#Rep. Adam Mathews

[redsnerdden]

GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST! Ohio Lawmakers Fight For Superman to Become Ohio's Official Superhero #Superman #DCComics #ComicBooks #Comics #Politics

[fuckyeahstrangeadvance]

To be more academic...

From the Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia:

STRANGE ADVANCE

Darryl Kromm

(synth guitar, guitar) /

Drew Arnott

(keyboards, drums) /

Paul Iverson

(bass; 1980-1984) /

David Quinton

(drums; 1985 tour) /

Rick DeGroote

(keyboards; 1985 tour) /

Ian Cameron

(guitar; 1985 tour) /

Joe Alvero

(bass; 1985 tour)Darryl Kromm and Drew Arnott played together from 1974 to 1977 in a group called Slan. Later, while writing original music together, Kromm played in the band Remote Control. While touring with Bryan Adams, Kromm gave him a demo tape of the tunes he and Arnott were working on. Adams liked what he heard and passed it on to producer Bruce Fairbairn. Fairbairn also liked what he heard, did a quick remix then played it for Deane Cameron, who was the Canadian A&R rep for Capitol Records L.A. The band, originally known as Metropolis, were then signed to Capitol Records in Los Angeles. Fairbairn had just finished up work with Prism and Loverboy and decided to produce the band’s debut album, ‘Worlds Away’, which was released in February 1983. Within a week of the release of the first single, “She Controls Me”, and the title track, Canadian radio stations were all over Strange Advance. A dance mix of “Love Games” became a club hit in England and “Kiss In The Dark” became single #4. The album went gold (50,000 copies) and the band was nominated for a ‘Most Promising Group’ JUNO Award. The album featured guest appearances by Bryan Adams, Bob Rock and Paul Dean (Loverboy). In 1984 Strange Advance worked with famed soundtrack producer Michael Kamen on the follow-up album but the results weren’t satisfactory and the band returned to Canada to start fresh by recording in Toronto. Arnott would produce the second album, ‘2WO’, with the addition of one of Kamen’s tracks, “Nor Crystal Tears”. The album boasted a name-dropping roster of special guest talent including Spider Sinnaeve (bass) of Streetheart, John Jones (piano) of Bond , Gerald O’Brien and Steve Sexton of Exchange, Howard Ayee (bass) of Rough Trade/The Arrows, and world renowned session drummer Andy Newmark  of Roxy Music, plus guitarists Earl Slick (Stray Cats, David Bowie), Keith Scott (Bryan Adams) and Domenic Troiano (Mandala, James Gang). The first single “We Run” became an AOR radio hit weeks before the album was released followed by the reggae flavoured “The Second That I Saw You”. In 1985 Strange Advance became a 6-piece for their first Canadian tour which including two sold-out nights at Ontario Place in Toronto. The album eventually went gold in Canada and Strange Advance were again nominated for a Juno (Best Group). For album #3 Strange Advance switched to Gerry Young’s independent label, Current Records, for 1988’s ‘The Distance Between’ though they would maintain distribution through Capitol-EMI Canada. The album was produced by Arnott, Howard Ayee and Joe Primeau with musical assistance from Owen Tennyson (Rational Youth, Blue Peter), Greg Critchley (FM), Randy Bachman, Jim Hubay, Ian Cameron, Howard Ayee, Ken Greer (Red Rider), Mathew Gerrard (Regatta), Peter Fredette (Kim Mitchell Band), Simon Brierley (FM, Lee Aaron), Ed Shaw (Images In Vogue), and Allan Holdsworth (Soft Machine, UK) and Drew Arnott’s father Andy Arnott playing sax on “This Island Earth.” The lead off single/video was “Love Becomes Electric” peaking at No.20 on the RPM100 Singles Chart the week of April 30, 1988 which lasted a total of 22 weeks on the chart and eventually reaching #2 on the RPM Cancon Singles chart. The video managed to break the Top10 on MuchMusic. The second single/video “Till The Stars Fall” was released in July 1988 and peaked at #23 on the RPM Cancon Singles chart. Constant touring and the release of a third track, “Hold You”, in August 1988 helped the album itself reach #46 on the RPM100 Albums Chart.The bottom finally fell out of the synth-pop market and both Current and Capitol Records passed on Strange Advance. A’Worlds Away’ ‘best of’ was released in 1996 and featured new recordings of the title track; a re-issue of ‘The Distance Between’ came out on Bullseye Records in 2016; the band announced in September 2018 that they’d be touring in summer 2019

with notes from David Quinton and Derrick Gyles

.

