fregellae when Flaccus' proposals were withdrawn.

Gaius positioned himself politically as the inheritor of Tiberius' popularity and political programme. After a quaestorship, he was elected fourth in the tribunician elections of 124 BC; after his election, he cast his brother's death as "a failure by the plebeians to maintain their tradition of defending their tribunes". Unlike his brother, Gaius' proposals largely did not relate to land.[87] Over two years, he proposed broad legislation touching all parts of Roman government, from tax collection to senatorial provincial assignments.

Reforms [ edit ] Denarius of Marcus Marcius minted in 134 BC. The modius on the obverse and the corn-ears on the reverse refer to his ancestor Manius Marcius, plebeian aedile c. '‰440 BC , who made a distribution of grain at a cheap price of 1 as per modius.During his first tribunate, he proposed a number of laws. First, he proposed legislation to bar anyone who the people had deposed from office from further office. This was, however, dropped at the instigation of his mother Cornelia. The proposal was likely meant to intimidate the other tribunes so they would not exercise their vetoes. He then passed legislation reaffirming provocatio rights and retroactively extending them to the sentences of exile which the consular commission in 132 BC had passed against Tiberius' supporters. Publius Popillius Laenas, the consul who had led the commission and was thereby opened to prosecution for violating those rights, immediately left the city for exile in Campania.

Gaius also moved legislation which would benefit the rich equestrians, especially those who served as Rome's public contractors (the publicani):

Gaius changed the bidding location of public tax farming contracts from the provinces to Rome, which increased oversight and favoured high-ranking equites in the capital rather than provincial elites.He also passed legislation to build roads, which he would oversee, with contracts let out to the equestrians.He also made equites the dominant body for juries for the permanent court on corruption. After, however, the acquittal of a corrupt consul that year, Gaius, with the support of an allied tribune, made the equites the sole class staffing the juries.Gaius also recognised the weakness of Tiberius' coalition, which relied only on the rural plebs, and therefore sought to expand it. To do so, he courted the urban plebs with legislation establishing Roman colonies both in Italy and abroad at Carthage.[95] He also carried legislation to stop deduction of soldier pay for equipment and to establish a minimum age for conscription at 17. In this package, Gaius also introduced the grain subsidy which allowed all citizens to purchase grain at a subsidised price of six and two-thirds sesterces per modius.[98]

Further legislation also regulated the magistrates and the senate. Even though the ancient sources generally cast these reforms as part of "an elaborate plot against the authority of the senate... he showed no sign of wanting to replace the senate in its normal functions". Nor were his reforms meant to undermine the senate indirectly or establish a democracy. Rather, Gaius was seeking to have the senators act more in the public interest rather than in their own private interests. To that end, with an ally in the tribunate, Manlius Acilius Glabrio, he also moved legislation reforming the provincial corruption laws. Also importantly, he passed the lex Sempronia de provinciis consularibus, which required the senate to assign consular provinces prior to the elections of the consuls and insulated this decision from tribunician veto.

Some ancient sources claim that Gaius wanted to change voting procedures in the timocratic comitia centuriata to make it more democratic.[103] However, this claim is dubious and largely rejected.[104]

Gaius made an extremely controversial proposal to improve the state of the Latins and the other Italian allies: the Latins would receive full Roman citizenship with the Italians upgraded to Latin rights. Doing so further extended to Italians, via Latin rights, the right to vote if present in Rome during elections. This proposal died: the specifics are not entirely clear, it may have been vetoed or otherwise simply withdrawn; recent scholarship now trends towards a veto from Livius Drusus. Gaius, after taking some leave to set up a colony near Carthage, attempted to stand for a third tribunate, but was unsuccessful. It is said that he had sufficient popular support to have been elected, but was not returned because the ten tribunician offices had already been filled.

Death [ edit ] Early in the year 121 BC, attempts were made to repeal portions of Gaius' legislation. The main point of repeal, however, was not agrarian legislation or his subsidised grain bill, but the comparatively minor question of the proposed colony at Carthage. After an attendant was killed in the streets by Gaius' supporters, Gaius and his ally Flaccus were summoned to defend themselves before the senate; they refused and barricaded themselves with armed followers on the Aventine hill. Their refusal was tantamount to rebellion.[109] A senatus consultum ultimum was then moved, instructing the consul Lucius Opimius to ensure the state came to no harm and urging him to suppress Gaius and Flaccus on the Aventine. With a force of militia and Cretan archers, Opimius stormed the Aventine, killing Flaccus and his sons; Gaius was either killed or forced to commit suicide. Opimius then presided over drumhead courts investigating and executing many of Gaius and Flaccus' supporters.

In the end, most of Gaius' reforms were preserved; archaeology has discovered evidence of Gracchan land colonial activities in Africa c. '‰119 BC and the land commission remained in operation until 111 BC. By that point, almost all land available to distribute had already been distributed. In the whole, "the aristocracy's reaction resembled that of a general dealing with a mutiny, who accedes to most of the demands but executes the ringleaders to preserve discipline".

Aftermath [ edit ] Gracchan leges agrariae [ edit ] Tiberius' reforms were focused on the rural peasantry. They were not, however, "so much oppressed as eager (quite justifiably) to share in the increased economic prosperity brought by Roman imperialism". In general, more recent scholarship has stressed that the ancient sources have exaggerated the extent to which the Roman yeoman farmers were in fact in decline. Tiberius' reform law was not revolutionary, but his tactics in pursuit of it were, especially when they mobilised the assemblies which gave some genuine expression of the popular will. Those tactics threatened "to break the oligarchic stranglehold on Rome's political system, thus leading to his demise". This was exacerbated by Tiberius' use of social justice rhetoric, which further set him aside from his aristocratic brethren.

While substantial acreage was distributed as a whole, more than 3,268 square kilometres in the first few years of operation, there is some debate to the extent to which the Gracchan land allotments were actually economically viable for the families placed atop them. However, there are some indications that the lands distributed were used for pasture rather than intensive agriculture, even if they were suitable for farming.[119]

Gaius' role in land reform is more obscure; the sources are largely unclear on it except in mentioning offhandedly that he brought legislation on the matter.[120] By the time of his tribunate, the census results of 125''24 BC had been published and belief in a depopulation crisis had disappeared. His agrarian reforms likely did little more than grant the agrarian commission '' of which he was still a member '' the necessary jurisdiction stripped in 129 BC. He was, however, sufficiently visionary to see that further land exactions from Rome's allies would seriously damage their interests (and be politically infeasible). This led him to pursue extra-Italian colonisation, as he was "one of the first to realise that the amount of land in Italy was insufficient to provide for all inhabitants of the peninsula" and therefore sought land elsewhere. This change in scope proved long-lasting and by the time of Caesar, it would be standard policy to establish citizen colonies outside the Italian peninsula, which "would in time prove the only adequate method of finding enough land" for Italy's growing populations.

The Gracchan leges agrariae continued in operation through their deaths until 111 BC, which again overhauled Roman policy with public lands. Much of this law survives to the present.[125] Building upon those laws, it abolished the rents that Tiberius' law passed, making the lands fully private and alienable. By 111 BC, most of the lands that could be distributed already had been; what was left over was "mostly pasture or land which had been assigned to specific people" through long-term leases for set aside for the purpose of providing money for road maintenance. The continuing increase of the Italian population, however, would trigger later proposals for land redistribution; especially notable is Caesar's lex agraria during his consulship in 59 BC, which gave away the ager Campanus to some 20,000 settlers, albeit on less generous terms. After this, it became increasingly clear that there was simply insufficient land in Italy to accommodate demand.

Reassessments of the causes of the Social War have also trended toward viewing the lex agraria as a major contributing factor. Land holdings in Roman-dominated Italy gave the Roman state a latent title to large swaths of land which had never been formally surveyed. While the Gracchan land commission quickly parcelled and redistributed lands in southern Italy that had been confiscated from the allies that had defected to Hannibal during the Second Punic War, the older lands had been occupied for centuries.[128] Attempts, through to the start of the Social War, to press Roman claims on those lands '' which "the allies assumed that they would be able to keep... as long as they did not rebel" '' may have greatly undermined allied support for Roman hegemony.

Gaius' urban and administrative reforms [ edit ] Gaius' reforms were broad and covered large portions of the republic's administration. Their main purpose was to advance the quality of Roman government, reducing extortion and corruption among the senatorial governors while acting within the bounds of what his contemporaries would have considered due process.

One of the elements best attested to is Gaius' lex repetundarum, which reformed the quaestio perpetua on provincial corruption with an equestrian jury to check senatorial governors. The law is preserved on a bronze tablet once owned by Cardinal Pietro Bembo. While, in the long run, the equestrian jury would prove a political issue for the next half century, these reforms were not meant to set the senate and equites into conflict. Nor were they some kind of programme at true popular oversight, as moving the jury from the senators to the equites merely "merely reallocated influence from one section of the elite to another". Ernst Badian, writing in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, gave the assessment:

A proud aristocrat, [Gaius] wanted to leave the senate in charge of directing policy and the magistrates in charge of its execution, subject to constitutional checks and removed from financial temptation, with the people sharing in the profits of empire without excessive exploitation of the subjects. The ultimate result of his legislation was to set up the publicani as a new exploiting class, not restrained by a tradition of service or by accountability at law. But this did not become clear for a generation, and he cannot be blamed for not foreseeing it.

