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dereksmcgrath · 2 years

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Below is practically a written script that I am using as the basis for today’s livestream, Day 9 of the non-credit American Literature I survey course, going live at 11 AM EDT today.

In today’s livestream,we begin Section 2 of this class, about the Puritans and community building in the pre-United States. We start with the legal, economic, and political ramifications inherent to the Puritan minister John Winthrop’s speech “A Model of Christian Charitie.”

Feel free to read along with the script below, and leave a comment or email me to join the discussion!

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Video Description

Day 9 begins Section 2 of the class, looking at Puritanism and community. We kick off with a discussion about how John Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charitie” persists in United States law, economics, and politics.

Support this livestream at http://www.ko-fi.com/dereksmcgrath

Catch up on previous installments of this livestream with the American Literature I playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu0KxaVhLTK4-pkqfu7I8McDuJboqpBfl

John Winthrop's "A Model of Christian Charitie": https://history.hanover.edu/texts/winthmod.html

Cotton Mather’s “Trial of Martha Carrier”: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Trial_of_Martha_Carrier_(Cotton_Mather)

Phillis Wheatley at 250 registration link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/phillis-wheatley-peters-at-250-tickets-419005606047

PBS Documentary on Harriet Tubman: https://harriettubmanvisionsoffreedom.org/watch

PBS Documentary on Frederick Douglass: https://www.firelightfilms.tv/films/becoming-frederick-douglass

“Ms.” interview with producer Nicole London: https://msmagazine.com/2022/10/04/black-feminist-film-nicole-london-harriet-tubman-freedom/

Reagan’s speech: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/election-eve-address-vision-for-america

Kennedy’s speech: https://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/

Introduction

Okay, let’s get started: it’s 11 AM EDT on Tuesday, October 11, 2022. This is a livestream for Day 9 of the American Literature I survey, a non-credit pseudo-class hosted on YouTube and Twitch that looks at United States literature from before 1865.

I’m Derek S. McGrath, my pronouns are he/him/his. I’m not on camera right now–if I was, you would see a white man with glasses and brown hair. I’m opting to instead use a slideshow presentation–while most of what I have to say is already on the slide, there are some details from the slides that I will read aloud.

Last Time

On Thursday, we finished our first section of this class–yay!--defining the core question that will guide the rest of this class: “Who Reads American Literature?” We will be returning to Smith, Irving, Melville, and Poe the rest of this semester–in order to see how the authors we are now reading set the stage so that their literature could emerge and ask those questions about the goals and styles of American literature.

Today

Today, we begin Section 2 of this class, about the Puritans and community building in the pre-United States. This is not a section to be read as _the_ beginning of the United States–we’ll get to that more in Section 3 of this class, when we discuss who has been excluded from the United States literary canon. Rather, I want you to use these texts by these Puritans to see this mythology constructed in the United States to trace back to the Puritans, and see what it was that so many later speakers and authors saw and heard in these Puritans’ writings that they saw as useful.

And that is why we will be looking at the legal, economic, and political ramifications inherent to the Puritan minister John Winthrop’s speech A Model of Christian Charitie.

Content warnings for a lot of political discussions, including my personal animus towards the inhumanity of the Republican Party, and all that is associated with that, including homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, and misogyny, as well as a discussion about the AIDS pandemic and its number of deaths. Plus, content warning for racialized terms that were outdated even when used in the 1980s and are definitely outdated coming out of my white mouth and out of Ronald Reagan’s dead white mouth.

Update: Discord Now Available

Before we get to that, I have a personal update: there is now a Discord associated with this livestream! If you are interested in seeing progress made on these livestreams, recommended resources, and I hope study guides in the future, please consider a $1 or more contribution to my Ko-fi account, ko-fi.com/dereksmcgrath. If you already paid a dollar and haven’t received the Discord link via Ko-fi, please email me, [email protected]. And money is tight for a lot of people, so if you can’t pay a dollar, send me an email–[email protected]–and I’ll email you the Discord link.

Promotions

And there is some related content I would like to promote.

Today at 3 PM EDT: Phillis Wheatley at 250

Later today at 3 PM EDT, Cal Poly Pomona and other organizations will sponsor an online roundtable, celebrating the 250th anniversary of Phillis Wheatley’s book Poems on Various Subjects. We will be discussing Phillis Wheatley soon, so I hope watching this roundtable helps with addressing topics about Wheatley in this livestream. You can register for this roundtable on EventBrite for free; the registration link is in the video description.

PBS Documentaries: Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass

PBS has two new documentaries that tie into the time period this class covers: Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom, and Becoming Frederick Douglass. The Harriet Tubman documentary already aired on October 4, although I anticipate it will air again on PBS, and the Frederick Douglass documentary airs today, October 11 (and looks to be re-airing a lot in the following days). You can learn more about the Harriet Tubman documentary, as Ms. has interviewed the documentary’s producer, Nicole London. Links are in the video description.

Today’s Questions

With updates and promotions out of the way, let’s jump into John Winthrop.

Last time, I left you with three questions to consider for today:

How does Winthrop define a “public good,” and does he see any sense of privacy within the community he and the Puritans were trying to create?

What terms does Winthrop use that sound more like an economics or legal lesson than a Christian religious one?

Finally, where else have you heard Winthrop’s words and ideas repeat in later United States history?

Cautionary Tale: Which Edition Should I Use?

But before we get into those questions, I have an apology to make.

I regret using this version from Bartleby.com. I actually was pulling out my textbooks to review footnotes for today’s talk–and noticed way too late that the Bartleby edition does not include explicit references to the Bible made by Winthrop, where he names the passage: “Ezekiel 16 17,” and so on. The Bartleby version, for some reason, skips the mention of Ezekiel.

I found another version of Winthrop’s “Model,” available from Hanover College’s Department of History, that retains just about all of the original text, as far as I can tell–so, please read that version instead. It is available at the link in the video description.

Three Quotations

While we have those three questions to answer today, I’m going to alter today’s lesson plan, to focus on three quotations, to help me focus on what should be discussed, with as few diatribes as I can manage given the topics of discussion. This will be Question 3, where else have you heard Winthrop’s words and ideas.

Ronald Reagan

So, let’s look at these three quotations. I’ll go backwards in chronology, starting with these remarks by White House occupant Ronald Reagan (and it’s a lengthy quotation I’m reading, so bear with me–I kept just the key bits on the slide on screen):

“I know I have told before of the moment in 1630 when the tiny ship Arabella bearing settlers to the New World lay off the Massachusetts coast. To the little bank of settlers gathered on the deck John Winthrop said: ‘we shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world.’

“Well, America became more than ‘a story,’ or a ‘byword’—more than a sterile footnote in history. I have quoted John Winthrop's words more than once on the campaign trail this year—for I believe that Americans in 1980 are every bit as committed to that vision of a shining ‘city on a hill,’ as were those long ago settlers.

“These visitors to that city on the Potomac do not come as white or black, red or yellow; they are not Jews or Christians; conservatives or liberals; or Democrats or Republicans. They are Americans awed by what has gone before, proud of what for them is still…a shining city on a hill.

“At this very moment, some young American, coming up along the Virginia or Maryland shores of the Potomac is seeing for the first time the lights that glow on the great halls of our government and the monuments to the memory of our great men.

“Let us resolve tonight that young Americans will always see those Potomac lights; that they will always find there a city of hope in a country that is free. And let us resolve they will say of our day and our generation that we did keep faith with our God, that we did act ‘worthy of ourselves;’ that we did protect and pass on lovingly that shining city on a hill.”

John F. Kennedy

Now, let’s listen to another quotation, this one from John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States:

“I have been guided by the standard John Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship Arabella three hundred and thirty-one years ago, as they, too, faced the task of building a new government on a perilous frontier. ‘We must always consider,’ he said, ‘that we shall be as a city upon a hill—the eyes of all people are upon us.’ Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us—and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state and local, must be as a city upon a hill—constructed and inhabited by men aware of their great trust and their great responsibilities. For we are setting out upon a voyage in 1961 no less hazardous than that undertaken by the Arabella in 1630. We are committing ourselves to tasks of statecraft no less awesome than that of governing the Massachusetts Bay Colony, beset as it was then by terror without and disorder within. History will not judge our endeavors—and a government cannot be selected—merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these. For of those to whom much is given, much is required.”

John Winthrop Himself

Finally, let’s go to where this started, with the ending to John Winthrop’s reading for today, A Model for Christian Charitie:

“Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. Wee must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of other's necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make other's conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as his own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways. So that we shall see much more of his wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when he shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, "the Lord make it likely that of New England." For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God's sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are a going.”

Those three quotations will guide much of our discussion. Think about those quotations as I explain what led people like Kennedy and Reagan to draw from Winthrop, who, while a governor of Massachusetts, was also a preacher, and a lawyer, and was thinking in terms of economics.

History Lesson

One of the questions I asked was, “What terms does Winthrop use that sound more like an economics or legal lesson than a Christian religious one?” The other question I asked was, “How does Winthrop define a ‘public good,’ and does he see any sense of privacy within the community he and the Puritans were trying to create?” As we work our way through those three quotations, let’s try to answer these questions. To do so, we need to know a bit about the people involved in this text.

Who was Winthrop?

John Winthrop was from England, not North America. He lived in the late 16th century up to the mid 17th century. He was a lawyer. He was a minister. He was one of the founders of what would become the state of Massachusetts. He was a Puritan.

Who were the Puritans?

Okay, so what was a Puritan?

The Puritans were Protestants–so, not Catholics–who were living in England. And at the time of Winthrop, England was Catholic. And the Puritans wanted to reform Catholicism in England. They were opposed to much of the English monarchy, and I won’t get to all of it, so let’s skip ahead a bit and over-simplify this: Puritans wanted England to be less Catholic; Puritans wanted to engage in trade; the English monarchy didn’t want to change the Catholic Church; so the Puritans decided to leave and form their own settlement, still within the English empire, but just not physically on the English island and instead get some physical distance all the way in North America.

It was an abrupt departure from England: the Puritans expressed their goals to physically leave England in a document, the Cambridge Agreement of 1629. This agreement was a charter: it gave Winthrop and his colleagues the right to form a company, the Massachusetts Bay Company, that would be permitted by the English monarchy to colonize land in North America. This land is now called New England.

What was so important about this Cambridge Agreement of 1629? I’m going to read from the Second Edition of The Heath Anthology: “The charter [...] is unique in that no provision was made for a designated meeting place for the administration of the [Massachusetts Bay] Company.” In other words, Winthrop and his colleagues now had the power “to establish [its own] government” (224). You can see how Americans like to craft this mythology that so much of its governance goes back to this creation.