Singles 1982 She Controls Me/Lost In Your Eyes (Capitol-EMI) 72896 1982 Kiss In The Dark/Prisoner (Capitol-EMI) 72907 1982 Worlds Away/Prisoner (Capitol-EMI) B-5232 1982 Love Games (Dance Remix)/Kiss In The Dark [12″] (Capitol-EMI) 75032 1985 We Run/Nor Crystal Tears (Capitol-EMI) 72960 1985 We Run (Extended Mix)//We Run (Single Version)/We Run (Dub Mix) [12″] (Capitol-EMI) V-75089 1985 The Second That I Saw You/One Chance In A Million (Capitol-EMI) 72968 1985 Running Away [Remix]/Home Of The Brave (Capitol-EMI) 72982 1988 Love Becomes Electric/This Island Earth (Current/Capitol-EMI) B-73041 1988 Till The Stars Fall/Wild Blue (Current/Capitol-EMI) B-73056 1988 Hold You/Rock and Whirl (Current/Capitol-EMI) B-73064

Albums 1982 Worlds Away (Capitol) ST-122321982 AOR Sampler [3 song 12″ EP] (Capitol) SPRO-2171985 2WO (Capitol-EMI) ST-123491987 Over 60 Minutes With…Strange Advance (Capitol-EMI) 746887-21988 The Distance Between (Current/Capitol-EMI) CLT-485501996 Worlds Away: The Very Best Of Strange Advance (EMI Canada)2016 Current Records Remastered: The Distance Between (Bullseye) BLR-CD-3102

[thisdaynews]

Possible pardons loom for former Trump aides

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/possible-pardons-loom-for-former-trump-aides/

Possible pardons loom for former Trump aides

In any other administration, and in any other time, it’d be shocking to consider that three men with such deep personal ties to the president might get their legal troubles expunged in an election year — not to mention from a president facing impeachment proceedings.

But this is not any other administration.

The clemency calculations come because Stone, Flynn and Manafort — all former Trump campaign aides — know the president has repeatedly proven willing to trample over his own advisers despite warnings of political consequences. Most recently, Trump cleared the records of three armed services members accused or convicted of war crimes over the objections of several of his top military brass.

“Like everything else with this president, you can’t look to history for precedent,” said a person who previously worked for President Trump. “If he felt Manafort and Flynn and others were deserving of pardons, he’d just do it.”

Trump got involved in the military cases after being lobbied not only by lawmakers but Fox News personalities who spotlighted their stories. It’s a tactic employed repeatedly by people seeking pardons or prison-sentence commutations. Earlier in the Trump administration, Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza and George W. Bush White House aide Scooter Libby saw their prospects for presidential mercy take off thanks to well-connected allies and conservative cable TV segments highlighting complaints about how they’d been mistreated inside the federal justice system.

In Trump’s White House, few of his top aides see pardons for the likes of Stone, Flynn or Manafort as a good idea, at least not until after Election Day 2020. There are still scars from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which concluded with a 448-page report that featured an obstruction of justice section detailing several conversations and public statements about pardons for former Trump aides involving the president and his personal lawyers.

While Trump himself has been coy in recent months about any post-Mueller pardon plans, he’s been anything but shy when registering his disdain for the Russia probe and how it landed him, members of his family and so many other current and former staffers in considerable legal jeopardy.

Back in August 2018, the president wrote on Twitter that he felt “very badly” for Manafort on the morning after a Virginia jury convicted the former Trump campaign chairman on a series of financial fraud charges. This June, Trump praised Flynn when the former national security adviser who had already pleaded guilty and cooperated with Mueller’s investigators made a U-turn and hired Sidney Powell, an outspoken Mueller critic, as his new lawyer. “Best Wishes and Good Luck to them both!” the president tweeted. And Trump complained, just minutes after Stone’s conviction last month on charges of lying to Congress and witness tampering, because several of his own longtime adversaries — he named Hillary Clinton, James Comey and Adam Schiff, among others — weren’t facing the same kinds of criminal prosecutions.

Despite the presidential airing of grievances, people who regularly speak with Trump say the looming impeachment proceedings have dominated conversations — not pardons. “I think the president is probably focused on other things at the moment,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and outspoken Trump defender.

But Trump’s pardon calculations could very well change as a rapid-fire series of events unfold.

Stone is scheduled for sentencing Feb. 6 before U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, where he faces up to 50 years in prison. As a first-time offender, Stone’s punishment is expected to be significantly lighter. Still, prison is prison, and attempts to get the president’s attention have been coming from all directions to keep Stone — a longtime political adviser dating back to the early 1980s — a free man.

InfoWars host Alex Jones said he was relaying a direct message from Stone to Trump on his show the day before the jury reached its guilty verdicts. “He said to me, ‘Alex, barring a miracle, I appeal to God and I appeal to your listeners for prayer, and I appeal to the president to pardon me because to do so would be an action that would show these corrupt courts that they’re not going to get away with persecuting people for their free speech or for the crime of getting the president elected,’” Jones said.

Just hours after Stone’s conviction, reporters filmed an unidentified man just outside the White House’s West Wing entrance blowing a giant horn and urging the president to give Stone “immunity.” That same night, Stone’s daughter Adria pleaded for the president’s intervention during a Fox News interview with Tucker Carlson. “Donald Trump, if you can hear me, please save our family,” she said.

Flynn’s fate, meantime, remains very much up in the air. The retired Army lieutenant general’s sentencing this month got postponed in anticipation of a Justice Department inspector general report about the intelligence community’s conduct during the Russia probe. While the report expected to be released Monday may not yield the thunderclaps Trump and his conservative allies have envisioned, Powell nonetheless says she expects it can produce additional evidence that would prompt the federal judge presiding in Flynn’s case to toss out her client’s guilty plea because of “egregious government misconduct.”

In light of Flynn’s new legal posture, the federal prosecutors who obtained his initial guilty plea have said they may revisit their initial recommendation to Judge Emmet Sullivan that he sentence Flynn to one year of probation instead of prison time. But their sentencing memo is now on hold until the IG report comes out — raising the prospect that Flynn may indeed need Trump’s help to stave off a more severe punishment.

