Parnassus Classical CDs and Records
Classical CDs and Re-issues of Quality and Convenience
Our Own CDs
Parnassus Wins Legal Victory
Sviatoslav Richter CDs
Sviatoslav Richter – Richter in Brooklyn – PACD 96061/2
PACD 96056 Richter Rarities with Orchestra
Sviatoslav Richter in the 1940s
Sviatoslav Richter – Szymanowski – Limited Edition – Richter 100 Series
Some thoughts about Szymanowski
Richter in Warsaw: The Scriabin Recital
Richter in Leipzig
Sviatoslav Richter Live in the 1950s: Volume One
Sviatoslav Richter Live in the 1950s: Volume Two
Sviatoslav Richter Live in the 1950s: Volume Three
Sviatoslav Richter Live in the 1950s: Volume Four
Sviatoslav Richter Live in the 1950s: Volume Five
Sviatoslav Richter Live in the 1950s: Volume Six
Sviatoslav Richter Live in the 1950s: Volume Seven
Colorado Quartet CDs
Colorado Quartet – Early Beethoven Quartets
Colorado Quartet: Beethoven Quartets
Colorado Quartet: Late Beethoven String Quartets
Colorado Quartet: Schubert & Mendelssohn
Colorado Quartet: Brahms
Various Artists – Black Swans – PACD 96067
Copland: Before the LP
Janos Starker: The Road to Cello Playing +
Erwin Schulhoff: His Complete Piano Recordings
Eugene Drucker – Bach: Solo Violin Sonatas and Partitas
The Lost Art of Jacob Lateiner
Katherine Hoover: String Quartets and Trio
Piano Music of Katherine Hoover
Kokopeli: Katherine Hoover Plays
Night Skies: Orchestral Music of Katherine Hoover
Carole Bogard: A Collection of American Songs
Carole Bogard Sings Baroque Cantatas and Arias
Prokofiev and Stravinsky – Composers Conduct
The Stuyvesant Quartet Plays 20th Century Quartets
Arthur Grumiaux: The Boston Recordings
Kipnis and Kushner – Piano, 4 Hands
Carole Bogard: A Century of French Songs
Handel – Tamerlano
Danielle Woerner Sings Luening and Starer
Gregorian Chant: The Early Interpreters
Tom McDermott – All The Keys And Then Some
DVD – Inesa Sinkevych in Havana
DVD – Sviatoslav Richter Plays Beethoven and Chopin
DVD – Sviatoslav Richter Plays Mozart Concertos
DVD – Sviatoslav Richter Plays Schumann & Russians
DVD – Janos Starker Cello Recital
DVD – Mravinsky Conducts Shostakovich
Discography: The Recorded Legacy of Sviatoslav Richter 1947-2012
Buy Colorado Quartet – Brahms: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2 via Amazon (CD or MP3)
Buy Colorado Quartet – Brahms: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2 via ArchivMusic (CD or MP3)
Download Colorado Quartet – Brahms: Two String Quartets, Op. 51 from iTunes
In a ten-day period in 1983, the Colorado Quartet made history by winning two of the music world's highest honors: the Naumburg Chamber Music Award and First Prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition. Since that time it has been praised on four continents as one of the finest quartets of our time, cited for its musical integrity, impassioned playing and lyrical finesse.
Currently based in the New York City area, the Colorado quartet appears regularly in major halls around the globe. Highlights of their career include tours of more than twenty countries, New York concerts in Carnegie Hall and on the Great Performers at Lincoln Center series, appearances at Washington DC's Kennedy Center and at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and performances at festivals in Scandinavia, the Czech Republic, and at the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico. The Colorado Quartet celebrated the 1995 Béla Bartók centennial with the first complete performance of the Bartók String Quartets to take place in Philadelphia. The Quartet memmbers have been featured on radio and television worldwide, with numerous radio broadcasts in America, England and Canada, as well as television programs in The Netherlands, Norway, Puerto Rico, Peru and Mexico, Their recordings include works by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and contemporary composers on CD's from Fidelio, Albany Records and Parnassus Records.
The Colorado Quartet is equally at home performing standard literature or newer works, and has premiered compositions by leading composers.such as Ezra Laderman and Karel Husa, as well as composers of the younger generation. They have received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Aaron Copland Music Fund.
The members of the Colorado Quartet are inspiring teachers, who have held residencies at Swarthmore and Skidmore Colleges, Philadelphia's New School of Music, Bard College and Amhesrt College in Massachusetts. They are founders and Artistic Directors of the Soundfest Chamber Music Festival and Institute of String Quartets in Falmouth, Massachusetts.
Colorado String Quartet on this recording:
Julie Rosenfeld, Violin 1 – Deborah Redding, Violin 2 – Francesca Martin Silos, Viola – Diane Chaplin, Cello
Complete Contents
Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, op.51, no.1 ;33:21
1) Allegro 11:30
2) Romanze: Poco adagio 6:58
3) Allegretto molto moderato e comodo 8:26
4) Allegro 6:12
Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, op.51, no.2; 35:23
5) Allegro non troppo 14:05
6) Andante Moderato 9:33
7) Quasi minuetto, moderato 5:06
8) Finale: Allegro non assai 7:24
Fanfare Review
I had already accepted this disc for review (eagerly–if the world were going down and I could save only two composers, they would be Lassus and Brahms) when El Jefe Flegler added: "Parnassus is the label run by our own Leslie Gerber" That gave me pause for thought: what if the disc wasn't very good, the playing poor, the notes sloppy, the sound inadequate? The first responsibility of any critic is to his readers, of course, so how–if the worst came to the worst–was I going to avoid stabbing a colleague in the front? In the event, my problem is indeed something of that nature–but precisely the other way around. This disc is so good that it might be difficult to persuade you, dear readers, that the rave review you are about to be offered is not an example of confraternal complicity. When 1 tell you that the notes are by Bernard Jacobson, another Fanfare colleague and an old pal from our days in London, and that the design and layout are by ex-Fanfare writer John Wiser, you will be highly suspicious, and justifiably so: read this review with, not a pinch, but a handful of salt. But rave I must: this is quite simply one of the best discs of chamber music to come my way in a long, long time.
So what is it about the performances that make them so special? A phrase from Hans Keller, writing about Franz Schmidt's playing in the Schubert C-Major Quintet, comes to mind: "the imagination he pumped into the notorious second-cello passages in the slow movement had to be heard to be believed." And that is exactly what you hear in these performances: four musicians of the highest caliber thinking deeply about what they are doing, listening, reacting to one another, giving and taking -these are living, breathing performances. The old cliche about the string quartet being four individuals in discussion comes to glorious life here: you can listen to any one of the lines, follow it through its interaction with the others, jump ship from cello to viola, say–wherever you focus your ears, you can hear the sheer amount of considered passion being put into the playing. And the control of pitch is absolute: so many quartet recordings these days are vitiated by sloppy intonation, even in some fairly well-known ensembles. No such worries here: even in such tricky places as the explosive chordal sequence that opens the finale of the C-Minor work, the intonation is bang on.
I do have a criticism, you'll be relieved to read. This is not big Brahms: the Colorados don't play him with the powerful, broad bowstrokes that would have made these performances colossal. Instead, it's rather more delicate, more sensitive than that. This is, dare I say it, ladies' Brahms-or, to convey more or less the same image but offending only a few million people, it's French Brahms. Whatever the stylistic approach, though, what you hear on this disc is nothing less than exquisite quartet-playing.
Ossa upon Pelion: the recorded sound is first-rate, and Bemard Jacobson's notes are masterly– they combine insight and understanding within a wide frame of reference (he knows his Brahms, this man) with an easy style that makes the technical accessible, even obvious, now that he draws your attention to it. I learned a good deal from his essay.
It gladdened my heart, this disc. So many of the quarter recordings I get sent for review disap point (usually, as I say, because poor intonation from one of the players–often the first violin, sur prisingly enough-scupper the entire project at the outside). This one disappointed no whit. I have played it again and again since it arrived, and every time it sets my musical adrenaline coursing. Do yourself a favor and buy it.
Leslie Gerber isn't going to be short of ideas to keep the Colorado players busy, but let me chuck one at him anyway. Their playing of the Brahms A-Minor Quartet reminded me of how much Franz Schmidt learned from Brahms in his own two quarters–and we could certainly do with a good modern recording of those two works. The only recent recording I know of them–by the Franz Schubert Quartett, Wien, on Nimbus NI 5467–is exactly one of those discs where inaccurate intonation mars the product from the outset, though here the players also misjudge the music. Ilthe Colorados did to Schmidt what they have just done to Brahms, Parnassus would walk straight into a thousand Want Lists.
Martin Anderson Fanfare November/December 1997
American Record Guide Review
What I like most about this recording, besides the immaculate intonation (rare in performances of these pieces) and extremely precise rhythm (the music is loaded with duplets against triplets), is the fact that the recording favors the inner voices. The quartet plays the music from tile inside out, building on a very strong center of second violin and viola. Parnassus has recorded them so that as listeners we get a view from the inside where we can observe the crystalline formations of the music like a stargazer looking at the sky on a very clear night These four people play with such a like mind that it is easy to imagine that they could he playing irnstruments made by the same maker, of wood from the same tree. The Colorado Quartet, whose members come mostly from California, had its beginnings at the University of Colorado at Boulder and is now based in New York. They have had an impressive international reputation for many years and have won many awards, including the Naumburg Chamber Music Award and First Prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition, both in 1983. From this recording it is clear why. For a real treat, listen with the score!
