Camille Selvon Abrahams

Camille Selvon Abrahams is a renowned animation and multi-media specialist who has shared her knowledge of the animation industry after her return from studies abroad at Goldsmiths University. Specialised in 2D animation, scriptwriting and storyboard, Camille also co-created ‘Pete the Panstick’ an interactive training tool teaching children about pan. She is working currently on an interactive animated e-book for download. Utilising the creative process is extremely important in using these kinds of technology as anyone can learn to use software, but not many can create a visually and aesthetically pleasing dynamic product using the technology. Marrying the two is what makes a great animator. Camille is currently the President of the recently formed Caribbean ASIFA group one of 24 animation association from around the world. She is also the founder and director of the Animae Caribe Animation and New Media Festival.

 

Here’s the full version of the CIA’s 2002 intelligence assessment on WMD in Iraq

By Armin Rosen From Business Insider

In October of 2002, 9 months before the US-led invasion of Iraq, the CIA produced a document summarizing relevant intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s chemical and biological weapons programs. The document became the basis for the Bush Administration’s public statements about the extent of Saddam’s WMD program and was also distributed to members of Congress.

The intelligence estimate was used to support the Bush administration’s case that Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program represented an imminent threat, which became perhaps the leading justification for the US-led war.

An expurgated version of the document was released as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request in 2004. But it wasn’t until last year that a transparency activist named John Greenwald was able to obtain the intelligence estimate in its entirety. Greenwald provided the document to Jason Leopold of Vice News, which published it with analysis on March 19th.

The document determines that Saddam Hussein had an active chemical weapons program — although crucially, the CIA couldn’t prove that his regime had actually resumed producing chemical and biological agents and cast doubt on the actual extent of Saddam’s program.

The intelligence estimate also heavily qualified its evidence of any link between Saddam’s regime and al Qaeda, noting that the sources were not entirely reliable.

The full document allows for a comparison of the CIA’s actual findings with both the Bush administration’s pre-war claims, and later post-war assessments of Saddam’s actual WMD capabilities.

In December, the RAND Corporation issued a report that stated the CIA assessment “contained several qualifiers that were dropped … As the draft NIE went up the intelligence chain of command, the conclusions were treated increasingly definitively.”

Consequently, the findings shed much-needed light on one of the most important events in recent US and Middle Eastern history.

IMAGE: Win McNamee/Reuters U.S. President George W. Bush, flanked by former U.S. Sen. Chuck Robb (L) and former judge Laurence Silberman, addressing the media at the White House briefing room, February 6, 2003. Under strong political pressure, Bush established a bipartisan commission to investigate failures in intelligence used to justify the Iraq war in early 2003.

For more and to read the Iraq October 2002 NIE on WMDs (unredacted version) go to: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-full-version-of-the-cias-2002-intelligence-assessment-o

 

Vanuatu provides lessons in cyclone survival

Reuters From Voice of America

IMAGE: Vanuatu Mobile Force personnel unload generators from Australia days after Cyclone Pam in Port Vila, capital city of the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu,

March 19, 2015 5:53 PM

PORT VILA— Villagers in Vanuatu buried food and fresh water as one of the strongest storms on record bore down on them, fleeing to churches, schools and even coconut drying kilns as 300 kph winds and massive seas tore their flimsy houses to the ground.

Despite reports of utter devastation six days after Cyclone Pam pummeled the impoverished South Pacific island nation, Vanuatu appears to be providing something of a lesson in how to survive a Category 5 storm.

The United Nations says the official death toll is 11 and Prime Minister Joe Natuman told Reuters it would not rise significantly.

“The important thing is that the people survived,” he said in an interview outside his office overlooking the hard-hit capital of Port Vila. “If the people survived, we can rebuild.”

Officials had feared a spike in deaths once news came in from outer islands of the scattered archipelago and the low figure amazed aid workers and those who lived through the storm.

“It’s absolutely unbelievable the death toll is so low,” said Richard Barnes, 43, a property valuer from New Zealand who has lived near the capital Port Vila, on Efate island for seven years.

