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Are people part of the flora and fauna?

What makes human people special? In this context, what makes us stand out from the rest of nature? Why don’t we see ourselves as part of the rest of life on earth? This came up for me recently, as i listened to an Australian Aboriginal lady explain that her people should be thought of that way; that they were part of the flora and fauna of the land, in terms familiar to deep ecology. What was kind of shocking here was the fact that such an argument was once used by early colonists of this country to justify dispossession and settlement. It was allied with the idea of Terra Nullius; there is no real society here, recognisable to European standards, so we can simply take the land. Those black fellas are part of the land – so, no barrier to our possession of it. They literally branded Aboriginal societies as part of the flora and fauna, but meant something very different, and much more horrible, by the same sentiment.

  GB at PinnaclesThe author at The Pinnacles, Western Australia. Standing amongst the rocks, not independent of them.

A similar conundrum faces us when we align the feminine with nature; or with the darkness, or the deep waters of emotion. It’s not that the analogy is wrong – it’s the negative associations commonly held with the imagery that leads to problems. It’s easy to see why the feminine and nature are so easily aligned – we are birthed out of both, the womb of our mother and the matrix of the universe, physical matter itself. Likewise with the easy metaphorical association between the feminine and darkness; the mysterious ways of the world, the intuitive mind that women seem so often more comfortable with, compared to the ‘daylight’ or rational consciousness that has just as often been associated with the masculine spirit, and men in general.

Shark Bay beachThe sea, here at a beach in Shark Bay, WA. That sense of oceanic awareness, which Freud resisted and Jung identified with …  the great eternal feminine, the Tao of universal flow

If we were more comfortable with the darkness, with mystery, with the earth as our greater body, we could embrace these associations. We are suspicious of them because they are so often used to denigrate – to assume mastery over them, to remove ourselves from identification with them, to be independent and to feel powerful. It’s an illusion, just as the intuitive sense of them probably is too. Ultimately, matter and intuition could be thought of as masculine, abstract thought and logic as feminine, in a different social order. The moon has been considered masculine in Aboriginal and Mesopotamian cultures, which throws the whole European system out of order; in ancient Sumer, Nanna was the Moon God, a great bull looking over the herds of feminine stars. Symbols are flexible, no matter how true they seem to us. They are part of our consciousness, part of our mythology, so we accept them, just as we accept scientific thinking and the mundane materialism of commercial life in the 21st century.

Karijini GorgesThe spectacular gorges of Karijini NP, Pilbara region of WA. A sense of timeless pervades the landscape here, where rocks have been weathered for millions of years

I’d love to be thought of as part of the flora and fauna. I don’t want to assume mastery over the world and differentiate myself from it as part of some patriarchal fantasy of ‘civilisation.’ I’m just as comfortable with the feminine, nature, mystery and darkness as with the masculine, mind, a sense of certainty or logic and light – and i know that these systems of thought are all fluid, as sure as my sense of self and society and just as contingent upon history and environment as any other way of thinking. But i don’t want that to be an invitation to be defined as passive, as part of the land to be used and abused, as a walkover for free market assumptions that reduce everything to what they are worth at the current exchange rate, either. I stand with that Aboriginal lady – and support the positive connotations of her stance, just as i resist the way it can be turned upon her – and upon us. People of the earth, unite.

2 thoughts on “Are people part of the flora and fauna?

  1. Very insightful and thought provoking. What if Deity’s perspective is similar to the way I look at my own children and grandchildren? I want them to explore and create and rebel, to learn life lessons, and make mistakes. I don’t worry when they become snarky teens who never want to spend time with the old man because I know they’ll come back when they’re more mature, apologizing and asking for my advice and wisdom. I hope humanity is a rebellious teen on the verge of coming home to learn from Mother Nature…back to cave, well, and womb to be silent and face our shadow selves, emerging wiser, prepared to grow, evolve, and transform.

  2. Hi Robert, thanks for the comment and question. It partly depends on what you think of when you use the term deity. I don’t use it, but sense you may mean something not unlike the way i think of universal consciousness, or the idea that it pervades all things with an implicate order, which includes the destruction and death sometimes experienced at the mortal level as chaos and darkness. Either way, the idea that society is at the stage of the rebellious teen seems appropriate, to me, when i think of modernity, technology, the global free market civilisation (and especially the resource depletion and ecological destruction that comes with them). But i’d like to add that many societies have and still do experience life on this planet from a perspective of deep wisdom, of patient knowledge of earth cycles, of knowing to ask advice of their elders and ancestors … Aboriginal Australians, like Native Americans and many other minority cultures, continue to keep these ways alive, in spite of shocking living conditions and tortuous histories of genocidal dispossession. I’m not romanticising them but asking that we moderns think of them as elders – as, in this global view from the perspective of deep history, we are the teens and they the wise ones. Having said that, it will take a combined effort, using the best of modern science as well as ancient knowledge (and i would add the keys of self-awareness, including mystic insight and mindful psychology), for the human race to create the just, ecologically sustainable world it is capable of. At least, that’s what i find when i look into that well, cave and/or womb you mention.

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Montgomery Man Charged In Fatal Accident

posted by John Baibak -

A Hampden County man is being accused  of driving drunk and causing a fatal crash.

Joshua Hall of Montgomery  was arrested on Tuesday on a motor vehicle homicide charge and will be  arraigned in Northampton District Court on Wednesday, according to the  Northwestern District Attorney's office.

Hall reportedly crashed his  truck on Route 112 in Huntington on July 11th, resulting in the death of  his passenger, Miranda Carriveau, also of Montgomery.

Prosecutors say a  Massachusetts State Police investigation indicated Hall was driving  almost 90 miles per hour at the time of the crash.

So far there has been no comment from the city or state police yet.

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How Might An Empathetic Peg Find Its Role in Educational Leadership?

How Might An Empathetic Peg Find Its Role in Educational Leadership? An ENFP Reflects

Photo by Dmitry Ratushny for Unsplash

A true free spirit? Hardly.

A brief history of my experience with the Myers-Briggs, the Enneagram, and other personality profiles of this ilk. When I was an undergrad at the University of Maine at Farmington, I took several of these tests, surveys, and profiles across a number of courses. Every experience was the same: I received the results, the class talked about what they mean, and I would walk out the door grousing and complaining to my friends, random passerbys, and the dining hall staff about the injustice of putting people in a box, pigeonholing, labeling, categorizing and generally undermining everything we as Americans hold so dear. My friends would tolerate my ranting until I exhausted my breath and then plainly state, “You’re mad because it’s right. And we know it’s right because you’re mad.”

And they were right.

Perhaps the greatest difference between the Dan Ryder taking the Myers Briggs in 1998 and Dan Ryder taking the Myers Briggs today is my hairline. And if so, the second greatest difference would be my reaction to the results today: awe and appreciation. I no longer see the ENFP label as a source of frustration — instead I see it as an opportunity to grow my leadership capacity through my strengths and strategic recognition of my shortcomings.