Fine American Record Guide November/December 1997
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Chris Pratt Mistakes Ariana Grande for Latina in New 'SNL' Spot – She's Not? (Video)
"Problem" singer implies the "Guardians of the Galaxy" star makes boring movies in NBC promo for "Saturday Night Light" Season 40 premiere
Travis Reilly | September 26, 2014 @ 10:13 AM	Last Updated: September 26, 2014 @ 3:56 PM
"Saturday Night Live" host Chris Pratt and musical guest Ariana Grande have less chemistry than oil and water in the teaser for their upcoming episode, which is also the Season 40 debut.
See video: Chris Pratt Is Not a Piece of Meat in 'SNL' Promos, But He Can Open a Jar of Pickles
The "Guardians of the Galaxy" stud began the NBC promo by praising the "Problem" pop star's body of work.
"You know, Ariana, I work out to your music — it gets me pumped," he said.
"Oh, that's crazy!" she replied. "You know, I'm such a big fan of your movies. Whenever I can't sleep at night I watch them and they make me so … uh … tired."
See video: Bill Hader Impersonates Former 'Saturday Night Live' Co-Stars on 'Conan'
After an awkward silence, the camera cut away and the pair tried again.
The second take has Pratt introducing them before awkwardly turning it over to Grande: "Ariana, do you want to translate for our Spanish viewers?"
"I'm actually Italian," she responded.
"Eehhhh. That's … no … that's what I meant," Pratt stuttered. "I meant, do you want pizza?"
"Saturday Night Live" returns for its 40th season on Sept. 27 at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
Chris Pratt Is Not a Piece of Meat in 'SNL' Promos, But He Can Open a Jar of Pickles (Video)
By Jason Hughes | September 23, 2014 @ 11:10 PM
'Marvel's Agents of SHIELD' Star Chloe Bennet on Chris Pratt Crossovers and Peeing Her Pants (Video)
By Travis Reilly | September 23, 2014 @ 3:39 PM
'Big Bang Theory' Star Mayim Bialik Wants Ariana Grande to Keep Her Clothes On
By Greg Gilman | September 16, 2014 @ 8:21 AM


Backup goalie Vasilevskiy leads Lightning victory
in general, Tampa Bay Lightning
Vasilevskiy stood up as the Islanders took over, then won the game./TRAVIS PENDERGRASS
Friday, 4 a.m.
What do you do when a comfortable lead grows uncomfortable? How do you respond when a walkaway win turns wobbly?
At such a moment, you turn to your goaltender.
And at such a moment, more and more, Andrei Vasilevskiy looks large enough.
Take Thursday night, when a solid victory turned scary. One instant, and the Bolts had a 3-0 lead, and they looked like they were putting together a highlight tape. The next minute, and team was on its heels, and only contorting saves by
Kucherov kept his hot streak alive./TRAVIS PENDERGRASS
Vasilevskiy kept the margin at two goals. If you believe in your gut, the Islanders seemed as if they were an instant from scoring.
And Vasilevskiy made sure they did not.
He sprawled. He bent. He twisted. And time after time, he kept the puck out of the net in the Lightning's 4-1 victory over the New York Islanders.
"He played unbelievable," said defenseman Victor Hedman. "He bailed us out especially there in that last part of the second period. He came up big for us. He stopped the breakaway in the third and had a lot of big saves and moved the puck well too. We have two of the best goalies in the league and that's comforting for us to know that we have him there to bail us out."
Captain Steven Stamkos agreed.
"Vasy was outstanding," he said. "He made some huge saves. He was big with a couple breakaway saves. We know what we're going to get from Vasy, and he's going to make some huge saves with his athletic ability."
He is growing up, you know. He remains a stranger in a strange land, learning the game, learning the language. Like a lot of foreigners, he didn't trust his verbal skills a year ago.
Stralman takes a shot during Lightning's victory./TRAVIS PENDERGRASS
Now, he still speaks in cliches. "I stayed relaxed. I stayed in the blue paint." But he seems more mature, more in control. He looks, frankly, like the goaltender of the future.
A year ago, even, the odds of the Lightning winning went down considerably when Vasilevskiy played and Ben Bishop sat. But Vasilevskiy looks ready to play this season.
"I just think he's a year older," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "A year wiser. A year stronger, a year quicker, a year better. He's a year more experienced in the league. Thats what you need. He's learning the league. He's an outstanding goaltender, but you have to learn the league, the players, the angles. But he's a student of the game, and he works his tail off."
Vasilevskiy's performance made Thursday night one of the Bolts' best games. They finally took a lead. They got great goaltending. They scored on the power play. They got goals from stars like Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov and Tyler Johnson. They closed well (Vasy's saves and a third-period goal by Brian Boyle led the Bolts).
Boyle's goal, 68 seconds into the final period, stopped the Islanders' momentum.
"It kind of ultimately popped their balloon a little bit," Cooper said.
"It's 3-1. It's a game, plus they had momentum. We needed that buzzer to go in the second period and it helped us being up two instead of just one and then you get that fourth one and it kind of sucked a little air out of their tires."
Stamkos, standing next to Boyle, shrugged off his buddy's goal.
"Lucky shot if you ask me," Stamkos said, laughing. "I didn't think it was a big deal at all. No, anytime you get a two-goal lead, they say that's probably one of the worst ones to have in the third. That was a big goal. It gives you some breathing room and still allows you to make plays, and I thought we had a really solid third period."
Hedman had an assist, giving him 188 for his career. He moved into first place ahead of Dan Boyle in the category.
"Yeah, I knew about it," Hedman said. "It's a good feeling and something I'm proud of. It's tough not to notice it."
The Lightning is home against the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night.
Lightning celebrate a Stamkos goal, and an early lead for a change./TRAVIS PENDERGRASS
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Tea Party Groups Want Ohio Voters Purged
The Root Staff
Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images
"Too much of this is going on for this not to be a coordinated effort," said Tim Burke, chairman of the Hamilton County Democratic Party. He was referring to the efforts of Tea Party groups to remove names from the state's voter rosters in what they say is an attempt to prevent ballot fraud.
The Rev. Rousseau A. O'Neal, one of a group of black ministers from Cincinnati who provide buses to take African Americans to the polls, is more explicit. He calls the project — which has identified names for purging that include hundreds of college students, trailer park residents, homeless people and African Americans in counties President Obama won in 2008 — "bigotry of the highest order."
The interesting thing is, he's not the only one acknowledging the racial dimension of the controversy. GOP Chairman Doug Preisse, who supports the purging efforts, recently told the Columbus Dispatch, "We shouldn't contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine." At least he's honest? From the Los Angles Times:
The tea party groups, scattered around the state, have joined forces under the banner of the Ohio Voter Integrity Project. It is an offshoot of True the Vote, a Texas organization that has recruited volunteers nationwide to challenge voter rosters and work as poll watchers.
True the Vote was founded by Catherine and Bryan Engelbrecht, a couple who run an oil field equipment manufacturing firm in Rosenberg, Texas.
In Ohio, election records show, one of the project's top priorities has been to remove college students from the voter rolls for failure to specify dorm room numbers. (As a group, college students are strongly in Obama's camp.)
Voters challenged include 284 students at the Ohio State University campus in Columbus, 110 at Oberlin College, 88 at College of Wooster, 38 at Kent State — and dozens more from the University of Cincinnati, Miami University, Lake Erie College, Walsh University, Hiram College, John Carroll University and Telshe Yeshiva, a rabbinical college near Cleveland.
So far, every county election board that has reviewed the dorm challenges found them invalid.
Read more at the Los Angeles Times.
Recent from The Root Staff
Auntie Who? Ava DuVernay Sets Some Boundaries and Sparks Major Debate—and The Root Digs In
Leaving Neverland Accused of Key Discrepancy, Michael Jackson Estate Issues Statement [Updated]
Beyoncé's Ivy Park Has a New 'Cheerleading-Inspired' Collection—and The Root Crew Has Jokes


What does it mean to "Challenge the Character"?
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Thread: What does it mean to "Challenge the Character"?
Wednesday, 22nd May, 2019, 08:48 PM #581
Tony Vargas
Titan (Lvl 27)
San Jose/Santa Clara, CA
Sorry if I mostly riff off your post for humor purposes....
Originally Posted by Chaosmancer
If they just tell you they know something, then that is what they know. The only check upon that is that they might be wrong out of the game because you as the DM changed something. In which case, why do we even bother to have an Intelligence stat and the skills for recalling various types of lore. It seems meaningless under this style.
Any stat or skill could conceivably be rendered moot by the DM's style or choice of setting & challenges, I suppose.