Two days ago, a helicopter flight over the north of Efate revealed scenes of total devastation with at least one coastal village destroyed and no sign of life.

When visited a day later, dozens of villagers were back rebuilding with what materials they could find and reporting only one injury, said Barnes, who was on Cayman Island in 2004 when Hurricane Ivan hit.

“Everyone is just getting on with it, which was different from Cayman where everyone just sat around waiting for something to be done,” Barnes said.

Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, disaster coordinator for the U.N.’s humanitarian affairs office said he was impressed by the country’s ability to deal with the storm.

“In very few places that I have worked have I seen such a resilient population,” Rhodes Stampa, who has worked in major disaster sites including the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan, told Reuters in Port Vila.

Buried food

Vanuatu, one of the world’s poorest nations, is a sprawling cluster of more than 80 islands and 260,000 people, 2,000 km (1,250 miles) northeast of the Australian city of Brisbane.

Perched on the geologically active “Ring of Fire”, it suffers from frequent earthquakes and tsunamis and has several active volcanoes, in addition to threats from storms and rising sea levels.

Ben Hemingway, a regional adviser for USAID, said aid organizations like his had been working with the Vanuatu government for years on disaster mitigation.

“It’s a testament to the investment the international community has made,” he said. “If you look at the days before the storm, the message got out on the power of the storm and what to do to protect yourself. People did heed those warnings.”

Many villages are built further back from the shore to avoid storm surges and tsunamis, and most have at least one sturdy building to retreat to. Even the spreading roots of banyan trees that have survived centuries of storms are also sometimes used as shelter if houses are destroyed.

“Hurricanes or cyclones are not a new thing, since when people started living in these islands maybe about 5,000 years ago this type of event occurs every year,” said Natuman. “I think also we are now more organized in terms of our disaster management.”

Some villagers survived Pam by sheltering in a kiln used to dry coconuts and make copra, one aid official said.

People in the capital Port Vila prepared by weighing down corrugated tin roofs with cinder blocks, sandbags or logs. On small isolated islands, stock piles of coconuts, fruit and water were buried to enable villagers to survive several days.

Latrines are dug ahead of storms and lined with palm fronds to prevent contamination of water supplies.

Aid workers are now trying to get aid to isolated islands where airstrips, ports and communications are extensively damaged. Two helicopters were onboard a French frigate leaving nearby New Caledonia on Thursday and Australia and New Zealand were also sending vessels, Natuman said.

For more: http://www.voanews.com/content/reu-vanuatu-lessons-cyclone-survival/2687381.html

EDITOR: “Everyone is just getting on with it, which was different from Cayman where everyone just sat around waiting for something to be done.” That statement is strongly refuted.

 

Why energy investors are looking at the Caribbean

By Rebecca Ungarino, Special to CNBC

The energy landscape in the United States has transformed radically in the last few years, and its neighbors’ has, too.

Caribbean countries import nearly 99 percent of their energy, largely in the form of petroleum products. Two countries in the region, Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, have for years played a big role in covering the energy needs of the rest of the region. But with Venezuela experiencing an economic implosion, other Caribbean nations are looking for new sources of energy.

U.S. interests are in a particularly good position to invest in the Caribbean’s energy needs as oil prices have fallen, the United States has under gone a natural gas boom and relations with Cuba have shifted.

“The Caribbean could offer investors tremendous opportunities,” said Charles K. Ebinger, senior fellow in the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at the Brookings Institution. Opening relations with Cuba this year could be “quite dramatic,” he said.

Cuba is planning wind projects and hopes to produce 24 percent of its own electricity in 15 years, and Puerto Rico hopes that 20 percent of its electricity comes from renewable energy by 2035.

Between 2009 and 2013, foreign direct investment in the Caribbean nearly doubled to $217 billion, according to data from the World Bank.

That capital is finding its way into a variety of Caribbean industries, including energy, said Edgar van der Meer, a senior analyst at NRG Expert, a London- and Toronto-based energy intelligence and market research publisher.