In 1630, less than a year after Winthrop and others gained the Cambridge Agreement, about 400 Puritans left England on the ship the Arbella, bound for what would become New England.

It was on this ship that Winthrop delivered the speech we are reading, his A Modell of Christian Charitie.

Law and Economics

Let’s turn back to those two questions–which legal and economic terms Winthrop uses, and how Winthrop views the public and private split within this community that he and the Puritans are trying to make.

Winthrop was a lawyer. He was a justice of the peace in England at age 18. He became Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and served for twelve years. This text is about establishing a settlement–and making sure you don’t have people revolting. He had already referred to England as a powder keg of inequity ready to explode. In that regard, we get why this text is not just preaching about the religious details for these Puritans–it was to establish to his shipmates, “Hey, we are going to make our settlement, this is not just meeting in church, we really need an idea about which laws we will pass, which trade we will engage in to keep this settlement in financial security and to get materials we need, so I’m going to be drawing from my background as a lawyer to tell all of that to you.”

Socratic Questions, Rhetorical Questions, and Catechism

And you can hear that in Winthrop’s speech practices: he’s using that lawyer technique, the Socratic method. It’s what teachers use: you ask a question, you get students to answer, that prompts a new question from you–you are teaching students how to think, how to pursue one question after another. And it’s how lawyers act: ask a question with the answer predicted, get that witness to give that answer, have the next question built off of that evidence presented in that question to further make the point you want to make.

But Winthrop isn’t quite acting like a teacher, is he? He’s answering his own question–like I just did. He’s asking these questions rhetorically. This is as much the practice of catechism–teaching Christianity by practically pulling the student along, feeding them the answers.

Let’s look at one example of such a question-and-answer practice by Winthrop. Quoting from our group reading today:

“There is a time when a Christian must sell all and give to the poor, as they did in the Apostles times. There is a time also when Christians (though they give not all yet) must give beyond their ability, as they of Macedonia, Cor. 2, 6. Likewise community of perils calls for extraordinary liberality, and so doth community in some special service for the church. Lastly, when there is no other means whereby our Christian brother may be relieved in his distress, we must help him beyond our ability rather than tempt God in putting him upon help by miraculous or extraordinary means.

“This duty of mercy is exercised in the kinds, giving, lending and forgiving.--

“Question. What rule shall a man observe in giving in respect of the measure?

“Answer. If the time and occasion be ordinary he is to giue out of his abundance. Let him lay aside as God hath blessed him. If the time and occasion be extraordinary, he must be ruled by them; taking this withall, that then a man cannot likely do too much, especially if he may leave himself and his family under probable means of comfortable subsistence.

“Objection. A man must lay up for posterity, the fathers lay up for posterity and children, and he is worse than an infidel that provideth not for his owne.

“Ans. For the first, it is plain that it being spoken by way of comparison, it must be meant of the ordinary and usual course of fathers, and cannot extend to times and occasions extraordinary. For the other place the Apostle speaks against such as walked inordinately, and it is without question, that he is worse than an infidel who through his own sloth and voluptuousness shall neglect to provide for his family.--

“Objection. The wise man's Eyes are in his head, saith Solomon, and foreseeth the plague; therefore he must forecast and lay up against evil times when he or his may stand in need of all he can gather.

“Answer. This very Argument Solomon used to persuade to liberality, Eccle.: Cast thy bread upon the waters, and for thou knowest not what evil may come upon the land. Luke 26–”

And so on, as he keeps pulling more from the Bible to support his claims.

Look back at this. What is Winthrop trying to say? He is saying, if you have much, you should be using it, for your own care and that of your family. But what about other people? Winthrop seems a bit vague here, doesn’t he? He starts by saying this community–which he will go on to say is so close knit, like one body with each person in this community one organ or one tissue of that body–but then he transitions to say, “Well, you have to take care of your family first, or else you would be an infidel for not providing for your own.” You have here what can just as easily be a duty of Christian charity–that we can see as the value of giving to others in your community, whether you call that charity, socialist practices, or what have you–or just as easily hear a focus on just yourself and your family alone…No wonder this text was popular with Reagan.

And yet, within this text is that sense of the public good, still–if this settlement fails, we are all screwed. I didn’t delve into the public-private split as much as I wanted to, so perhaps we can touch on it in the Section 2 review later in November. But…well, we’ll say a bit more about any perceived privacy, when you wrap up your sermon preaching about being a city upon a hill and everyone can see you, so, so much for privacy.

Economics

While we’re on the topic of economics, let’s look a bit more about Winthrop’s biography and more from this text.

Before he left England, Winthrop was one of that nation’s few thousand wealthy men. Yes, in 1622, Winthrop complained about poverty and inequitable taxation in England. But we can see the problems of trade in Puritan New England, and how that trade was inevitably going to lead to inequality, where some make more money than others. This creeps up in later authors–if you are teaching Winthrop, consider pairing him with far later works, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter or Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

Before we wrap up this discussion about economics, read the very first sentence of Winthrop’s text:

“God Almighty in his most holy and wise providence, hath so disposed of the condition of mankind, as in all times some rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity; others mean and in submission.”

This is how he _starts_ this text. Holy crap. He is making it clear, the equivalent of saying, “Yes, this is just a fact of life: the poor will be with us–so, we have to deal with that as best we can.”

I want to add some more context. I will read from the second edition of The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume 1, edited by Paul Lauter in 1994:

“In 1645, responding to charges that he had exceeded the powers of his office [as governor of Massachusetts], Winthrop delivered a speech in his defense which epitomizes this struggle in Puritan religious and political thought. In it, he deftly distinguished between natural and civil liberties, designating the former as the ability to do evil as well as good–a trait which he felt the colonists had in common with ‘the beasts’--and the latter as the liberty to do what is ‘good, just, and honest.’ He argued that this second form of liberty cannot exist without authority. Having chosen to live under this authority (of either Christ or the magistrates in the Colony), the colonists must obey” (224).

In other words, Winthrop is saying that, if you want people to stay good, they need the firm hand of religion or government to keep them in line. Is it any wonder why a separation of church and state is vital, to not see people in government as gods?

“City Upon a Hill,” Utopia Is Fiction, and So Is American Exceptionalism

Let’s wrap this up with where we started: those three quotations. There is the major phrase to take from this speech that Winthrop gave: “a city upon a hill.”

Quoting Winthrop, near the end of his speech:

“Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of MIcah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man.”

Skipping ahead:

“For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill.”

What does Winthrop mean? He is citing Matthew 5:14-15:

“Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.”

In other words, Winthrop is citing the Bible to lend some weight to what he is about to say, which is this: to avoid this endeavor in New England being a failure, like as if our ship were to be in a shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity–to have posterity, to have a generation after us–then we must be knit together–we must be knitted together, like yarn knitted together into one whole cloth, we must be united and as one–as if we are one person, one man. As such, we will be a city on a hill–in other words, a city that everyone can see regardless what side of the hill they stand on. We are in this obvious spot that everyone can see us, watching us at all times. And if we fail, they’ll see it. But if we succeed, they’ll see that too. Matthew 5:14-15 says to be a city on a hill, something that can’t be hidden–just as you would not light a candle and put it under a bushel, hide it, because that defeats the purpose. You don’t do something this important like create a settlement in New England, and not use that to show off. Winthrop is saying, we Puritans must be an example to all others trying to reform the Catholic Church, because if we succeed, more will be inspired by our example–but if we screw this up, then we signal to the rest of the world that this doesn’t work.

Would we even remember Winthrop if not for that phrase “a city upon a hill”? But here’s the thing: that phrase is not something that has been with us forever throughout the United States. Do you remember giving the Pledge of Allegiance in school? You know how that pledge has you say “Under God”? That wasn’t always there. It wasn’t even there at the founding of the United States, whether by the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitution. The Pledge of Allegiance began in 1892. It was revised numerous times until 1954 to add that this was “one Nation under God.” Why that change? Red Scare, mostly: it was done to act like the Soviet nations were godless while the good old US of A, with its separation of church and state, was…actually godly? How the heck does that work…

Quoting Kennedy

This anti-Communist bent, this Red Scare bent, is one reason we get stuck with “a city upon a hill” in our US discourse. My ignorance, though: I thought it started with Reagan. Nope. It started in 1961 with John F. Kennedy, before he got inaugurated, during a speech. Maybe you could squint and say, “Well, Kennedy was a Massachusetts boy, of course he would tie in his election to Winthrop, a founder of Massachusetts.”

Quoting Kennedy:

“I have been guided by the standard John Winthrop set before his shipmates on the flagship Arbella three hundred and thirty-one years ago, as they, too, faced the task of building a new government ona perilous frontier.”

I’ll pause there and say, gee, no wonder Kennedy also ended up coining the phrase “new frontier” as well.

Continuing to quote Kennedy:

“Today the eyes of all people are truly upon us–and our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state and local, must be as a city upon a hill.”

Now, while Kennedy may have been the first president to use it, I think the phrase is more commonly associated with Reagan–or, maybe it’s just the age group of my classmates and teachers that thought of Reagan first before Kennedy.

Quoting Reagan

Quoting Reagan from November 3, 1980, in his speech the night before that year’s presidential election, he said the following:

“I have quoted John Winthrop’s words more than once on the campaign trail this year–for I believe that Americans in 1980 are every bit as committed to that vision of a shining city on a hill, as were those long ago settlers.” I’m going to pause here: you know, at least Kennedy put you there in the time period. Reagan, here, I think, over-estimates whatever people remember of his supposed repeated quoting of Winthrop more than once on the campaign trail. This was before Internet, before cable TV really took off, before having content so easily available on record to the general public. That repetition is key–but repetition with context to be honest, not some yammering stooge repeating the same three phrases in his rightwing rants. But there I go being political again. We’ll circle back to Reagan’s quotations in a moment.

But let’s get back to Reagan’s speech. Continuing:

“These visitors to that city on the Potomac–”

…For crying out loud, he moves from Massachusetts to the Potomac–for crying out loud, Ronny, do you not know geography, you annoying dink…

“These visitors to that city on the Potomac do not come as white or black, red or yellow–”

… … …HE SAID RED OR YELLOW. GOOD GOD.

Continuing to quote Reagan…

“[T]hey are not Jews or Christians; conservatives or liberals; or Democrats or Republicans. They are Americans awed by what has gone before, proud of what for them is still…a shining city on a hill.”