Except what counts as a "meaningful consequence"? Not knowing something obviously isn't meaningful enough
I don't see why not knowing anything isn't a meaningful consequence. I mean, recalling something useful certainly is. Is the idea that you start off not knowing anything, so you might as well try?
Ultimately, isn't the whole knowledge check/INT roll/trying-to-recall-lore-using-INT-with-a-trained-skill-possibly-applying-because-5e-is-rules-lite thing just gating exposition?
If, as a DM, I want to provide some exposition, I can have a (suspiciously Gandalfy) NPC do it, or I can look at a player and say "your character knows /whah…/" and that's that. I don't really need to call for a check, and if I do, failure, though it might have severe consequences for the party, is awfully blah.
Even if a player actually wants to play a Gandalf/Prof.Zarchov type who's main purpose is to provide exposition, and take high INT and tons of useless skills to model it mechanically, it's still pretty meh for that player to make his checks, and have /you/ tell the whole table what he knows - and completely inefficient and annoying and no more satisfying to have you tell him privately so he can parrot it.
The way I've seen some systems (none of them D&D) both make such a character fun to play, and give meaning the sorts of mechanics in question, is if the player making the successful knowledge check /gets to make stuff up/ to his party's advantage. "It's a Klick-Klick, if we all shout 'November!' it'll drop dead...*" on a failure, the consequence is the DM makes stuff up, or maybe that the made-up stuff is wrong... (depends on exactly how the mechanics are handled - FREX, the Expositionator could make a declaration like the above, make a plan around it, and it's only when the plan is executed that he makes the check to see if he was right about it.) But I couldn't see any ed of D&D playing nice with something like that, (OK, except, as always, 4e, which already has some Schrodinger's Mechanics like that). It'd certainly turn the whole 5e describe-declare-resolve-describe DM-PC-DM-DM cycle on it's ear...
taking a lot of time is probably not meaningful enough especially if players don't take these checks while under a time pressure or in dangerous territory. You have to actively work to make things worse for the players in response to them attempting things, just to allow them to make checks, or they auto-succeed on trying anything.
Sure, "the players just succeed" sounds really easy on paper, but it opens things to abuse that I don't want to deal with, and makes failing a roll dangerous enough that my players might not end up attempting interesting things. After all, who would try and woo a princess if failing the charisma check ends up with her ordering your execution. After all, her just not being interested isn't "meaningful" enough, you have to end up making things worse for you and your party.
"Fail Forward" doesn't sound so bad, now.
You are right, they didn't explicitly say "I try to remember what the vulnerabilities of earth elementals are." Instead, they just declared "I know that Earth Elementals are weak to Thunder damage."
So... if they player just tells you they succeed and get the end result, they don't need to make a check? That is ludicrous. You would never allow a player to simply state "I walk off with the Queen's Crown" and just let them do so, why then do we allow them to state "I perfectly recalled the weaknesses of this monster"?
Of course, that's true. In general, it seems, in pondering issues like this, drawing an analogy from knowledge/social check to a concrete ability/skill makes it obvious. But acceptance of such analogies is surprising hard to win.
As we established before, I would likely ask them why a character who cannot use magic scrolls is going to go and buy magic scrolls. This would likely get their intent, which brings us back to the beginning of this discussion.
Hmm... I guess this is another example of how establishing a goal & method can be like peeling an onion. The goal isn't really "buy magic scrolls" it's "defeat some earth elementals..."
One DM I know is really sensitive to these kinds of player shenanigans, she's always cutting to "What are you /really/ trying to do?"
I think some of the current we may be swimming against, here, flows from the classic game, when it was a tad bit more adversarial, and developing 'player skill' was an objective of play. In the absence of concrete systems, and within the dogma of DM omnipotence, players would learn to couch questions carefully and declare actions piecemeal, in a way that would box the DM into letting some harebrained scheme actually (maybe) work.
Did 3.5 have a rule that explicitly said "Players are not expected to have all the information on a monster from the monsters statblock, if they wish to use this information, they should make a knowledge check"
Something about that sounds familiar.
So players can bring modern designs, knowledge of chemistry, gunpowder, ect to the game.
One of the fun things about a setting that's /not/ scientific, at all:
"I build a modern ship out of steel!"
"It sinks"
"What, but I'm a naval architect IRL, that design is sound!"
"Sorry, on the Flat Earth of Nevereilli, the Element of Metal always sinks in the Element of Water - every 7-year-old Alchemist's Apprentice knows that..."
* I did not make that up, it's a joke from an old Dragon mag.
Last edited by Tony Vargas; Wednesday, 22nd May, 2019 at 08:51 PM.
Monday, 27th May, 2019, 11:57 PM #582
Chaosmancer
Spellbinder (Lvl 16)
Originally Posted by iserith
The rules of the game don't seem to indicate I should care about this as DM. The only exception is to encourage players not to waste game time or their characters' lives on bad assumptions and I do that.
It seems more likely to me that Intelligence is seen as a dump stat because there is only one class and a couple of sub-classes that use it regularly for attack rolls and DCs and very few spells or monsters that force Intelligence saves.
Intelligence checks can also come up in exploration challenges involving traps and secret doors. They may also come up in social interaction challenges (e.g. recalling lore trying to prove a point or trying to communicate wordlessly). Intelligence might also be used to resolve tasks performed with certain tools. The section on ability checks has a number of other tasks that might be resolved with Intelligence checks. XGtE expands on this in some ways with its Tools & Skills section.
At this point I'd like to retract my earlier statement that your game may have more Intelligence checks than mine. That doesn't seem like the case now if what I quoted of your statements above is something you believe to be true. Unless your players are asking to make Intelligence checks or asking a lot of "Do I know anything about..." questions during play.
The DM determines whether there is a meaningful consequence for failure given the fictional context. So if you're the DM, it's up to you.
There was no attempt to recall lore described by the players in that example. A player is simply stating what the character thinks which is under the player's control. The DM is overstepping his or her role by calling for a check without a corresponding action described by the player. The smart play for this player is, of course, to try to recall lore to verify that assumption, but that is not the DM's problem.
"Walking off with the queen's crown" is (perhaps partially) describing what they want to do and as DM I get to say how that turns out in Step 3 of the play loop. "I know that earth elementals are weak to thunder damage" is just a statement of the character's thoughts and there's nothing I can do with that as DM.
The DM determines whether there is a meaningful consequence for failure. So if you're the DM, it's up to you.
However, the issue with this specific example is not that there is or isn't a meaningful consequence for failure. We don't even get to that point in the adjudication process since the player is only stating what the character is thinking and since the player is the one who determines what the character thinks, there is no uncertainty as to the outcome. If there is no uncertainty as to the outcome, then there can be no ability check. We don't have to imagine meaningful consequences for failure here.
That's not how I would or did resolve it. The player was aware of the consequences of failure because I usually tell them what that is so they know the risks. You succeed, you figure out what it is. You fail, you figure out what it is but take damage in the process. Or you can skip that and throw the ice knife at the crates and hope you didn't just waste your last spell slot. Easy to understand the risks and trade-offs here.
A player describes wanting to draw upon logic, education, memory, or deductive reasoning, often coupled with some elements of their background or adventuring experience to recall the specific lore they seek. Like any other action declaration, I decide if there's uncertainty as to the outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure. If both elements are present, I ask for a roll. If either element is absent, I decide if they succeed or fail and narrate accordingly.
I don't see why that's any of the DM's business. But in any case, there are countless reasons that can be given. Some might even be worth Inspiration, if they play into the character's personality traits, ideal, bond, or flaw.
I haven't stated that "the rules allow the player to know this stuff." I said what the rules say - that it's the player who determines what the character thinks, does, and says. You seem to be conflating "thinking" and "knowing" as I have mentioned before.
That's for the players to work out among themselves in accordance with the shared goals of play as outlined by the rules.
I'm hands off where it comes to the player determining what the character thinks, does, and says. That is what the rules tell me to do.
Players and DM are all individually responsible via the shared goals of play to create a fun experience and an exciting, memorable story as a result of play.
Perhaps you forget that it's the DM who narrates the result of an adventurers' actions.
I was off for a few days because holidays lead to crazy schedules, and looking back over this... I'm just not sure if there is a point in continuing this conversation. I mean, looking at this part here
The smart play is to recall lore... on the lore they already decided? Again, sure, you might have changed earth elementals, but the player stating "Earth Elementals are vulnerable to Thunder Damage" has read the monster manual. They know this is true for standard earth elementals, and they also know that if the ones they face are not standard, then you will telegraph that, so they will just ask to roll arcana then. Wait, no, you don't allow that. They will say they try and deduce the nature of these strange earth elementals calling upon their knowledge of the arcane arts, so they can make an Arcana check. And even then, these elementals are still likely weak to thunder or ambivalent to thunder, so it isn't like the scrolls are a waste. There is just no good reason.
I also love how you describe the action of recalling lore.
And then somehow don't seem to understand that my claims about why they shouldn't just be able to declare "Earth Elemental are weak to Thunder Damage" as a fact. After all, to recall knowledge they need to draw upon their memories (which the player controls as well, but let us not get back down that Francis-shaped rabbit hole) or their education (which... seems like that part would help determine what things they could declare as things they know, like a barbarian that has never studied the arcane knowing all the lore of the various planes of the multiverse) and coupling that with their experience (like how low-level new adventures probably don't know the secrets of the multiverse that the player discovered three years ago in a previous game). These are the things that I am talking about why players can't just know these things.