His lex frumentaria, which created a subsidised grain supply at around what he considered to be a "normal" price, set up an influential model for welfare in Rome. It was a reaction to corn disruptions in recent times that likely developed from army service, but his idea to have the Roman state smooth much of the variability of agriculture put the population less at the mercy of speculators and less dependent on magisterial largesse. The lowered incentives for magistrates giving food away for popularity at home had the added effect of reducing their proclivity to extort corn from provincials. These provisions continued in force after the death of Gaius, suggesting an emerging consensus at Rome that there was a "right of the people to enjoy the rewards of the empire [and that] frumentationes [were useful] to divert the interest and support of the urban plebs from the prospect of agrarian reform". After a period of abrogation by Sulla, the dole in the future would expand, however, both in cost and generosity, as later generations of politicians acted with or without senatorial support to do so.[137]

Gaius' lex de provinciis consularibus was a similar policy to reduce senatorial corruption and was "far from being revolutionary": his purpose with the law "was to prevent sitting consuls from using their position to influence provincial assignments improperly (and perhaps to Rome's detriment)" by requiring provinces to be assigned before the consuls took office. To further insulate such decisions from political meddling, he even made senatorial decisions on consular provinces immune from tribunician veto.

Political violence [ edit ] The impact of Tiberius' murder started a cycle of increased political violence: "the oligarchy had introduced violence into the political system with the murder of Tiberius Gracchus and over the years the use of violence became increasingly acceptable as various political disputes in Rome led to more and more bloody discord".[140] The use of force to suppress reform also suggested that the republic itself was temperamentally unsuited for producing the types of economic reforms wanted or needed, as in the Gracchi's framing, by the people.

In terms of periodisation, the death of Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC is widely viewed as the start of the "late republic" and the beginning of the republic's eventual collapse. For example, in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic, J¼rgen von Ungern-Sternberg writes:

It was Tiberius' assassination that made the year 133 BC a turning point in Roman history and the beginning of the crisis of the Roman Republic.

Even in ancient times, Cicero remarked as much in saying "the death of Tiberius Gracchus, and even before that the whole rationale behind his tribunate, divided a united people into two distinct groups". However, scholars such as Mary Beard also warn that Cicero is exaggerating for rhetorical effect and that "the idea there had been a calm consensus at Rome between rich and poor until [133 BC] is at best a nostalgic fiction".

The death of Gaius as well inaugurated a new tool for the senate in upholding the current order by force: the so-called senatus consultum ultimum. Opimius was prosecuted in 120 BC for violating Gaius' law against extralegal punishment. The ex-consul, however, was able to successfully defend himself by appealing to the senate's decree and by arguing that Gaius and Flaccus deserved to be treated as seditious enemies rather than citizens. Opimius' acquittal set the precedent that the senatus consultum ultimum '' which was merely advice from the senate: "the senate could pass any decree it liked, it was the magistrate who was responsible for any illegal actions" '' was an acceptable ground to vitiate citizen rights extralegally.

Reception and historiography [ edit ] A 1794 engraving of the French agitator and revolutionary, Fran§ois-Nol "Gracchus" Babeuf. Babeuf also wrote a newspaper called Le tribun du peuple (Tribune of the People). Babeuf was executed in 1797 for attempting to overthrow the French Directory.[145]Views of the Gracchi have changed over time. In the ancient world, the two brothers were largely viewed as an organised force acting in concert. During the early modern period, the Gracchan land programme was widely misconstrued as a socialistic restructuring of Roman society where public and private land ownership would be capped. Modern historians, however, largely view the two brothers' political activities as separate[147] and dismiss their identification as social revolutionaries.[148]

Ancient reception [ edit ] There was a positive and a negative tradition related to the Gracchi brothers. Many of the ancient sources are late '' there is a lack of contemporary sources '' and are coloured by the positive tradition: many scholars believe that Plutarch's biographies of the two men, along with Appian's Civil wars, are largely based on Gaius Gracchus and his supporters' narratives; in this, most of what is known of Tiberius is filtered through his brother's self-presentation. Plutarch's narrative, guided by his literary agenda, "drastically simplifies the [complex] history of this period". On the whole, Appian's narrative is more reliable, but is still marred with significant anachronisms, clear inaccuracies, and schematic features '' that the agrarian reform eventually fails and that Tiberius and Gaius pursued the same objectives '' which emerge from Appian's historiographical agenda.[150]

Some modern scholars speculate that these Gracchan narratives were transmitted through the centuries to the imperial authors by plays which dramatised the tragedy of their deaths. Two major themes stand out. First, the specifics of Gaius' death are "a dog's breakfast" of varying details and involve a Lucius Vitellius, which was a common name during the republic for traitors (according to legend, the Vitellii were the first to betray the republic to the Tarquins shortly after the expulsion of the kings). Second, the stress on friendship and betrayal in these last hours is seen as replacing a more anodyne political drama for heightened pathos. Other scholars, however, disagree, arguing that the hypothesis of lost tragedies is too speculative and instead credit Plutarch or his sources with the dramatisation of the narrative. Regardless, in later generations, the death of the Gracchi became a common rhetorical topos in Roman oratorical schools.

The negative tradition, however, is transmitted through other sources, such as Cicero and Valerius Maximus. In these narratives, the Gracchi are painted as seditious tribunes who inaugurated the use of force and intimidation which then required the Roman state to use violence to re-establish order. The confluence of these traditions was common in late republican politics. For example, Cicero modulated his opinions on the Gracchi brothers to meet his audience. Before the senate, he spoke of them negatively and focused on their alleged attempts to take over the republic; before the people, he instead praised their good faith, moral virtues, and quality as orators (especially in comparison to the popularis tribunes of his day).[155][156]

Modern reception [ edit ] By the 17th and 18th centuries, many books on ancient history repeated a false notion that Rome had limited all men to only 500 jugera of land. The incorrect understanding emerged in 1734 with the publication of Montesquieu's Considerations on the causes of the greatness of the Romans and their decline, which furthered this mistaken notion of large scale land reform rather than redistribution of state-owned lots. This led to the characterisation of the Gracchi as "socialists".[159][160] Through the later 18th century, the waters became further muddied, until the matter was largely re-cleared by Barthold Georg Niebuhr in his History of Rome.

During the French Revolution, the revolutionary Fran§ois-Nol Babeuf named himself "Gracchus" after the Gracchi brothers, in an attempt to connect his desire for large scale land redistribution with the Gracchan programme for agrarian reform. Babeuf's plans, however, differed substantially from the Gracchan programme in ways that exemplify how the reception of the Gracchi had deviated from their actual historical policies. First, Babeuf envisioned the nationalisation and communal ownership of lands, which was incompatible with the Gracchan programme of privatising already state-owned lands. Second, Babeuf's choice of name was made under the prevailing assumption at the time that the Gracchi acted to place a limit on private land holdings. Finally, Babeuf's name demonstrated his belief that a comparison was apt, consistent with contemporary beliefs that the Gracchi were revolutionaries. However, "the truth of the matter was otherwise[:] the Gracchi sought to strengthen and uphold the Roman republic; Babeuf wished to overthrow and radicalise the French republic".

During the 19th century, the use of the Gracchi in then-current politics continued. The process of enclosure in England, for example, led to the formation of a large body of poor urban workers; many of their leaders were likened to the Gracchi and proposed reforms were compared with reference to the Roman land crisis as described in the ancient sources.[162]

Some 19th and early 20th century scholarship argued that the Gracchi were to some extent influenced by Greek political philosophy, especially in the extent to which Greek democratic principles could be applied at Rome.[163] These influences are largely attributed to Tiberius' interactions with Stoic egalitarian philosophy through Blossius of Cumae. This is no longer believed, however, as there is little evidence for Tiberius being a Stoic or for Stoicism justfying democratic policies.