Notice who is not mentioned here. What if you are a woman? What if you are gay? Trans?

But, you know, maybe we should just focus on those people that Reagan mentioned: people who are white, Black, Native American, Asian, Jewish, Christian, conservative, liberal, Democratic, or Republican.

I will not be able to address how Reagan screwed all of those people over, but here are some highlights.

Reagan said “white or black.” Reagan campaigned for Barry Goldwater. Reagan opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Don’t tell me you give a shit about Americans when you don’t give a shit about Americans.

Reagan perpetuated a rightwing party that now today celebrates antisemetic candidates, so-called Christians who would rather slap their neighbor than turn the other cheek, would prefer a man who fails to embody Christianity in Georgia over a literal reverend in Georgia, demonize anyone for not being conservative enough and for being to the left of Hitler, would just as easily lead an armed insurrection against Democrats as they would shout to hang a Republican on January 6.

If it is not clear, I am not a fan of Reagan, and I am not a fan of having someone use American iconography and Christian imagery to pull the wool over my eyes.

Oh, and Reagan’s inaction AIDS killed almost 90,000 people. Regan’s communications director, that sack of shit Pat Buchanan, referred to AIDS as “nature’s revenge on gay men.” Nature, huh? Didn’t want to call it God’s wrath, Pat? You’ll forgive me, as Reagan pretends to speak to our common humanity, and pretends to speak to a model of charity we should represent to the rest of the world, that Reagan did not give a shit about who died of AIDS, especially anyone who didn’t look like him and wasn’t the same sexuality as him. If I am not putting too fine a point on it, allow me to be more emphatic: fuck Ronald Reagan.

Utopia Is Fiction

But what is the real point to all of this? This is a utopia. This is Winthrop imagining an ideal community–and as an ideal, certainly a lofty goal that I wouldn’t say not to keep reaching for, but as an ideal, is a fiction. It’s not going to happen. You never get to perfection. There is no perfect society. Almost all utopian fiction is about how we fail to get to that point–or, how the people within that story think they are a utopia, only to realize how much further they have to go to reach their goals, or, how reaching that very goal unleashes horrible forces, be they fascism or environmental devastation or the collapse of society.

This is likewise why, while Reagan and, yeah, have to admit it, Kennedy, are grabbing for another fiction: American exceptionalism. I’m going to take the lazy approach and just quote Wikipedia for this one:

“American exceptionalism is the idea that the United States is inherently different from other nations. Proponents of it argue that the values, political system, and historical development of the U.S. are unique in human history, often with the implication that it is both destined and entitled to play a distinct and positive role on the world stage.”

This is also built on fiction. I don’t ignore that the history of the United States is its own. I don’t ignore that Winthrop had an exception from so many other colonies, to be so self-governing–up to a point, as we can see that the settlement was still part of the English empire, that Massachusetts was part of the North American colonies run by England, that even in being self-governing, that exception was up to a point and not forever lasting.

Hell, the US maintained slavery long after many of its European predecessors eliminated it–how is that a shining beacon on a hill to be admired by other nations?

What makes the US destined to be a positive example on the world stage, if the United States doesn’t also look to what Winthrop gets at, that we are to be a knitted people, united in causes despite our differences of class, if we don’t keep trying to be more willing to embrace all who are within that nation? How can the US be a positive example when it is behind in education, transportation, and economic development? It is not that there is not much to admire, appreciate, and enjoy about the United States.

But this idea that the US is destined is something that emerges, I think, in part from Winthrop’s application of the Bible to suggest that is fated for his Massachusetts, that later politicians thought was destined for the US–and there is no destination, there is a goal and there is what you do to get to that goal, and how you will fail at steps in that goal but can keep going and keep improving. And to suggest that the US is unique, an exception, ignores what happens when there comes to be another nation that one day can embody all that is good about the US–and shows what the US could do better.

Next Time

I’ll wrap up there for today. Thank you for listening to today’s review of John Winthrop’s A Model of Christian Charitie. What other questions come to mind about Winthrop? Which other US politicians have cited Winthrop, or incorporated ideas similar to this supposed American exceptionalism? I would love to know–drop your questions in the comments section or email them to [email protected]. I will address questions before or during the Section 2 review about the Puritan authors, which will be here on YouTube and Twitch on Tuesday, November 8 (time to be determined: I’m considering whether to stick to 11 AM EST or, for international viewers, go with 10 AM EDT–your thoughts in the comments are appreciated).

And next time we continue discussion about Puritans in early America. We will be reading Cotton Mather’s “The Trial of Martha Carrier.” You can read it online at Wikisource; link is in the video description.

As you read Mather, please consider these three questions:

Where do you see legal acumen in Mather’s text? Or, where do you see him acting more like a forensic scientist?

How should we regard gender as pertains to this text, in which a man such as Mather is writing about a woman such as Carrier?

Finally, what is in this text that you have seen played forward in time? In other words, all this talk about witches and witch hunts and witchcraft–where do you see it continue to appear in our current discourse and popular culture?

Thanks again for joining this livestream. If you enjoyed this livestream, please consider a monetary contribution at ko-fi.com/dereksmcgrath–your financial support helps keep me working in education.

Until Thursday at 11 AM EDT, I’ve been Derek S. McGrath. You have a good afternoon. Bye.

#american literature i #livestream #john winthrop #economics #politics #law #cw: bigotry #cw: aids mention #Youtube

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cs0127 · 5 years

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A detailed review of the OnePlus 7T from :wired:

I TEST A lot of phones here at WIRED. Smartphones incrementally change each year, and they’ve become more of an essential utility and less of a source of the tech world’s greatest innovations. I often appreciate their new features, but few of those enhancements spark actual joy. The OnePlus 7T, however, has done just that. Putting down the glossy, fingerprint-plastered Galaxy Note10 to review the matte glass 7T was both a relief and a reminder why OnePlus has continued to gain popularity as a smartphone brand year after year.

Like the company's previous devices, the 7T is a phone that showcases much of the best smartphone tech introduced in 2019 at a $600 price—more than $100 cheaper than many top rivals from Samsung, LG, and other manufacturers. What I’ve come to appreciate more is how it uses all that latest tech to enhance my life, often by getting out of my way. Its touch interface is simple and looks just like the brand new Google Android 10 OS it runs on, only a little easier to navigate. It’s just more pleasant, like a PB&J sandwich where mom cut the crust off just because she loves you.

Smooth and Frosty

If you’ve seen an expensive smartphone in the last two years, you know what the 7T looks and feels like, but I’ll describe it anyway. It has a 6.5-inch AMOLED display (that means deeper blacks and richer colors) that takes up its entire front. A teenie teardrop cutout hanging from the top of the screen holds a 16-megapixel selfie camera.

Like the similar and more expensive OnePlus 7 Pro, this display has a 90 Hz refresh rate, which makes the entire interface noticeably smoother. OnePlus calls it a Fluid AMOLED display, and it may live up to that name. Phones have been bumping up the resolution (this one has a 1080p HD screen), but the bump in refresh rate is more noticeable. Everything feels smoother and faster, with richer color than many displays.

The power and volume buttons are in all the right places, and OnePlus has kept its sound/mute/vibrate switch on the right side. It’s a dead-simple little toggle and worth every millimeter of its cutout, letting you easily silence your phone or perk it up anytime.

OnePlus was one of the first companies to introduce an in-display fingerprint sensor, and the latest iteration on this phone is faster than ever. I’ve had trouble with Samsung's on-screen sensors in the Galaxy S10 and Note10, but the optical fingerprint reader in the 7T does the trick in a way that’s more convenient than the fingerprint sensors on the back of many phones like the Google Pixel 3A.

The phone's frame is metal, and the back is covered in shimmering Gorilla Glass because ... well ... trends. It’s silly that the back is made of glass at all, given that we probably drop our phones more than anything besides our keys, and there's no big advantage to the glass here since the 7T doesn’t have wireless charging. But the “glacier blue” color certainly is sleek, and the frosted texture repels fingerprints better than some phones. OnePlus thankfully includes a clear case in the box. I suggest you slip it on.

All Spec’d Out

Between all that glass is a list of luxury technical specs. The 7T runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ processor, which is half a tad speedier than the 855 on some earlier phones this year. It also comes with 8 gigabytes of RAM, and 128 GB of storage. (Sorry, no MicroSD slot; that’s all you get.) These are all fantastic numbers, as are the numbers you’ll see from benchmark performance tests. It’s a powerful phone, right up there with the best.

OnePlus doesn’t make a lot of changes to Android 10, but the changes it does make seem to (mostly) improve the phone's performance. You can more easily swipe up or down from anywhere on the homescreen to access the notification shade or pull up your entire list of apps. I also like the gesture controls that mimic recent iPhones, and the option to turn the back button into a swipe from the left side of the phone has worked well for me. Your mileage may vary, but you can disable these gestures controls and go back to a traditional back-button setup if you like.

The fact that the 7T even has the latest Google OS is a testament to the company’s focus on delivering software and security updates. It promises two years of updates for buyers of the 7T, and has demonstrated a positive track record on updates for older phones. This is notable—despite costing close to $1,000, most Android phones outside of Google’s Pixel line and Motorola's handsets do not get regular software updates, leaving security vulnerabilities exposed and new features out of reach.

With stereo speakers and a gaming mode that optimizes graphics (and can also restrict notifications and calls so you can play without interruption), this is an ideal machine for playing Mario Kart Tour, or any other high-end title, until your eyeballs fall out. Netflix looks lovely, as well.

I’ve ended most days having spent four or five hours with the screen active, and seen about 50 percent battery remaining. A few nights, it’s been closer to 30 to 40 percent, if I stay up late. This is good, but somewhat normal battery life. If you want to improve your power efficiency, you can turn the 90 Hz refresh rate down to a more normal 60 Hz. In a pinch, the included charger is very quick. It can juice the 7T up significantly in a half hour.

Sadly, like many high-end phones, there’s no audio jack (and no adapter in the box), but OnePlus sells an adapter for $13. And this phone also isn’t IP-rated for water resistance. OnePlus claims it will handle some rain pretty well, but you won’t want to drop it in the tub.

Ready to Zoom

When it comes to smartphones, you ain’t cool unless you have three rear cameras these days, and OnePlus always wants to be cool. Like the 7 Pro, it has a 48-megapixel standard rear shooter that outputs extra sharp 12-megapixel images, a 16-megapixel sensor beneath an ultrawide lens, and a 12-megapixel telephoto. This lets you take shots that you can both zoom out a bit, and zoom in to 2X. There’s also a portrait mode, which adds a bokeh effect, the shallow depth-of-field trick that keeps the subject in focus but blurs the background in a close-up photo.