“All we want is justice to be done as we know he committed no crimes and was set up,” Michael Flynn’s brother, Joseph, said in an email to POLITICO when asked about a potential Trump pardon. He added that Powell “has it well under control.. and we are extremely thankful she is in our lives.”

Manafort, meantime, still has about six years to go on his prison sentence, which also covers a series of lobbying and witness-tampering crimes. His allies have been less public in their attempts to win Trump’s help — a year-old petition on Change.org asking Trump to commute Manafort’s remaining time in jail has less than 1,000 signatures. But the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, confirmed to the Washington Post in October that he’d recently been in touch with the former Trump campaign chief as he presses ahead with a controversial campaign to pin the blame on Ukraine for meddling on Hillary Clinton’s behalf in the 2016 presidential election.

Republicans say Trump may also have running room on the pardon front should he successfully fend off impeachment early next year in the Republican-led Senate.

“For the president’s sake, he should be looking at the political implications,” said Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King. “I’d say for all the specious reasons that have been manufactured by the Democrats, they’d probably call that reasons number infinity-plus-one and infinity-plus-two to impeach the president. So, I’d say let’s get this through first and then take a look at those circumstances.”

For the most part, presidents before Trump tended to stay clear of controversial first-term pardons. President Barack Obama granted five pardons and one commutation in fiscal year 2012, according to clemency data compiled by the Justice Department. Bush granted 12 pardons and two commutations during fiscal year 2004 as he geared up for his reelection race. President Bill Clinton didn’t give any pardons or commutations in fiscal 1996, though the year before that he granted 53 pardons and commuted three sentences.

No doubt, the most famous example of a president suffering at the ballot box over a clemency decision involves Gerald Ford, who arguably lost his 1976 bid for a full term because of his decision to give former President Richard Nixon a pardon after his resignation due to the Watergate scandal.

Lame-duck presidents have also gotten into hot water for exercising their pardon powers. Clinton faced significant scrutiny for issuing a pardon on his final day in office to Marc Rich, a fugitive international financier whose ex-wife had made donations to Democratic Party accounts and the Clinton Foundation. After losing his reelection bid to Clinton in 1992, President George H.W. Bush pardoned six former Reagan administration officials ensnared in the Iran-Contra scandal, including Caspar Weinberger, the defense secretary who was scheduled to go on trial in a case where Bush may have been implicated. The Bush pardons were backed by the attorney general at the time: William Barr.

While it might not be seen as politically savvy in the middle of an election year for Trump to pardon people like Stone, Flynn or Manafort, he has seen an advantage when getting involved in other high-profile cases that have been featured on Fox News and brought to his attention by allies.

Pete Hegseth, a Fox contributor, helped draw Trump’s interest to the latest military case, which culminated last month with full pardons for former Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance and Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, who were convicted of war crimes, and allowed for chief petty officer Edward Gallagher, who was stripped of military honors during his prosecution on murder charges, to have his promotion reinstated.

Bernie Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner and himself a convicted felon, advocated for Gallagher. Tim Parlatore, Gallagher’s attorney, said Fox News and Hegseth should also be credited with presenting the case on Trump’s preferred cable channel. “Whether you believe Fox News or not, the president took the time to hear the other side of the story rather than just believing the Navy,” Parlatore said.

Over the weekend, Trump welcomed two of the pardoned men to the stage at a closed-door fundraiser in Florida.

Several other possible pardons that Trump hasn’t touched still remain on the president’s radar. Parlatore recently submitted Kerik’s name for a pardon that would wipe clean a criminal record from a 2009 guilty plea for tax fraud and false statement charges and a since-completed four-year prison sentence.

Then there’s the so-called “Blackwater Four,” a group of four security contractors who were convicted and jailed for a 2007 shooting in Baghdad in which 17 Iraqis died, as well as the case of a Marine sniper group photographed urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters in 2011.

Trump himself has maintained interest in two convicted cast members from his reality TV show “Celebrity Apprentice” — Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor convicted in 2011 for trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama, and businesswoman Martha Stewart, who served five months in jail in the mid-2000s for obstructing justice and lying to investigators about a stock sale.

Illinois’ House GOP delegation has urged the president to leave the Blagojevich case alone. But Trump is hearing both sides. The former governor’s wife has appeared multiple times on Fox asking for the commutation of the remainder of her husband’s 14-year jail sentence. At an October fundraiser in Chicago, Trump reportedly polled supporters about letting the governor go free.

“I feel very badly. I think he was very harshly sentenced, but we’re looking at it very strongly,” Trump told reporters in August. “People feel very strongly about Rod Blagojevich and his sentence.”

A spokesman for Blagojevich, Mark Vargas, said “the family is grateful to President Trump, and they remain hopeful that their 11-year nightmare might soon be over. As the president has said publicly, 14 years was a very harsh sentence — and thanks to the president, we are now seeing broad bipartisan support for the former governor’s release.”

Beyond the Mueller probe, Trump’s pardon powers have drawn scrutiny from Democrats. The House Judiciary Committee sent a subpoena this fall to the Homeland Security Department seeking documents about the president allegedly offering pardons to government officials who break the law while implementing his immigration agenda. Before abandoning his 2020 presidential bid, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke proposed a constitutional amendment banning presidents from pardoning anyone tied to an investigation involving the president, or for family members.