Recent advances in hydraulic fracturing—so-called fracking—horizontal drilling and the growing shale gas production they have produced mean the U.S. is importing less fossil fuel from Caribbean islands like Trinidad and Tobago, historically a producer for the region.

“Now, we are in a position to sell to them at a cheaper price,” said Andrew Holland, senior fellow for energy and climate at the American Security Project, a nonpartisan think tank. “And once the government allows (more exports) and the infrastructure is there, we can export liquefied natural gas and other natural gas products to them.”

Investors interested in the Caribbean region should look to the wind and solar energy markets, said Ebinger, as well as the tourism market, which will benefit from cheaper and more efficient energy.

Cuba is an important destination for potential investors, said Holland, as its economy has picked up after five decades of practically no growth.

The Obama administration in December took steps to begin an economic and diplomatic rapprochement with the communist nation, which for its part has begun to experiment with free market business on a small scale.

“You can’t yet run your island on solar or wind power, but you can do a lot,” Holland said.

“It’s one of the only places in the world where you can throw up as much solar and wind power as possible.”

-Andrew Holland, senior fellow for energy and climate, the American Security Project

The cost of generating electricity in the Caribbean is higher than much of the rest of the world, which can impede direct investment. In Jamaica, consumers pay 38 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity. In Puerto Rico, that figure stands at 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt hour. In contrast, the average American household pays 10.13 cents per kilowatt hour, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“That (makes it) very difficult to make business and investment decisions; like if you’re a rum distiller, you want to make sure you have assured access to electricity,” said Holland.

Some islands are trying to fill the gaps through renewable energy. Grenada, Aruba and St. Martin, for example, have invested heavily in solar energy. St. Croix, of the U.S. Virgin Islands, recently switched all of its electric generation from oil to propane, which typically burns 30 percent cheaper.

“They become cost-effective without subsidies,” said Holland. The Caribbean, he said, is “one of the only places in the world where you can throw up as much solar and wind power as possible.”

As Venezuela heads toward what seems to be an almost inevitable economic implosion, island nations like Jamaica are likely to see a sudden hole in their budget, since they rely so heavily on Venezuela for energy.

“They wouldn’t have access to this low-cost oil, so you’d see energy prices spike,” Holland said. “You could see inflation and a spike in unemployment.”

“They put their own [energy] security in the hands of Venezuela,” he said, “and it seems like that may not have been a good idea.”

IMAGE: Tourists take in the sites from a tour bus in Havana, Feb. 28, 2015.

Getty Images

For more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/102523283

 

Caribbean Community “Climate-Smarting” Fisheries, but slowly

From Repeating Islands

Caribbean nations have begun work on a plan to ‘climate smart’ the region’s fisheries as part of overall efforts to secure food supplies. The concept is in keeping with plans by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) to improve the “integration of agriculture and climate readiness” as the region prepares to deal with the impacts of climate change and the increasing demand for food.

Olu Ajayi, CTA’s senior programme coordinator, told IPS in an email that climate-smarting the region’s aquatic resources will “enable the sector to continue to contribute to sustainable development, while reducing the vulnerability associated with the negative impacts of climate change”.

“Climate-smart fisheries require improving efficiency in the use of natural resources to produce fish, maintaining the resilience of aquatic systems and the communities that rely on them,” he noted.

The fisheries sector of the Caribbean Community is an important source of livelihoods and sustenance for the estimated 182,000 people who directly depend on these resources. In recent years, fishermen across the region have reported fewer and smaller fish in their nets and scientists believe these are signs of the times, not just the result of over-exploitation and habitat degradation.

“We believe the signs of climate change are already affecting our vital fisheries sector in the increase in seaweed events causing the loss of access to fishing grounds and increased frequency of coral bleaching events,” Peter A. Murray, Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) Secretariat’s Programme Manager, Fisheries Management and Development, told IPS.

Listing some of the predicted changes, including climatic variations that promote the spread of invasive species, as well as increased salination, Murray noted that climate change is also expected to impact traditional species and contribute to coastal erosion due to more frequent and devastating hurricanes.