I had a great time shooting plenty of outdoor shots around Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the past week, and I've even enjoyed the extra stability of the Super Stable video mode, which uses the wide angle lens to better stabilize 1080p video; 4K 30 fps video is also available. Everything looks good, especially shots in the Nightscape mode. Like the new iPhone 11 and the latest Pixel phones, the 7T enhances night shots, adding more light, color and detail to areas that would have just appeared as black splotches on older phones. Night shots require a steady hand and a second or two wait, but they are a definite improvement.

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In some of the above shots, you can see some examples of Nightscape mode and Super Macro mode. If you press the flower icon in the upper left side of the camera app, you can move in closer to small objects and still see them stay in focus. The effect isn’t perfect, but I was able to get closer to some plants and ants than I ever have before using a smartphone. It’s a blast to play around with modes like these, and they solidify the OnePlus 7T as a phone for shutterbugs.

Plus One

OnePlus isn’t tampering with the formula that got it to the dance, and that’s good. The 7T is one of the most powerful phones you can buy, and it costs hundreds less than its peers. It also runs on all four major US carriers, and T-Mobile sells it directly.

I've recommended the Pixel 3A ($400) as the best phone to buy for a few months now, and given the performance it offers for the price, for many of you it still is the best phone. But if you are willing to spend an extra $200, the OnePlus 7T will give you a taste of the luxuries you’d otherwise miss out on.

Correction: I referred to the display as a "Liquid" display. OnePlus calls it a "Fluid" display.

you can check out all Amazon has to offer in the One Plus lineup at:(https://amzn.to/35H33nU)

#phones iphone mobile technology phone smartphone tech gadgets technologynews samsung android oneplus technews s mobilephone instagram iphone

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my-blogss · 3 years

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Central Web

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gaudeixcc · 6 years

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Peleton News – Confessions (G18 Tour special – April 2018)

This year’s tour was a little fractured to start with.

JT, my honorable (although diminutive) co-chair has been living in Munich for some time, so has reluctantly lobbed all administrative tasks my way. He still of course has a pointy figure hovering over the keyboard most hours of the day to fire off a bullet-like reminder should any delegated task fall in to the overdue category.

My approach this year had been to further convolute the whole process by sub-delegating further down the value chain. This year RTA picked up route-planning duties, shouldering the full burden once Moley had thrown the metaphoric towel into the Gaudeix corner.

JT arrived the night before to settle into Hotel Mariposa and to busy himself ready for our arrival next morning, where, his welcoming party preparation of sundry nibbles, iced towels, freshly pressed mango juice and 6 flutes of chilled Champaign could be seen exactly nowhere.

Quietly bikes were built and readied.

I don’t with to appear overly-critical at this early stage, however I feel it is important to highlight areas where improvement could be made.

My first area of improvement relates to a mathematical ratio.

13.2 is an acceptable ratio.

60 is a completely unacceptable ratio.

Back in the day when I rode motorcycles for my thrill-seeking pleasure, the most expensive item of an accessory nature was the helmet. An oft quoted saying was ‘If you’ve got a £10 head, get a £10 helmet’.

I valued my head at considerable more than £10 and hence why I could be seen peacocking about the place in the latest stealth MotoGP inspired bonce-protecting loveliness from Arai, makers of the very best.

And the same is true of bikes and their bags.

If you’ve got a ratty old Trek which you equally be happy to see as landfill as opposed to nestled between your legs, then by all means bag it with a carrier from Tesco.

If on the other hand you have a carbonfibre creation, with composite wheels, electronic shifting and less weight than a fat sparrow, then for fucks sake, buy a proper bag.

Is there a correlation between 2 visits to a bike shop for fixing 2 bikes hurled into fifty quid bags?

Answers on a postcard…

Next year we are going to be introducing the video referee to dish out ‘after the event’ fines and tickets to offences against cycling such as this little atrocity.

Anyway, peleton delayers aside, we had quite a good tour from a reliability perspective.

No flats at all in 3 days of riding.

Not bad going considering the excess baggage about 50% of the peloton where wheeling about the place.

It can be a harsh life travelling with a pack of cyclists. As a group, we are generally slow to acknowledge quality but lightening-fast to highlight weakness.

This year’s theme was most definitely fatness.

It all started when Dripping decided to relax on day one and let his guard down.

The relief a fat Victorian lady must feel when at the end of a day grazing on mutton, savory puddings and broiled swan, she releases the strings on her corset, was probably how Dripping felt as he gently supped an ale whilst not ‘tensed’ or ‘sucking it in for dear life’ sitting quietly in the sun.

It was harsh and cruel for Mac to take a picture of Dripping at rest in such an unguarded state. The resulting snap caused almost immediate physiological damage, which was then added to by verbal slappery of the worst kind from almost all.

Macca’s boobs got a much lower level of attention than would otherwise have been.

But the real crime in the whole torrid ‘fatgate’ affair, was a quietly outed photo from Colchester Mac which showed what looked like a Michelin Man ballooned around a struggling Cannondale, legs bouncing hard off an impressive midriff as the owner snuffled and puffed his sorry arse up a hill.

That night James in a moment of shocking and completely unexpected kindness said to me ‘You’ve put on a bit of timber this year’…..

It’s about as nice as he’s ever been to me in the 15 years of friendship we have shared.

Ever.

Meanwhile, back in the Peloton, Whatsapp was on fire as fat Michelin man took a breather from cycling, sat down, drank a beer, guzzled food and then promptly took a micro-nap to allow his body to digest this latest onslaught of calories.

The peloton…. They can be mighty cruel to those built for comfort.

Anyway…let’s move on. Let’s talk compliments….

‘Love the tattoos’

‘You’re girlfriend is very pretty. The plastic she has had inserted in the chest area is both proportionally perfect and pleasing to the eye’

‘Nice denim’

‘Wow.. impressive steed’.

All of the above are probably good ways to make a hells angel feel special.

Alternatively, you could surprise the life out of him by slapping him on the arse as you cycle past at 15 mph…. showing shock and dismay on your face and general surprise that he hadn’t apparently heard your tinckly bike-bell.

I arrived at a stationary Peloton to find Macca being verbally abused by a very angry biker who was busy calling us all arseholes……. I mean he was right…. Must have been a lucky guess.

This was another visible demonstration of Macca’s intolerance to a good swathe of human kind.

On the flight out, Moley’s seat on the plane had been taken by a Turkish lady of more senior years and built like I will be if I don’t stop eating constantly.

She was resting up from the exertion of having had to climb the stairs at the rear of the bus and drag her cabin bag the 6 yards to her seat. The bag was then occupying Macca’s seat whilst she appeared to be cuddling it.

This was clearly a cue for some helpful soul to then lift it into one of the overhead lockers and help her out.

Macca, ignoring this cue like the plague, barked at her. He informed the startled greek lady that he owned the seat, not her bag, and would she kindly get a shift on and move it.

The plane went awkwardly quiet.

Trembling, the lady dressed in black wobbled to her feet and with oscilating bingo wings hoisted the bag upward. There was a moment or 2 when none of us could be sure the bag was going to make it. Like an Olympic weightlifter going for a PB, there was a pause, a grunt and then a final push… the bag was in.

Macca looked on in bland indifference.

She sat down, glazed with a sheen of garlic and thyme perspiration.

I think secretly Macca was hoping for an engine issue, a wayward turbofan blade and the exiting of the Greek weightlifter from the above-wing window seat.

He fumed quietly for most of the flight.

I suppose I should at some point talk about the cycling.

As with all these tours there is a lot to cover. But, as with most years, I generally can’t be arsed doing so and instead revert to the well-established highlights list.

So, here goes for G18, Malaga;

• Dripping confessing to having voted tactically in previous tours when it came to the yellow cap. Berlusconi-esque in its political nefariousness • C&N orange camo base layer • Mrs RTA’s contribution to the tour…. Can’t name it for legal reasons, but it went down exceptionally well • RTA’s ghost-like completion on date realisation • General higher standard of dress quality (although I still feel the shame and hurt from the explicit savaging I got from Dripping on the yellow cap voting paper… he went into enough detail to require and appendix FFS…) • Damo’s use of the back pen on photos • Whilst he did fuck all in his season of pink, Damo did at least sort out everyone elses mechanical catastrafucks whilst on tour • RTA’s route planning. Magestic. Simply nailed it to the floor. The pink was going one way only after 3 days of beautiful scenery • I hate losing. I especially hate losing to Dripping. I especially especially hate losing to Dripping twice. First time I made an error of timing. After having nearly lost a lung hunting down my prey I should have tailed his sorry ass for half a K before nailing the finish. I didn’t and paid heavily. Day 3’s mechanical was akin to running out of petrol 50 yards short of the finish line. I was running in the red and Drip snuck in and nicked my lunch. Absolute bastard. • Col Mac’s ‘Spam’ top • Macca’s deep-seated suspicion of foreign restaurants… he had me convinced that the preparers of our final meal where going to triple the bill, hack our phones, empty our accounts, spit in our food and quite possibly steal our children. What they actually ended up doing was serving us food which was simply sensational and probably the best meal I’ve eaten in the last 12 months, and then go on to charge us very modestly for it too. • Strange fact number 1. Everything edible in Malaga is cooked in beef fat. • Strange fact number 2. There is nothing wrong with 7 over 40 year olds drinking pink gin with berries in the glass. Completely hetrosexual and in keeping with the modern men we are. (On reflection, I think Colchester Mac way have swerved the gin actually) • If I have to hear one more bloody time about how good wahoo is…… you didn’t invent the fucking thing for the love of sweet baby Jesus… • Shit Garmins • The descent on day 3…on day one going up it I nearly died…. On day 3 coming down I could have cried…. Probably the best descent this peloton has tasted. • This year’s tour caps…. Top quality. • A vintage year that saw our first triple-cap…. ! Yes, my (well deserved) orange nailed a hat trick of caps (although only 2 physical caps probably maketh the point moot). • Desire takes many forms. But few have the strength and longing that have been displayed with the force of a Dripping wanting yellow. He may have ‘bought’ the cap, but god it was worth it to see his little face!! • Murdering 9 oranges to make 1 drink

And finally, whilst we have our highlights list, we also have a lowlights list. This one is my own personal list…. Only 2 entries… and neither of them spotted or witnessed by the Peloton;

1. On unpacking my bike and reassembling, somehow my fat fucking fingers and squinty eyesight have managed to crush the Di2 cable that runs the front mech…. FFS… bike now on turbo in just the little ring…. Horrible humble and apologetic call to Damo/Amy coming shortly. I can actually feel Damo’s eyebrows raise as he reads this…. (and can actually here him say ‘well you’re a fucking idiot aren’t you’…..) 2. Do you know what Raybans hitting tarmac at 20 mph sound like? No? It took me a while to figure it out too…. Well, 10 miles worth of fast riding to be precise…. And then I sulked quietly for 20 mins when I realised that day 2 would be the last time I went our armed with more than one pair of sunnies…… I kepy it quiet because Trusler would have definitely shit himself laughing at that one…..