And, of course, the difference between "Thinking" and "knowing". Problem with that is, the player does know what the Monster Manual said. And they may rightfully assume that since it is an objective source, they are right. Yes, the DM can change things, but the rules of the game state that Earth Elementals are weak to Thunder Damage and are siege monsters that deal double damage to structures. They know this, so they declare that their character knows this. You, however, are stating "well, they think it. If they want to know it they need to make a check" which will.... what? The player has been playing their character as knowing it, but now that they stop and think they remember they are wrong? I mean, confirmation bias is a thing, people will think they are right unless given evidence they are wrong. And even then they will likely keep thinking they were right.
Originally Posted by Tony Vargas
I'm just going off what iserith has said. There seems to be no meaningful consequence (by their definition) so even if I was allowed to ask a player to make a check to declare their out of character knowledge as in character, then they would auto-pass.
The character might know a lot about the world. But, how much? To give an IRL example, I know poison ivy is dangerous to touch. Didn't know what a fully adult vine of poison ivy looks like if it doesn't have leaves on it. (Turns out is looks like a slightly hairy wooden vine) so I didn't take proper precautions a few years ago when pulling some off an apple tree.
So, I don't like players just telling me things they know because it was in the Monster Manual and they read it, and assuming their character has the same knowledge (despite Iserith trying to distinguish between thinking and knowing in this scenario). I feel like there should be a check. Because while it might be something your character knows, it might not be.
I'm not sure what exposition has to do with it.
Yeah, if it something I want the players to know, I'll just tell them. Like, for example, I've told my groups that there are no such things as metallic and chromatic dragons in my world, because color-coded alignment is boring as heck. I don't even tell them through an NPC. I just tell them, because they grew up in a world with stories of dragons, but they never heard of a "green" dragon or a "blue" dragon. They might have heard of a storm dragon able to breathe lighting and possessing the primal force of a thunderstorm that terrorized a kingdom from the mountains. Or one born of stone and flame whose breath could melt the very stones of the castle and kidnapped a princess. So, I'm telling the players "don't go forward with this assumption, it is a bad assumption."
And yeah, I've noticed players who figure out lore or discover a clue often aren't super excited about relaying what I've let them in on. I like using notecards, so I'm not vocalizing only for them to parrot, other times I'll just relay the information they've learned and the player will say "I tell them that" and we move on, but none of that has any bearing on what me and iserith are discussing, so I'm really not sure what the point is.
Yeah, I can sometimes pull on that. But, I'm the type of person who then try and figure out how that effects how the world works. Or I'd be worried about opening a new avenue of shenanigans.
Easier if players just don't try and bring modern knowledge into a distinctly non-modern world.
Tuesday, 28th May, 2019, 01:43 AM #583
Exposition is what happens in a narrative that is analogous to what happens in an RPG when there's a knowledge check.
iserith
"I'm just not sure if there's a point in continuing this conversation... allow me to continue it."
The reason would be to verify the player's assumption that the earth elementals they are about to face are vulnerable to thunder. This will in part determine their resource allocation and tactics in the upcoming battle.
I would add that the smart player in my view doesn't seek to "make an Arcana check." The smart play is to shoot for automatic success. The d20 is nobody's friend.
It's really not my description. It's almost verbatim from the rules. Much of the stuff I say is.
Players can know whatever they want and establish that their characters think whatever they want. And to be clear, I do understand your claims. It's just that they are not derived from a reading of this game. There's simply no support in this game for your position. Which is not to say you shouldn't play that way. It's just a position that's better suited for a different game.
Regarding what I bolded above, NO, that is NOT what I am stating. Not only do you appear to conflate "thinking" and "knowing," but you seem to be conflating "action" with "check." I absolutely do not think that in order for the character to know something the player must make a check. Not even a little bit. In order to verify an assumption, the player describes what he or she wants to do to achieve that end. That may or may not involve a check. From the player's perspective, it is always better if it doesn't, provided they are shooting for automatic success.
No. If there is no uncertain outcome and/or meaningful consequence for failure, the character would either succeed OR fail. Just because there is no check doesn't mean you always succeed.
The interesting thing to examine in my view is why you "feel like there should be a check." I submit it is because you learned this behavior from another game where that sort of thinking was more supported than in this game. Again, this isn't a problem on its own. Play how you want. But it's useful as I see it to understand why you choose to play that way so that you can perhaps understand the position of others who don't.
Ovinomancer
Orcus on an Off-Day (Lvl 22)
If I may, at this late juncture...
This argument is about something that's entirely downstream of the real issue, which isn't being address clearly enough (although @iserith has touched on it repeatedly): what a character thinks is irrelevant to the game structure. The game let's players have the authority to declare actions for their characters. This is, really, the only authority players have outside of character build (creations and leveling). What a character thinks is just something the player establishes as color for the action declaration if they care to do so. So, of course the player has complete authority over what the character thinks, because the rule say that they player has complete authority over what the character tries to do. You cannot have the latter if you have restrictions on the former.
So, in the case of the thunderwave scrolls, the player has the authority to declare this action for their character. What the character is thinking here is color -- it's not important at all; the game doesn't care at all. If, however, the player wants information from the setting, then they can establish an action declaration for how their character is attempting to gain this information, which, presumably, the player will then use for future action declarations. Again, though, what the character is thinking is not part of this except as a emergent phenomenon of play.
Now, this is entirely anathema to a number of playstyle conceptualizations, but it is how this system is written. Anything that the players or GM wish to layer on top of the 5e system is up to them @iserith has pounded this point home often), and more power to them. But, again, if you, as GM, are placing limits on what characters are allowed to think, the outcome is that you are declaring certain categories of action declaration as off-limits. Consider why you want to do this -- what does this gain you? I used to think that it was important to have such controls to encourage "roleplaying" in my players, but it turns out they're adult people that don't really need such external controls and I'm having much more fun not playing thought police with my players. It's also made me realize that if my game rests on the players pretending they don't know things, then I really need to step up my game. If I'm using Earth Elementals, for example, the players maybe knowing they're weak to thunder damage is the last thing I care about -- them knowing this will not, in any way, reduce any part of my game.
iserith, Celebrim, Fenris-77, Elfcrusher, Aldarc gave XP for this post
Fenris-77
Myrmidon (Lvl 10)
@Ovinomancer
I agree with everything you just said. However, i do have a lingering issue with point buy 5e. INT is a dump stat for a lot of classes, but that doesn't stop whole parties of shortbus INT 8 characters from quoting chapter and verse from the MM or coming up with diabolically fiendish plans on a regular basis. No, the game doesn't care, and as a GM running actual games, neither do I, but conceptually, or perhaps even philosophically (ecumenically?) it sets my teeth on edge.
The DM describes the situation. Implicit in that is what got the characters to that situation - ultimately, the entire imagined world, it's past, and the PCs experience and knowledge of the world to that point.
So, should DMs really decline to disabuse players of a misconception about all that scene-setting? Just on the grounds that it's interfering in what bailiwick the game leaves them?
Now, sure, hypothetically, a player could willfully declare an action notwithstanding that description or any supplemental information the DM provides.
"Count Nepherii descends the grand staircase, his malevolent gaze flickers over you without betraying a hint if recognition, but you're sure it's him."
"I set my phaser on 'kill and shoot the Klingon!"
"I catch butterflies!"
"I invite everyone in the grand ballroom to play an RPG that doesn't suck!"
"I apologize for my friend's aberrant behavior, and explain that their still recovering from a Mindflayer's psionic blast."
"Roll diplomacy again..."
Could be fun, actually. Players reading this thread should totally try it at their next session.
... or not.
I fail to see how this example wouldn't be equally bad in any approach, nor how you should expect to deal with this using an in-game approach. This problem seems much better dealt with out of game.
Celebrim gave XP for this post
Tuesday, 28th May, 2019, 03:30 PM #589
Originally Posted by Ovinomancer
It's not a problem, just an example illustrating the latitude given players in declaring actions under one interpretation.
There's no need to deal with it out of game, the DM accepted their control of what their characters think/know and the actions they declared, determined one of those actions was uncertain, and called for a check, next he'll narrate the results....
No, you're presenting degenerate play as a necessary outcome, if only on the edges, of the presented idea. This is only true if there are no other constraints on play like genre assumptions or shared play goals.
Riley37 gave XP for this post
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Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise
Author: Scott Eyman
Film historian and acclaimed bestselling biographer Scott Eyman has written the definitive biography of Hollywood legend Cary Grant, one of the most accomplished actors of his generation.