In fact, the secretariat’s Deputy Executive Director Susan Singh Renton told reporters at the Caribbean Week of Agriculture last November that warmer seas could also push larger species to the north, making them less available to regional fishers. CRFM is the Caricom organisation charged with the promotion of responsible use of regional fisheries.

Two weeks after launching its Climate Smart Agriculture project at the 13th celebration of Caribbean Week of Agriculture in Paramaribo, Suriname in November 2014, the CTA began development of several initiatives. The programmes, they said would help the region to “tackle the impact of agriculture on small-scale producers” – among them small-scale fishers and fish farmers – in a way that will facilitate the construction of “resilient agricultural systems”.

The project came on the heels of the announcement of a Caribbean Community Common Fisheries Policy (CCCFP) and the CRFM Climate Change Action Plan. These are two of several proposals by Community organisations to monitor and regulate capture fisheries as well as implement common goals and rules on the adaptation, management, and conservation of the resources. [. . .]

IMAGE: fish-jmaica

For full article, see http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/03/caribbean-community-climate-smarting-fisheries-but-slowly/

SOURCE: http://repeatingislands.com/2015/03/20/caribbean-community-climate-smarting-fisheries-but-slowly/

 

VITEMA tested Tsunami sirens territory-wide on March 25

From St Croix Source

The Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency (VITEMA) conducted a territory wide test of the Tsunami Early Warning System on Wednesday, March 25, as part of the annual CARIBE WAVE/LANTEX 14, a Caribbean and Northwestern Atlantic Tsunami Warning Exercise.

From 10-10:15 a.m. on Wednesday, March 25, VITEMA activated tsunami sirens on St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas to transmit a tsunami warning message followed by a warning tone. No other messages followed the tsunami warning alert.

“VITEMA’s objective is to validate that the tsunami warning sirens are operational and can seamlessly activate once triggered by the 911 Emergency Communications Center on St. Croix and on St. Thomas,” said Elton Lewis, VITEMA director. “This early warning system is a critical public information tool for notifying coastal communities of an imminent threat of tsunami, especially in instances where there may be little time to act. The test is being conducted as part of a Caribbean-wide tsunami exercise, and no action is required on the part of the general public.”

In addition to triggering the tsunami siren warning system, the 911 centers will exercise its notification procedure for alerting key government officials of a tsunami warning.

In 2011, VITEMA installed 10 omni-directional sirens across the territory – four each on St. Croix and St. Thomas, and two on St. John. In January of this year, VITEMA installed an additional 14 sirens as part of Phase 2 of the installation project — eight on St. Thomas, including two smaller class sirens, and six on St. Croix.

Siren locations by island are:

St. Croix — D.C. Canegata Ball Park, the Christiansted Government Parking Lot, Fisher Street in Frederiksted, near the Legislature Building in Frederiksted, Cramer’s Park, Divi Carina Bay, Sion Farm, William’s Delight, La Vallee and Sprat Hall

St. John — near the Legislature Building at Cruz Bay and close to the Fire House at Carol Bay

St. Thomas — Cyril E. King Airport, Griffith Park, Yacht Haven Sugar Mill, Red Hook Marina, Enid Baa Library, Fort Christian Museum, Crown Bay (Gramboko), Addelita Cancryn Jr. H.S., Lucinda Millin Home: Long Bay (entrance to waterfront), Ezra Fredericks Ball Park, Coki Point Beach and Magen’s Bay Beach.

To view the siren locations or for more information about the tsunami siren early warning system, visit www.VITEMA.gov.

The purpose of this exercise is to assist tsunami preparedness efforts in the Caribbean and adjacent regions, including U.S. and Canadian East coasts, and Northwestern Atlantic region. Recent tsunamis, such as those in the Indian Ocean (2004), Samoa (2009), Haiti and Chile (2010), and Japan (2011), attest to the importance of proper planning for tsunami response.

“We also encourage businesses, other government agencies, non-profit organizations and especially schools to learn more and to participate in the exercise,” Lewis said. “This is a unique opportunity to review disaster readiness plans including how and where to evacuate.”