So there we have it. Drip and Mac need new bike bags if they are to show their cycling faces ever again, Macca needs to take a tolerance pill twice daily, Damo needs to tut in my general direction, JT needs to not mention sunnies to me ever again, Moley needs to get his shit together in readiness for G19 and RTA needs to take a well deserved bow to a round of applause from the Peloton.

Malaga, G18…. Magic.

Hoppo

#PelotonNews

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ezatluba · 5 years

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The Most Ridiculous Gifts We’ve Given Our Pets

DEC. 10, 2019

Kelly Conaboy

The holidays are full of obligations. Parties, travel, cookie swaps, buying giftsfor people you don’t know much about, buying those people a saucepan because you assume they probably cook. But there is always one bright spot: choosing a somewhat egregious gift for your sweet pet whom you love so much.

According to New York Dog Shop owner Lisa Borregine, the most popular holiday gifts tend toward the more regular. Over the phone, she told me that although they do sell a few high-end bags, carriers, and harnesses, mostly from the brand Susan Lanci, the average person “doesn’t spend $100 on a harness.” (Or, I imagine, $3,199 for a carrier.) “That’s something most people think is over the top.”

Instead, the popular gifts are personalized carriers (the “Fundle” is popular) and collars. Borregine also notes that the shop sells figurines that can be painted, for an additional fee, the exact coloring of your dog. I have to say: That does sound quite tempting.

But what are the most outrageous things we, personally, have purchased or constructed for our pets during the holiday season or otherwise? I’ll go first: I once paid $60 for a dog-sweater re-creation of the sweater Danny wears in The Shining. My dog hates it very much, and, to be honest, it doesn’t even look good on him (even though he is extremely handsome). Do I regret buying it? Of course.

“So … yeah,” offered Nora, the owner of a corgi named Daisey. “I got an antique pram off Craigslist for our corgi. She’s not old or disabled. She’s just fancy.” Indeed, she is; it is quite clear from the accompanying photographs. She also notes Daisey “likes being up a little higher off the ground,” and who doesn’t?

“One year, we made a maze out of cardboard and put a pile of home-cooked brisket at the end,” Cut senior editor Jen Gann told me. “I’d imagined our dog joyfully racing through the paths, but he just stood at the edge, wagging his tail and staring up at us with hope in his eyes. Like maybe if he was patient enough, we’d tell him what was happening.”

A reader named Paolo submitted another lovely homemade gift. “My mother, who is both Italian and a graduate of Pratt, painted miniature versions of classical paintings for our dogs, Jazzy and Fionn, and hung them on eye level above their food bowls, so they could take in some culture while eating.”

Catherine, a dog owner near Philadelphia, told me this enchanting “tail” of a gift gone awry: “Our neighbor gifted our dog, Winston, a toy bunny, which we later discovered was a Christmas gift to their 18-month-old daughter.” Dog toys and baby toys tend to look quite similar — it’s true. “Winston destroyed it.”

New York City dog owner Brittany once got her beloved the gift of Brooklyn relaxation. “One Valentine’s Day, I treated my doggo to a full spa treatment at this posh groomer in Williamsburg, and he was so happy and clean and snazzy!”

Dhaaruni, a former stuffed-dog owner, wrote in with a story of a gift passed down through time. “When I was 7, I had a stuffed dog named Wishbone who had the exact same coloring as the Wishbone on the PBS show,” she said. “Fast-forward 18 years, and my family now has a golden retriever named Jude who is extremely spoiled and has more toys than my whole family had combined. I didn’t even know Wishbone made it from Dallas (where we lived when I was 7) to San Diego to Seattle and multiple houses in those cities, but my mom found Wishbone, gave him to Jude, and now Jude carries Wishbone everywhere he goes.”

Writer Libby Watson has a cat named Digby, for whom she bought a gift that, she says, “was really a gift for myself and my ego.” I’ll allow her to take it away:

“You know those videos on YouTube of two cats in stupid hats that ring a little receptionist’s bell and receive a treat? Of course you do. I think I had seen one of these videos like three or four times before I decided to pull the trigger and order a bell, with the intention of teaching Digby to ring the bell when she wanted a treat. (It was like $12 on Amazon.) Imagine how cute, I thought, if Digby put her little paw on the bell to get a treat, just like those little guys with orange hats over their ears, with their big worried eyes looming out. Imagine how proud I would be of my clever little girl!

Unexpectedly, the plan didn’t work out. I attribute this to two things: (1) Even though I was pretty careful about only giving her treats after ringing the bell (and only ringing the bell if I was going to give her a treat), my husband thought it was much funnier to ring the bell over and over, making it impossible to teach her the association between bell and treat. (2) Digby is not very clever, in fact.

We still have the bell. It is quite fun to ring.”

Writer Emma Specter’s gift went unused, save for one photo, which is sometimes the best we can hope for. “I bought my best friends’ Labradoodle a tiny dog backpack with a cartoon of a bear on it, because I wanted him to look like a fancy little schoolboy,” she said. “But he hated it, and they refused to force him into it, rudely.”

Michele, owner of a Shih Tzu named Radar, bought her dog several plastic baseball bats: “He actually had two or three. I believe two were the fat bats for little children, and then a skinny, regular-width bat. The bats were bigger than him.” She said her dog’s love of bats began after he found one of her daughter’s on the porch. “He grabbed it by the handle and just started growling (playfully) and swinging it around. His small but mighty jaws even managed to crush parts of it.” Of course, we are proud of Radar.

And finally, Zoe gave her cat the gift of dominance. “I bought (adopted) (“adopted”) a wolf from a wolf sanctuary for my cat, Eliza, so that she could feel more powerful and dominant in the household. They sent us a little packet, with her name on the adoption certificate, and she fell in love with his photograph instantly:

Bartholomeus Anglicus says "The wolf may not bend his neck backward in no month of the year but in May alone, when it thundereth" and I say that's another thing me and wolves have got in commonhttps://wolftree.substack.com/p/what-is-best-wolf-weather …

What is best Wolf weather

‘WOLF TREE,’ just like ‘BEAT YOUR WEIGHT IN WILDCATS’ and ‘JACK IN THE DARK WHERE ARE YOU,’ is a term I learned out of my lumberjack slang handbook along with other useful words and phrases, and has...

[Eliza] "related to [the wolf] Achilles’ photograph in particular as a starstruck 1950s youth to a Photoplay magazine, he was after all very handsome" here are the pictures, you've seen them before, you'll see them again. please read my wolf essay, it means so much to me

See the needle-felted head of joyce carol oates's other Tweets

oh my god I let myself start talking about nature's most despicable creatures, I am sorry to anyone who caught the horrors from it. as apology here is a picture of my cat making out with a photo of her boyfriend, a wolf his name is achilles

See the needle-felted head of joyce carol oates's other Tweets

(Eliza is deceased as of four months ago, but the sanctuary doesn’t know that, so as far as her wolf is concerned, she still owns him.)”

Dominance, even in death. Is there a better gift?

Please enjoy the holidays with your sweet animal, and remember: The gift of your love is the greatest gift of all. Unless they don’t like you. And you’ll never really know if they do, will you?

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thoughtsofck-blog · 7 years

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The Struggle to Understand the Importance of Net Neutrality

Sorry guys, this is going to be a long one. It's important to me.

Net Neutrality is complicated. Right now the FCC is pushing to remove restrictions to Title 2 of the Communications Act of 1934. Yes, our Internet laws stem from an act created 83 years ago.

A brief history - The Communications Act of 1934 was created "to provide for the regulation of interstate and foreign communication by wire or radio, and for other purposes." Title 1 outlines whom this applies to (radio broadcasts, wire communication, telecommunications, etc.), it categorized communications as a form of interstate good, and created the FCC to regulate it. I know reading laws is boring, but seriously, Title 1, Section 1 is an inspiring piece of legislature - it's only a paragraph long, check it out. [1]

Title 2 set forth additional regulations. Section 202 ensures that communications companies operated without giving any unfair advantage to particular persons or companies. Other fun facts - It also requires companies to provide the FCC and consumers a breakdown of service charges (Section 203), and made harassing phone calls and inappropriate communication to a minor via telecommunication a prosecutable offense (Section 223). [2]

Deregulating Title 2 could make it legal for your Internet Service Providers (ISPs like TWC/Spectrum, Cox, Verizon, etc.) to pick and choose which websites could use Internet speeds to their fullest capacities. For example, Cox could throttle Netflix speeds if they were pushing their consumers to instead use Cox On Demand to watch TV and movies. Now, this doesn't mean that every ISP will jump to do this if Title 2 is deregulated, but it does open the door for them to do so.

That's like handing a kid a magnifying glass on a sunny day, pointing to an anthill and saying "Now don't go burn any ants," and walking away. You hope they'll do the right thing, but you've just provided them with the tools to do the wrong thing.

That's what current FCC chair, Ajit Pai, is banking on. Pai even suggested to Reuters that ISPs could "voluntarily agree in their terms of service to not obstruct or slow consumer access to web content." [3] During an interview with PBS News Hour, Pai says that the scenario in which ISP favoritism would occur "is hypothetical". [4]

Has anybody ever read their Internet Terms of Service (TOS)? After checking the TOS for TWC/Spectrum [5], Cox [6], and AT&T [7] - all three say that they reserve the right to change their TOS at any time without notifying the customer. Verizon Fios will notify its customers via email as long as you opt in to receive their email communications [8]. You should read your Terms of Service sometime - it's fascinating. For instance, TWC/Spectrum say it's a violation of their TOS to let anybody who isn't a member of your household use your Wi-Fi [9].