The British firm, NERIS Analytics, offers a tremendous Myers Briggs resource in its 16 website, providing detailed explanations of each type alongside implications for work, family and relationships. As I think about taking on more formal roles of building, district, state, organizational or perhaps even entrepreneurial leadership, I find it valuable to weigh the NERIS insights against my past experiences and potential futures.

The ENFP personality is a true free spirit. They are often the life of the party, but unlike Explorers, they are less interested in the sheer excitement and pleasure of the moment than they are in enjoying the social and emotional connections they make with others. Charming, independent, energetic and compassionate, the 7% of the population that they comprise can certainly be felt in any crowd.

A true free spirit? Hardly. Over my career, my stress and anxiety have metastasized into serious bouts with depression, a need for regular therapy and, most recently, medication. I’m not one to liken freedom to constant struggle with inner demons. That last sentence though . . . seven percent.

In UMF’s Organizational Change Leadership course with Mary Callan andSally Beaulieu, we examined four leadership frameworks per Bolman and Deal’s research. Sitting in a room of 20+ educational leaders in training, I was the lone Symbolic. While it heartened me to know the rest of the room exceedingly Human Resource oriented alongside a handful of reluctant Politcals, it did put a rather fine point on why I struggle to empathize with so many education leaders and why I am still trying to figure out just where I fit in a school administration.

If there’s a challenge ENFPs face when selecting a career, it isn’t that they lack talent or options or drive, it’s that there are so many things out there that are just cool.

We vision keepers are a rare breed, but it is what gets us out of bed in the morning and wanting to do something bigger than the moment may allow. It is why I’m in constant contact with my colleagues in #Edchatme, a growing network of educators around the state with an eye toward innovating teaching and learning in Maine. It is why I’m a moderator of#dtk12chat, a Twitter-based international PLN working to bring design thinking — empathy fueled, human centered problem solving — into the foreground of pre-K through post-12 education. And it is why I’m spending more and more of my time consulting, presenting, keynoting and writing as I find outlets and audience for my ideas, strategies and philosophies.

Where ENFPs do not shine is in systems of strict regimentation and hierarchy, such as military service. ENFPs thrive on the ability to question the status quo and explore the alternatives, and if this is a quality that is not just unappreciated but actually frowned upon, this will not only make them unhappy, but it may even threaten their emotional stability. Repetition, predictability, boredom… while some Sentinel types may appreciate predictability and clear hierarchies, these are not selling points for ENFPs.People with the ENFP personality type need to feel like they’re pushing boundaries and exploring ideas, and should focus on interests and careers that encourage that.

Unfortunately, my ENFP-ness is also the source of frustration when I can see so many possibilities and find so many colleagues reluctant to embrace them. It is not that I want my ideas accepted and championed part and parcel — I am a flawed human being and a classroom educator who makes mistakes daily that he would never wish others to repeat — though I do crave environments with shared vision and a compelling drive for rapid prototypes, constant iteration, and steady, if messy, improvement.

When it comes to conceiving ideas and starting projects, especially involving other people, ENFPs have exceptional talent. Unfortunately their skill with upkeep, administration, and follow-through on those projects struggles. Without more hands-on people to help push day-to-day things along, ENFPs’ ideas are likely to remain just that — ideas.

I am reminded of a recent blog post I co-authored with personalized learning guru, Allison Zmuda. We present my “Fable of the Table,” a story to illustrate challenges educational innovators face empathizing with worried administrators. Where I define achievement as improving the table in any number of ways, most administrators see success as keeping the table steady and upright, a difficulty in its own right considering the current social and economic landscapes. It is not that the worried administrators do not want improvements — it is that what matters most is stability and safety and finding the pathways of least resistance to those ends. I see safety emerging as the result of some minor and rather dramatic shifts and establishing new definitions of stability: stability is not an unchanging status quo; stability is the capacity to transform the status quo for maximum effect at minimal upheaval.

ENFPs are not great fans of heavy hierarchy and bureaucracy, and this is most evident when they take on the role of manager. As managers, ENFP personalities behave much like they do as colleagues — they establish real friendships, and use their broad popularity to inspire and motivate, taking on the role of leader, working alongside their subordinates, rather than shouting from behind their desks. ENFPs will tend to believe in the concept of intrinsic motivation, the idea that things are worth doing for their own sake, not because of some convoluted system of punishments and rewards.

Aye, there’s the rub. I am ready to transition. I am just not sure where my strengths can serve the most good or where I can feel my skill sets put to the most use — particularly in public education in Maine. Building administration seems to consist only of assistant principals who must serve as disciplinarians and ad hoc social workers for the school. While I’m well suited to the latter, I am often reminded my softer approach to discipline would not serve the former well. Building principals seem to be relegated to financial matters, putting out physical plant brushfires, and being everything for everyone. While I got my father’s midwestern accent and his penchant for distant-stares when problem solving in his own head, I did not manage to receive his gift for numbers, nor the dot the Ts and cross the Is gene. This leaves me with curriculum coordinating, a position for which I think I am well suited and have a passion, yet finds itself in short supply in Maine as school administrations are regularly vilified by State and local community leadership for being bloated, self-serving and top heavy. Technology director is another position where I can see myself making serious gains for a school district because of my background in educational technology. Unfortunately, those same forces marshaled against school administrators have made it difficult for tech directors to focus on big picture and transformative learning rather than network maintenance and budget lines.

Known for their idealism and enthusiasm, ENFPs are good at dealing with unexpected challenges and brightening the lives of those around them. ENFPs’ imagination is invaluable in many areas, including their own personal growth.

I want my title to read, “Dan Ryder, RSU 9 Director of Innovations and Initiatives.” I would love to wrangle with whatever new mandates or mission directives land on our doorstep from Augusta and Washington. I would love to help classroom educators across the district to network with colleagues around the world, to benefit from the resource pools into which I’ve been able to tap and to learn to populate their own. I would love to help teachers with vision to connect the dots between what they want to accomplish and what it will take to make it a reality for their students. And I would love to help turn our school district into an economic engine for western Maine, to prove that an investment in fostering students with 21st century skill sets can vitalize entrepreneurship here, grow small businesses and small-shop manufacturing, stabilize the dwindling industries of the region, and establish new traditions of prosperity.

I am fortunate to work in a district that has a recent track record of excellent administrators from whom I can draw inspiration. And while I may not always agree with some of them and levy my criticism at the photocopier or at the sports bar, I appreciate their authenticity and inherent decency, not only as educators but as people.

And I know that’s my ENFP talking. And I am quite okay with that.

Note: These lines were composed for a Supervision & Evaluation course at the University of Maine at Farmington. Thanks to Sandy MacArthur for the challenge of such a reflection. To read more of my thoughts on education, visit and and follow me on Twitter and Instagram.