Democrats in the middle of the current impeachment probe said Trump would only make matters worse for himself if he pardoned any of the former aides ensnared in the Mueller probe.

Read More

[junker-town]

2017 is exactly why college football needs an expanded Playoff ... and exactly why it doesn’t

When there are few true standout teams, does that mean more or fewer deserve a shot at the national title?

We’ve spent a good portion of the last few months reminiscing about the magical 2007 college football season and attempting to will a 2017 encore into existence.

We almost got our way. The sport is dealing with more parity than at any point since ‘07, but despite seeing both the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the Playoff rankings lose during Rivalry Week (and despite one of those upsets involving Pitt, just like 10 years ago), we came a few upsets short of outright chaos.

Depending on how you look at it, though, 2017 has also produced either the most or the fewest worthy title contenders since that glorious autumn.

2017 is a perfect example of why we don’t need to expand the College Football Playoff.

I’m on the record endorsing a potential expansion an eight-team playoff, as long as it includes a representative from the Group of Five conferences. Access to a national title should be requisite to membership in anything, and the bottom half of FBS is just about the only bloc that doesn’t have it. If nothing else, UCF’s current plight — winning eight of 11 games by 25 points but failing to rise beyond 15th (to date) in the CFP rankings — has re-proved that.

That endorsement doesn’t come without hesitation, however. For one thing, knowing what we know about FBS’ power structure, an expansion to eight teams probably wouldn’t include the G5. The sport has never been kind to the have-nots. For another ... honestly, four teams is pretty good. Most of the time, there aren’t many more than four truly deserving title contenders.

Back in 2013, after the announcement of the CFP’s formation, I went back through the BCS era and took a look at who would have made a hypothetical Playoff, breaking the field into “relatively obvious Playoff teams” and “contenders.”

On average, I designated about 2.9 teams per year as “obvious” title teams, along with about 4.7 “contenders,” a list that included quite a few mid-majors that we now know would not have been seriously considered (not even you, 2004 Utah or 2009 TCU).

Eliminate the mid-majors from the list, and you’re looking at three obvious teams on average and a fourth coming from a pool of three or four pretty identically blemished contenders. That’s not too bad, is it? If anything, it might be an indirect endorsement for expansion to a six-team playoff.

In 2017, though? At the moment, we’re looking at three teams with obvious résumés (and one more opportunity to add a blemish to said résumé) — 11-1 Clemson, 11-1 Oklahoma, 12-0 Wisconsin — and a host of teams with pretty obvious flaws:

Auburn, Ohio State, TCU, and USC have two losses

Georgia and Alabama (the latter of which won’t play for the SEC title) recently got thumped by Auburn

Miami was underwhelming against mediocre teams for most of the year

Penn State has two losses and no shot at the conference title.

Add to this the whole “no truly elite teams” thing, and you’ve got a year that suggests allowing four teams a shot at a ring is too many. Why expand to eight when we can’t find four, right?

2017 is a perfect example of why we absolutely need to expand the College Football Playoff.

If the title is intended to go to the team that has truly distinguished itself from the others, how the hell can we stop at four this year?

Clemson has been a better version of Miami, doing as little as possible for half the year and tripping up against a pretty bad Syracuse. (Don’t tell me about Kelly Bryant’s injury, either — Clemson was losing when he went down.)

Oklahoma has by far the worst defense of the contenders and will need an all-world performance from Baker Mayfield to have the title. (Mind you, the Sooners might get just that.)

I can tell you how Wisconsin, at No. 3 in S&P+, has proved itself despite the weakest schedule of any primary contender, but all most will see is that the Badgers’ best win might have been against Florida Atlantic.

How do we know these three teams are deserving instead of Auburn (best team in November)? Or Alabama (best team for most of the year)? Or Ohio State (highest ceiling, albeit with an increasingly inexplicable blowout loss to Iowa)? Or Penn State (steadiest team)? Or USC (uh, power conference champion)? Or TCU (all the defense that OU doesn’t have)?

Might we need a larger field to truly determine the best team?

Here’s what an eight-team playoff might look like in 2017, if all the conference title game favorites win this coming weekend:

8 UCF (G5 rep) at 1 Clemson (ACC champ)

5 Ohio State (Big Ten champ) at 4 Alabama (at-large)

6 USC (Pac-12 champ) at 3 Auburn (SEC champ)

7 Wisconsin (at-large) at 2 Oklahoma (Big 12 champ)

You could make a case for including Penn State or even a two-loss Georgia over Wisconsin, but we’ll go with this.

I simulated this combination 50,000 times using S&P+ win projections, and here are the title odds for each of these eight teams:

Alabama 18 percent

Ohio State 18 percent

Auburn 16 percent

Wisconsin 15 percent

Oklahoma 12 percent

Clemson 10 percent

UCF 9 percent

USC 3 percent

That’s seven of eight teams with between a 9 and 18 percent chance. And even if you think S&P+ is overvaluing UCF (currently eighth overall), that’s still six teams what amount to extremely similar odds.

When there’s no standout tier of teams, isn’t that a good reason for a larger field? Or the exact opposite? I’ve waffled about 13 times in the course of writing this.

Big Play Watch

Note to coaches looking to turn things around in 2018: find your explosives.