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Description of Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise
Film historian and acclaimed New York Times bestselling biographer Scott Eyman has written the definitive biography of Hollywood legend Cary Grant, one of the most accomplished-and beloved-actors of his generation, who remains as popular as ever today. Born Archibald Leach in 1904, he came to America as a teenaged acrobat to find fame and fortune, but he was always haunted by his past. His father was a feckless alcoholic, and his mother was committed to an asylum when Archie was eleven years old. He believed her to be dead until he was informed she was alive when he was thirty-one years old. Because of this experience Grant would have difficulty forming close attachments throughout his life. He married five times and had numerous affairs. Despite a remarkable degree of success, Grant remained deeply conflicted about his past, his present, his basic identity, and even the public that worshipped him in movies such as Gunga Din, Notorious, and North by Northwest. Drawing on Grant's own papers, extensive archival research, and interviews with family and friends, this is the definitive portrait of a movie immortal.
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The faster and more powerful MINI John Cooper Works GP is set to be launched in 2020, with a limited production run of just 3,000 units worldwide.
With more than 295bhp and featuring MINI TwinPower Turbo Technology, the new MINI John Cooper Works GP is set to become the fastest and most powerful MINI ever to be approved for use on the road and will be produced in a limited number of just 3,000 units for worldwide sale.
The MINI John Cooper Works GP is currently under the production development phase and will have a limited production run of just 3,000 units The MINI John Cooper Works GP Concept was presented for the first time in September 2017 at Frankfurt Motor Show. With large front and rear aprons, a striking roof spoiler and the extensive use of lightweight materials, the design study picked up where the previous two John Cooper Works GP production models left off.
Serial production development of the new MINI John Cooper Works GP is now entering its crucial phase - namely on the race track, where whole-vehicle testing is set to be carried out in the coming months.
Drawing on tradition-steeped John Cooper Works expertise, the suspension developed specifically for this model will be precisely adapted to the exceptionally high output of the new engine. Rigorously defined aerodynamic properties and optimised weight will be combined with the brand's finest drive and suspension technology to ensure thrilling performance characteristics.
The new MINI John Cooper Works GP is based on the principle of tapping into the sporting genes of the MINI brand's DNA to create a superior racing machine.
The Nurburgring Nordschleife lap time achieved by the predecessor model was eight minutes and 23 seconds - faster than many a sports car from higher segments. The 2012 model was produced in a limited quantity of 2,000 vehicles, as was the MINI Cooper S with John Cooper Works GP Kit which was released in 2006. Both have since become much-coveted collector's items.


NFL Week 10 Preview: Detroit Lions @ Chicago Bears
Posted By: Charlie Kelbel November 8, 2018
Chicago Bears Quarterback Mitchell Trubisky Will Look To Build On The Team's Turnaround Season Against The Detroit Lions Who Have Won Nine Out The Last Ten Matchups Between The Two Teams.
The Detroit Lions season is rapidly disappearing. The team is now in a position where they likely have to win seven out of their final eight games to make the postseason. Although that's not out of the realm of possibility, it really is not looking likely at this point. The Golden Tate trade was a sign that the team is really looking to the future and is not going all in on this season in particular. Special Teams Coordinator Joe Marciano was also let go this week with head coach Matt Patricia calling it a "necessary move." All that being said, fans need to do their best to enjoy the second half season because once it's over we have another eight months with no real football. For now, we turn our attention to the Chicago Bears.
This Weeks Opponent: The Chicago Bears
The Bears come into this week as a 5-3 team and in a tie with the Minnesota Vikings at first in the division. The last two weeks have been laughers for Chicago: a 41-9 win against Buffalo, and a 24-10 win against the Jets. If you look at the Bears on a surface level statistically, they look like a legitimate Super Bowl contender. You also have to take their level of competition to this point into the equation though. A 5-3 record is a disappointment to this point for a team that boasts the league's fifth-rated offense and fourth-rated defense.
I can take shots at Chicago all I want but the reality is that the Lions haven't exactly won every game that they should have either. While Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky is by no means a proven quarterback, the one thing about the Bears that really is not up for debate is the eliteness of their defense. When they added linebacker Khalil Mack prior to week one, that really put them over the top, but even with him sidelined for the last two weeks they only gave up a total of 19 points. Chicago's defense will almost undoubtedly do their job, but even with the number of possessions that his defense has given him, there are still a lot of question marks around the Trubisky and the Chicago offense.
Do The Bears Really Have A Legit QB?
Last season, cornerback Darius Slay had five total passes deflected and two interceptions against the Bears. Trubisky's QBR in the two games against the Lions last year were 53 and 15 respectively. Unfortunately for their rookie QB, the Bears really didn't try to make it difficult for opponents to smother their receivers last season. Wide receiver Dontrelle Inman against Slay, who wins that matchup 90 percent of the time? This season they brought in Allen Robinson, Taylor Gabriel, and second-round pick Anthony Miller to add depth at wide receiver. These additions have proven to be helpful in the progression of the young quarterback.
Trubisky was able to keep the Bears in it at home last season, despite not having any weapons outside of running backs Jordan Howard and Tarik Cohen, and the Lions needed a field goal in the final two minutes to win it. This worries me because, with a few decent receivers at his disposal and a crazy good defense, the mediocre play might be all that's necessary to beat the Lions in Chicago.
Thanks for reading! Don't forget to follow @charleskelbel on Twitter and leave your thoughts on the Detroit Lions subreddit.
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World Press Photo Disqualification and the Use of Photoshop
Paul Sullivan
Paul Sullivan looks at some of the nebulous "industry standard" practices regarding photoshopping and journalism in the context of the World Press Photo contest disqualifying a recent winning entry.
As reported on by the New York Times and the British Journal of Photography, last week saw the World Press Photo disqualify Stepan Rudik, one of the winners of this year's contest, after concluding that he had digitally manipulated his work.
Rudik's disqualified entry, called "Street fighting, Kiev, Ukraine", was shot for the Russian news agency RIA Novosti. It had won 3rd prize in Sports Features before being ruled out.
The manipulation involved removing the foot of one of the subjects in a photo, which broke the competition rule that stated: "The content of the image must not be altered. Only retouching which conforms to the currently accepted standards in the industry is allowed."
Rudik has announced that he is not arguing with the decision of the jury and has decided to make the original photograph public in order to save his reputation as a photographer. You can see it here.
I think it's both savvy and brave of Rudik to face up to the WPP decision in this way, but the decision itself is interesting too, in that it gives an insight into the world of photo reportage and image correction generally.
. . .it seems not to bother the WPP jury that the photo has been cropped, desaturated, vignetted and granulated to create a vastly different image to the original (in terms of appearance, if not subject or theme). They only ruled it out on the grounds that the small portion of foot was removed.
For instance if we peek at the original, it's in all honesty a fairly average shot. The manipulated image is much more dramatic than the original, honing in on the essence of the original scene without necessarily misrepresenting the "story" Rudik wants to tell.
Yet it raises some questions: why didn't Rudik shoot more frames, from different angles? Why didn't he focus in on the fighter's hand at the time? Why didn't he even leave the foot in the final shot, since there was so much manipulation it would have been barely noticed?
Also, it seems not to bother the WPP jury that the photo has been cropped, desaturated, vignetted and granulated to create a vastly different image to the original (in terms of appearance, if not subject or theme). They only ruled it out on the grounds that the small portion of foot was removed.
Their rules about "currently accepted standards in the industry" seem a little vague don't they? And you have to wonder what the real difference is between, say, cropping out all the other unwanted elements in the original and taking out a few cm of errant footwear. As can be seen over at Peta Pixel, the decision has opened up a whose can of worms on issues of authenticity and photographic post-processing in general.
We'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter in the comments box below.
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Bruins Alumni, Light Foundation Annual Game is About More than Hockey
December 20, 2022 / Gayle Troiani / 0 Comments
(Photo Credit: Gayle Troiani/BNG Productions, LLC)
By: Gayle Troiani | Follow me on Twitter @LadyBruinsFan
When the Boston Bruins Alumni lace up the skates and take the ice for a game, it's not for points, to move up in the standings, or even for awards, it's to help an organization raise money and awareness for their charity. That was precisely the case when the black and gold of yesteryear took the ice against the Light Foundation All-Stars at Warrior Ice Arena on December 18.
The latest game saw the Alumni defeating the All-Stars 13-9, but the game meant so much more this time because it was the last event for President Rick Middleton before he hands the reigns over to Frank Simonetti. Middleton served 15 years as alumni president. Unfortunately, Middleton had to miss the game against the Warrior for Life Foundation on December 3 due to the flu.
"I did not want to miss this one," Middleton said. "We've played this game for years down in Providence. It's always a fun game. It's always a bit of a competitive game. Matt (Light), at his Foundation, is such a great guy. We always like to help out other athletes and their causes."
John Horrigan interviewing @NHLBruinsAlumni President Rick Middleton before the @LightFoundation game pic.twitter.com/VI98nctvei
— Gayle (@LadyBruinsFan) December 18, 2022
Middleton said that even though they play to win, putting the roster together for each charity event can be tricky because he never knows what type of players the opposing team will have. In addition, he has a lot of alumni to consider.
"My job is to keep our guys happy," he explained. "I can't just put in all our young guys every game because we want to win. And we play to win, but we don't play to blow teams out. That's why it's real out there; it's a competitive game."