The Caribe Wave/LANTEX 14 exercise scenario simulates a distant tsunami generated by an 8.5 magnitude earthquake located approximately 270 km off the Portugal coast. The U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) and the National Tsunami Warning Center (NTWC) will issue an initial dummy message to start the exercise and to test communications with Tsunami Warning Focal Points and emergency management organizations across the Caribbean. The message will also be disseminated over all their standard broadcast channels.

For more information about tsunamis, visit http://www.prsn.uprm.edu/mediakit/

or http://www.uwiseismic.com

IMAGE: www.katu.com

 

12 drone disasters that show why the FAA hates drones

By Conner Forrest From Tech Republic

Love them or hate them, drones are here to stay. Here are 12 drone mishaps that show why some people are still wary.

Whether good or bad, everyone seems to have an opinion on drones. Few technological advancements are as hotly debated as drones are right now.

The definition for what constitutes a drone varies, but most people agree that a drone is a remotely-piloted, unmanned aerial vehicle or aircraft. The distinction usually comes in its purpose — commercial or military.

With regard to military use, objections are fairly obvious — people have ethical concerns about “drone strikes,” or the idea that a remotely-piloted aircraft could swoop in on a target and destroy it, especially when that target is a person. On the commercial end, though, arguments are more complicated.

Consumer drone use brings with it privacy concerns (many models have attachable cameras), regulatory issues, and concerns about the skill level of amateur pilots. Although, drones have done quite a bit of good in the world as well, such as disaster recovery, reforestation, and delivery of goods.

Still, things go awry. Here are 12 drone disasters contributing to public wariness.

1. Drone crashes near the White House

On Monday, January 26, 2015, a drone crash landed on the White House lawn. The White House does have its own specific flight restrictions, but the drone wasn’t easy to detect. Immediately after the incident, the White House went into lockdown. The US attorney decided not to charge the drone operator, Shawn Usman, after determining the drone was not under his control at the time of the crash.

2. Drone “attack” on German Chancellor Angela Merkel

During a Christian Democratic Party campaign in September 2014, a Parrot AR drone crashed in front of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The drone was piloted by a German Pirate Party member as a government surveillance protest. No one was harmed, but the situation raised concerns over similar experiences with weaponized drones.

3. Drone cuts off tip of photographer’s nose

What started out as goofy holiday promotion ended terribly when a drone crashed into the face of Brooklyn Daily photographer Georgine Benvenuto, clipping the end of her nose and cutting her chin. The drone was a promotion by TGI Fridays called “Mobile Mistletoe,” and it carried mistletoe above diners prompting them to kiss.

4. Drone injures Australian triathlete

At the Geraldton Endure Batavia triathlon in Australia, a drone was being used to photograph competitors when it crashed into triathlete Raija Ogden, causing a minor head wound, which required stitches to close. The drone operator, photographer Warren Abrams, claims that the drone crashed after someone in the audience stole control of it from him.

5. Drone injures bystanders in Virginia crowd

In the fall of 2013, spectators gathered at the Virginia Motorsports Park for the Great Bull Run, a festival with live music, drinking, a tomato fight, and a bull run similar to the Running of the Bulls in Spain. During the festival, a drone being used to record videocrashed into the stands, injuring several people in attendance.

6. Drone flies too close to a news helicopter

One major concern for consumer drone use is the potential for operators to pilot drones into occupied airspace. In Washington, a news helicopter was covering a fire when the pilot noticed a droneflying too close for comfort. Nothing happened in this particular incident, but the FAA said it receives 25 reports a month of drones flying too close to manned aircraft. Recreational drone flights are supposed to be kept under 400 feet.

7. Drone nearly crashes into Airbus A320

In July 2014, a drone narrowly missed colliding with an Airbus A320 as it was taking off from London’s Heathrow airport. The plane was at about 700 feet when the incident occurred and BBC reported that the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) rated the incident as a “serious risk of collision,” the top rating it can give.

8. Drone caught carrying drugs near the border

On Tuesday, January 20, 2015, a drone carrying methamphetamine crashed in Mexico near the US border. The drone was transporting more than six pounds of crystal meth when it crashed in a supermarket parking lot in the Mexican city of Tijuana. According to the DEA, drones are becoming a common means to transport drugs over the border.