Here are the six offenses that have managed at least 10 plays of 60-plus yards this fall:

Oklahoma State 13

Florida Atlantic 12

Arizona 11

Notre Dame 11

Toledo 11

Missouri 10

OSU is 9-3, Toledo is your likely MAC champ, and the other four teams on this list improved from a combined 14-34 to 32-16. There you have it. Go big early and often. #Analysis

Now, pardon me for a moment while I dream about an offense that features quarterback Khalil Tate (Arizona), running backs Josh Adams (ND) and Devin Singletary (FAU), and receivers James Washington (OSU), Emanuel Hall (Mizzou), and Diontae Johnson (Toledo).

Steve Roberts-USA TODAY Sports

Devin Singletary

Elon Watch

Elon became noteworthy at the FCS level by both winning and doing it creatively: The Phoenix were at one point 8-1 with a negative scoring margin. They lost by 34 points to Toledo in the opener, then won by three, two, three, six, eight, one, five, and three points.

You can probably guess how the story ended: with some regression-to-the-mean losses. They lost 16-6 to New Hampshire and 31-3 to James Madison, and in the first round of the FCS playoffs, their season ended in a poetic way: with a close loss. Furman 28, Elon 27.

Still, what a damn ride for Curt Cignetti and his squad.

Just looking back at some of the accomplishments from this season! #FindTheEdge http://pic.twitter.com/Oic7eAmjRI

— Elon Football (@ElonFB) November 27, 2017

Gunner of the Year Watch

Chris Nicoll-USA TODAY Sports

Dayan Ghanwoloku

Out of pure curiosity, I’ve been tracking special teams tackles this year. Maybe we’ll give a pretend award out to whoever has the most at the end. Winner of the award gets it named after him.

With one week remaining before bowls, here’s a complete list of every player who has made at least 9.5 special teams tackles this year. (Note: the punt return and kick return totals might not add up to the tackles totals because, while I give only half-credit for an assisted tackle, you were either involved in the return or you weren’t.)

Of this list, here are, in my opinion, your top five gunners with one week remaining:

Dayan Ghanwoloku, BYU

Alex Grace, WMU

Mathew Sexton, EMU

Nilijah Ballew, BGSU

Kyron Johnson, Kansas

Ghanwoloku was a late riser, but he has made his tackles count, blowing up some punt returns and producing one of the better kick return averages as well. Grace and Johnson were the best from a quantity perspective, Sexton’s a quality-over-quantity guy, and Ballew is a mix of the two.

[kairuy]

DIVERSITY IN SEATTLE THEATRE, MAY-JUNE 2017.

You know the drill.

1. The People’s Republic of Valerie, Kristen Kosmas, dir. Paul Budraitis, OTB. This is not so much a play as a white woman struggling to make sense of the murders of black men by police officers and men like that piece of shit who murdered Trayvon Martin five years ago last February. It was performed by Kristen Kosmas and an ensemble of actors spread across a range of race and gender, each inhabiting her words with their own voices. The talkback was led by Ijeoma Oluo, and it was interesting and thoughtful and also a bit constrained inside the white echo chamber that is OTB’s audience most nights.

2. Midsummer’s Night Dream, Shakespeare, dir. George Mount, Seattle Shakes. They often cast across race and gender, as they should. I will add that I had a little trouble telling the actors who played Demetrius and Lysander apart. Sheesh. White guys.

3. The Wolves (staged reading), Sarah DeLappe, dir. Keiko Green, NCTC/Pipeline. All-female characters, diversely cast, although one girl is specifically Armenian, I think. This was spectacular, I hope someone in Seattle produces it soon, and properly, with a female director, preferably Keiko Green.

4. Chitrangada, Rabindranath Tagore, dir. Moumita Bhattacharya, Prathidhwani/ACTLab. This is a classical Indian dance epic by Tagore about Chitrangada, a warrior princess who is raised as a man, but reinvents herself as a woman when she falls in love with the hunter Arjuna. He falls in love with her womanly beauty (the two Chitrangadas are played by two different dancers) but eventually falls in love with her warrior side as well.

5. Pilgrims (workshop production), Claire Kiechel, dir. Emily Penick, Forward Flux. As far as I can tell, not written to be race-specific. Diverse casting.

6. Money & Run, Wayne Rawley, dir. Wayne Rawley, Theater Schmeater. This is actually three separate plays (”episodes”) with three completely different casts, and diverse as fuck. This was a deliberate choice, and thoughtfully done.

7. Acme, Andrew Shanks, dir. Mary Hubert, Annex Theatre. As far as I can tell, non-race-specific. Diversely cast.

8. Grand Concourse, Heidi Schreck, dir. Annie Lareau, SPT. I suspect this play is race-specific, and cast accordingly. It’s also site-specific -  the “Grand Concourse” is the main thoroughfare that runs through the Bronx. ETA a friend just corrected me, the play is not race-specific. Casting a black actress as the lead is a deliberate choice, and it worked beautifully.

9. Hanford Invasion! (staged reading), Matt Smith, dir. Ryan Higgins, Macha Monkey. I remember this as being a pretty white cast.

10. Lydia, Octavio Solis, dir. Sheila Daniels, Strawshop. Race-specific, casted accordingly. Site specific, set in El Paso. There was one cast member who seemed slightly less fluent than everyone else during the Spanish-language bits of the script, but this was flawless. Unbelievable. This is a tricky play, because five of the characters are teenagers; Sheila Daniels came to the play with a cast already in place, current and former students from Cornish. The amount of love and trust between the actors and their director was something palpable. This is a play about borders - between countries, between cultures, between six members of a single family, between the living and those who have come back from the dead.