President Trump has already deregulated part of Title 2 (Section 222) [10] with S.J.Res.34, signed in to law on April 3, 2017. S.J.Res.34 allows ISPs to sell consumer information including web browser history, location data, and other personal information. [11] S.J.Res.34 does state that it "requires telecommunications carriers to inform customers about rights to opt in or opt out of the use or the sharing of their confidential information." [12] Currently by using TWC/Spectrum services a consumer is automatically opted-in to allow them to disclose information to direct marketing such as your name, address, non-phone services you subscribe to, age, income, and other demographic information - unless you decide to opt-out. You can do this by notifying TWC/Spectrum in writing at a local office, or by emailing TWC directly. [13] How long did it take me to find that information? Over an hour.

While companies like AT&T and Verizon have made statements saying they have no plans to sell customer browser histories, [14] [15] both companies have used tactics to trick consumers into giving up their information in the forms of discounted Internet and rewards programs.

In late 2013 AT&T introduced the "Internet Preferences advertising program" offering high-speed internet at cheaper prices to customers as long as they opted-in to making their web-browsing data available for direct marketing. Customers who chose to opt-out for their privacy were charged an additional $29 per month as a privacy fee. [16] AT&T ended this program in October 2016.

Similarly, Verizon Wireless currently offers their customers Verizon Smart Rewards - a points accumulation program that rewards you for simple tasks, like paying your bill or enrolling in auto pay. These points can be spent on gift cards and discounted dining and travel. So are these free points really free? No. You volunteer to put your personal data up for sale by Verizon. When you opt-in to Verizon Smart Rewards, you are also required to opt-in to Verizon Selects, which is a program solely for selling your personal information. You give Verizon permission to sell your web browsing history, info on apps you use, your location data, and more. [17] Verizon's 2014 press release announcing the Smart Rewards program glazes over that information stating that they are "introducing a fun new way customers can get even more from their wireless service provider." [18] And fittingly, a way for Verizon to get even more out of their customers.

It's because of these tactics that regulations are unfortunately a necessity. I know reading your Terms of Service is akin to drinking sand, but it's better to fully understand what you're signing up for.

What does deregulating Net Neutrality hurt? It takes choice away from you, the consumer, it could play favorites to certain news outlets, and it could restrict access to independent filmmakers and other arts. Is that really what we want?

Enter John Oliver, Host of HBO's Last Week Tonight. Oliver previously defended Net Neutrality back in 2014 [19] and called on all Internet users to take the FCC up on its offer inviting public comments on the issue. Within days, the FCC commenting system had crashed because it had been overwhelmed with comments supporting Net Neutrality. Fast forward to 2017, and he's calling on the masses to do it again. The FCC has since complicated the process of getting to this commenting system, so Last Week Tonight purchased the URL www.gofccyourself.com to take you directly to where you can leave your comment for the FCC concerning Net Neutrality. [20]

Title 2 of the Communications Act of 1934 is an important part of keeping the Internet accessible to everybody. Please leave your thoughts with the FCC, and regularly check in with your Representatives and Senators to make sure you know where they stand on the issue.

And in case anybody wanted to check my references, I've provided links to everything here:

GoogleDoc - Net Neutrality References

Give it a look! There's some good reading and video clips in there.

If you took the time to read this, thank you.

- CK

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thecoroutfitters · 7 years

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North Korea’s antics and activities have filled the news for months now, having accelerated since Donald Trump was sworn in as president.

While their pursuit of nuclear weapons and missile technology is nothing new, the hermit kingdom of Kin Jong-un seems to be making strides in that direction.

Their latest missile test is a prime example of this. Scheduled on our Independence Day, this missile was a “present” to the United States, according to North Korea’s dictator.

This missile, the Hwasong-14, was the first truly intercontinental missile that the North Korean’s have developed, and its maiden flight went off flawlessly. After the failures of their most recent missile tests, the success of this new model has suddenly made the threat from North Korea much more real.

According to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Hwasong-14 missile flew over 900 miles, all of it under power. It splashed into the ocean within Japan’s exclusive economic zone, making it a real threat to the Japanese as well, another country that the North Korean government hates almost as much as it hates the United States.

But Japan is a long way from the United States, isn’t it? Yes it is, but the missile didn’t fly its full designed range, probably so that North Korea’s engineers could watch the descent and splashdown as well.

According to experts, the 37 minute flight time of the missile would have given it the ability to reach a maximum altitude of 2,800 km. That would give it a total range of 8,000 km or more, exactly what the government in Pyongyang has stated it would do.

What this means is that the North Koreans finally have a missile that has the potential of reaching the United States. Alaska, Seattle, Washington and Hawaii are all within its range, making Kim Jong-un’s oft-repeated threat of unleashing nuclear hell on the United States a real possibility for the first time.

The fact that this missile, the first of its type, performed so well on its maiden voyage is especially troubling, as it shows how much North Korea’s engineers have been learning from the failures of their recent launches. While those were not of the Hwasong-14, the lessons learned from those less-capable missile launches were obviously applied to the design and manufacture of this new one.

Essentially, this missile is an improvement on the Hwasong-12, with a second stage added. While the first three launches of the Hwasong-12 were failures, the fourth attempt, in May of this year, was a success, with the missile’s apogee 2,111.5 km above the ground and landing 787 km away in the Sea of Japan.

This leads me to think that the Hwasong-14 may actually be able to surpass the 2,800 hm altitude necessary to reach the West Coast of the United States.

What’s Next on the Battlefield?

Does this mean that thermonuclear war is going to come in the next few weeks? Probably not. But it does clearly show us that we are one step closer.

How many of these new missiles they have in production right now is a big question that remains unanswered, as well as whether their nuclear program has reached the point where their bombs are small enough to be installed on top of one of these missiles.

But it is clear that at the rate in which North Korea is improving their missile technology that it won’t be long before they are a true threat to the mainland United States. This new missile, if launched close enough to the United States, could easily carry a nuclear bomb high enough to generate an EMP that would blanket all 48 contiguous states.

Since the missile launches off a mobile launcher, rather than from a silo, this is a very real possibility. It is too large to fit into North Korea’s ballistic missile subs, but it is not too large to be ship-launched.

While too long to fit into a standard shipping container, a special container could be manufactured for it, with the launcher built in. Shipped on a North Korean freighter, this would not be noticeable by the international community.

Such a ship, armed with the Hwasong-14 and a team of technicians, could launch from the middle of the ocean, conducting an effective EMP strike. Being in the middle of the ocean would make detection and interdiction of the responsible ship difficult, but not impossible.

Even so, I am sure that Kim Jong-un would be happy to trade the lives of that crew for the destruction of the United States’ electrical grid.

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In addition, North Korea has as many as six ballistic missile submarines. While they are actually obsolete technology, their existence can’t be ignored. Each of those subs can carry up to two Pukkuksong-1 nuclear missiles.

While the range of that missile is limited to 500 km, the submarine could sneak in close to the shore, launching their missiles to take the heart out of any city within about 300 miles of the coast. Used in conjunction with the Hwasong-14, in a coordinated attack, these could add a considerable amount of punch to the attack.

Recently, I was discussing this with a friend in the military, who dismissed the North Korean’s submarine fleet as obsolete. While I have to agree with him to some extent, there is one glaring statistic which is of supreme importance in any discussion of North Korea’s submarine capabilities. That is, they have a lot of them.

Current estimates put their submarine fleet near 70, which means it would take every submarine the United States Navy owns, including our ballistic submarines to shadow them all.

What this means is that the North Koreans could swarm their submarines to sea and we would not be able to follow them all. Properly executed, there is a chance that their ballistic submarines would escape detection and therefore would not be shadowed. Should that happen, they would have a potent weapon pointed at our country.

Of course, a lot depends on what sort of attack the North Korean military would choose to hurl at the United States. While Kim Jong-un has made it clear that his intent is to attack us with nuclear arms, there are many forms that attack could take. Most specifically, it could be an EMP or a more conventional nuclear attack.

Video first seen on PBS NewsHour .

Our best chances would be if he launched a conventional nuclear attack against us. While that would probably mean the destruction of a number of our most important cities, as a nation we would survive.

But an EMP attack would take out our electrical grid, our communications and just about everything else in the country. Chances are, 90 percent of our population would die.

Currently, we have three aircraft carriers and their battle groups steaming off the Korean Peninsula, ready for anything that North Korea might do. While this constitutes a major naval force, projecting more power than any other nation’s military can project.

But it is of little use against a nuclear threat, except in the case of a disarming first strike. Should the president decide that such a strike was necessary, the combined air power of the three aircraft carriers doesn’t come close to the number of fighters available to North Korea.

Of course, our Navy’s F-16s are more advanced than the North Korean’s fighter jets, even their F-21s, of which they have about 200. Nevertheless, sheer numbers are on the side of the North Koreans, if it is decided that it is necessary to do a preemptive strike against them. Between 458 fighter aircraft and 572 attack aircraft, our 180 Navy aircraft will have a busy time of it.

Then there’s the risk of North Korea attacking our aircraft carriers with their submarine fleet, if we launch a preemptive strike. While our naval fleets always work with submarines in attendance and our nuclear-powered fast-attack boats are technologically far superior to their diesel-electric ones, the sheer numbers of submarines that the North Korean’s have available to them would make things interesting for the submarines working to defend our carrier fleets.

But the real trump card that the North Koreans hold, is the fact that their missiles are mobile. Unlike fixed locations, the missile carriers themselves would have to be located, before any attack could be made. While I’m sure that the NRO is hard at work at this task, hunting for something as small as a missile launcher, in the vastness of any country, even one as small as North Korea, is not easy.

Looking at all this together, it is clear that the threat of a nuclear-armed North Korea is a real threat. It is clear that we would win any exchange with the North Koreans. If they chose to use a nuclear-tipped missile against us, our long-standing policy would be to retaliate in kind.

While I would hate to have the responsibility to give that order, someone in the Pentagon has to be thinking about it.

Who’s Paying the Price?

Turning North Korea into a parking lot, in retaliation for destroying our country or even one of our major cities, is not an equitable bargain. We might win the war, but it would be at a terrible price in both military and civilian lives. That’s a price that we as a nation, can’t afford to pay.

So, while chances of a non-military solution are looking thinner and thinner by the day, we need to be praying and hoping for just that. The last Korean war cost approximately 1.9 million total casualties, this next one could cost many times more.

You and I need to be prepared for such an eventuality, regardless of whether it means a conventional nuclear exchange or suffering an EMP attack.

If you live in or near a major city, especially on the West Coast, I would recommend that it’s time to move. Find yourself some greener pastures elsewhere, where you would not be living in the midst of a target. If you can make that move be to a small town, where you wouldn’t have to content with the massive number of people trying to survive after an EMP, so much the better.