About Dan Ryder

Dan Ryder & Jeff Bailey, co-founders of Wicked Decent Learning, a blog, podcast, Twitter feed and who-knows-what-all-else devoted to teaching and learning in Vacationland and beyond. Teachers, dads, actors, writers, geeks, buds.

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Ares Free WiFi hotspots

Places with free WiFi hotspots in city Ares, Brazil - 2
A list of places in Ares with free internet
Point type Point name Network name Address Category
Outdoors vai / admim R. Projetada Um, 1, Goianinha - RN, 59173-000, Brasil Free Wi-Fi
Other admin / Janaina Tv. Tab. Joaquim Grilo, 148 - Estação, Goianinha - RN, 59173-000, Brasil Wi-Fi with password
Restaurants with WiFi in Ares Public hotspots: 0
Cafe with WiFi in Ares Public hotspots: 0
Coffee shops with WiFi in Ares Public hotspots: 0
Fast food with WiFi in Ares Public hotspots: 0
Hotels with WiFi in Ares Public hotspots: 0
Airport with WiFi in Ares Public hotspots: 0
You can try to find open wireless networks in other cities near Ares

Ares Free Wi-Fi

Sign up and get a list of places with open internet hotspot - pizzerias, cafes, hotels, pubs, coffeehouses, airports, restaurants, bars.

How to get free WiFi in Ares?

Very simple. To do this, select a WiFi hotspot on the map and view the password or find the nearest open hotspots. The site will also be useful to people who like to travel and for the first time in Ares.

Ares - all open WiFi hotspots in your smartphone

Install our mobile app for quick access to free internet everywhere. The App contains free WiFi hotspots in Ares.

Using your advanced and fashionable smartphone, in offline mode, you easily find the nearest airport wifi places in Ares at once upon arrival. It helps you to inform your close ones about the successful flight, chat with friends, check the recent news. Quite naturally, the internet connection that is free and powerful enables you to get the complete tourist information about the transport accessibility in Ares, the famous sights to see, the hotel and the way to get there.

Afterward, staying in Ares, you get a complete list of the nearest places with free wifi that commonly include:

  • the hotel or motel where you stay;
  • the nearest restaurants, bars, cafes and coffee shops;
  • libraries and large museums;
  • pubs, pizzerias, coffee houses and various fast food outlets;
  • large trading centers and grocery shops;
  • tourists’ and visitors’ information centers, etc.

Going to eat out, you can easily find the restaurants with free wifi in Ares, select the ones that provide the best, high-speed signal to enjoy smooth communication while waiting for the favorite dishes. It lets you share your amazing impressions and photos immediately, find the best sights and routes to plan your perfect trip.

Quite naturally, going by airplane, you won’t be able to use the net or speak on the phone. Virtually all airlines prohibit it. Meanwhile, you can check the available places with free wifi in Ares on the interactive map in flight or offline mode, check the reviews about the hotspots and schedule your time. So, enjoy your trip with our mobile app and be informed about the free wifi places.

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Main Page

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We Believe that all users should be protected against all cyber-threats and with more than 10 years experience in LINUX servers security, We have therefore made it our mission to provide the world’s most effective, responsive and efficient Security Solutions. Our solutions protect companies from digital threats so they are confident to move business forward.

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Community Village 8 - 10th August

From Wikimania 2014 • London, United Kingdom
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Chapters, user groups, major projects and other significant Wikimedia-related or open-knowledge-related organisations were invited to register interest to run stalls here, the Community Village was the exhibition space and a main social area of the conference. It's the opportunity to build awareness with the Wikimedia movement, other open projects and the general public. The Community Village could be found in the Main Foyer on the ground floor.

  • We are an open movement: Open communities are working towards common goals, let’s do something together!
  • We want to exchange and support exchanging ideas, inspiration and experience within the open movement.
  • We want to inform each other about our initiatives and projects and encourage them to get involved.
  • We want to get feedback (best practice, worst practice) to improve our work in the future.
  • We want to share your work with the general public

Community Village participants

Wikimedia UK

Wikimedia UK logo.svg
Wikimedia UK is the local chapter of the global Wikimedia movement. We exist to support and promote the Wikimedia projects, such as Wikipedia, and the many volunteers that share our mission: to help people and organisations create and preserve open knowledge and to provide easy access for all.

Wikimedia UK logo.svg

Twitter bird logo 2012.svg.png @Wikimedia UK

F icon.svg Wikimedia UK

Open Coalition

Open Coalition logo.svg
Helping open organisations and those hoping to be more open.

Twitter bird logo 2012.svg.png @OpenCoalition

Wikimedia Deutschland

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Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens (engl. Wikimedia Germany - Association for the promotion of free knowledge) is an independent membership-based association serving as a Wikimedia chapter. According to the charter, the purpose of the association is to support the creation, collection and distribution of Open Content in an altruistic way in order to support equal opportunity to access to knowledge and education. Founded on June 13, 2004 in Berlin, it was the first chapter to be created. Wikimedia Deutschland currently has 6536 members (as of July 2013). Jimmy Wales is an honorary member of the association.

Wikimedia Deutschland-Logo.svg

Twitter bird logo 2012.svg.png @WikimediaDE

F icon.svg Wikimedia DE

Histropedia logo.png

Discover a new way to visualise Wikipedia. Choose from over 1.5 million events to create and share timelines in minutes.

Histropedia logo.png histropedia

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Wikimedia Österreich

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Wikimedia Österreich - Gesellschaft zur Förderung freien Wissens is the Austrian chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation. It was approved as a chapter on February 26th, 2008 and registered as an association pursuant to Austrian law. The first board was elected at a chapter meeting in Vienna on May 2nd, 2008.

Wikimedia Polska

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Wikimedia Polska Association is an independent non-profit organisation serving as a Wikimedia chapter and covering the area of Poland. It was created during the 2005 Wikimedia Meetup on 14 August 2005 in Kraków and has been officially registered as a membership-based association since 15 November that year; it was the fourth Wikimedia chapter to be recognised by the Wikimedia Foundation.

According to the Bylaws, the purpose of the Association is to equate everyone's chances to access knowledge, both general and specific in the fields of science, culture, education and art as well as to promote and organise volunteering and charity.

Wikimedia Foundation Merchandise Shop

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All of the proceeds from the sale of merchandise on this shop go back to the Wikimedia Foundation - and help us support our mission. Some of these proceeds are used to give branded merchandise to our global volunteers - as a way to recognize them for their incredible efforts to collaborative build projects like Wikipedia. For more information about the foundation and its objectives, please visit our FAQ page.

Wikimédia France

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Wikimedia Belgium

Wikimedia Belgium logo.png

Wikimedia Belgium is a local chapter in creation phase. The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has approved its recognition as a Wikimedia chapter on August 6, 2014. The first discussions started in 2005, and the active local team has been doing projects (the pilot program as described in the chapter creation guide) since that date. The most important yearly activity was the organisation of Wiki Loves Monuments Belgium & Luxembourg in 2011, 2012 en 2013. Hundreds of volunteers participated in these events: online, during one of the real live events.