See also [ edit ] Land reform in the Roman republicReferences [ edit ] Citations [ edit ] ^ Sturgis, Russell (1904). The appreciation of sculpture: a handbook. New York: Baker. p. 146. ^ Erdkamp, Paul. "Army and society". In Rosenstein & Morstein-Marx (2006), pp. 289''90. ^ Lintott 1994a, p. 37, adding, there are "serious doubts about whether the figure of 1,500 asses attributed to the Servian constitution in Cicero's De republica can in fact be taken as the property qualification current in 129" BC. ^ de Ligt 2006, p. 603. "If the census figures of 125/124 and 115/114 are correct, then we must conclude that the theory of a drastic decline in the number of free country-dwellers is completely untenable". ^ Cf Cornell, T J (1996). "Hannibal's legacy: the effects of the Hannibalic war on Italy". Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. 41: 97''117. doi:10.1111/j.2041-5370.1996.tb01916.x. ISSN 0076-0730. Pace Cornell, Santangelo 2007, p. 475: "[Cornell 1996] is surely off the mark". ^ Astin, A.E. (1958). "The Lex Annalis before Sulla". Latomus. 17 (1): 49''64. ISSN 0023-8856. JSTOR 41518780. ^ Scullard, HH (2011) [1958]. From the Gracchi to Nero: a history of Rome from 133 BC to AD 68 (4th ed.). London: Routledge. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-203-84478-6. OCLC 672031526. ^ For ancestry of both brothers, see Zmeskal 2009, pp. 246''48. ^ Degrasssi, A (1954). Fasti Capitolini. J. B. Paravia. p. 103 '' via Attalus.org. ^ Baker, Gabriel David (2021). Spare no one: mass violence in Roman warfare. Lanham, Maryland. p. 179. ISBN 978-1-5381-1220-5. OCLC 1182021748. {{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) ^ Flower 2010, p. 72. "More is gained by looking at the Gracchi brothers separately and in their own particular political contexts, rather than treating them as a unit in the way that has become increasingly common and that dates back to the paired biographies written by Plutarch". ^ Mackay 2009, p. 39. "These clauses apparently make it clear that land was distributed only to Roman citizens and not to the Italian allies", also dismissing Appian's claims to the contrary. ^ Roselaar 2010, p. 100 documents scholarly disagreement as to when a 500 jugera maximum was in fact implemented. Suggested dates range from 300''133 BC, with the last date implying that no such prior law existed. ^ Roselaar 2010, p. 239, siding, in this instance, with Plutarch's account. ^ Boren, Henry C (1961). "Tiberius Gracchus: the opposition view". American Journal of Philology. 82 (4): 358''69. doi:10.2307/292017. ISSN 0002-9475. JSTOR 292017. It appears extremely likely that Nasica and the rest were actually convinced [Tiberius] was aiming at demagogic tyranny. These nobles feared that the deterioration predicted by Polybius was upon them ... the murderers genuinely thought they had saved the state by killing a would-be tyrant ... whose actions were bound to result in the ruin of the republic. ^ Roselaar, Saskia T (2009). "References to Gracchan activity in the liber coloniarum". Historia: Zeitschrift f¼r Alte Geschichte. 58 (2): 198''214. doi:10.25162/historia-2009-0009. ISSN 0018-2311. JSTOR 25598462. S2CID 160264713. See also CIL I, 642; CIL X, 289. ^ Roselaar 2010, pp. 241''42. "[T]he sources are rather vague about the agrarian activities of Gaius ... His recorded agrarian activity is quite limited; Appian and Plutarch describe in some detail [colonial programmes] but for viritane distributions Gaius could simply revive his brother's law". ^ The bill to establish a colony at Carthage was moved by his ally in the tribunate, Gaius Rubrius. Broughton 1951, p. 517. ^ Garnsey & Rathbone 1985, p. 20, noting also that the claim that the grain was provided for nothing at App. BCiv., 1.21, is incorrect and contradicted by Livy and a surviving commentary on Cicero's Pro Sestio. ^ Eg Broughton 1952, pp. 517''18, citing Ps.-Sall. Ad Caes. sen. 8.1. ^ Badian, E. (1962). "From the Gracchi to Sulla". Historia: Zeitschrift f¼r Alte Geschichte. 11 (2): 244''45. ISSN 0018-2311. JSTOR 4434742. ^ Badian, Ernst (1984). "The Death of Saturninus". Chiron. 14: 118. doi:10.34780/1497-zt32. ISSN 2510-5396. [C. Gracchus'] own case, two years later, was quite different. He was himself privatus, and he had responded to a summons to the Senate by joining his armed followers on the Aventine. This was rebellion, and it would be widely accepted that emergency action was the only answer. ^ Uggeri, Giovanni. "Le divisioni agrarie di et graccana: un bilancio". In Alessandr¬, Salvarore; Grelle, Francesco (eds.). Dai Gracchi alla fine della Repubblica. pp. 31''60. ^ Roselaar 2010, pp. 241''42, citing Livy Per., 60.8; Vell. Pat., 2.6.2; Flor. 2.3.15.2. ^ Eg a critical edition of the 111 BC lex agraria in Crawford, Michael (1996). "Lex agraria". Roman Statutes. Vol. 1. Institute of Classical Studies. pp. 113''80. ISBN 978-0-900587-67-2. ^ Mouritsen, Henrik (1998). Italian unification. BICS Supplement 70. London: Institute of Classical Studies. pp. 148 et seq. ISBN 0-9005-8781-4. ^ Eg Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Marcus Porcius Cato's bills in 78 and 62 BC expanding the grain distributions with senatorial support and little opposition. Mouritsen 2017, p. 113. ^ Mackay, Christopher S (2007). Ancient Rome: a military and political history (1st ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 129. ISBN 978-0-521-71149-4. OCLC 165407940. ^ Sydenham, M J (1979). "Gracchus Babeuf: the first revolutionary communist, by RB Rose". Canadian Journal of History. 14 (2): 303''305. doi:10.3138/cjh.14.2.303. ISSN 0008-4107. ^ Flower 2010, p. 72. "More is gained by looking at the Gracchi brothers separately". ^ Roselaar, Saskia T (2015-01-15). "The Gracchi brothers". Oxford Bibliographies. doi:10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0221. "The Gracchi, especially Tiberius, are still occasionally used as examples of social revolutionaries; works by Marxist ancient historians indeed sometimes take this line. Modern Marxist websites... present Tiberius as a popular champion in the same vein as later Marxist or communist activists, although scholarship does not support this interpretation.""In the French revolution they were championed as heroes of the people... Fran§ois-Nol Babeuf (1760 '' 1797) called himself Gracchus Babeuf and represented himself as a champion of the people. His ideas included the abolition of private property... hardly proposals that either Gracchus would have advocated.""The Gracchi were also (ab)used as examples of popular champions in other parts of Europe, e.g. in Ireland." ^ Santangelo 2007, p. 486, citing Gargola 1997. ^ Murray, Robert J (1966). "Cicero and the Gracchi". Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association. 97: 291''298. doi:10.2307/2936013. ISSN 0065-9711. JSTOR 2936013. ^ Yakobson, Alexander (2010). "Traditional political culture and the people's role in the Roman republic". Historia: Zeitschrift f¼r Alte Geschichte. 59 (3): 282''302. doi:10.25162/historia-2010-0017. ISSN 0018-2311. JSTOR 25758311. S2CID 160215553. ^ Katz, Solomon (1942). "The Gracchi: an essay in interpretation". The Classical Journal. 38 (2): 65''82. ISSN 0009-8353. JSTOR 3291626. ^ Less academically, Cassar, Claudine (2022-06-12). "Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus - the earliest 'socialists' in recorded history". Anthropology Review . Retrieved 2023-07-05 . Tiberius Gracchus is often described as the one of the first socialists in history. ^ Butler, Sarah (October 2013). "Heroes or villains: the Gracchi, reform, and the nineteenth-century press". In Hardwick, Lorna; Harrison, Stephen (eds.). Classics in the modern world: a democratic turn?. Oxford University Press. pp. 300''18. ISBN 978-0-1996-7392-6. ^ Eg Stobart, John Clarke (1912). The Grandeur that was Rome. Sidgwick & Jackson Limited. p. 86. Sources [ edit ] Books [ edit ] Beard, Mary (2015). SPQR: a history of ancient Rome (1st ed.). New York: WW Norton and Company. ISBN 978-0-87140-423-7. OCLC 902661394. Broughton, Thomas Robert Shannon (1951). The magistrates of the Roman republic. Vol. 1. New York: American Philological Association. Broughton, Thomas Robert Shannon (1952). The magistrates of the Roman republic. Vol. 2. New York: American Philological Association. Crawford, Michael H (1974). Roman Republican coinage. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-58401-5. OCLC 879631509. Crook, John; et al., eds. (1994). The last age of the Roman Republic, 146''43 BC. Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 9 (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-85073-8. OCLC 121060. Lintott, Andrew (1994a). "The Roman empire and its problems in the late second century". In CAH2 9 (1994), pp. 16''39. Lintott, Andrew (1994b). "Political history, 146''95 BC". In CAH2 9 (1994), pp. 40''103. Nicolet, C. "Economy and society, 133''43 BC". In CAH2 9 (1994), pp. 599''643. Drogula, Fred (2015). Commanders & command in the Roman republic and early empire. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-4696-2314-6. OCLC 905949529. Flower, Harriet, ed. (2014). The Cambridge companion to the Roman republic (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-66942-0. Brennan, T Corey. "Power and process under the republican "constitution"". In Flower (2014), pp. 19''53. Potter, David. "The Roman army and navy". In Flower (2014), pp. 54''77. von Ungern-Sternberg, Jurgen. "The crisis of the republic". In Flower (2014), pp. 78''100. Flower, Harriet I (2010). Roman republics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-14043-8. OCLC 301798480. Goldsworthy, Adrian (2016) [2003]. In the name of Rome: the men who won the Roman Empire. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-22183-1. OCLC 936322646. Mackay, Christopher S (2009). The breakdown of the Roman republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-51819-2. Mouritsen, Henrik (2017). Politics in the Roman republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-03188-3. OCLC 961266598. Perelli, Luciano (1993). I Gracchi. Profili (in Italian). Rome: Salerno Editrice. ISBN 8-8840-2119-7. LCCN 93204718. Gruen, Erich S (1994). "Review of I Gracchi". American Historical Review. 99 (3): 877''78. doi:10.1086/ahr/99.3.877-a. JSTOR 2167794. Lintott, Andrew (1994). "Review of I Gracchi". The Classical Review. 44 (2): 346''347. doi:10.1017/S0009840X00289269. ISSN 1464-3561. JSTOR 712806. S2CID 163360852. Pina Polo, Francisco (2017). "The "tyranny" of the Gracchi and the concordia of the optimates: an ideological construct". In Cristofoli, Roberto; et al. (eds.). Costruire la memoria: uso e abuso della storia fra tarda repubblica e primo Principato. Monografie / Centro ricerche e documentazione sull'antichit classica. Vol. 41. L'Erma di Bretschneider. ISBN 978-8-8913-1235-8. Roselaar, Saskia T (2010). Public land in the Roman Republic : a social and economic history of ager publicus in Italy, 396-89 BC. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-957723-1. OCLC 520714519. Positively reviewed in Launaro, Alessandro (2011). "Review of Public land in the Roman republic". Journal of Roman Studies. 101: 240''241. doi:10.1017/S0075435811000141. ISSN 0075-4358. JSTOR 41724882. S2CID 162685749. Rosenstein, NS; Morstein-Marx, R, eds. (2006). A companion to the Roman Republic. Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-7203-5. OCLC 86070041. de Ligt, Luuk. "The economy: agrarian change during the second century". In Rosenstein & Morstein-Marx (2006), pp. 590''605. Patterson, John R. "Rome and Italy". In Rosenstein & Morstein-Marx (2006), pp. 606''624. Zmeskal, Klaus (2009). Adfinitas (in German). Vol. 1. Passau: Verlag Karl Stutz. ISBN 978-3-88849-304-1. Articles [ edit ] Badian, Ernst (2012). "Sempronius Gracchus, Gaius". In Hornblower, Simon; et al. (eds.). Oxford classical dictionary (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.5812. ISBN 978-0-19-938113-5. Beness, J Lea; Hillard, T W (2001). "The theatricality of the deaths of C Gracchus and friends". Classical Quarterly. 51 (1): 135''140. doi:10.1093/cq/51.1.135. ISSN 0009-8388. Gargola, Daniel J (1997). "Appian and the aftermath of the Gracchan reform". American Journal of Philology. 118 (4): 555''581. ISSN 0002-9475. JSTOR 1562052. Garnsey, Peter; Rathbone, Dominic (1985). "The background to the grain law of Gaius Gracchus". Journal of Roman Studies. 75: 20''25. doi:10.2307/300649. ISSN 0075-4358. JSTOR 300649. S2CID 159639695. Mitchell, T N (1980). "Review of The Gracchi". Hermathena (129): 83''85. ISSN 0018-0750. JSTOR 23040458. Ridley, Ronald T (2000). "Leges agrariae: myths ancient and modern". Classical Philology. 95 (4): 459''467. doi:10.1086/449512. ISSN 0009-837X. JSTOR 270517. S2CID 161477241. Russell, Peter (2008). "Babeuf and the Gracchi: A Comparison of Means and Ends". Melbourne Historical Journal. 36: 41''57. Pages not consistently numbered.Santangelo, Federico (2007). "A survey of recent scholarship on the age of the Gracchi (1985-2005)". Topoi. 15 (2): 465''510. doi:10.3406/topoi.2007.2250. Sherwin-White, A N (1982). "The lex repetundarum and the political ideas of Gaius Gracchus". Journal of Roman Studies. 72: 18''31. doi:10.2307/299113. ISSN 0075-4358. JSTOR 299113. S2CID 155666108. Further reading [ edit ]