9. Drone flies over Bank of America Stadium

Unsuspecting fans and players alike were surprised when a drone flew over Bank of America Stadium during a Carolina Panthers football game in Charlotte, North Carolina. The drone caused no harm or damage in its operation, but its operator was detained and questioned afterwards. This incident, along with similar situations, prompted the FAA to criminalize drone flight in certain areas.

10. Drone flies over Comerica Park

The Detroit Tigers were playing against the Baltimore Orioles in a Major League Baseball game when a drone went buzzing by overhead. Being that professional sporting events usually attract fans in the tens of thousands, a weaponized drone could cause serious injury. Drones are difficult to detect and make security harder to enforce at such events.

11. Drone crashes into Grand Prismatic Spring

A Dutch man crashed his drone in the Grand Prismatic Spring, a famous hot spring in Yellowstone National Park. At the time, park rangers were concerned that the downed drone, as well as attempts to remove it, could hurt the spring.

12. Drone attacked by hawk

In the ultimate case of nature fighting back against man-made machines, a drone met its demise at the talons of a red-tailed hawkflying in a Cambridge, Massachusetts park. The drone caught the skirmish on its attached camera and the ensuing video went viral. While this probably won’t be a common occurrence, the argument can be made that drones still pose a threat to wildlife.

Image: Joshua Goldman/CNET

For more: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/12-drone-disasters-that-show-why-the-faa-hates-drones/?tag=nl.e101&s_cid=e101&ttag=e101&ftag=TRE684d531

 

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. unveils new production studio at FIU

By Chris Gray Faust, Destinations Editor From Cruise Critic

Ever wonder where cruise lines prepare and develop their elaborate shows at sea?

In Miami, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. has teamed up with Florida International University to build a 132,500-square-foot facility dedicated to training students and entertainers for three of its lines: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, and Azamara Club Cruises.

The Royal Caribbean Production Studio, located on the college’s Biscayne Bay campus and bearing a large anchor on the front, includes three-story studios, a 300-seat theater, a 20,000-square-foot costume-making facility, 10 rehearsal studios, a recording room and video editing space.

Besides being used for RCI’s professional entertainment staff, the studio will be used for learning opportunities for students in FIU’s Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management and the College of Architecture and the Arts. There will be paid internships, custom curricula and behind-the-scenes access to Royal Caribbean’s experts; FIU faculty and staff will also have access to the company’s marketing and sales data to conduct research.

The building replaces a 35,000-square-foot leased facility in Hollywood, Florida. “We had a studio that we’ve had since the War of 1812 — or at least that’s what it sounded like when you listened to our entertainment people,” Richard Fain, CEO and Chairman of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., said at the facility’s ribbon cutting Friday.

The project with FIU was four years in the making, Fain said. The facility will be used by the company on a grand scale, serving as the development ground of about 150 shows and 1,600 cast members per year, he said.

“It’s not just the cast members,” Fain said. “It’s the costuming, the sets, the artwork, the aerobatics.”

As soon as you enter the modern building, you notice the cruise connection. Besides the logos of RCCL lines, ship models of Freedom of the Seas and Celebrity Silhouette are in the lobby.

On a tour of the facility, Lisa Carr, a production specialist for Royal Caribbean, gave some insight into the lives of show performers, who are recruited from all over the world. Usually on a six- or seven-month contract, the singers, dancers and acrobats only have about 12 days to get ready, she said.

Before the facility opened in January, the performers, as well as the choreographers, directors and vocal coaches, were put up in 30 apartments near the Hollywood facility. Now they’ll be living in dorms at the FIU campus, she said.

A typical day includes conditioning (acrobats must do a full hour daily of exercises such as push-ups, sit-ups, wheel barrows and rope climbing), she said, as well as vocal classes, choreography, and stage run-throughs. “It’s all muscle memory,” she said.