11. The Realistic Joneses, Will Eno, dir. Paul Budraitis. Non-race-specific. Interjection: as an obviously Asian woman, I rarely comment on whether an actor looks half-Asian or not, I don’t think it’s up to me to define how they see themselves.  I don’t want to say that someone has been cast as “white” or “Asian” or if they can “pass” as either. That’s up to them and their sense of identity.

12. Sueño, José Rivera, dir. Jane Jones, UW Drama. This is based on Calderón’s Life is a Dream, set in 17th century Spain, and diversely cast as often happens with UW Drama productions. In college you get to do shit like cast two black grad students as the king and his best friend/advisor/enabler and the white undergrads get to play the servants. I live for this kind of stuff.

13. Barbecue, Robert O’Hara, Malika Oyetimein, Intiman. This is race-specific and cast accordingly and that is all I can say about this play because it was so good you had to be there. And if you weren’t there too bad.

14. Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim, dir. Mathew Wright and Eric Ankrim. I mean, it’s Sondheim, and they fucking went to TOWN. They cast a black man as the Beggar Woman. They cast a mixed-race girl - I think she’s still in high school - as Johanna, her frizzy curls bleached blond, the song with the line about her ‘golden hair’ sending a shiver down my spine. I think a number of cast members are Filipino, including Ben Gonio, who was gloriously terrifying as Sweeney Todd.

15. String (workshop production), Sarah Hammond/Adam Gwon, dir. Brandon Ivie, Village Theatre. Probably not race-specific, diversely cast.

16. Welcome to Braggsville, Daemond Arrindell/Josh Aaseng from the novel by T. Geronimo Johnson, dir. Josh Aaseng. Race-specific, place-specific. Oh, this one hurt.

17. LAAFF Fest, SIS Productions, multiple plays by Asian-American women, directed by Asian-American women, starring basically all the Asian actors in Seattle right now. That was awesome.

18. Blackbird (staged reading), David Harrower, dir. Danielle Franich, NCTC/Pipeline. Non-race-specific, white.

19. The Legend of Georgia McBride, Matthew Lopez, dir. David Bennett. I don’t think this play is race-specific and it is often cast diversely from what I can tell by looking at other productions (when I say diversely, I usually mean they cast black actors because actors only come in white or black *eyeroll*). Matthew Lopez is best known for The Whipping Man, whose publisher sent a cease-and-desist order to the creators of THATSWHATSHESAID, performed by Erin Pike, written by Courtney Meaker, and directed by HATLO. The Whipping Man was represented in THATSWHATSHESAID by a sound that I could not at first identify, until I realized it was the sound of pages flipping over. Because, there WERE. NO. WOMEN. IN. THIS. PLAY. So, Georgia McBridge has one woman in it. Progress!

20. Somebody Else’s Hoi Polloi (staged reading), Y York, dir. Mark Lutwak, dramaturg Andrew Lee Creech, Seattle Rep Writers Group. This is a play about blackness without being a play about blackness. The characters’ blackness is essential to the language of the play, but it is not essential to the story. There is a specificity to it. Note: the playwright is white, her director is white, her dramaturg is black.

21. Angel Fat (staged reading), Trista Baldwin, dir. Anita Montgomery, Seattle Rep Writers Group. As far as I can tell, not race-specific.

22. O Cascadia! (staged reading), Ramon Esquivel, dir. HATLO, Seattle Rep Writers Group. Race-specific, cast accordingly.

23. Gorgeous (staged reading), Keiko Green, dir. Timothy McCuen Piggee. Race-specific, cast accordingly.

[roadscholarsglobal-blog]

How to turn a travel nightmare into an adventure

Any worldshooler will tell you that there is always the best of intentions and nothing but excitement and careful planning that goes into any excursion,. near or far. Every once in a while, something happens, Whether it is an illness, theft, accident, death, or natural disaster....life does not stop because we are travelling. There are many precautions we can take to ensure that we are as insured and prepared if the worse- case scenario becomes an unwelcome reality. Unfortunately, there are just some things that are completely out of our control. What then?

In our case, we were just about to embark on our long journey from Vancouver, Canada to Orlando, Florida to meet my parents and brother for what we had hoped would be our epic family vacation to Disney World. It had taken me two years of saving and a  season  of renting our fifth wheel camper out on Airbnb to amass the funds needed for the trip. Since my mom had announced it was her "dream to go to DisneyWorld with my grandchildren ", , while on another trip to Seattle, I had started working my plan. Yes, Disneyland was closer to us (  we had already had a previous vacation together there) , but apparently Disneyworld is where it had to be. I was determined to honour Mom and make that wish come true . Planning and paying for this trip was no small feat , as we homeschool and work off a one job income.  My husband was also in his first year of transitioning into real estate- which was already daunting , financially speaking. The trip itself is a 7 hour journey with a layover in Chicago or Dallas/Ft.Worth. I was terrified to bring a one year old on two planes for such an extended period of time, so I compensated by going crazy  spending weeks creating things for him to do on the plane ( a la Pinterest and silhouette cameo ofcourse ).

Lesson 1: ALWAYS listen to your gut.