Either way, we have apparently just entered another Cold War, and this one seems like we are facing off against an enemy who is much less stable than the old Soviet Union was.

Chances of an actual nuclear attack are clearly much greater than they have ever been. Take the right steps to survival and prepare to face the blackout with your own energy bank! Click the banner for more!

This article has been written by Bill White for Survivopedia.

References:

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/north-koreas-submarine-fleet-big-threat-or-big-joke-20300

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jeramymobley · 6 years

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Krispy Kreme Serves Americans’ Favorite Coffee—Harris EQ Study

The best coffee chain in the U.S., as determined by more than 77,000 participants for the Harris Poll’s 30th annual EquiTrend Study, isn’t Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts, but Krispy Kreme—which wins points with customers for regularly handing out free donuts.

This year, 80 brands were named #1 in their category; a sampling:

Retail: Department store: Kohl’s Luxury department store: Nordstrom Hardware & home: The Home Depot Shoes: DSW (Designer Shoe Warehouse) Sporting goods: DICK’S

Hotels: Economy: Microtel Mid-market: Hampton Inn & Suites Upscale: Courtyard by Marriott Premium: Marriott Luxury: Four Seasons

Consumer goods: Coffee maker: Keurig Digital camera: Canon Major appliances: KitchenAid

Auto: Luxury: Lexus Full line: Honda

Online: Auto shopping: Kelley Blue Book (KBB.com) Job search: Indeed Home search: Zillow Travel service: TripAdvisor Social network: YouTube

Financial: Mobile payment: PayPal National bank: Capital One Online bank: Barclays Regional bank: BB&T Credit card: Visa Investing: The Vanguard Group

Insurance: Life: AXA Multi-line: AAA Property & casual: GEICO

Digital entertainment: Car audio: Bose Streaming audio: Pandora Streaming video: Netflix

TV: General: PBS Pay cable: HBO News: The Weather Channel Factual: History Channel Sports: ESPN Entertainment: AMC Kids: Disney Junior

Airlines: Full service: Hawaiian Airlines Value: Southwest Airlines

Restaurants: Hamburger: Five Guys Burgers & Fries Pizza: Blaze Pizza Chicken: Chick-fil-A Mexican: Taco Bell Sandwich: Panera and Subway (tie) Casual: The Cheesecake Factory and Texas Roadhouse (tie) Coffee: Krispy Kreme Ice Cream: Ben & Jerry’s

Tech: Computer manufacturer: Microsoft Printer: HP Smartphone: Apple iPhone Smartwatch: Asus ZenWatch Tablet: Apple iPad Virtual Personal assistant: Amazon Alexa and Apple Siri (tie)

Services: Car rentals: Enterprise Delivery: UPS Real estate: Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Wireless carrier: Verizon Wireless

Measuring brand health over time, the EquiTrend Brand Equity Index is comprised of three factors – Familiarity, Quality and Purchase Consideration – that result in a brand equity rating for each brand. Brands ranking highest in equity receive the Harris Poll EquiTrend “Brand of the Year” award for their respective categories. This year, more than 77,000 U.S. consumers assessed more than 3,000 brands across more than 300 categories.

This year’s EQ study reflected an emerging trend in consumer behavior – the push to simplify and align with brands they know and trust. The common thread in the 2018 EQ study is waning familiarity strength among consumers. While the overall EQ study score average is stable overall, one-quarter of brands measured in 2017 showed a significant decline in EQ scores. The decline reveals that consumers are becoming less connected to a large set of brands and more connected to a smaller, select set of brands, marked by decreasing brand awareness and quality perception in this year’s study.

While many of these brands are mainstays with strong equity as a whole, it seems that in the social age of waning attention spans and the fast pace of new products, consumers are turning inward and focusing on select brands they know and trust. Only 10% of brands saw a significant increase in equity from 2017.

“The EQ study reveals that brand equity is no longer guaranteed by size or media impressions,” stated The Harris Poll CEO, John Gerzema. “This is actually a time when being ‘big’ is code for being the establishment. As private label and the popularity of craft products rises, brands are now differentiated on their values, personal connection and their ability to build community.”

The post Krispy Kreme Serves Americans’ Favorite Coffee—Harris EQ Study appeared first on brandchannel:.

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paulbenedictblog · 5 years

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%news%

New Post has been published on %http://paulbenedictsgeneralstore.com%

Usa today Top Ukraine expert appears before House panels, Game 6 of the World Series: 5 things to know Tuesday

Usa today

Editors, USA TODAY Printed 2: 57 a.m. ET Oct. 29, 2019 | Updated 6: 05 a.m. ET Oct. 29, 2019

Usa today Ukraine expert scheduled to appear as portion of Trump impeachment inquiry

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a top Trump administration Ukraine expert, is scheduled to appear sooner than Dwelling panels Tuesday as portion of the impeachment inquiry investigation. Vindman, who serves as the director for European Affairs for the National Safety Council, is the main particular person to appear sooner than the panels who listened to the July 25 mobile phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — the match at the guts of the Dwelling's impeachment investigation.Vindman twice notified superiors about concerns that the president and those working for him were linking international wait on to Ukraine with investigations that could per chance wait on Trump politically, a push that he said could undermine U.S. national security, in line along with his opening assertion.

Dwelling to vote on impeachment inquiry procedures after weeks of GOP attacks

Mike Pence defends Trump in PBS interview: It is now not a 'foregone conclusion' Dwelling will vote to question

Pres. Trump says the impeachment probe contributed to his resolution to preserve peep to leaders earlier than the raid on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. (Oct. 28) AP

Remove to listen? Take a look at out the 5 things podcast and subscribe completely free on Apple Podcasts:

Usa today Excessive winds fueling fires, energy outages in California

California's wildfire emergency is anticipated to worsen Tuesday due to the high winds that have bedeviled the Golden Deliver since the weekend. Pacific Gasoline & Electric, which has been aggressively turning off clients' energy to discontinuance high winds from sparking wildfires, said the most fresh "severe wind match" could have an effect on 35 counties and mumble off outages for as much as 640,000 clients. Extra than 2 million Californians this month were hit with outages, which have sparked the wrath of voters and politicians. The high winds are furthermore anticipated to fireplace up the Kincade Fireplace in Sonoma County, which became factual 5% contained Monday. The blaze has consumed 85 square miles and is accountable for displacing 180,000 of the mumble's 200,000 evacuees.

Raging fires, high winds and blackouts: Is this 'the fresh unprecedented'?

Southern California has the Santa Ana winds,north has 'Diablo'

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Usa today Astros peek to enact off World Series in Game 6

After shedding the main two video games of the World Series, the Houston Astros bounced motivate to resolve three in a row on the avenue in opposition to the Washington Nationals and are factual one resolve away from their 2nd championship in three years. Game 6 is motivate in Houston on Tuesday night time (8: 07 p.m. ET, Fox), with the Astros throwing Justin Verlander in opposition to Nationals honest-hander Stephen Strasburg. If the Nationals resolve, Game 7 will likely be Wednesday night time.

Money on their mind: World Series stars will became MLB's top free brokers

Nationals' palms: Washington fully relying on just a few pitchers in October

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Usa today Tentative deal reached for Chicago college toughen group as academics' strike enters day 9

Chicago has reached a tentative settlement with the union representing 7,500 college toughen group, who were putting alongside some 25,000 Chicago Public College academics. College group, such as bus aides and custodians represented by the Carrier Workers Worldwide Union Native 73, on Sunday night time announced a tentative contend with the metropolis. The tentative settlement, that can also simply expire in 2023, must be licensed by a majority of the membership. Members will vote Monday and Tuesday, said Dian Palmer, president of SEIU Native 73. Nonetheless at this level, the SEIU deal will now not restart lessons: SEIU group are anticipated to remain on the wooden lines till Chicago Lecturers Union furthermore reaches a contend with Metropolis Hall.

Chicago academics strike: Talks resume, but gap between facets is big, officers express

Chicago Public Schools canceled lessons for but every other day after the lecturers' union and the district failed to reach a deal to discontinuance a week-long strike. The academics union president says there became development in bargaining Thursday. (Oct. 25) AP, AP

Usa today It is been one one year since the Lion Air smash that killed nearly 200 people

Tuesday marks one one year since Lion Air flight 610 crashed in Indonesia claiming 189 lives.An Indonesian investigation found the Lion Air flight became doomed by a aggregate of plane salvage flaws, insufficient practicing and upkeep concerns.A final accident report said the flight crashed since the pilots were never informed snappily answer to malfunctions of the Boeing 737 Max 8 jet’s automatic flight-withhold watch over system. Interesting 5 months after the Indonesian smash, the same extra or much less malfunction led to a Max jet to smash in Ethiopia, killing all 157 people on board.Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said in June, his firm made a "mistake" by failing to keep in touch the concerns it became having with tool aboard its 737 Max plane. Muilenburg will testify sooner than congressional committees this week for the main time about troubles with the 737 Max.

Boeing CEO calls handling of 737 Max crashes a 'mistake,' vows improvements

Boeing 737 MAX salvage flaws were a element in Lion Air smash, report says

Read or Fragment this narrative: https://www.usatoday.com/narrative/recordsdata/2019/10/29/impeachment-sport-6-world-series-chicago-colleges-5-things-know/2485327001/

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my-blogss · 3 years

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Central Web

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amershamsdigitalmarketing · 5 years

Text

Experimenting with Periodic Background Sync

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What's periodic background sync?

Have you ever been in any of the following situations? Riding a fast train or the subway with flaky or no connectivity, being throttled by your carrier after watching too many videos on the go, or living in a country where bandwidth is struggling to keep up with the demand? If you have, then you’ve surely experienced the frustration of getting certain things done on the web, and wondered why native apps tend to do better in these scenarios.

Native apps can fetch fresh content, such as timely news articles or up-to-date weather information, ahead of time. Even if there’s no network in the subway, you can still read the news. Periodic background sync (PBS) is an experimental feature that gives people the same feature on the web. You can enjoy instant page loads with the latest news from your favorite newspaper, have enough music or videos to entertain yourself during an otherwise boring no-connectivity commute, and more.

Why add periodic background sync to your web app?

Consider a web app that uses a service worker to offer a rich offline experience:

When a person launches the app, it may only have stale content loaded.

Without periodic background sync, the app can only refresh itself when launched. As a result, people will see a flash of old content being slowly replaced by new content, or just a loading spinner.