Each rehearsal room is blocked off with the name of the ship and show. (We spotted “Cats,” “Mamma Mia” and “We Will Rock You”). Boxes full of props ready to send to Anthem of the Seas” European debut were stacked outside the costume room, where designers were working on sewing machines.

One thing they can’t teach here? How to manage all those steps when the seas get rough. “You get used to it,” visitors were told.

IMAGE: Royal Caribbean performers rehearse at new entertainment studio at Florida International University.

For more: http://www.cruisecritic.com/news/news.cfm?ID=6259

 

Blackberry Winter

By Ken Moore

It’s early May and the blackberry “brambles” are brightening field edges and roadsides with masses of pure white flowers. When these same blackberry flower-filled days and nights are really, really chilly, the old timers refer to it as “Blackberry Winter.” That description certainly is appropriate for this early May in and around Carrboro. Blackberry flowers (Rubus argutus is the most common of about a dozen edible blackberry species in our state) are particularly beautiful this year, perhaps due to the cool temperatures prolonging their freshness. Or perhaps my pronouncement is the result of over-stimulation by the excessive masses of flowering brambles beginning to overtake more than the edges of my wild garden. Well, very few would describe my yard a “garden” since nature is far more in charge than am I.

Brocken is the highest of the Harz Mountains of north central Germany. It is noted for the phenomenon of the Brocken spectre and for witches’ revels which reputedly took place there on Walpurgis night.

The Brocken Spectre is a magnified shadow of an observer, typically surrounded by rainbow-like bands, thrown onto a bank of cloud in high mountain areas when the sun is low. The phenomenon was first reported on the Brocken.

—Taken from Oxford Phrase & Fable.

“Blackberry Winter” (1946) is (Robert Penn Warren) Warren’s most frequently anthologized work of short fiction. Set in his native region of rural Tennessee, “Blackberry Winter” is a tale about loss of innocence that is related through a middle-aged narrator’s recollections. “Blackberry Winter” has been considered an archetypal story with biblical references to the Garden of Eden, the Antichrist, the Fall, the Flood, and the Prodigal Son. It was first published as an illustrated novelette in 1946 and the next year it was included in Warren’s only collection of short fiction, The Circus in the Attic and Other Stories. Although he is primarily celebrated as a poet and novelist, Warren’s “Blackberry Winter” is considered a major achievement in the short story genre.

Plot and Major Characters

Seth, the narrator of “Blackberry Winter,” is a forty-four-year-old man recounting a series of events that occurred when he was nine. The story is set in June of 1910, the day after a violent storm has flooded the creek, damaging crops and leaving marks of destruction across the countryside. Seth argues with his mother about whether or not it is warm enough for him to go barefoot in blackberry winter, a term which refers to the advent of a sudden cold spell in summer.

SOURCE: http://www.carrborocitizen.com/mill/2007/05/10/another-blackberry-winter/

 

St Kitts-Nevis police high command rebukes commissioner

By Clive Bacchus From Caribbean News Now

BASSETERRE, St Kitts (WINN) — The war of words over the alleged demotion of St Kitts and Nevis police Inspector Rosemary Isles-Roberts reached a new level Wednesday with the Police High Command publicly rebuking Police Commissioner CG Walwyn – who is reportedly on leave – for his accusations of victimization.

A statement said a transcript of Walwyn’s “unfortunate comments,” would be sent to the Police Service Commission (PSC).

Walwyn claimed that he promoted Isles-Roberts to the rank of acting superintendent with the approval of former prime minister Dr Denzil Douglas, but in his absence she was been demoted to the rank of inspector.

This, he claims is evidence of victimization.

In a statement released to the media, Walwyn said he was not informed of the demotion of Isles-Roberts, an officer, Walwyn said, who was the only one trained to supervise the Office of Professional Standards, which investigates complaints and allegations of corruption in the police force.

He said the work of Isles-Roberts resulted in the public for the first time seeing police officers being held accountable for their actions and was sending “shivers through the police force”.

A response from the Police High Command on Wednesday afternoon stated that, while Walwyn wrote to the PSC on November 25, 2014, seeking approval for Isles-Roberts to be promoted to superintendent, neither the Police Service Commission nor the governor general has had the benefit of any recommendation for her; hence she was never promoted nor appointed to acting superintendent of police.