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 19:54

F or as long as complex human societies have existed there have been people predicting their imminent collapse. In recent years, the apocalypse business has become far more scientific; animal entrails and planetary portents have given way to big data. Peter Turchin is a pre-eminent digital-age seer or, as he suggests, a collapsologist. He trained in biology, using statistical models to examine networks of relationships between predators and prey. In the 1990s, however, after witnessing first-hand the sudden unravelling of the Soviet Union, from which his father had been a dissident exile, he turned his analytical brain to a different set of questions. Turchin set out to discover statistical patterns in the great flood of historical data that might predict future instabilities in societies. Like all Cassandras worth their infamy, he came to his vocation at a fortunate time.

Turchin calls his method ''cliodynamics''. In a series of books '' War and Peace and War (2006) and The Ages of Discord (2016) '' he has used his datasets to try to establish the basis on which all human civilisations in the era of cities and states have the mechanisms of their own destruction built-in. He not only endeavours to show that complex mathematics might unlock those derailing forces, but also how it might help to avert them.

In response, many historians, wedded to the idea that their discipline is an art rather than a science, have tended to disparage the notion that their life's work might be better understood through a series of complex equations: there are, they argue, simply too many variables to explain crises, revolutions, wars, even everyday political shifts in society. This book is Turchin's latest, somewhat persuasive, attempt to challenge that consensus.

The forces of capital seek to destroy the voices of ideology and things fall apartPart of its authority lies in the fact that his datasets are growing enormously. In 2011 Turchin, a professor at the University of Connecticut and leader of the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, established a project called Seshat (named after the Egyptian goddess of archives). Seshat involves scores of expert collaborators '' anthropologists, archaeologists, historians '' in building the world's largest collection of data on the prosperity and demise of societies from upper Egypt to lower Manhattan. While acknowledging that all findings are inevitably a work in progress, Turchin extrapolates certain cyclical trends in this great collected narrative of human hope and human failure.

The most common pattern he presents is ''an alternation of integrative and disintegrative phases lasting for roughly a century''. His predictions have a special urgency because western societies, and particularly America, are, he suggests, very near the end of that latter disintegrative phase, which makes the likelihood of civil war or potential systemic collapse far more likely. His model attempts to weight certain factors to predict this social meltdown. Key among them are rapidly growing inequality of wealth and wages, an overproduction of potential elites '' children of wealthy dynasties, graduates with advanced degrees, frustrated social commentators '' and an uncontrolled growth in public debt. In the US, he suggests '' and by association the UK '' these ''factors started to take an ominous turn in the 1970s'... The data pointed to the years around 2020 when the confluence of these trends was expected to trigger a spike in political instability. And here we are.''

Locals destroy the Berlin Wall in November 1989. Photograph: John Gaps III/APThough the methodology to arrive at such conclusions may be complex '' and derive from examination of the late medieval crisis in France and the Taipeng rebellion in China and the American civil war and all points in between '' the destabilising forces that Turchin describes often seem to be in plain sight. You might intuit most of them from reading this morning's newspaper. The driving forces of negative trends in all societies are broadly twin-engined, he argues. One is the presence of a perverse ''wealth pump'' which, after years of more equitable wealth distribution, takes from the poor and gives to the rich. In 1983 there were 66,000 households worth at least $10m in the US. By 2019, that number had increased in terms adjusted for inflation to 693,000. But while those numbers of the super-rich increased so the income and wealth of the typical American declined.

This trend has coincided with the second major destabilising factor, what Turchin defines as the ''overproduction of elites'', in which an ever greater number of people compete over a finite and increasingly corrupt structure of privilege and power. He offers four factions between which this competition for status is perennially played out: militaristic, financial, bureaucratic and ideological. As societies decline the balanced equation of these factions falls wildly out of balance. The forces of capital seek to destroy the voices of ideology '' one ''elite'' arms itself against another in a series of real wars or culture wars '' and things fall apart. The strength of applying these metrics in an ''objective'' way across a multitude of historical situations, Turchin argues, is that general principles emerge. ''The goal of cliodynamics,'' he argues, ''is to integrate all important forces of history, whether they are demographic, economic, social, cultural or ideological.'' If that ambition sounds a little reminiscent of Mr Casaubon and the doomed ''Key to All Mythologies'' then you might '' or might not '' take comfort in the fact that Turchin has outsourced his hubris, and his doubts, to the invisible hand of data analysis.

Not surprisingly, Turchin's methods have some keen advocates among the new plutocracy of Silicon Valley '' billionaires with an interest not only in complex mathematics, but in how to maintain all the zeroes attached to their outrageous fortune (''They get it,'' Turchin has said. ''But then they have two questions. How can they make money out of the situation? And when should they buy their plot in New Zealand?'').

If he trades in apocalypse, however, his hope is to identify the means by which some societies faced with these existential threats have managed to mitigate or dodge them. He examines the ways Britain escaped revolution with the 1832 Reform Act, and how the extreme indicators after the Great Depression led to ''a prosocial faction'' within America's ruling elite, giving away a large proportion of its wealth in taxes to prevent catastrophe. (When the federal tax rate was introduced in 1913, the top rate was 7%. For two decades after the second world war, it remained above 90%.) ''Complex human societies need elites '' rulers, administrators, thought leaders '' to function well,'' Turchin writes. ''We don't want to get rid of them; the trick is to constrain them to act for the benefit of all.'' Sadly, however, that particular algorithm is still under construction.