Middleton added that it's more important for the former players to become a part of the alumni, whether they play in games or not. The alumni had 35 former Boston players that may have played just a handful of games for the Bruins or years for the Bruins. It doesn't matter how long they wore the uniform. Middleton said marquee players and guys that just played maybe even one game are treated the same way, and he believes the guys appreciate that.
The Alumni put former players Zdeno Chara, Ray Bourque, Joe Mullin, Chris Bourque, Mark Mowers, Bob Sweeney, Tim Sweeney, Bob Beers, and Simonetti on the ice against the Light Foundation All-Stars. In contrast, Light Foundation Board Member Bob Loffredo put together a team of Rhode Island hockey guys he grew up playing hockey with, and the results were not what he wanted.
@LightFoundation All-Stars Captain Bob Loffredo talking with John Horrigan after the @NHLBruinsAlumni "grudge match" pic.twitter.com/qrf0Ru2Fz1
"We had them for a while, but a couple of their goals were a little sketchy if you ask me," Loffredo joked. "It's all for a good cause. We'll get them next year."
Loffredo not only plays in the game but is also the organizer of the event, which Matt Light, founder of the Light Foundation, appreciates.
"It was all Bobby; he knew I know nothing about hockey," Light explained. "He told me he would take care of everything. […] This (event) has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. Those dollars go a long, long way."
Matt Light of the @LightFoundation and Mark Willand of @NHLBruinsAlumni before the game pic.twitter.com/7o8i5gGUwR
Light said being an athlete from New England is special and recognizes that the success of the sports franchises in the region would be nothing without the fans. He expressed that fans' support does not go unnoticed, which is why he takes the time to talk with them at events like these.
"For anybody that has played in this region, everyone takes pride in seeing the organization do well," Light said. "I think what you have in New England is unique because you have every major sports team and franchise; they are very well represented. It's a brotherhood across the board.
"I think the Bruins Alumni, without a shadow of a doubt, are the best at what they do within their communities. I don't think there's another NHL team that holds a candle to what they do and how they organize it, and that speaks to the fans here."
The Bruins Alumni may have defeated the Light Foundation All-Stars, but the kids that the Foundation helps are the true winners. Loffredo and Light said the best part of what they do is seeing the kids they help come back and talk about their success to those in the program.
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New renewables lead created at Ashtead Technology
By Reporter
Scott Stephen
Ashtead Technology has created a new role to head up its increasing activities in renewable energy.
The integrated underwater technology and services company has appointed Scott Stephen to oversee the firm's growing presence and enhance its service offering to support the global renewables market.
Based at Ashtead's recently opened Thainstone technology centre in Aberdeenshire, UK, Mr Stephen has been promoted to the role after four years with the company latterly as an asset integrity business development manager and formerly as NDT sales manager.
Following a handful of strategic acquisitions over the past four years, Ashtead Technology has offshore operational bases in key locations including Abu Dhabi, Broussard, Halifax, Houma, Houston, London and Singapore. The company has been servicing the energy sector for 36 years with its bespoke underwater solutions, tools and systems.
The firm has in recent years been diversifying into the renewables market where its equipment fleet and engineering skills developed to support the oil and gas industry are also suited to the requirements of offshore wind developers' installation and operations and maintenance (O&M) work.
Commenting on his appointment, Mr Stephen said: "Over the past four years with Ashtead Technology, I have developed a deep understanding of our customers' strategic priorities and how best to drive results for them. I am very excited about my appointment and I'm looking forward to supporting our expanding renewables client base around the world."
David Mair, Ashtead Technology business development director, added: "Scott has proven to be a great asset to the business, developing many long-term customer relationships through commitment to supporting their project requirements. The offshore renewables industry is a fast-growing market, and we want to harness the momentum building within Ashtead Technology and with our clients to realise our full potential across the global energy sector."
A specialist in underwater construction, O&M and decommissioning services, Ashtead Technology boasts one of the largest equipment fleets in the industry, coupled with the R&D capabilities to develop bespoke solutions.
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Use products made of dung, urine; help protect cows: Minister
Bengaluru, Jan 7 (PTI) Karnataka Animal Husbandry Minister Prabhu Chauhan on Thursday appealed to people to help protect cows by using soaps, shampoos, incense sticks and other products made of cow dung and urine.
'Besides milk, curd, butter and ghee, there are products made from cow dung and urine such as soap, shampoo, incense sticks, gaubhasma, panchagavya, vermicompost, gaunyle and pesticides. People should use them more and cooperate in protecting the cow. A study will also be conducted about this,' Chauhan said in a statement.
The Minister's statement comes in the backdrop of the state government promulgating on January 5 the Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Ordinance that awards punishment for killing of cattle and offers protection to those acting in good faith to save them, as the Bill to this effect is yet to be cleared by the legislative council.
Stating that officials have been asked to ensure that cows rescued from smuggling and slaughter are handed over to gaushalas, the Minister said details have been gathered regarding estimated cost incurred in management of cows and arrangements in this regard following cow slaughter ban.
After discussion with the Chief Minister, further action would be taken, he said.
'Action will be taken regarding gaushalas and management of cows in the days to come,' he said.
Under the ordinance, slaughter of cattle would lead to imprisonment of upto 3 to 7 years and a fine ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh, and subsequent offences would attract imprisonment of upto 7 years and a fine from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.
The Minister also said that the citizens would be encouraged if they come forward for rearing cows that have been rescued.
'If financially able and those interested come forward to rear them at their houses, it would give further strength to conservation efforts,' he added. PTI KSU NVG NVG
Kim Kardashian shoots racy pictures amid divorce rumours
IGM Recruitment 2021: 54 vacancies open for various positions, apply at igmkolkata.spmcil.com
There are 54 vacancies available, of which 16 are for the position of Junior Technician, 12 for Junior Office Assistant, 10 each for Junior Bullion Assistant and supervisor and there are 6 vacancies for the post of Engraver III.
IGM Kolkata Announces Recruitment on 54 Vacancies for Various Posts, Check Details Here
IGM will conduct the online examination 2021 at selected centres tentatively between March and April 2021.


Home Business JPMorgan CEO says 2022 could bring more than four rate hikes
JPMorgan CEO says 2022 could bring more than four rate hikes
FILE PHOTO: JP Morgan Chase & Co. corporate headquarters in New York
By David Henry and Matt Scuffham
NEW YORK (Reuters) -JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said on Monday the economy is generating so much inflation that the Federal Reserve might have to raise short-term interest rates https://www.reuters.com/markets/funds/goldman-sachs-expects-four-fed-rate-hikes-this-year-2022-01-10 more than four times this year.
Speaking to CNBC, Dimon said, "It's possible that inflation https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-consumer-prices-increase-further-november-2021-12-10 is worse than people think. I, personally, would be surprised if it's just four increases this year. Four would be very easy for the economy to absorb."
Dimon spoke after economists at JPMorgan and some other Wall Street banks said they expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates four times this year in a quicker pace than they had predicted earlier.
Citing signs that the economy is strong, Dimon said consumers had never been in better financial shape, evidenced by high checking account balances, payments on debt and increased home values.
But he also warned that financial markets will fluctuate regardless of how the economy is going.
"We're expecting that the market will have a lot of volatility this year as rates go up, and people do projections and look at the effects of interest rates on businesses differently than they did before," Dimon said.
As Dimon spoke, volatility in the stock and bond markets continued.
Wall Street's main indexes tumbled on falling prices for technology stocks, which have been hit hard by expectations for higher U.S. Treasury yields. The Nasdaq was down nearly 2% and about 9% below its Nov. 19 closing record.
The benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury yield rose to its highest level in nearly two years. Investors sold the securities in anticipation that the Federal Reserve will begin its tightening policy with an interest rate hike as soon as March.
The yield on the 10-year reached as high as 1.805%, up every day this year from 1.5118% on New Year's Eve.
The Fed has already begun reducing the pace of asset purchases, the first step in paring back stimulus measures introduced during the pandemic.
"If we are lucky, the Fed will slow things down and we will have a soft landing," Dimon said.
Asked about remote working policies during the coronavirus pandemic, Dimon said JPMorgan would continue to be flexible on working from home, provided it benefited the bank's clients.
Last week, Citigroup Inc said staff in the United States who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 14 would be placed on unpaid leave and fired at the end of the month unless they are granted an exemption.
Dimon suggested that JPMorgan's current policy of requiring New York City employees to be vaccinated before coming to the office could be extended to terminate those who refuse to be vaccinated.
"If you aren't going to get vaxxed, you won't be able to work in that office. We're not going to pay you to not work in the office," Dimon said.
On return-to-work questions, Dimon said, "We don't have to answer this right away."
(Reporting by David Henry and Matt Scuffham in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski and David Gregorio)
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Dennis Port man charged with 7th OUI
Cynthia McCormick
cmccormick@capecodonline.com
BARNSTABLE — A 62-year-old Dennis Port man pleaded not guilty Thursday in Barnstable District Court to a charge of operating under the influence of alcohol for the seventh time.
Edward Flanagan also was charged with negligent operation of a motor vehicle and operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license after nearly hitting a Barnstable police cruiser Wednesday evening, according to a police report filed with court documents.