Wikimedia Canada

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Wikimedia Canada is the official Wikimedia chapter for Canada. The association was incorporated on 10 November 2010 under the name "Wiki Canada" and does business under the name Wikimedia Canada in English and Wikimédia Canada in French. It was recognized as a chapter by the Wikimedia Foundation on 24 May 2011.

Wikimedia CH

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WikiFranca is a partnership between francophone Wikimedia chapters and affiliated working groups. The objective is to encourage activities in the French Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia and its sister projects, both on the Web and on the ground. It not only allows local user groups with no chapters in their countries to organize activities and events in their communities and in their language, but also to build a bridge between the countries participating in the Wikimedia projects in French language.

Wiki loves Monuments

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Wiki Loves Monuments is an international photo contest for monuments, organized by Wikimedia this September. Wikimedia is the movement behind Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – a global collaboration authored by volunteers. Cultural heritage is an important part of the knowledge Wikipedia collects and disseminates. Everybody can contribute images as well as write articles. An image is worth a thousand words, in every language at once and local enthusiasts can (re)discover the cultural, historical, or scientific significance of their neighbourhood.

Wikiprojects leaflets stall

WikiProject Council.svg

Project leaflets were created for Wikiprojects, a full list of Wikiprojects which had a leaflet created can be found here.

A WikiProject is a group of contributors who want to work together as a team to improve Wikipedia. These groups often focus on a specific topic area (for example, women's history) or a specific kind of task (for example, checking newly created pages). The English Wikipedia currently has over 2,000 WikiProjects and activity varies. A WikiProject's pages are not used for writing encyclopedia articles directly, but as resources to help coordinate and organize the group's efforts at creating and improving articles. WikiProjects often write advice for editors, use bots to track what is happening at articles of interest to the group, and create lists of tools and templates their members commonly use. The discussion pages attached to a project page are a convenient forum for those involved in that project to talk about what they are doing, to ask questions, and to receive advice from other people interested in the group's work.

Wikimedia South Africa

Wikimedia South Africa is a Wikimedia chapter for the Republic of South Africa. It is incorporated as a non-profit-making organisation under South African law. It was founded locally on 25 February 2012 after being approved as a chapter by the Wikimedia Foundation on 26 March 2011. This chapter seeks to promote local awareness of the projects and their proper academic use, encourage translation efforts into local languages and support the creation of local free knowledge and media.

Wikimedia Ghana User Group

Planning Wikimedia Ghana 2.jpg

Wikimedia Ghana User Group is a team of self-motivated individuals, who regularly help improve articles on Wikimedia Foundation project websites, such as Wikipedia, with the motive of promoting free and open access to knowledge locally and beyond. Our mission is to promote the distribution of free educational material and media in Ghana and globally via the project websites of the WMF, towards the establishment of a local chapter.

Wikimedia Tunisia User Group

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The Wikimedia TN User Group is a local User Group of the Wikimedia Foundation. Its mission is to promote the Wikimedia Foundation and its projects in Tunisia.

One of its core missions is to aid and encourage people to collect, develop and disseminate knowledge and other educational, cultural and historic content in the public domain or under a license that allows everyone to freely use, distribute and modify said content without the payment of royalties.

Wikimedia Nederland

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Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland is a Wikimedia chapter. The association was founded on March 27, 2006 in Eindhoven, and recognized by the Wikimedia Foundation as chapter. In early 2013 it had ~200 members. In English, the association informs usually here on Meta Wiki.See for example the English language 'chapter reports'. The web site (in Dutch) can be found at and the association has its own mailinglist, wikimedianl-l. You can find the Statutes on the association's wiki in English as well.

Wikimedia Foundation User Experience Research

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Wikimedia Foundation Community Advocacy and Community Engagement

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Wikimedia Foundation Wikipedia Zero

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After hearing that in some other countries in Africa, mobile service providers were waiving data charges to access to Wikipedia on mobile phones, a high school class in a small South African township decided to write an open letter requesting free access to Wikipedia so that they could study and get a better education. What happens next is up to you - sign the petition for free access to Wikipedia on mobile phones: This film is a production of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that supports Wikipedia.

Open Education Working Group / Open Knowledge / LinkedUp

Open Education working group logo.png

Open Education is often associated with the popular concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) – freely accessible, openly licensed resources that are used for teaching, learning, educational, assessment and research purposes. But Open Education is much more than just OER and involves aspects like opening up relevant educational data and changing both institutional and wider culture. - See more at:

Open Knowledge logo.png

Open Knowledge is a worldwide non-profit network of people passionate about openness, using advocacy, technology and training to unlock information and enable people to work with it to create and share knowledge. We want to see enlightened societies around the world, where everyone has access to key information and the ability to use it to understand and shape their lives; where powerful institutions are comprehensible and accountable; and where vital research information that can help us tackle challenges such as poverty and climate change is available to all.

Linkedup logo.png

LinkedUp is an EU-funded project that aims to push forward the exploitation of the vast amounts of public, open data available on the Web, in particular by educational institutions and organizations.

Creative Commons HQ / UK / India / Argentina

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Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools. Our free, easy-to-use copyright licenses provide a simple, standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work — on conditions of your choice. CC licenses let you easily change your copyright terms from the default of “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.” Creative Commons licenses are not an alternative to copyright. They work alongside copyright and enable you to modify your copyright terms to best suit your needs.

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Explore millions of items from a range of Europe's leading galleries, libraries, archives and museums. Books and manuscripts, photos and paintings, television and film, sculpture and crafts, diaries and maps, sheet music and recordings, they’re all here. No need to travel the continent, either physically or virtually.

ShouldWe logo.jpg

ShouldWe is a non-partisan, crowd-sourced online guide to public policy debates and evidence. Every page debates a specific public policy, explains who advocates it and outlines the main arguments for and against. Every single sentence on ShouldWe has to be hyperlinked to evidence, so you can dive deeply in to the data if you choose. By empowering the crowd to aggregate the most authoritative policy information, from all sides, in one place, we help journalists, researchers, campaigners, policy-makers and citizens to place each argument and piece of evidence in its proper context. ShouldWe is a crowd-sourced evidence catalogue, not a group blog. ShouldWe pages are neither news reports nor opinion pieces. Instead, we deliver a 5-minute, unbiased, evidence-led overview of each live public policy debate. We will only ever be as good as our “crowd” so please do click below for different ways to get involved.

Wikimedia Foundation Grantmaking

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text:
Do we want to visit "best practice" states or "states in most need"

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RICK: I raised this issue at the Gates meeting. The issue as I phrased it was that best practices were a good thing to collect, but then we had to worry about the "tech transfer" issue. We couldn't just say, "Hey, you guys. Do what Kentucky/ Maine/ whoever did." Ken Wiggens suggested that if we visited model states, we needed to look for conditions of success, not just models. Makes sense to me.


text:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Illustrations in the Baburnama regarding the fauna of South Asia.
An image of Rhino hunt from Baburnama.