End Times: Elites, Counter Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration by Peter Turchin is published by Allen Lane (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 18:57

A Political Entities License authorizes the public performance of over 20.6 million musical works in BMI's repertoire and protects against the uncertainty of music use in campaigns. Here's how to get started:

ONLINE FORMFill out our Online Form and a BMI Representative will get back to you with more information.

Have Questions About Using Music in Political Campaigns? Please See the FAQs Below:If you have additional questions regarding music use in political campaigns, please contact a BMI customer relations representative at (800) 925-8451 or fill out our online contact form.

The BMI Political Entities license authorizes the public performance of over 20.6 million musical works in BMI's repertoire at events and functions hosted by political campaigns and organizations. This blanket license ensures that political entities are in compliance with copyright law wherever events may occur throughout the duration of the campaign. The license includes a provision that permits BMI to exclude a musical work(s) from the license should we receive an objection from a songwriter or publisher regarding its use by the licensee. If that occurs, BMI will notify the licensee that the particular musical work has been removed from license and is no longer authorized by BMI to perform the musical work.

No, a venue license does not cover events and functions hosted by political campaigns and organizations held at venues. Political campaigns must obtain a BMI Political Entities License to authorize to use of the musical works, whether at a traditional location such as a hotel or convention center, or at a nontraditional location such as airport hangars or community fields, where political events take place.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 18:30

Anderson A.; Bows, A. 2011. Beyond 'dangerous' climate change: emission scenarios for a new world. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 369: 20-44.

Bond, G.; Kromer, B.; Beer, J.; Muscheler, R.; Evans, M.; Showers, W.; Hoffmann, S.; Lotti-Bond, R.; Hajdas, I.; Bonani, G. 2001. Persistent solar influence on North Atlantic climate during the Holocene. Science. 294: 2130-2136.

Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC). 2014. Recent Greenhouse Gas Concentrations. (Accessed 10-31-2014)

Deser, C.; Alexander, M.A.; Xie, S.P.; Phillips, A.S. 2010. Sea Surface Temperature Variability: Patterns and Mechanisms. Annual Review of Marine Science. 2: 115-143.

Global Carbon Project. 2014. Carbon budget and trends 2014. (Accessed 10-20-2014)

Hansen, J.E. 2003. Can we defuse the global warming time bomb? (Accessed 10-31-2014)

Held, I.M.; Soden, B.J. 2000. Water vapor feedback and global warming. Annual Review of Energy and the Environment. 25:441-475.

Huber, M.; Knutti, R. 2011. Anthropogenic and natural warming inferred from changes in Earth's energy balance. Nature Geoscience. Advance Online Publication.

IPCC, 2007: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S.; Qin, D.; Manning, M.; Chen, Z.; Marquis, M.; Averyt, K.B.; Tignor, M.; Miller, H.L. (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

IPCC, 2011: Summary for Policymakers. In: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation [Field, C. B.; Barros, V.; Stocker, T.F.; Qin, D.; Dokken, D.; Ebi, K.L.; Mastrandrea, M. D.; Mach, K. J.; Plattner, G.K.; Allen, S.; Tignor, M.; Midgley, P. M. (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA.

IPCC, 2013: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

Lean, J. 2010. Cycles and trends in solar irradiance and climate. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change. 1: 111-122.

Li, J.; Xie, S.-P.; Cook, E.R.; Morales, M.; Christie, D.; Johnson, N.; Chen, F.; D'Arrigo, R.; Fowler, A.; Gou, X.; Fang, K. 2013.El Ni±o modulations over the past seven centuries. Nature Climate Change. 3:822-826.

Mann, M.E.; Zhang, Z.; Rutherford, S.; Bradley, R.S.; Hughes, M.K.; Shindell, D.; Ammann, C.; Faluvegi, G.; Ni, F. 2009.Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly. Science. 27 (326): 1256-1260.

Mantua, N. J.; Hare, S. R.; Zhang, Y.; Wallace, J. M.; Francis, R.C. 1997. A Pacific interdecadal climate oscillation with impacts on salmon production. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 78:1069-1079.

NASA Global Climate Change. 2014. Vital Signs of the Planet. (Accessed 10-31-2014).

NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. 2014. NASA Finds 2013 Sustained Long-Term Climate Warming Trend. Research News. (Accessed 10-31-2014).

NASA Earth Observatory. 2000. Features: Milutin Milankovitch. (Accessed 10-31-2014).

NASA Earth Observatory. 2009. Features: El Nino, La Nina, and Rainfall. (Accessed 10-31-2014).

NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. 2014. Mauna Loa Observatory. (Accessed 10-31-2014)

NOAA National Climatic Data Center. 2014. (Accessed 10-31-2014).

Ramanathan, V.; Feng, Y. 2009. Air pollution, greenhouse gases and climate change: Global and regional perspectives. Atmospheric Environment. 43: 37-50.

Tyndal J. 1861. On the absorption and radiation of heat by gases and vapours, and on the physical connexion of radiation, absorption, and conduction. Philosophical Magazine. 22:169-94, 273-85

United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). 2009. Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. Karl, T.R.; Melillo, J.M.; Peterson, T.C. (eds). Cambridge University Press.

U.S. Global Change Research Program. 2014. The Third National Climate Assessment. Melillo, J.M.; Richmond, T.C.; Yohe, G.W. (eds.). 841 p.

Wanner, H.; Beer, J.; Butikofer, J.; Crowley, T.J.; Cubasch, U.; Fluckiger, J.; Goosse, H.; Grosjean, M.; Joos, F.; Kaplan, J.O.; Kuttel,M.; Muller, S.A.; Prentice, C.; Solomina, O.; Stocker, T.F.; Tarasov, P.; Wagner,M.; Widmann, M. 2008. Mid- to Late Holocene climate change: an overview. Quaternary Science Reviews. 27: 1791-1828.

Wolff, E.W. 2011. Greenhouse gases in the Earth system: a palaeoclimate perspective. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 369: 2133-2147.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 18:28

How should Christians respond to climate change alarmists who claim the earth is on the brink of disaster?

''I don't want your hope. I don'twant you to be hopeful. I wantyou to panic . . . and act as ifour house was on fire.''1So said Greta Thunberg, the then 16-year-oldSwedish prophetess of doom in animpassioned plea for humanity to stepup and do whatever it takes to save what is, in herview, a rapidly dying planet.

At the UN Climate Action summit in 2019,Thunberg lamented, ''Entire ecosystems are collapsing. . . . If you really understood the situationand still kept on failing to act, then you would beevil.''2 Such claims might motivate listeners to joinher cause. Even some Christians might see environmentalactivism as falling in line with the biblicalcreation mandate to steward the earth. Butbefore we ring the alarm bells, we should discernthe false religious message of climate activistsand act according to God's Word.

The Religious Language of Environmental ActivistsThunberg's exhortation to save the planet is areligious message. It presents the planet as defiledand in need of salvation from humanity's sinsagainst it through their exploitative deforestation,oil drilling, and coal mining. Climate alarmistsview the earth as a living organism and seemankind as an infection upon it. And if humanshave sinned against the earth, then they surelymust repent of their sin and remedy their harm.In 2019, students at Union Theological Seminaryin New York City confessed their sins toplants. The seminary tweeted,

Today in chapel, we confessed to plants. Together,we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrowin prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain usbut whose gift we too often fail to honor.3And in October 2021, the United Nations ClimateChange Conference (COP26) in Glasgow,Scotland, made booths available for people toconfess their climate sins.4 On the final day of theCOP26 climate conference, Population Matters, aUK-based charity, advocated for smaller familiesfor the sake of the environment. They displayedthe message ''Smaller Families, Cooler Planet'' ona giant inflatable baby. How should we reduce thesize of families? A study published by PubMed.orgasserts, ''No nation desirous of reducing its growthrate to 1% or less can expect to do so without thewidespread use of abortion.''5 These activists viewabortion as a means of reducing the world's surpluspopulation to regulate carbon emissions.

The Rise of Neo-PaganismIt is bound in the hearts of men to worship something.If we don't worship God, we will worshipidols'--false gods. The twentieth-century religiouscommentator David Miller stated, ''At the deathof God, we will see the rebirth of the gods andgoddesses of ancient Greece and Rome.''6 Millerdescribed the so-called death of God in societynot as the victory of atheism but as the return ofspiritual paganism. We are already seeing this inour culture today.