Flanagan had stopped for a red light at Phinney's Lane just before 7 p.m. Wednesday but suddenly took a right turn on Falmouth Road, causing the officer heading west on Falmouth Road to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision, a police report says.
After pulling Flanagan over in a parking lot, the officer noticed Flanagan had a strong odor of alcohol, slurred, thick speech and bloodshot and glassy eyes, the report says.
Flanagan was unable to recite the entire alphabet and was unsteady on his feet, according to the report, which said police found two one-liter bottles of peppermint schnapps under the driver's seat, both of which were partially empty.
Flanagan was arrested on a total of five charges, including having an open container of alcohol in the vehicle and failure to yield at an intersection.
He is scheduled to return to court Jan. 9 for a pretrial hearing.


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Goddard College's recent decision to have its students addressed from prison by a convicted cop killer is just one of many unbelievably irresponsible self-indulgences by "educators" in our schools and colleges.
Such "educators" teach minorities born with an incredibly valuable windfall gain — American citizenship — that they are victims who have a grievance against people today who have done nothing to them, because of what other people did in other times. If those individuals who feel aggrieved could sell their American citizenship to eager buyers from around the world and leave, everybody would probably be better off. Those who leave would get not only a substantial sum of money — probably $100,000 or more — they would also get a valuable dose of reality elsewhere.
Nothing is easier than to prove that America, or any other society of human beings, is far from being the perfect gem that any of us can conjure up in our imagination. But, when you look around the world today or look back through history, you can get a very painfully sobering sense of what a challenge it can be in the real world to maintain even common decency among human beings.
Living just one year in the Middle East would be an education in reality that could obliterate years of indoctrination in grievances that passes for education in too many of our schools, colleges and universities. You could go on to get a postgraduate education in reality in some place like North Korea.
If you prefer to get your education in the comfort of a library, rather than in person amid the horrors, you might study the history of the sadistic massacres of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire or the heart-wrenching story of Stalin's man-made 1930s famine in the Soviet Union that killed as many millions of people as Hitler's Holocaust did in the 1940s.
Mao's man-made famine in China killed more people than the Soviet famine and the Nazi Holocaust combined. And we should not deny their rightful place in history's chamber of horrors to the 1970s Cambodian dehumanization and slaughters that killed off at least a quarter of the entire population of that country.
What about slavery? Slavery certainly has its place among the horrors of humanity. But our "educators" today, along with the media, present a highly edited segment of the history of slavery. Those who have been through our schools and colleges, or who have seen our movies or television miniseries, may well come away thinking that slavery means white people enslaving black people. But slavery was a worldwide curse for thousands of years, as far back as recorded history goes.
Over all that expanse of time and space, it is very unlikely that most slaves, or most slave owners, were either black or white. Slavery was common among the vast populations in Asia. Slavery was also common among the Polynesians, and the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere enslaved other indigenous peoples before anyone on this side of the Atlantic had ever seen a European.
More whites were brought as slaves to North Africa than blacks brought as slaves to the United States or to the 13 colonies from which it was formed. White slaves were still being bought and sold in the Ottoman Empire, decades after blacks were freed in the United States.
In addition to the chilling picture that it paints of human nature, it means that Americans today — all Americans — are among the luckiest people who have ever inhabited this planet. Most Americans living in officially defined poverty today have such things as central air-conditioning, cable television, a microwave oven and a motor vehicle.
A scholar who spent years studying Latin America said that what is defined as poverty in the United States today is upper middle class in Mexico.
Do we still need to do better? Yes! Human beings all over the world are not even close to running out of room for improvement.
There is so much knowledge and skills that need to be transmitted to the young that turning schools and colleges into indoctrination centers is a major and reckless disservice to them and to American society, which is vulnerable as all human societies have always been, especially those that are decent.
Comment by clicking here.
Thomas Sowell, a National Humanities Medal winner, is an American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author. He is currently Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
© 2021 Creators Syndicate


Out of the dust, a new empire
I recently watched Empire of Dust, the 2011 documentary about Chinese development in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Perhaps you, like me, have trouble keeping straight in your head which is which between Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Congo has Brazzaville, and is merely very bad. The Democratic Republic of Congo has Kinshasa, and stakes a strong claim to being among the worst countries on the planet. An easy mnemonic is that because democracy makes everything in Africa worse, the Democratic Republic of Congo is obviously the bad one. The DRC is a country so screwed up that you can have a war where 5-6 million people die, and you never hear about it because the whole thing is so confusing and depressing that nobody knows what narrative to give, and it's hard to cast as a simple morality play.
I'd seen the trailer linked in a few places, and wanted to watch the whole thing. If you don't have the patience for the remaining 75 minutes, the trailer below is well worth watching for a flavor:
The whole documentary can be found here.
As is appropriate, the trailer contains the most hilarious and quotable lines. No-BS Chinese guy (Lao Yang) delivering some tough realtalk to an African guy (Eddy), saying that the latter's country was left lots of infrastructure and development potential by the colonials when they left, and they (the Congolese) squandered it all through laziness and poor governance. Plus since the Chinese guy is actually working there, he has a lot more scope to claim that he knows whereof he talks. In other words, you can't just accuse him of ignorance - have you been to the DRC? Of course not. So if you don't like his words, you have to find some other angle of attack.
To a western audience, it has the wonderful frission similar to playing cards against humanity - hearing someone utter hilarious taboos, but here with the possibility that they might be true. Eddy gives textbook rationalizations, but with a look as though he doesn't really believe them, and just smiles as he's called on them. Meanwhile, Lao Yang has the easterner's qualified immunity from charges of racism that forces the audience to listen a little longer. Of course, modern progressives would say he is racist (I think - it's hard to keep track of whether minorities can still be racist in The Current Year, or whether the Chinese count as minorities). But in any case, even if one could address him directly, one knows with certainty that if you accused him of racism, neither he, nor his employers, nor his countrymen, would give a flying fig. Take away the power of accusations of witchcraft, and watch how quickly people lose interest in the whole topic of witches.
While the density of both hilarity and insight is lower in the rest of the documentary than in the trailer, it is nonetheless interesting. Because while the trailer mostly gores progressive oxen, the rest of the documentary contains parts that might somewhat surprise a reactionary.
In particular, when the subject of the Chinese in Africa comes up, the standard perspective seems to be that the Chinese are swallowing the choicest parts of the continent in a quest for resource extraction and strategic pieces of infrastructure. They are on track, so the narrative goes, to be the continent's next colonial powers, and probably a lot less charitable than the Europeans they belatedly replace.
If the documentary has one lesson, it is this: rumors of a massive Chinese empire rising rapidly on the African continent are greatly exaggerated. Instead, one gets the impression of Chinese management having to battle with the same problems as everyone else in Africa.
Suppliers are unreliable. Lao Yang drives for a long time to try to find a gravel supplier for his cement project. When he gets there, the workers are standing idle around the machines, because the boss hasn't turned up yet. It's midday. They don't know when he'll be in. They've called him. They can't do anything until he arrives.
Indeed, similar problems arise with the Chinese company's own native workforce. It's a rotating cast who sometimes turn up, and sometimes don't. They need to have basic instructions repeated to them. Don't lose your equipment, or your pay will be docked. Don't slack off, but take your work seriously. Don't steal from the worksite. These are all things that I wouldn't have thought to mention as a manager, since they seem to go without saying. Apparently, not in the DRC. Various Chinese employees recount how they would leave a worksite having given instructions for the Congolese to complete a task, and find out later that the whole Congolese workforce had just wandered off ten minutes later.
The other slightly incongruous aspect that you might be pondering from the trailer - how did they find a well-dressed, eloquent, Chinese-speaking Congolese guy to be the interlocutor to the main Chinese boss, in the middle of nowhere DRC? And why is he so willing to just sit there and take Lao Yang's abuse? You quickly learn that Eddy is the translator, so doesn't really have a choice in the matter. He seems quite competent, and indeed a workforce of Eddies would likely do well. But the rest of the workers seem cut from quite a different cloth. And even with Eddy, one senses flashes of resentment and dual loyalty. When talking with a gravel supplier, Lao Yang is trying to find out where the guy is buying it. Eddy tells the Congelese gravel guy that the Chinese will just try to buy the entire operation - in other words, don't tell him, because it will put you out of business. Eddy of course doesn't translate this part of the discussion back into Chinese, but we as the audience get to hear both parts.
All of which might make you wonder - why do the Chinese put up with all this? Why don't they just bring in their own workforce? Towards the end, one gets the answer. They don't have a choice. Far from being a superpower, in the middle of the DRC, they're a very small minority, and their continued viability is dependent on them being able to give jobs to the Congolese, and presumably grease enough palms in the local government that everyone finds them to be beneficial overall.