Bāburnāma (Chagatai/Persian: بابر نامہ;´, literally: "Book of Babur" or "Letters of Babur"; alternatively known as Tuzk-e Babri) is the name given to the memoirs of Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Muhammad Bābur (1483–1530), founder of the Mughal Empire and a great-great-great-grandson of Timur.

It is an autobiographical work, written in the Chagatai language, known to Babur as "Turki" (meaning Turkic), the spoken language of the Andijan-Timurids. According to historian Stephen Frederic Dale, Babur's prose is highly Persianized in its sentence structure, morphology, and vocabulary,[1] and also contains many phrases and smaller poems in Persian. During Emperor Akbar's reign, the work was completely translated to Persian by a Mughal courtier, Abdul Rahīm, in AH 998 (1589–90).[2]

Short description[edit]

Bābur was an educated Timurid and his observations and comments in his memoirs reflect an interest in nature, society, politics and economics. His vivid account of events covers not just his life, but the history and geography of the areas he lived in and their flora and fauna, as well as the people with whom he came into contact.

The Bāburnāma begins with these plain words:[3]

After some background, Bābur describes his fluctuating fortunes as a minor ruler in Central Asia – he took and lost Samarkand twice – and his move to Kabul in 1504.

There is a break in the manuscript between 1508 and 1519. By the latter date Bābur is established in Kabul and from there launches an invasion into northwestern India. The final section of the Bāburnāma covers the years 1525 to 1529 and the establishment of the Mughal empire in India, which Bābur's descendants would rule for three centuries.

Widely translated, the Bāburnāma forms part of textbooks in no fewer than 25 countries – mostly in Central, Western, and Southern Asia. It was first translated into English by John Leyden and William Erskine as Memoirs of Zehir-Ed-Din Muhammed Baber: Emperor of Hindustan[4] and later by the British orientalist scholar Annette Beveridge.[5][6]

Babur's autobiography has received widespread acclaim from modern scholars. Quoting Henry Beveridge, Stanley Lane-pool writes:

His autobiography is one of those priceless records which are for all time, and is fit to rank with the confessions of St. Augustine and Rousseau, and the memoirs of Gibbon and Newton. In Asia it stands almost alone.[7]

Lane-pool goes on to write:

his Memoirs are no rough soldier's chronicle of marches and countermarches...they contain the personal impressions and acute reflections of a cultivated man of the world, well read in Eastern literature, a close and curious observer, quick in perception, a discerning judge of persons, and a devoted lover of nature; one, moreover, who was well able to express his thoughts and observations in clear and vigorous language.The shrewd comments and lively impressions which break in upon the narrative give Babur's reminiscences a unique and penetrating flavour. The man's own character is so fresh and buoyant, so free from convention and cant, so rich in hope, courage, resolve, and at the same time so warm and friendly, so very human, that it conquers one's admiring sympathy.The utter frankness of self-revelation, the unconscious portraiture of all his virtues and follies, his obvious truthfulness and fine sense of honour, give the Memoirs an authority which is equal to their charm. If ever there were a case when the testimony of a single historical document, unsupported by other evidence, should be accepted as sufficient proof, it is the case with Babur's memoirs. No reader of this prince of autobiographers can doubt his honesty or his competence as witness and chronicler.[7]

Writing about the time Babur came to India, the historian Bamber Gascoigne comments:

He was occupied at this time in linking in narrative form the jottings which he had made throughout his life as a rough diary, but he also found time for a magnificent and very detailed forty page account of his new acquisition—Hindustan. In it he explains the social structure and the caste system, the geographical outlines and the recent history; he marvels at such details as the Indian method of counting and time-keeping, the inadequacy of the lighting arrangements, the profusion of Indian craftsmen, or the want of good manners, decent trousers and cool streams; but his main emphasis is on the flora and fauna of the country, which he notes with the care of a born naturalist and describes with the eye of a painter...He separates and describes, for example, five types of parrots; he explains how plantain produces banana; and with astonishing scientific observation he announces that the rhinoceros 'resembles the horse more than any other animal' (according to modern zoologists, the order Perisodactyla has only two surviving sub-orders; one includes the rhinoceros, the other the horse). In other parts of the book too he goes into raptures over such images as the changing colors of a flock of geese on the horizon, or of some beautiful leaves on an apple tree.His progression with all its ups and downs from tiny Ferghana to Hindustan would in itself ensure him a minor place in the league of his great ancestors, Timur and Jenghiz Khan; but the sensitivity and integrity with which he recorded this personal odyssey, from buccaneer with royal blood in his veins revelling in each adventure to emperor eyeing in fascinated amazement every detail of his prize, gives him an added distinction which very few men of action achieve.[8]

Illustrations from the Manuscript of Baburnama (Memoirs of Babur)[edit]

See also[edit]

  1. ^ Dale, Stephen Frederic (2004). The garden of the eight paradises: Bābur and the culture of Empire in Central Asia, Afghanistan and India (1483–1530). Brill. pp. 15,150. ISBN 90-04-13707-6.
  2. ^ "Biography of Abdur Rahim Khankhana". Archived from the original on 2006-01-17. Retrieved 2006-10-28.
  3. ^ English translation
  4. ^ Bābur (Emperor of Hindustān) (1826). Memoirs of Zehir-Ed-Din Muhammed Baber: emperor of Hindustan. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
  5. ^ Babur (1922). Beveridge, Annette Susannah, ed. The Babur-nama in English (Memoirs of Babur) - Volume I. London: Luzac and Co. Retrieved 14 December 2017.
  6. ^ Babur (1922). Beveridge, Annette Susannah, ed. The Babur-nama in English (Memoirs of Babur) - Volume II. London: Luzac and Co. Retrieved 14 December 2017.
  7. ^ a b Lane-pool, Stanley. "Babar". p. 12–13. Retrieved 12 June 2015.
  8. ^ Gascoigne, Bamber (1971). The Great Moghuls. London: Jonathan Cape; New York: Harper & Row. pp. 37–38, 42.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]


text:
Freedom Writers

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Freedom Writers
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Richard LaGravenese
Produced by Danny DeVito
Michael Shamberg
Stacey Sher
Screenplay by Richard LaGravenese
Based on The Freedom Writers Diary
by Erin Gruwell and her class
Starring Hilary Swank
Scott Glenn
Imelda Staunton
Patrick Dempsey
Music by Mark Isham
Cinematography Jim Denault
Edited by David Moritz
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date
  • January 5, 2007 (2007-01-05)
Running time
122 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $21 million
Box office $43.1 million

Freedom Writers is a 2007 drama film written and directed by Richard LaGravenese and starring Hilary Swank, Scott Glenn, Imelda Staunton, Patrick Dempsey and Mario.

It is based on the book The Freedom Writers Diary by teacher Erin Gruwell who wrote the story based on Woodrow Wilson Classical High School in Long Beach, California. The movie is also based on the DC program called City at Peace. The title is a play on the term "Freedom Riders", referring to the multiracial civil rights activists who tested the U.S. Supreme Court decision ordering the desegregation of interstate buses in 1961.