In October 2021, a church in the UK opened aGaia exhibition to show our responsibility for takingcare of the environment'--Gaia being the namefor the Greek goddess of the earth.7

In April 2022, Yale Divinity School held itsfirst non-Christian service in honor of EarthDay. The 80 attendees participated in a chalicelighting ceremony in the Unitarian Universalisttradition, then prayed to the Hindu fertility god,Prithivi, the personification of the earth. Masterof Divinity student Tasha Brownfield led the eventand claims that she is ''trying to launch and curate'pantheistic mysticism' as a religious practice.''8

The Bible outlines only two worldviews: worship of the Creator or worship of the creature. (Romans 1:25)The Bible outlines only two worldviews: worshipof the Creator or worship of the creature(Romans 1:25). God is not what he created. Rather,what he has created reflects who he is. When youobserve an oak tree, a rainbow trout, or a toadstool,you do not observe God '--you observe what God has created (Psalm 19:1). The Creator and the creation are two distinct things. The Bible teaches,''In the beginning, God created the heavens andthe earth'' (Genesis 1:1). Since the universe had abeginning, it cannot be God , as God cannot bothhave a beginning and have no beginning. Therefore,the universe is not God .

If the Creator/creature distinction is blurred, then a sort of pantheism results. Pantheism worships that which is unworthy of worship: creation (Romans 1:22, 25). This is because pantheism is the result of a natural theology (a view of creation ) that rejects divine revelation (the Word of the Creator). Rather than worship the Creator God , they worship creation , mother nature, earth.

This transfer of worship from Creator to creation has resulted in a new spirituality: neo-paganism. But whereas ancient paganism named their abundance of false gods, neo-paganism focuses on a vague spirituality and unnamed powers. The neo-pagan worldview finds its roots in eastern mysticism such as Confucianism and Buddhism'--religions that do not acknowledge an infinite personal God who transcends the physical world and governs history. Because both secularism and pantheism deny a transcendent Creator, atheists find that they can accept and even practice mystical spirituality. Atheists are open toward a generic ''spirituality'' if it doesn't involve a God who rules over them.

It's not uncommon to hear younger generations say, ''I am not religious, but I am spiritual,'' meaning that they are not part of a church or organized religion but are open to spiritual practices such as transcendental meditation, positive thinking, and witchcraft. A 2021 survey by Springtide Research Institute discovered that 71% of Americans ages 13''25 identified as ''religious'' while 78% claimed the label ''spiritual.''

In an interview in the UK newspaper the Times(April 2019), Gail Bradbrook, a molecular biophysicistand the founder of the global environmentalmovement Extinction Rebellion, said,

I don't believe in God, like there's some person thereorganising everything. I think there's somethinginherently beautiful and sacred about the universeand I think you can feel that just as well as an atheist.A bit of me thinks, ''Is there a way to have someform of dialogue with the universe?''9Discerning the TruthUnlike biblical morality, neo-pagan spiritualityoffers no right or wrong answers to life's questions.Because nature, not God , is their standardfor living, many people are confused about theidentity of the planet. The more spiritual theybecome without God and his Word as a foundation,the more spiritually confused they become.

In the biblical worldview, there is no need topanic about the future of the planet. God createdthe earth about 6,000 years ago to be inhabited,and he has promised to keep the earth for life untilthe consummation of all things (Genesis 8:22). Ourresponsibility is to care for creation , not worship it.

Nowhere in his Word does God tell his followersto limit how many children they have because ahigher population will destroy the earth. In his firstcharge to mankind, God said, ''Be fruitful and multiplyand fill the earth and subdue it'' (Genesis 1:28).Psalm 127:3 affirms, ''Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.''

When we neglect God 's mandate for us to stewardthe earth, we sin against God , not the planet.We learn our responsibility to care for the earthfrom God and his Word, not a pagan deity or evenfrom the earth itself.

God said, ''Let us make man in our image, after ourlikeness. And let them have dominion over the fish ofthe sea and over the birds of the heavens and over thelivestock and over all the earth and over every creepingthing that creeps on the earth.'' (Genesis 1:26)The responsibility that God has given tohumans to care for the planet is not exploitationof the earth. It is for the good of human life. God created plants to be food for humans and animals.

And God said, ''Behold, I have given you every plantyielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, andevery tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have themfor food.'' (Genesis 1:29)And after the flood, God said,

''Every moving thing that lives shall befood for you. And as I gave you the greenplants, I give you everything.'' (Genesis 9:3)Environmental activists have ''exchangedthe truth about God for a lie and worshiped andserved the creature rather than the Creator''(Romans 1:25). When we make the intentionalchoice to exchange God for a lie, we will be judgedfor our choice.

For the wrath of God is revealed fromheaven against all ungodliness andunrighteousness of men, who by theirunrighteousness suppress the truth. Forwhat can be known about God is plain tothem, because God has shown it to them. Forhis invisible attributes, namely, his eternalpower and divine nature, have been clearlyperceived, ever since the creation of theworld, in the things that have been made. sothey are without excuse. (Romans 1:18''20)Biblical Response to Climate AlarmismClimate alarmism is the result of an evolutionaryworldview of history and creation . In the evolutionaryworldview, the earth's history spansbillions of years and was formed by random processes.Therefore, it is up to people to understand itand fix it. If there is no creator guiding history, thenhumans are responsible for the fate of the earth.

Until Jesus returns, God haspromised that ''seedtime andharvest, cold and heat, summerand winter, day and night, shallnot cease.'' (Genesis 8:22)But Genesis and the genealogies in the Bibleshow us that the earth was created by God onlyabout 6,000 years ago. Until Jesus returns, Godhas promised that ''seedtime and harvest, coldand heat, summer and winter, day and night, shallnot cease'' (Genesis 8:22). It's true that the earth'sclimate has gone through cycles of change sincethe catastrophic upheaval of the worldwide floodof God 's judgment. But we must not fear that theplanet will die and everything on it perish.

Ultimately, fear of climate catastrophe growsfrom a lack of the fear of God. Climate alarmistsare those who ''hated knowledge and did notchoose the fear of the Lord'' (Proverbs 1:29).

Our job as believers and obedient followers of God is to speak the truth with love and authority to a lostand confused world'--the truth of earth's origin, itscoming end, and eventual renewal along with thenecessity of trusting Christ for salvation and confessing sin to him, the only one who can forgive.

That doesn't mean that we can desert our God -givenresponsibility to steward the earth. But wemust keep our stewardship in perspective. Weshould prayerfully discern and mindfully practicebiblical stewardship not in praise of the earth butin obedience out of love for God and our neighbors.

Biblical stewardship may look different dependingon where people live. For some, it could meanresisting the temptations of materialism and beingcontent with what we have. It could mean maintainingan awareness of where our materials come from,careful that we aren't contributing to the exploitationof human beings made in God 's image. Itcould mean looking for ways to meet human needswithout contributing to pollution that gratuitouslyharms ecosystems and causes serious illnesses andcancers. It could mean showing compassion to farmor factory animals and pets within our care (Proverbs12:10). It could mean turning off electronicdevices and spending more time appreciating God 's creation and worshipping him for it. But it most certainlymeans keeping a right perspectiveof the earth and exercising godly discernmentwhen it comes to extreme callsfor panic over the changing climate.

Though climate alarmists like GretaThunberg inspire a false religion ofdespair and alarm, believers in Christcan offer the world the true hope of thegospel and an all-powerful Creator andSustainer who has not left us to our owndevices but offers salvation through theLord Jesus Christ.

Simon Turpin is the executive director and speaker for Answers in Genesis''UK. He served in church ministry for five years and earned an MA degree in theology before joining AiG''UK in 2015.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 14:29

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 14:18

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 14:11

1 day ago

2.58K

Hungary Prime MinisterViktor Orbn says ''Call Back Trump'' - He's Who Can Save the Western WorldTruth Seeker in my Spare TimeYou Can Follow Me at:Telegram is my home base of Operations https://t.me/candlesinthenightTWITTER https://mobile.twitter.com/MJTruthUltraTruth Social https://truthsocial.com/@MJTruthGab https://gab.com/mjtruthTip/Donating (everything I do is free, so any tips are appreciated)https://www.givesendgo.com/theunshakeablep

Loading comments...

0:25MJTruth12 hours ago

Hurricane Idalia - St. Elmo's Fire2.13K

4

1:05:44ZeducationOfficial2 hours ago

Zeducation LIVE Stream August 31, 2023 #3644.1K

5

4:46JoBlo Originals15 hours ago

The Equalizer 3 Movie Review667

4

2:19jeffahern7 hours ago

Chicago's Crime Car-Tastrophe!1.73K

10

9:47Fascinating Horror4 hours ago

The Green Ramp Disaster | Fascinating Horror724

1:14:48Kimberly Guilfoyle2 days ago

MAGA MUGSHOT MOMENTUM, Plus Biden's Afghan Withdrawal Disaster and America Last Catastrophe - Live with Sarah Palin, Rep Michael Waltz, and Victor Davis Hanson | Ep. 52219K

253

5:03:15Akademiks12 hours ago

I TOLD THEM ...hella more topics just come91.8K

102

2:40:09FreshandFit12 hours ago

After Hours w/ Girls215K

310

4:27:18SNEAKO13 hours ago

EDATES - HARAM GIRLS - JIDION - RICEGUM - RUMBLE TAKEOVER254K

258

1:54:37Habibi Bros.16 hours ago

Not Our Proudest Flap Pt. 153.5K

9

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:49

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:43

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:42

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:42

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:39

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:34

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:31

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:30

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:28

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:03

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:02

The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently developing two international legal instruments intended to increase its authority in managing health emergencies, including pandemics;

(1) Amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR), and

(2) A pandemic treaty, termed '‡A+' by the WHO.