On the day before we were supposed take off, we heard the nail biting news... Hurricane Matthew was about to hit Florida. As the news of the storm became more of an escalated threat, the feeling in my gut told me what I did not want to be true...our flight would be cancelled, and therefore our trip. Nooooooo.   My uncle's timeshare penthouse that he had arranged for us was already paid . That and the physical park tickets I bought online were non- returnable.( Ok, sure. I could have sold them online, but you get the point. I had to go for the Hail Mary!)

Lesson 2: Be CALM, but act quickly.

I raced to the phone and called the Airlines.  It was time to play Let's Make A Deal. I used my most charming, down to earth, and kind voice I could muster in my anxious state. I asked if our flights could be detoured to Atlanta. We would wait it out there a couple of days and then rent a car and drive to Orlando. The flights were not cancelled yet, but the nice  airline rep on the phone knew that verdict was looming. I was praying the entire time I was on hold. Thankfully, the airline agreed. Happy and relieved does not begin to describe my state of being at that point in time! Hallelujah!

Now, I had to try to cancel our hotel in Orlando. Since we were traveling so far, I thought it would be nice to arrive a couple days early and rest up until my parents arrived and we moved into the timeshare for the week. I was able to cancel it due to the exceptional circumstance. Then, I had to call the car rental place and change our reservation for the vehicle. Done. Whew!

Lesson 3: Social Media is not all evil.

But..wait! Where would we stay in Atlanta? I did something I never did before. I asked my friends on Facebook. Does anyone know of someone who would be willing to put up a family of misplaced Hurricane Mathew refugees? In all honesty, I expected nothing. It was closer to a joke than anything. To my surprise a classmate of mine from 20 years ago commented that she might. Just the fact that a Canadian classmate had an acquaintance that lived in the Atlanta area was impressive. Apparently, a pilot from Kennesaw County was one of the best men at her wedding. He happened to have a gigantic house that he now lived in alone. He was happy to take us in. Did I mention I love Southerners? We are eternally grateful to all parties involved.

Lesson 4: You must have a credit card with ample room on it to rent a vehicle.

When we arrived, all we wanted was to rent a car and go meet our host. He was located in Kennesaw, so it was going to be a drive. My kids were understandably beginning to melt down in the rental car line. This is when my husband decided to reveal that he intended to pay cash for the rental vehicle. Um....no. Apparently he knew this , but had a strategy. His strategy included claiming that a representative on the phone said he could use cash for the rental. He was certainly adamant, but I knew he was fibbing. He was willing to die with the lie and if we ever wanted to get out of the Atlanta airport, I had to interject.

Side note: My husband is actually a lovely and trustworthy person, We all make mistakes. This post is about lessons learned, not throwing dearest under the bus .

Lesson 5: You always catch more flies with honey! If you make a mistake, be honest and humble. People usually respond positively and are more apt to help.

His strategy needed revamping. I pulled him aside. After I admitted his mistake, we decided to go back to the car rental counter representative , tell her the truth , apologize and explain our predicament. Then, we asked if she could please suggest another way. She was very understanding and helpful. She suggested a different rental company that asked for a smaller deposit. My husband did some quick credit card maneuvering and in the end it worked out.

How did the trip turn out?? It was actually better then we had originally planned. My husband and kids had never been to the Atlanta area. I am from the south originally (Boca Raton, Florida) and at times.. desperately miss it. I was so happy to be in Georgia. I have always loved it there. Our host was exceptionally congenial. When we arrived at almost midnight with a hungry and jet lagged crew, he welcomed us with that Southern hospitality that is so renowned. My husband and I could not believe how we had been blessed. We actually looked at each other and started laughing as we were walking up to the front door. Was this for real?? This house was literally plucked from our dreams.

Final Lesson: We can't always control what happens. The best we can do is choose to be positive and make the best of the circumstances we face. It is a great life lesson to model for our kids , as well. Life is much more fun when we see it as an adventure!

The next two days were so fun. We were able to enjoy breakfast at Cracker Barrel. It had been years since I tasted those fried apples...yummmm. We decided to spend the majority of our time at Stone Mountain. It is glorious! It had changed so much since I had been there with my own family twenty years ago, I could hardly recognize it. So much for families to do. My boys adored it. My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed the historical plantation. If you are in the Atlanta area...you HAVE to go there. Something for everyone. We finished the day off with a suggestion for BBQ . Fox Bros. !!! Best we have ever tasted. Hands down. All in all we can unequivocally say that what started out as a travel nightmare became a great stroke of luck for our family. One of our favorite adventures so far!

Understandably, not all travel nightmares work out this well. This is not about being dismissive to others experiences that did not work out or were down right tragic. This set of life lessons are what I derived from this specific trip. I will be sure to share others as they will surely come.

If you have examples of your own of travel nightmares that turned out well (or not). Please tell us about them in the comments, along with the accompanying life lessons. Can't wait to hear from you!

[thisdaynews]

California privacy law sets national agenda as federal talks fizzle

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/california-privacy-law-sets-national-agenda-as-federal-talks-fizzle/

California privacy law sets national agenda as federal talks fizzle

In the year’s second quarter alone, industry groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to influence privacy legislation, according to their lobbying disclosure reports. | Getty Images

SACRAMENTO — California is taking center stage, with a federal data privacy deal sputtering in Washington, in the battle over how companies handle consumer data — a familiar role for the giant state with a long history of compelling industry changes.