Indeed, for all the claims about how the Chinese will make nasty neo-colonial dictators, the overwhelming attitude of the Chinese characters to their Congolese workers and circumstances is weariness and low level frustration. There's little evidence of abuse, or terrible work conditions, or even any threat of force whatsoever. It's quite possible that this exists, and the filmmakers just chose to not depict it in order to get access. Yet the picture presented seems credible, and you can see why. The workers in the Chinese company are basically like a foreign embassy. They're a tiny number of foreigners who are not only far from home, but far from any help that home can offer. If the natives turn hostile, you're done. The ability of the Chinese to project force into the middle of the DRC in a targeted, credible way on short notice is pretty damn close to zero. The same would probably be true for westerners, to be honest. If you all get chopped up, what's the Chinese government going to do? Send its one aircraft carrier to bomb random bits of the DRC in revenge? The country barely even has a functioning government. What would it even achieve?
And so you just have to muddle along as best you can. The narrative of the story is primarily about the attempt to find gravel for a cement factory, and the various travails they encounter along the way. It's portrayed as a microcosm of the struggle of the whole Chinese project. And the general sense one gets is that it's far from obvious that they'll actually succeed. The things that would make it hard for you to get a successful commercial operation going in the DRC are pretty much the same problems that the Chinese face. In the battle between Chinese commercial zeal, and Africa's intractably inhospitable commercial environment, it's not clear who to bet on.
There's a related aspect, which reactionaries will admit about China, but then oddly forget when it comes to the Chinese in the African context. To wit: the Chinese approach to development isn't exactly first rate either. It tends to be a bit slap-dash and poorly planned, with strong central demands to just get things done resulting in buildings that have a habit of falling down, collapsing holes in sidewalks, poisoned baby formula etc. And that's in China. In other words, this ain't a Japanese Just-In-Time inventory management system. When Lao Yang finally finds a potential gravel supplier, he can't tell him exactly how much gravel he's going to need, or when he's going to be paid. Lao tells him, essentially, I'll pay as the money comes in. To which I found myself thinking - they haven't committed the damn money yet? Stop just blaming the Congolese if your own lines of credit aren't set up. How is this guy meant to plan ahead to supply you with gravel if you can't give him a clear timetable of what you need and when?
And if you know anything about operations management, you know that the problem of unreliable suppliers has a well known solution - stockpile inventories in advance to take into account the estimated distribution of delays, so you only have a managably low probability of running out. In other words, it's only the first instance of delay that is a good excuse for running short. If you know you're dealing with jokers, you should be able to at least partially plan around them being jokers. Did the need for gravel just suddenly arise yesterday? Was this an unanticipated event in the development of a cement factory? Don't make me laugh.
Instead, for all the view of China as a monolith engaging in development, the individual Chinese managers seemed pretty much on their own, trying to scrounge around as best they could, and not always succeeding. In other words, watching the documentary I came away with an unexpected feeling of sympathy for the Chinese in the DRC. Maybe they're going to take over the place, but it's going to be a hell of a slog in the mean time for the people on the ground. It's like with neighbourhood development. Sometimes, the gentrifiers beat out the ghetto. Sometimes the ghetto wins. It's not always easy to say in advance which way it will go.
But I can say the following. The Holmes Investment Trust is sure as hell not going to be setting up any cement factories in the Congo anytime soon.
Labels: Development, Pop Culture, The Third World
The Button C Option


[ARCHIVED] Bismarck Fire Department responds to fire trailer home
At approximately 11:01 AM on Tuesday, October 23, the Central Dakota Communications Center received a report of a fire at a residence on the 200 block of Boeing Avenue. The Bismarck Fire Department was dispatched to investigate. The first arriving fire crew reported a trailer home with fire and heavy smoke showing from the exterior. The fire crew established command, and made contact with a resident who reported that everyone was out of the home.
Command conducted a scene size-up and found heavy fire and dark smoke showing from the West side of the home. The fire crews deployed hose lines and attacked the fire. Additional fire units arrived on scene and assisted with establishing a water supply, deploying additional hose lines, and conducting a search of the trailer. Once the fire was extinguished, fire crews conducted an overhaul operation to find and extinguish any smoldering materials. When the overhaul operation was complete the trailer home was ventilated and a fire investigation was conducted.
Six fire department apparatus and seventeen firefighters were dispatched to the scene. Bismarck Police Department assisted with scene control. Metro Area Ambulance was on scene to provide medical support. MDU and Capital Electric were called to the scene to secure utilities. Crisis Care Chaplaincy was on scene to support the occupants and the American Red Cross was notified.
There was substantial fire and smoke damage to the structure. The building was occupied at the time of the fire. There were no injuries to the occupants of the home. The occupants of the home were displaced by the fire. There were no injuries to first responders. The fire originated in a bedroom of the home and the cause has been classified as undetermined.


"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."
~Chinese Proverb
It's easy to stay stuck in what we "should have, could have, would have done if things had been different" mode. But what about today? What's our excuse for not doing it now?
▪ Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her first book, Little House on the Prairie, at age 65.
▪ Julia Child had her first taste of French food at 35 and wrote her first cookbook at 49.
▪ Grandma Moses began painting at the age of 76 after arthritis made embroidery too difficult.
▪ Sister Marion Irvine started running at 47 after being overweight and smoking two packs a day. She went on to qualify for the Olympic marathon trials at age 54.
Choose today to rekindle a dream, passion, or wish you have let lay dormant. It's never too late!
Wishes to you for a simply beautiful day!


Entertainment News Celebrities across the world pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth...
Entertainment NewsWorld
Celebrities across the world pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth II departs the Service of Thanksgiving for the life of the Duke of Edinburgh in London in March. File Photo by Neil Hall/BP
Sept. 9 (BP) — Tributes from celebrities across the globe poured in following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reining monarch in British history.
The queen died on Thursday following seven decades on the throne, and public figures released statements and messages on social media to pay their respects.
This includes some of the most iconic figures in British pop culture.
Elton John, who knew and worked with the queen extensively, wrote that he was "deeply saddened" to hear of her passing.
"She was an inspiring presence to be around and led the country through some of our greatest and darkest moments with grace, decent and a genuine caring warmth," the iconic singer said. "Queen Elizabeth has been a huge part of my life from childhood to this day, and I will miss her dearly."
This sentiment was echoed by Mick Jagger, the lead singer of iconic British rock band The Rolling Stones, who wrote, "For my whole life Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II has always been there."
"In my childhood I can recall watching her wedding highlights on TV. I remember her as a beautiful young lady, to the much-beloved grandmother of the nation. My deepest sympathies are with the royal family," Jagger added.
For my whole life Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II has always been there. In my childhood I can recall watching her wedding highlights on TV. I remember her as a beautiful young lady, to the much beloved grandmother of the nation. My deepest sympathies are with the Royal family. pic.twitter.com/3JLILZDKwK— Mick Jagger (@MickJagger) September 8, 2022
Rounding out the cast of musical legends were Beatles icons Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, both of whom penned tributes to the queen.
"God bless Queen Elizabeth II, may she rest in peace, long live the king," McCartney said in a short statement.
Starr similarly wrote, "God bless Queen Elizabeth, peace and love to all the family, peace and love, Ringo," followed by a number of emojis.
Beyond the music world, many on- and off-screen legends honored the deceased monarch as well.
Helen Mirren, who portrayed Queen Elizabeth II in the 2006 biographical film The Queen, wrote in a statement that she was "mourning along with the rest of my country, the passing of a great queen."
"I'm proud to call myself of the Elizabethan age," Mirren added. "If there was a definition of nobility, Elizabeth Windsor embodied it."
Jennifer Garner called the queen an "elegant, incredible woman" on Instagram.
Theater icon Andrew Lloyd Webber, known for helming plays such as Phantom of the Opera and Cats, wrote, "For the whole of my life, the queen has been the constant anchor of not just Britain and her beloved Commonwealth, but an inspiration to the world for her lifetime of service."
"Her legacy will be remembered as a selfless beacon for love, understanding and the celebration of fellow human beings all over the world, no matter their race or creed," he added. "Our thoughts and prayers are with Her Majesty and the queen's family."
Webber was later seen among the mourners at Buckingham Palace, stopping to pay tribute and leave flowers.
People from the sports world also penned tributes, including retired soccer star David Beckham, who wrote on his website that he was "truly saddened by the death of Her Majesty, the queen."
"What an outpouring of love and respect we saw for the Platinum Jubilee for her life of service. How devastated we all feel today shows what she has meant to people in this country and around the world…until her last days she served her country with dignity and grace. This year she would have known how loved she was," he said.
Retired tennis player Billie Jean King wrote on Twitter that she was "saddened to learn of the passing" of the queen.
"For 70 years, her leadership, impact, and influence on the United Kingdom and the entire global community has been immense," King said. "She was the longest reigning British monarch in history, the only woman from the royal family to serve in the armed forces, and a respected leader around the world. She earned her place in history, and she will be missed."
(1/2) I am saddened to learn of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.
For 70 years, her leadership, impact, and influence on the United Kingdom and the entire global community has been immense. I met her in 2010 at Wimbledon, and it was a special moment for me. pic.twitter.com/ByFAfQQPJH— Billie Jean King (@BillieJeanKing) September 8, 2022
Queen Elizabeth II greets Liz Truss at Balmoral Castle in Scotland on September 6, 2022. The queen asked Truss to form a new administration. Truss accepted and was appointed prime minister and first lord of the treasury. Photo courtesy of The Royal Family/Twitter
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