The idea for the film came from journalist Tracey Durning, who made a documentary about Erin Gruwell for the ABC News program Primetime Live. Durning served as co-executive producer of the film. The film was dedicated to the memory of Armand Jones, who was killed after wrapping up Freedom Writers. He was 18 and was shot to death in Anaheim, California after a confrontation with a man who robbed Jones of a necklace in a Denny's restaurant.[1]

In 1994, in Long Beach, California, Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) has been accepted to teach English for at-risk students at Woodrow Wilson High School, a once highly acclaimed school, but where racial tensions have increased since the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. Erin struggles to connect to her students and she experiences numerous fights between some students, who are in rival gangs.

One night, Eva Benitez (April L. Hernandez), her boyfriend, and a friend go to a convenience store. Sindy (Jaclyn Ngan), a Cambodian refugee, frequents the same convenience store. Grant Rice (Armand Jones), an African-American student at Woodrow Wilson, frustrated at losing an arcade game, demands a refund from the store owner. As Grant storms out of the store, Eva's boyfriend, Paco (as retaliation for losing a fight against Grant that took place earlier during a gang fight at Woodrow Wilson), attempts a drive-by shooting to kill Grant, but misses accidentally killing Sindy's boyfriend. As a witness, Eva must testify at court; she intends to guard "her own" in her testimony.

At school, Gruwell intercepts a racist drawing by one of her high school students and utilizes it to teach them about the Holocaust, most of whom have no knowledge of. She gradually begins to earn their trust and buys them composition books to record their diaries, in which they talk about their experiences of being abused, seeing their friends die, and being evicted. Determined to reform her high school students, Gruwell takes on two part-time jobs to pay for more books and spends a lot more time at school, much to the disappointment of her husband (Patrick Dempsey). Her students start to behave with respect and discover a lot more. A transformation is specifically visible in one student, Marcus (Jason Finn). Gruwell invites various Jewish Holocaust survivors to talk with her class about their experiences and requires the students to attend a field trip to the Museum of Tolerance. Meanwhile, her unique training methods are scorned by her colleagues and department chair Margaret Campbell (Imelda Staunton).

The following school year comes, and Gruwell teaches her class (now sophomores) again, making it the second year that she is their teacher. On the first day of semester, Gruwell makes her class do a "Toast for Change", allowing everyone to open up about their struggles and what they wish to change about themselves. Later on, the class makes enough money to have Miep Gies to arrive to the United States and tell her experience when she helped Anne Frank, her family, and the Van Pels hide from the Nazis; she then also persuades to the students that they are heroes and that they "within their own small ways, [can] turn on a small light in a dark room." These two events inspire Eva to break free of the demands of her father to always protect her own rather than tell the truth. At Grant's trial, she shocks the courtroom by revealing that Paco actually killed Sindy's boyfriend in the store; Grant is spared of being convicted and Sindy later forgives Eva. On leaving the court, Eva is attacked and threatened but ultimately spared by members of her gang and ends up going to live with her aunt in order to keep herself safe.

Meanwhile, Gruwell asks her students to write their diaries in book form. She compiles the entries and names it The Freedom Writers Diary. Her husband divorces her and Margaret tells her she cannot teach her kids for their junior year. Gruwell fights this decision, eventually convincing the superintendent to permit her to teach her kids during their junior and senior years, much to their elation. The film ends with a note that Gruwell successfully prepared numerous high school students to graduate high school and attend college, for many the first in their families to do so.

Freedom Writers had a domestic gross of $36,605,602 and had a foreign gross of $6,485,139 bringing the movie to a total gross of $43,090,741 worldwide. On the film's opening weekend it grossed a total of $9,405,582 ranking 4th behind Children of Men (3rd), The Pursuit of Happyness (2nd), and Night at the Museum (1st).

Freedom Writers has received mostly positive reviews from critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes provides links to 124 reviews, 70% of which are positive. The critical consensus is that "Freedom Writers is a frank, formulaic entry in the inspirational inner-city teacher genre, with an energetic Hilary Swank leading the appealing cast of unknowns."[2] Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 64/100 based on 29 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[3] Cynthia Fuchs of Common Sense Media gave the film three out of five stars, writing in her review that "the plot is predictable, the actors too old to play high school students, and the pacing too slow. And really, the camera circles around deep-thinking faces a few too many times. But Freedom Writers also argues for listening to teenagers. That in itself makes it a rare and close-to-wonderful thing."[4] The film received a positive rating from Fox Weekly, giving the film a 9 out of 10.[5]

Chloé Valdary says that seeing the film inspired her to become politically active.[6]

Common lent his talents to the soundtrack with "A Dream", featuring and produced by The Black Eyed Peas member The soundtrack also includes the Tupac Shakur song "Keep Ya Head Up".

Instrumental sections of Sia's "Breathe Me" accompany the film's television trailer.

The Freedom Writers soundtrack contains the following songs:

See also[edit]

  1. ^ "Actor's death eerily similar to film role". Orange County Register. July 14, 2012. Retrieved March 2, 2018.
  2. ^ Freedom Writers at Rotten Tomatoes
  3. ^ "Freedom Writers". Metacritic. Retrieved 6 January 2013.
  4. ^ "Freedom Writers". Common Sense Media. Retrieved 6 January 2013.
  5. ^ "Review: 'Freedom Writers' (2007)". Fox Weekly. Retrieved 28 March 2014.
  6. ^ Weiss, Anthony (9 September 2014). "Chloe Valdary: Christian, black, rising star of pro-Israel campus activism". Times of Israel. Times of Israel. Retrieved 28 October 2014.

External links[edit]


text:
United States Army Air Forces in Australia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Airfields of the United States Army Air Force
in Australia
Fifth Air Force - Emblem (World War II).svg
Part of World War II
Result Allied victory over the Empire of Japan (1945)
Map all coordinates using: OpenStreetMap
Download coordinates as: KML · GPX

During World War II, the United States Army Air Forces established a series of airfields in Australia for the collective defense of the country, as well as for conducting offensive operations against the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy. It was from these airports and airfields in Australia, that the Fifth Air Force was able to regroup, re-equip and begin offensive operations against the Empire of Japan after the disasters in the Philippines and Dutch East Indies during 1942.