The draft IHR amendments would lay out new powers for the WHO during health emergencies, and broaden the context within which they can be used. The draft CA+ ('treaty') is intended to support the bureaucracy, financing and governance to underpin the expanded IHR.

These proposed instruments, as currently drafted, would fundamentally change the relationship between the WHO, its Member States and naturally their populations, promoting a fascist and neo-colonialist approach to healthcare and governance. The documents need to be viewed together, and in the far wider context of the global/globalist pandemic preparedness agenda.

ContextThe threat of pandemics.The current rapidly increasing funding for pandemics and health emergencies is based on several fallacies, frequently repeated in white papers and other documents as well as the mainstream media as if they were facts, in particular:

Pandemics are increasing in frequency.Pandemics are causing an increasing health burden.Increased contact between humans and wildlife will promote more pandemics (as most are caused by zoonotic viruses).The last pandemic to cause major mortality was the 1918-19 'Spanish flu,' estimated to have killed between 20 and 50 million people. As noted by the National Institutes of Health, most of these people died of secondary bacterial pneumonia, as the outbreak occurred in the pre-antibiotic era. Prior to this time, major pandemics were due to bubonic plague, cholera and typhus, all addressable with modern antibiotics and hygiene, and smallpox, which is now eliminated.

The WHO lists just 3 pandemics in the past century, prior to Covid-19; the influenza outbreaks of 1957-58 and 1968-69, and the 2009 Swine flu outbreak. The formers killed 1.1 million and 1 million people respectively, while the latter killed 150,000 or less. For context, 290,000 to 650,000 people die of influenza every year, and 1.6 million people die of tuberculosis (at a much younger average age).

In Western countries, Covid-19 was associated with deaths at an average age of about 80 years, and global estimates suggest an overall infection mortality rate of about 0.15 percent, which is similar to that for influenza.which is similar to that for influenza (0.3-0.4% with Covid in older Western populations).

Thus, pandemics in the past century have killed far fewer people and at an older age than most other major infectious diseases.

The Covid-19 event stands out from previous pandemics due to the aggressive and disproportionate responses employed, instituted contrary to existing WHO guidelines. The harms of this response have been discussed extensively elsewhere,, with little doubt that the resultant disruptions to health systems and increased poverty will cause far higher mortality, at a far younger age, than would have been expected from Covid-19 itself. Despite the historical rarity of pandemics, the WHO and partners are pushing forward with a rapid process that will ensure repetition of such responses, rather than first analyzing the costs and benefits of the recent example. This is clearly reckless and a bad way to develop policy.

The role of the WHO in public health.The WHO, whilst having a role in coordinating cross-border health emergencies included in its Constitution, was founded on human rights principles and originally emphasized community and individual rights. These culminated in the Declaration of Alma Ata, emphasizing the importance of community participation and 'horizontal' approaches to care.

Apart from its basis in human rights, this approach has a strong public health basis. Improved life expectancy and major reductions in infectious disease in wealthier populations predominantly occurred through improved living conditions, nutrition and sanitation, with a secondary impact of improving basic health care and availability of and access to antibiotics. Most vaccines came later, though playing an important role in certain diseases such as smallpox. Basic nutrition and living conditions are still the predominant determinant of life expectancy, with GDP recognized as directly impacting infant mortality, in particular in lower income countries.

The emphasis of the WHO has changed over the past few decades in particular, associated with two major shifts in funding. Firstly, a large proportion of funding now comes from private and corporate sources, rather than being almost solely country-based at its inception. Secondly, most funding is now 'specified,' meaning it is given to the WHO for specific projects in designated geographies, rather than being used at the WHO's discretion to address the greatest disease burdens. This is reflected in an apparent move from priorities based on disease burden to priorities based on commodities, particularly vaccines, that generate profit for its private and corporate sponsors.

In parallel, other 'public-private partnerships' have arisen, including Gavi, the vaccine alliance, and CEPI (dedicated solely to pandemics). These organizations include private interests on their governing boards, and address a narrow health focus that reflects the priorities of private sponsors. They influence the WHO through direct funding and through funding within WHO Member States.

Other UN agencies have evolved in similar ways, with UNICEF now heavily focused on implementing mass Covid vaccination among populations already immune, whilst children, its former focus, have had rapidly deteriorating health metrics. The World Bank has developed a Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF) to support related pandemic preparedness with the WHO as technical partner, in order to fund development of a surveillance, identification and response network as envisioned in the two WHO pandemic instruments (below) and backed by the recent G20 meeting in Indonesia.

The WHO pandemic instrumentsThe WHO is pushing two instruments to enhance its role and authority in health emergencies including pandemics; (1) Amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) and (2) a new treaty-like instrument currently designated CA+.

The IHR (2005) currently has force under international law but is written as non-binding recommendations. The World Health Assembly (WHA), the governing body of the WHO, will only need a simple majority of States (97 of 194) to pass the amendments. Countries will then have 6 months in which to opt out, otherwise being considered to have accepted the amendments as existing signatories to the IHR. This opt-out period was reduced from 18 months by the WHA in 2022.

The IHR amendments and CA+ (treaty) instrument are due to be presented to the WHA in May 2024. Adoption will require a two-thirds majority of Member States, and the IHR amendments will require a simple majority.

Both draft instruments are currently passing through a usual WHO process of open and closed committee meetings and internal and external reviews, after submission of proposals by various States. The IHR amendments process is under the Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005)n (WGIHR) while the CA+ instrument is under the International Governmental Negotiating Body (INB).

What the two WHO pandemic instruments will do.As currently drafted, the CA+ and IHR amendments complement each other. The IHR amendments concentrate on the specific powers and processes sought by the WHO and its sponsors. The CA+ concentrates more on the governance and funding to support these. Specificities in both instruments will change between now and when the WHA vote in May. However, in broad terms, they are currently written to achieve the following:

IHR draft Amendments: Expand the definitions of pandemics & health emergencies, including the introduction of 'potential' for harm rather than actual harm. It also expands the definition of health products that fall under this to include any commodity or process that may impact on the response or ''improve quality of life.''Change the recommendations of the IHR from 'non-binding' to mandatory instructions that the States undertake to follow and implement.Solidify the Director General's ability to independently declare emergencies.Set up an extensive surveillance process in all States, which WHO will verify regularly through a county review mechanism.Enable WHO to share country data without consent.Give WHO control over certain country resources, including requirements for financial contributions, and provision of intellectual property and know-how (within the broad definition of health products above).Ensure national support for promotion of censorship activities by WHO to prevent contrary approaches and concerns from being freely disseminated.Change existing IHR provisions affecting individuals from non-binding to binding, including border closures, travel restrictions, confinement (quarantine), medical examinations and medication of individuals. The latter would encompass requirements for injection with vaccines or other pharmaceuticals.CA+ (treaty):Set up an international supply network overseen by WHO.Fund the structures and processes by requiring '‰¥5% of national health budgets to be devoted to health emergencies.Set up a 'Governing Body,' under WHO auspices, to oversee the whole process.Expand scope by emphasizing a 'One Health' agenda, being defined as a recognition that a very broad range of aspects of life and the biosphere can impact health, and therefore fall under the 'potential' to spread harm across borders as an international health emergency.Both draft instruments remain under discussion, and further changes are likely. A recent external review committee report pushed back on some aspects of the IHR amendments in a report to the DG, but left much of the basis intact.

It is important to consider these texts together, and in the context of the wider pandemic preparedness agenda that includes agencies such as Gavi and CEPI, their private and corporate sponsors, and private industry lobby groups including the World Economic Forum (WEF). The WEF has been influential in promoting the agenda; CEPI was inaugurated at the 2017 WEF Davos meeting. The pandemic agenda must also be seen in the context of the unprecedented profits and wealth transfers, and the suspension of basic human rights that the Covid-19 public health response promoted.

The momentum behind the agendaAn international bureaucracy is currently being built with funding envisioned at up to $31 billion per year, including $10 billion in new funding. (For context, the entire current WHO annual budget is about $3.6 billion). This same bureaucracy will surveil for new and variant viruses, identify them, determine their 'threat' and then implement a response. This is essentially creating a self-perpetuating pandemic industry, with major internal conflicts of interest, funded by the world's taxpayers but, being under a UN agency, having no national legal oversight and little accountability. Its justification for continued funding will rely on declaring and responding to perceived threats, restricting the lives of others whilst accruing profit to its sponsors through pharmaceutical recommendations and mandates.

While both texts are intended to have force under international law, countries can theoretically opt out in order to preserve their sovereignty and protect their citizens' rights. However, low-income countries could potentially face financial pressures, restrictions, and sanctions from entities such as the World Bank that are also invested in this agenda. Of relevance, the 2022 United States National Defense Authorization Act (HR 7776-960) includes wording concerning adherence to the IHR, and action concerning countries that are uncooperative with its provisions.