The release added that, on March 5, 2015, Isles-Roberts was asked to wear the appropriate badges of rank for inspector – her substantive rank – which is the normal procedure in this case.

“It must be made unmistakably clear that a commissioner of police cannot promote a police officer above the rank of station sergeant,” the High Command said, adding, “The procedure to promote an inspector up to the rank of superintendent of police is governed by section 12 of the Police Act, 6 of 2003.”

For more: http://caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-St-Kitts-Nevis-police-high-command-rebukes-commissioner-25306.html

 

The U.S. can legally access your old emails and it wants to keep it that way

By Colin Daileda From Mashable

Many people around the globe might assume these days that the U.S. government can enact some shady magic called the NSA to access any email it wants, even if that shady magic is considered by some to be illegal.

But how many people—particularly U.S. residents—know that the American government technically has perfectly legal access to everyone’s emails, so long as it says those digital notes might be useful for an investigation and the emails are more than 180 days old?

That’s what U.S. law says as it was written in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act in 1986, and the government made very clear earlier this month that it would like the law to stay that way, even if privacy law experts think this rule is so archaic it may as well be collecting dust in a museum.

The U.S. is currently battling Microsoft in a court case in which Microsoft says the government should require a warrant before it can go plundering through emails that originate inside or outside the U.S., even if the company has access to that correspondence and could provide it. The government responded to Microsoft’s assertion on March 9 with this:

“Because the emails sought in this investigation are now more than 180 days old, the plain language of the [Stored Communications Act of the ECPA] would authorize the government to use a subpoena to compel disclosure of everything it sought pursuant to the Warrant.”

The Department of Justice has long argued that citizens don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to their old emails, according to experts, even though a government official would be violating the Fourth Amendment if they barged into a home and started reading through a person’s old letters.

Some digital privacy experts have to stifle a sort of stunned laughter when they talk about why a law written to govern email privacy in 1986 still has so much relevance.

“A lot has changed since Ronald Reagan was in office,” Bradley Shear, a lawyer who focuses on digital law, told Mashable. “Since that law was enacted we’ve gone through an entire technological revolution.”

Digital storage wasn’t the same three decades ago. As Jennifer Granick, the director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, put it to Mashable: People used to download any important information onto their own hard drives after it was online for a while. Now, important information is everywhere.

“I think the idea was like an abandonment theory, kind of like if you leave your stuff at the dry cleaners too long,” Granick said. “If it was important, you’d come back for it.”

The issue potentially affects anyone who has ever used email The issue potentially affects anyone who has ever used email, which is why experts are surprised there is hardly any outcry to update a law they say is clearly outdated.

Around 3.7 million commenters bombarded the FCC with messages late last year that overwhelmingly supported net neutrality, stopping an attempt by Internet service providers to block stronger regulations. Internet outrage in 2012 helped end SOPA and PIPA, proposed legislation that would have restricted access to sites that host pirated content.

Net neutrality

Net neutrality protesters demonstrate across the street from the Comcast Center, on Sept. 15, 2014, in Philadelphia.

Experts wondered whether enough people even know about the 180 day law.

Others suggested that maybe most folks didn’t think the government would care about their emails, so why bother being angry about it?

They can’t help but think that if more people knew, they’d be writing to their elected representatives, commenting in chat groups online, building awareness.

But for now, the experts only hear digital crickets.

IMAGES:

In this Dec. 16, 2014 photo, Gail Farnsley works on her computer as she rides the Amtrak train from Indianapolis to Chicago.IMAGE: DARRON CUMMINGS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Microsoft In this photo taken July 3, 2014, a worker walks past a Microsoft logo outside the Microsoft Visitor Center in Redmond, Washington. IMAGE: TED S. WARREN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Forensic A computer forensic examiner looks for evidence on hard drives. IMAGE: CLIFF OWEN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

IMAGE: MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS But when it comes to the government legally plundering emails, the anger department’s been empty.

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