Following the Japanese conquest of the Philippines, the remnants of the USAAF Far East Air Force relocated southwest to bases in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). United States Army Air Force units in Australia, including the Fifth Air Force, were eventually reinforced and re-organized following their initial defeats in the Philippines and the East Indies. After those islands also fell to Japanese forces early in 1942, FEAF headquarters moved to Australia and was reorganized and redesignated the Fifth Air Force on 5 February 1942 under General George Brett in Melbourne. On paper, Brett had several hundred military aircraft of all types, but only a few of them were operational,[1] although replacements were in the logistics pipeline inbound on freighters

Headquarters, Fifth Air Force, was re-staffed at Brisbane, Australia on 18 September 1942 and the Fifth Air Force was placed under the command of 52-year-old Major General George Kenney on Tuesday, 28 July and Kenney had an immediate impact. Within a month, he had his command striving for, or at least seriously thinking about, seizing air superiority over New Guinea and parity over the Solomon Sea, and September saw the Fifth placing several dozen bombers over New Britain and Rabaul, whereas in July only mere handfuls could be fielded.[1] By the end of August, before the retreat began of the Japanese attacking over the Owen Stanley Ranges, he'd established five airfields at Port Moresby, more than necessary for its defense, but a good start for staging to forward bases.[1]

General Kenney encouraged MacArthur to conduct a forward defense and meet the Japanese along the choke-points among the jungles of New Guinea, and provided planning for airlifts to put the ground forces in forward positions and supply them by air-transport if necessary.[1] This model would be utilized throughout the coming two years of offensives as MacArthur's ground forces conducted Leapfrogging maneuvers and used combined arms tactics while strategically bypassing Japanese strong points and forcing them to attack his defensive works as he placed forces astride their supply lines. The Fifth Air Force kept pace, moving from forward air base to forward air base, repressing daylight activity by the Japanese on Land, Sea and Air. When he first proposed air supply (since sea-lanes were not safe because of the position of the Japanese bases in the Solomon Sea) to an objection that his C-47 airlift units could not move trucks as well as men and materials, Kenney immediately responded that they could, by cutting the truck frames in half with torches and welding them together again in Papua.[1] By November the Fifth was in forward Headquarters in Port Moresby, though the official HQ remained in Brisbane.[1]

In addition to the Air Force units, many United States Army forces embarked in Australia, using it as a base of operations prior to their deployment to New Guinea in 1942, and other islands in the Southwest Pacific, driving the Japanese forces north towards their home islands. As the ground forces moved forward, the tactical air units of the AAF moved with them, providing the necessary air support for the ground operations.

Throughout the Pacific War, Australia remained an important base of operations, but with the advance of the Allied Armies, the air-bases in Australia were returned to the Royal Australian Air Force once the Allied forces deployed north during 1942 and 1943. Today, most of the airfields in the Northern Territory have returned to their natural state, being abandoned after the war, but most of the airfields in Queensland and the other Australian states and territories still exist as civilian airports or military bases.

Later, during the Cold War, the United States Air Force assigned a small number of personnel to Australia for communication duties and logistical support. Today, USAF units routinely visit Australia for joint exercises with the Australian Defence Force, with a few personnel assigned for military liaison duties.

Major units[edit]

The initial USAAF units assigned to Australia in late 1941 and 1942 were ones which had withdrawn from the Philippines, leaving their ground echelons in Bataan as part of the 5th Interceptor Command to fight as infantry units. Later in 1942 and 1943, additional units arrived from the United States as replacement and argumentation to the Fifth Air Force for offensive operations. Known units assigned were:

Major aircraft operated[edit]