What can be doneThese initiatives, if continued, will reverse the direction of international public health and the WHO itself, driving back towards a colonialist and fascist approach to health governance reflecting values the world sought to put aside in the aftermath of World War Two. As the Covid-19 response demonstrated, they will have a wide and profound impact across society, removing basic human rights, increasing poverty and wealth concentration. They deserve global attention and a robust society-wide response.

Both draft instruments could be stopped by the IHR amendments failing to achieve 50 percent of Member States' support, and the CA+ failing to achieve two-thirds majority, or, after adoption, failing to have a minimum 30 ratifications). While it is inevitable that some provisions will change prior to being put to a vote, and some amendments may fail to pass, the bureaucracy and mechanisms being built in parallel mean that the passage of any of the proposed provisions will further promote this anti-democratic approach to society. Blocking them seems vital, but the voting structure of the WHA (one country '' one vote) makes international diplomacy by vested interests influential. Votes commonly depend on the views of a small group of health bureaucrats.

Blocking in national legislatures seems a very important approach, including the introduction of legislation to embed health policy including emergency responses within national jurisdictions, and specifically preventing national agencies from following external dictates.

While international coordination is important in public health, particularly in cross-border risks and disease spread, this must be at the behest of State parties. Such measures must respect the fundamental human rights principles established through the post-World War Two tribunals and treaties intended to stop colonialist and totalitarian approaches to individuals and international relations. This may require a different set of international agencies that have sufficiently strong constitutions to withstand private conflict of interest, and that cannot violate basic individual and national sovereignty. This may require defunding current agencies and replacement with structures more fit for purpose. If the world is not to be locked into a situation from which it becomes difficult to extract itself, this question must be addressed very urgently.

IHR amendmentsThe IHR amendments contain the most important aspects of the WHO's pandemic preparedness initiative.

They are summarized in a previous publication, and should be read and understood alongside the CA+ zero draft.

INB CA+ zero draftExtracts from the INB Zero Draft of the CA+.

Article 4. Guiding principles and rights17. Central role of WHO '' As the directing and coordinating authority on global health, and the leader of multilateral cooperation in global health governance

Emphasizing the central 'directing' role of the WHO.

Article 6. Predictable global supply chain and logistics network2. The WHO Global Pandemic Supply Chain and Logistics Network (the ''Network'') is hereby established.

3. The Parties shall support the Network's development and operationalization and participate in the Network, within the framework of WHO, including through sustaining it in inter-pandemic times as well as appropriate scale-up in the event of a pandemic.

(b) assess anticipated demand for, and map sources of, manufacturers and suppliers, including raw materials and other necessary inputs, for sustainable production of pandemic-related products (especially active pharmaceutical ingredients)

(c) develop a mechanism to ensure the fair and equitable allocation'...

Requiring (shall) Parties to support the WHO's proposed global supply network. 3 (b) seems to imply a role for the WHO in requiring production outside of market forces. 3 (c), while seemingly innocuous and fair, would take allocation out of country purview and could be used to require compliance with WHO dictates on distribution.

Article 7. Access to technology: promoting sustainable and equitably distributed production and transfer of technology and know-howThe Parties, working through the Governing Body for the WHO CA+, shall strengthen existing and develop innovative multilateral mechanisms that promote and incentivize relevant transfer of technology and know-how for production of pandemic-related products on mutually agreed terms, to capable manufacturers,'...

4. In the event of a pandemic, the Parties:

(a) will take appropriate measures to support time-bound waivers of intellectual property rights that can accelerate or scale up manufacturing of pandemic-related products during a pandemic, to the extent necessary to increase the availability and adequacy of affordable pandemic-related products;'...

(c) shall encourage all holders of patents related to the production of pandemic-related products to waive, or manage as appropriate, payment of royalties by developing country manufacturers on the use, during the pandemic, of their technology for production of pandemic related products, and shall require, as appropriate, those that have received public financing for the development of pandemic-related products to do so; and '...

Reflecting IHR amendment provisions on requirement to give up intellectual property, but in this case time-limited (determined by?). Includes waiver of royalty payments. As with the proposed IHR amendments, these provisions seem to impact States' intellectual property laws.

Article 8. Regulatory strengthening2. Each Party shall build and strengthen its country regulatory capacities and performance for timely approval of pandemic-related products and, in the event of a pandemic, accelerate the process of approving and licensing pandemic-related products for emergency use in a timely manner, including the sharing of regulatory dossiers with other institutions.

This reflects the accelerated nature of vaccines during the declared emergency for Covid-19, and the reduced regulatory oversight and safety trials related to this. This greatly reduces costs to pharmaceutical manufacturers in particular, and undercuts decades of development of regulatory oversight.

Article 12. Strengthening and sustaining a skilled and competent health and care Workforce

3. The Parties shall invest in establishing, sustaining, coordinating and mobilizing an available,

skilled and trained global public health emergency workforce that is deployable to support Parties upon request, based on public health need, in order to contain outbreaks and prevent an escalation of small scale spread to global proportions.

4. The Parties will support the development of a network of training institutions, national and

regional facilities and centres of expertise in order to establish common guidance to enable more predictable, standardized, timely and systematic response missions and deployment of the

aforementioned public health emergency workforce.

Investment in building the pandemic bureaucracy that will underpin this agenda.

Article 13. Preparedness monitoring, simulation exercises and universal peer review4. Each Party shall provide annual (or biennial) reporting, building on existing relevant reporting where possible, on its pandemic prevention, preparedness, response and health systems recovery capacities.

The surveillance mechanism, which appears built on the model of the review mechanism of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Article 15. Global coordination, collaboration and cooperation2. Recognizing the central role of WHO as the directing and coordinating authority on international health work, and mindful of the need for coordination with regional organizations, entities in the United Nations system and other intergovernmental organizations, the WHO Director-General shall, in accordance with terms set out herein, declare pandemics.1

Article 17. Strengthening pandemic and public health literacyThe Parties commit to increase science, public health and pandemic literacy in the population, as well as access to information on pandemics and their effects, and tackle false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation, including through promotion of international cooperation. In that regard, each Party is encouraged to:(b) conduct regular social listening and analysis to identify the prevalence and profiles of misinformation, which contribute to design communications and messaging strategies for the public to counteract misinformation, disinformation and false news, thereby strengthening public trust; and,

2. The Parties will contribute to research and inform policies on factors that hinder adherence to

public health and social measures, confidence and uptake of vaccines, use of appropriate therapeutics and trust in science and government institutions.

Provisions on managing free speech.

Article 19. Sustainable and predictable financing1. The Parties recognize the important role that financial resources play in achieving the objective of the WHO CA+ and the primary financial responsibility of national governments in protecting and promoting the health of their populations. In that regard, each Party shall:

(a) cooperate with other Parties, within the means and resources at its disposal, to raise

financial resources for effective implementation of the WHO CA+ through bilateral and

multilateral funding mechanisms; (b) plan and provide adequate financial support in line with its national fiscal capacities for: (i) strengthening pandemic prevention, preparedness, response and recovery of health systems; (ii) implementing its national plans, programmes and priorities; and (iii) strengthening health systems

and progressive realization of universal health coverage;

(c) commit to prioritize and increase or maintain, including through greater collaboration

between the health, finance and private sectors, as appropriate, domestic funding by allocating in its annual budgets not lower than 5% of its current health expenditure to pandemic prevention, preparedness, response and health systems recovery, notably for improving and sustaining relevant capacities and working to achieve universal health coverage; and (d) commit to allocate, in accordance with its respective capacities, XX% of its gross domestic product for international cooperation and assistance on pandemic prevention, preparedness, response and health systems recovery, particularly for developing countries, including through international organizations and existing and new mechanisms.

Setting up the financial structure, requiring certain levels of budgetary application to pandemics irrespective of burden.

Article 20. Governing Body for the WHO CA+1. A governing body for the WHO CA+ is established to promote the effective implementation of the WHO CA+ (hereinafter, the ''Governing Body'').

2. The Governing Body shall be composed of: (a) the Conference of the Parties (COP), which shall be the supreme organ of the Governing Body, composed of the Parties and constituting the sole decision-making organ; and (b) the Officers of the Parties, which shall be the administrative organ of the Governing Body.

3. The COP, as the supreme policy setting organ of the WHO CA+, shall keep under regular review every three years the implementation and outcome of the WHO CA+ and any related legal instruments that the COP may adopt, and shall make the decisions necessary to promote the effective implementation of the WHO CA+.

Establishing the governing body for health emergency surveillance and response (which appears intended to be within WHO).

Article 21. Consultative Body for the WHO CA+A consultative body for the WHO CA+ (the ''Consultative Body'') is established to provide advice and technical inputs for the decision-making processes of the COP, without participating in any decision-making.Another oversight body, part of this growing workforce supported solely for this purpose.

David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. He is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA.

View all posts

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 12:59

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 12:58

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 12:57

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 20:35

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 20:30

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 19:47

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 14:39

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 14:36

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 14:23

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 14:22

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 29 Aug 2023 20:35

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 15:59

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 15:57

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 15:51

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:37

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:18

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 12:51

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 12:48