With PBS, the app can update itself in the background, giving people a smoother and reliably fresh experience.

Now people can read the latest news, even in the subway!

Let’s now look at two types of updates that would be beneficial if done ahead of time.

Updating an application

This is the data required for your web app to work correctly.

Examples:

Updated search index for a search app.

A critical application update.

Updated icons or user interface.

Updating content

If your web app regularly publishes updates, you can fetch the newest content to give folks using your site a better experience.

Examples:

Fresh articles from news sites.

New songs from a favorite artist.

Badges and achievements in a fitness app.

Non-goals

Triggering events at a specific time is outside the scope of this API. PBS can't be used for time-based "alarm clock" scenarios.

There is no guaranteed cadence of the periodic sync tasks. When registering for PBS, you provide a minInterval value that acts as a lower bound for the sync interval, but there is no way to guarantee an upper bound. The browser decides this cadence for each web app.

A web app can register multiple periodic tasks, and the frequency determined by the browser for the tasks may or may not end up being the same.

Getting this right

We are putting periodic background sync through a trial period so that you can help us make sure that we got it right. This section explains some of the design decisions we took to make this feature as helpful as possible.

The first design decision we made is that a web app can only use PBS once a person has installed it on their device, and has launched it as a distinct application. PBS is not available in the context of a regular tab in Chrome.

Furthermore, since we don’t want unused or seldom used web apps to gratuitously consume battery or data, we designed PBS such that developers will have to earn it by providing value to their users. Concretely, we are using a site engagement score to determine if and how often periodic background syncs can happen for a given web app. In other words, a periodicsync event won't be fired at all unless the engagement score is greater than zero, and its value will affect the frequency at which the periodicsync event will fire. This ensures that the only apps syncing in the background are the ones you are actively using.

PBS shares some similarities with existing APIs and practices on popular platforms. For instance, one-off background sync as well as push notifications allow a web app's logic to live a little longer (via its service worker) after a person has closed the page. On most platforms, it’s common for people to have installed apps that periodically access the network in the background to provide a better user experience—for critical updates, prefetching content, syncing data, etc. Similarly, periodic background sync also extends the lifetime of a web app's logic to run at regular periods, for what might be a few minutes at a time.

If the browser allowed this to occur frequently and without restrictions, it could result in some privacy concerns. Here's how Chrome has addressed this risk for PBS:

The background sync activity only occurs on a network that the device has previously connected to. We recommend to only connect to networks operated by trustworthy parties.

As with all internet communications, PBS reveals the IP addresses of the client and the server it's talking to, and the name of the server. To reduce this exposure to roughly what it would be if the app only synced when it was in the foreground, the browser limits the frequency of an app's background syncs to align with how often the person uses that app. If the person stops frequently interacting with the app, PBS will stop triggering. This is a net improvement over the status quo in native apps.

Alternatives

Before PBS, web apps had to jump through hoops to keep content fresh—like triggering a push notification to wake up their service worker and update content as a side effect. But the timing of those notifications is decided by the developer. PBS leaves it to the browser to work with the operating system to figure out when an update should happen, allowing it to optimize for things like power and connectivity state, and prevent resource abuse in the background.

Using PBS instead of push notifications also means that these updates will happen without the fear of interrupting users, which might be the case with a regular notification. Developers still have the option of using push notifications for truly important updates, such as significant breaking news. Users can uninstall the web app, or disable the "Background Sync" site setting for specific web apps if needed.

Note: Periodic background sync should not be confused with a different web platform feature: "one-off" background sync. While their names are similar, their use cases are different. One-off background sync allows your web app's service worker to respond to network availability on a non-repeated basis. It's most commonly used to automatically retry sending a request that failed because the network was temporarily unavailable.

Origin trial

The current experimental implementation of periodic background sync is available in Chrome 77 and higher. It's implemented as an "origin trial," and you must join the origin trial before it can be enabled for your web app's users.

Note: Origin trials allow you to try new features and give feedback on their usability, practicality, and effectiveness to the web standards community. For more information, see the Origin Trials Guide for Web Developers.

We anticipate that the trial will end around March 2020, at which point the web platform community can use the feedback collected during the trial to inform a decision about the future of the feature.

During the origin trial, PBS can be tested on all platforms on which Chrome supports installing web apps, including macOS, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS, and Android. On macOS, Windows, and Linux, PBS events will only be fired if an instance of Chrome is actively running. This restriction is similar to how push notifications work on those platforms. If Chrome is quit and then re-launched after multiple background sync intervals have elapsed, a single periodicsync event will be fired soon after Chrome starts up, assuming all other conditions are met.

Note: For local testing purposes, developers can also try out PBS functionality by visiting chrome://flags/#periodic-background-sync in Chrome 77 and above, and enabling the feature there. This setting only applies to your local copy of Chrome, and is not a scalable substitute for the origin trial.

As part of the origin trial process, the Chrome team welcomes your input. Feedback on the experimental specification can be provided via GitHub, and comments or bug reports on Chrome's implementation can be provided by filing a bug with the Component field set to "Blink>BackgroundSync".

Example code

The following snippets cover common scenarios for interacting with periodic background sync. Some of them are meant to run within the context of your web app, possibly in response to someone clicking a UI element that opts-in to periodic background sync. Other snippets are meant to be run in your service worker's code.

You can see these snippets in context by reading the source code for the live demo.

Checking whether periodic sync can be used

The Permissions API tells you whether PBS can be enabled. You can query for 'periodic-background-sync' permission from either your web app's window context, or from within a service worker.

If the status is 'granted', then your web app meets the requirements to register for PBS.

If the status is anything other than 'granted' (most likely 'denied'), then your web app can't use PBS. This might be because the current browser doesn't support it, or because one of the other requirements outlined above haven't been met.

const status = await navigator.permissions.query({ name: 'periodic-background-sync', }); if (status.state === 'granted') { // PBS can be used. } else { // PBS cannot be used. }

Registering a periodic sync

You can register for PBS within your web app's window context, but it must be after the service worker is registered. Both a tag ('content-sync' in the below example) and a minimum sync interval (in milliseconds) are required. You can use whatever string you'd like for the tag, and it will be passed in as a parameter to the corresponding periodicsync event in your service worker. This allows you to distinguish between multiple types of sync activity that you might register.

If you attempt to register when PBS is not supported, the call throw an exception.

const registration = await navigator.serviceWorker.ready; if ('periodicSync' in registration) { try { registration.periodicSync.register('content-sync', { // An interval of one day. minInterval: 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000, }); } catch (error) { // PBS cannot be used. } }

Responding to a periodic sync event

To respond to PBS syncs, add a periodicsync event listener to your service worker. The callback parameter contains the tag matching the string you used during registration. This allows you to customize the callback's behavior—like updating one set of cached data as opposed to another—based on different tag values.

self.addEventListener('periodicsync', (event) => { if (event.tag === 'content-sync') { // See the "Think before you sync" section for // checks you could perform before syncing. event.waitUntil(syncContent()); } // Other logic for different tags as needed. });

Checking if a sync with a given tag is registered

You can use the getTags() method to retrieve an array of tag strings, corresponding to active PBS registrations.

One use case is to check whether or not a PBS registration used to update cached data is already active, and if it is, avoid updating the cached data again.

You might also use this method to show a list of active registrations in your web app's settings page, and allow people to enable or disable specific types of syncs based on their preferences.

Unregistering a previously registered sync

You can stop future periodicsync events from firing by calling unregister() and passing in a tag string that was previously registered.

const registration = await navigator.serviceWorker.ready; if ('periodicSync' in registration) { registration.periodicSync.unregister('content-sync'); }

Think before you sync

When your service worker wakes up to handle a periodicsync event, you have the opportunity to request data, but not the obligation to do so. While handling the event, you may want to take the current network, data saver status, and available storage quota into account before refreshing cached data. You also might structure your code so that there are "lightweight" and "heavyweight" network payloads, depending on those criteria.

The following features can be used inside of a service worker to help make the decision about how much (if anything) to refresh inside your periodicsync handler:

Network Information API

Detecting data saver mode

Estimating available storage space

Debugging

It can be a challenge to get the "big picture" view of periodic background sync while testing things locally. information about active registrations, approximate sync intervals, and logs of past sync events can provide valuable context while debugging your web app's behavior. Fortunately, all of that information can be found as an experimental feature in Chrome's DevTools.

Note: PBS debugging is currently disabled by default. Please read "Enabling the DevTools interface" for the steps needed to enable it during the origin trial.

Recording local activity

The "Periodic Background Sync" panel's interface is organized around key events in the PBS lifecycle: registering for sync, performing a background sync, and unregistering. In order to obtain information about these events, you need to "start recording" from within DevTools first.

While recording, entries will appear in DevTools corresponding to events, with context and metadata logged for each.

After enabling recording once, it will stay enabled for up to three days, allowing DevTools to capture local debugging information about background syncs that might take place, e.g., hours in the future.

Simulating events

While recording background activity can be helpful, there are times when you'd want to test your periodicsync handler immediately, without waiting for the event to fire on its normal cadence.

You can do this via the "Service Workers" panel within the Applications tab in Chrome DevTools. The "Periodic Sync" field allows you to provide a tag for the event to use, and trigger it as many times as you'd like.

Manually triggering a periodicsync event did not make it into Chrome 77, so the best way to test it out is to use Chrome 78 (currently in Canary) or later. You'll need to follow the same "Enabling the DevTools interface" steps to turn it on.

Live demo

You can try out this live demo app that uses periodic background sync. Make sure that:

You're using Chrome 77 or later.

You "install" the web app before trying to enable periodic background sync.

(The demo app's author already took the step of signing up for the origin trial.)

References and acknowledgements

This article is adapted from Mugdha Lakhani & Peter Beverloo's original write-up, with contributions from Chris Palmer. Mughda also wrote the code samples, live demo, and the code for the Chrome implementation of this feature.

Enabling the DevTools interface

The following steps are required while periodic background sync remains an origin trial. If and when it progresses out of the origin trial phase, the DevTools interface will be enabled by default.

Visit chrome://flags/#enable-devtools-experiments and change the "Developer Tools experiments" setting to "Enabled".

Restart Chrome.

Open Chrome's DevTools, and choose "Settings" from the three-dot menu in the upper-right.

In the Experiments section of the Settings panel, enable "Background services section for Periodic Background Sync".

Close, and then reopen DevTools.

You should now see a "Periodic Background Sync" section within the "Application" panel in DevTools.

This post comes from Digital Marketing Warrington

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