Just months before the state’s new privacy law is set to take effect, Silicon Valley giants and other corporations are facing off against privacy advocatesin a last-ditch effort to alter the measure, the California Consumer Privacy Act, in the supermajority Democratic Legislature.

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“The stakes are astronomically high because businesses of all sizes across every industry are expected to comply with the letter of this complex law in less than five months,” said Sarah Boot, a lobbyist for the California Chamber of Commerce, which has led a push to narrow the kinds of data covered in the law, among other changes.

So far, the business community — which thought it would get a second chance to tweak the landmark law this year before it takes effect Jan. 1 — has been largely unsuccessful. With four weeks left of the legislative session, trade associations representing Facebook, Google and a host of other corporations are expected to unleash their lobbying firepower to secure exemptions, if not a delay, when lawmakers return to Sacramento on Monday. In the year’s second quarter alone, industry groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to influence privacy legislation, according to their lobbying disclosure reports.

After two failed bids to strengthen the 2018 law, data-privacy advocates say their goal for the year is simply to keep the Privacy Act intact.

“We’re basically looking to hold the line on everything.” said Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based group that advocates for stronger consumer protections online. “We’re watching for gut-and-amends and the usual shenanigans on the floor.”

Under the law, any company doing business in California, regardless of whether it has a physical presence in the state, must reveal what personal information they have collected about any California resident, upon request. Californians will also be able to ask a business or a data broker to stop selling that information, and to delete it.

The law is more protective for California children under age 16, requiring advance permission from teenagers or parents of younger children before a company can sell their personal information.

Proposals to strengthen or weaken the act have stalled this year, in part over concerns about honoring the privacy deal brokered last summer that led to the law’s passage.

Business groups last year were assured they would have a chance to work out changes to the hastily passed law before it took effect in 2020, the CalChamber’s Boot said. But, she said, a number of “crucial fixes” sailed through the state Assembly this spring only to be blocked in the state Senate Judiciary Committee last month, days before lawmakers broke for summer recess.

During a late-night hearing, the committee led by data-privacy champion state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) killed a business-friendly bill to narrow the definition of “personal information,” the only type of data covered in the act. Another closely-watched bill that would have created broad exceptions to the law, allowing businesses to provide customer’s personal information for purposes including fraud detection, was withdrawn in advance of the hearing.

But some privacy bills remain in play, including CA AB25 (19R), which would allow businesses to authenticate the identities of consumers making information requests. And Sacramento lawmakers have been known to resurrect controversial proposals by inserting them in unrelated legislation that has advanced to the other chamber.

The fight over data rules comes after a string of consumer-privacy scandals and data breaches at Facebook, Equifax and other companies. Each new revelation has stoked a bipartisan public outcry over intrusive tracking practices and the government’s failure to protect its citizens from abuses.

The Golden State’s Privacy Act, passed not long after the European Union adopted its own set of consumer-data rules, came into being in quintessential California fashion. A multimillionaire developer muscled it through the state Legislature using the threat of a statewide referendum on data privacy. If the referendum had passed, it would have enshrined sweeping consumer protections in the state constitution, including the right for consumers to file class-action suits against alleged violators.

The developer, Alastair Mactaggart, withdrew the ballot measure in exchange for the Privacy Act’s passage.

The effects of California’s law — which state Attorney General Xavier Becerra is scheduled to enforce beginning next summer, six months after the law takes effect — could ripple far beyond the state’s borders.

While Californians are the only ones who will wake up on Jan. 1 with new rights under the state law, some companies might find it impractical or simply a bad public-relations move to deny privacy requests made by people living in other states or countries, said Kristen Mathews, an attorney whose firm, Morrison & Foerster, is advising clients on the law.

The California law also could inspire other state legislatures to take similar steps, said Chris Conley, a technology and civil liberties policy attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.

“It is a proof of concept,” Conley said. “If the sky doesn’t fall, it becomes much easier for other states to say, ‘Look, California has done this. They have a large percentage of the U.S. population, the California technology economy is still humming right along, this is not actually going to end the internet as we know it, so that’s workable.'”

In Washington, lawmakers from both parties say they have not given up on a national standard, despite disagreements. One of the biggest sticking points is whether federal law should block states from adopting additional protections, an idea favored by Republicans but batted down by California Democrats intent on preserving the Privacy Act.

“We want to keep moving forward up here,” Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota Republican and GOP whip, told POLITICO. “Our job is to try to put a policy in place that would protect people’s privacy and not allow for a patchwork of state laws to create just a lot of uncertainty.”

But business interests hoping the federal government will nullify California’s Privacy Act with a single federal standard might be disappointed, said Dan Schnur, a former Republican strategist who now teaches at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication.

“For the tech community and for other opponents of the privacy bill, the likelihood of Congress riding to the rescue is beginning to look less and less likely,” he said.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) has been adamant that lawmakers representing Silicon Valley be central to any federal deal, and that any deal doesn’t undermine her home state’s groundbreaking law.

Still, she said in an interview, it’s important for Congress to act alongside California — and soon. The absence of federal regulations has allowed consumer privacy woes to grow “into a monster in some ways,” she said. “It’s not what people signed up for.”

John Hendel and Cristiano Lima contributed to this report.

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