A-20 aircraft of the 6th Bomb Group, 89th Bomb Squadron
Unidentified 1941 serial Douglas A-24-DE Dauntless Dive Bomber, ex 27th Bombardment Group (Light), reassigned to the 8th Squadron of the 3rd Bomb Group, Charters Towers Airfield, Queensland, Australia, 1942.
B-17E attacking Japanese positions on Gizo Island in the Solomons
B-24 Over Salamaua, 13 August 1943. Note smoke from bomb bursts.
Major Richard Bong in his P-38.
P-40E of the 7th Fighter Squadron – 49th Fighter Group – Australia – March 1942
  • A-20 Havoc. A-20s first arrived in Australia by way of the air echelon of the 3rd Bombardment Group (Light) and the first operational unit to fly the A-20 in actual battle was the 89th Bombardment Squadron of the 3rd Bombardment Group. Many A-20s were reassigned to the RAAF, being known as Bostons by the RAAF and had varied origins, some being ex-USAAF machines, some being acquired from the Netherlands Marine Luchtvaartdenst, and others being diverted from British contracts. These planes served with just one RAAF squadron, No. 22 Squadron which saw a lot of action in the Dutch East Indies.[2][3]
  • A-24 Dauntless. The first operational A-24 unit was the 27th Bombardment Group (Light). Three of the four squadrons of the 27th BG were equipped with the A-24, plus one squadron of the 3rd Bombardment Group. The remaining squadrons of these groups were equipped with A-20A twin-engined level bombers. The crews of the 27th BG were in the Philippines when war broke out in the Pacific but their aircraft were in-transit via ship from Hawaii. The shipment was diverted to Brisbane, where they arrived on 22 December. Some of the 27th BG pilots were sent from the Philippines to ferry their aircraft back from Australia but were unable to do so when gun motors and solenoids could not be found during assembly. From Brisbane, eleven A-24s flew up to Java in February 1942, but this battle was already lost. The remainder began operations from Port Moresby, New Guinea with the 8th Bombardment Squadron on 1 April 1942. These units suffered heavy losses in the face of the Japanese advance. After five of seven A-24s were lost on their last mission, the A-24s were withdrawn from action as being too slow, too short-ranged, and too poorly armed. However, in all fairness to the A-24, their pilots had not been trained in dive-bombing operations and they often had to operate without adequate fighter escort. Following the New Guinea debacle, the A-24s were withdrawn from combat and the 27th was returned to the United States, where after being re-equipped with A-20s was sent to North Africa as part of Twelfth Air Force.[4]
  • B-17 Flying Fortress. After the mission to attack a Japanese amphibious operation at Legaspi on 14 December 1941, only 14 B-17s remained of the original 35 assigned to the Philippines on 8 December. All were stationed at Del Monte Field on Mindanao, with the aircraft needing depot maintenance. Beginning on 17 December, the B-17s began to be evacuated to Batchelor Airfield near Darwin. These first B-17s in Australia were shark-tailed C and D models. The first B-17 mission out of Australia, an attack on Japanese shipping at Davao, took place on 22 December with nine "Flying Forts" taking part. They landed at Del Monte, which remained in American hands until April 1942. However, the small force of B-17s could do very little to stem the tide of the Japanese advance, launching valiant but futile attacks against the masses of Japanese shipping. Newer large-tailed B-17Es began to join the depleted force of earlier-model B-17s in the Pacific in mid-1942, with the tail gunner of the B-17E being unpleasant surprise for the Japanese, who had become accustomed to attacking the Fortress from the rear. The crews of pre-B-17E Fortresses often adopted the expediency of rigging sticks in the rear of their planes, hoping to convince the Japanese attackers that tail guns were actually fitted to these planes as well. However, by mid-1943, most Fortresses had been withdrawn from the Pacific in favor of the longer-ranged B-24 Liberator. The B-24 was better suited for operations in the Pacific, having a higher speed and a larger bombload at medium altitudes. In addition, the losses of Eighth Air Force in Europe were reaching such magnitudes that the entire B-17 production was urgently needed for replacements and training in that theatre. Shortly after the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, it was decided that no more B-17s would be sent to Australia.[5]
  • B-24 Liberator. Fifteen USAAF LB-30 (B-24A) bombers were deployed in Java in early 1942 to reinforce the B-17-equipped 19th Bombardment Group in a vain attempt to stem the Japanese advance. The Java-based LB-30s would be the first US-flown Liberators to see action and participated in numerous attacks against Japanese targets in the Sulawesi, in Sumatra, and against shipping during the Japanese invasion of Bali. By late February, the position of Allied forces in Java had become untenable, and the surviving LB-30s were evacuated to Australia. The early LB-30s were replaced by the first B-24Ds to reach the Pacific in late 1942. By 1943, the Liberator had almost entirely replaced the B-17 Fortress as the primary long-range heavy bomber in the theatre. The B-24 became the most numerous USAAF heavy bomber based in Australia and New Guinea in the most desperate phase of the Pacific war, and it was the first four-engine heavy bomber to serve with the Royal Australian Air Force home squadrons. It reigned supreme in the Pacific until the arrival of the B-29 Superfortress in mid-1944.[6]
  • B-26 Marauder/B-25 Mitchell. In February 1942, the 22d Bombardment Group was ordered to Australia, being assigned to bases around Townsville. The B-26 first entered combat on 5 April 1942, when the 22nd Group took off from their bases in Queensland, refuelled at Port Moresby, and then attacked Japanese facilities at Rabaul. Each B-26 had a 250-gallon bomb bay and carried a 2000– pound bombload. The Marauder was the only medium bomber available in the Pacific, and generally, no fighter escort was available leaving the Marauders were on their own if they encountered enemy fighters. There were two groups equipped with B-26s, the 22nd and 38th, with two squadrons of the 38th Bombardment Group (69th and 70th) equipped with B-26s. In this series of attacks on Japanese-held facilities in the Dutch East Indies, the B-26s gained a reputation for speed and ruggedness against strong opposition from Japanese Zero fighters. Attacks on Rabaul ended on 24 May, after 80 sorties had flown. A series of unescorted raids were made on Japanese installations in the Lae area. These raids were vigorously opposed by Zero fighters. In the 84 sorties flown against Lae between 24 April and 4 July 1942, three Marauders were lost. As the Allies pushed northward in the South Pacific, temporary airfields had to be cut out of the jungle and these runways were generally fairly short. The North American B-25 Mitchell had a shorter takeoff run than the B-26, and it began to take over the medium bomber duties. Although it was admitted that the B-26 could take greater punishment, was defensively superior, and could fly faster with a heavier bomb load, the B-25 had better short-field characteristics, good sortie rate, and minimal maintenance requirements. In addition, the B-25 was considerably easier to manufacture and had suffered from fewer developmental problems. At this time, there were more B-25s available for South Pacific duty because it had been decided to send the B-26 Marauder to the Mediterranean theatre. Consequently, it was decided to adopt the B-25 as the standard medium bomber for the entire Pacific theatre, and to use the B-26 exclusively to Twelfth Air Force in the Mediterranean with some later being used by Ninth Air Force in the European theatres.[7]
  • P-38 Lightning. The first P-38s to reach Australia during 1942 were P-38Fs assigned to the 39th Fighter Squadron of the 35th Fighter Group. This unit traded in its Bell P-39 Airacobras for the Lightnings at RAAF Base Amberley in Queensland before returning to combat operations at Port Moresby in New Guinea. Its first success took place on 27 December 1942 when its pilots claimed eleven kills for the loss of only one P-38F. Two of these kills were claimed by Richard I. Bong, who was to go on to claim a total of 40 kills, all of them while flying the Lightning. The Lightning was ideally suited for the Pacific theatre. It possessed a performance markedly superior to that of its Japanese opponents. It possessed a range significantly better than that of the P-39s, P-40s and P-47s available in 1942 in the Southwest Pacific, and its twin engines offered an additional safety factory when operating over long stretches of water and jungle. However, the limited number of Lightnings available during late 1942 and early 1943 had to be used to make up attrition in the 39th Fighter Squadron and to equip only a single squadron in each of the 8th and 49th Fighter Groups.[8]
  • P-39 Airacobra. At the time of Pearl Harbor, the P-39 (along with the P-40 and a few P-38s) was virtually the only modern fighter available to the USAAF. Those P-39s already in service with the USAAF at the time of Pearl Harbor were deployed at home bases, but were quickly moved forward to overseas bases in the Pacific to try and stem the Japanese advance. They carried much of the load in the initial Allied efforts in 1942. However, many Allied pilots lacked adequate training, and equipment and maintenance of the planes were below average. The Airacobras operating from Australia were sometimes called upon to serve as interceptors, a role for which they were totally unsuited. They proved to be no match for the Japanese Zero in air-to-air combat and were withdrawn from combat by the end of 1942.[9]
  • Curtiss P-40. During 1941, a substantial number of P-40Bs and Cs were shipped to USAAF bases overseas, including the 20th Pursuit Squadron of the 24th Pursuit Group at Clark Field in the Philippines. Almost all were destroyed in the Battle of the Philippines (1941–42), and only a few reached Australia, although the RAAF operated a large number of P-40E-1 export models (Kittyhawk IA) and P-40Ks (Kittyhawk III) from the United States.[10]
  • P-47 Thunderbolt. The first P-47Ds to arrive in the Pacific theatre entered service with the 348th Fighter Group in June 1943. They were initially operated out of Queensland and were used on long-range missions to strike at Japanese targets in New Guinea. The 348th was followed by the 35th Group and at the beginning of 1944 by the 58th Group as well as the 35th Squadron of the 8th Group and the 9th FS of the 49th Group. However the Thunderbolt was used primarily by Seventh and Thirteenth Air Forces in the Central Pacific, with the long-range P-47N arriving in June 1944.[11]

Airfields and unit assignments[edit]

In cooperation with the Royal Australian Air Force, (RAAF), the Fifth Air Force was able to use many existing Australian airports and airfields to carry on the war effort. In 1942, additional new military airfields were constructed by Australian and United States engineering units to accommodate the increasing number of USAAF groups and personnel being deployed. The Air Force groups and squadrons moved frequently from airfield to airfield, and often group headquarters was located away from the operational squadrons, as the squadrons were dispersed over several airfields for defensive purposes.

Known airfields of the Fifth Air Force units and squadron assignments are as follows:

Note: Airfield locations shown on map above

Historical notes[edit]

  • The 2nd Combat Cargo Group operated from Biak in the Dutch East Indies from May 1942 – May 1944 to fly passengers and cargo to US bases in Australia, the Admiralties and the Philippines.
  • Six of the 7th Bombardment Group 's B-17 Flying Fortresses left Hamilton Field, California on 6 December 1941, reaching Hickam Field, Hawaii during the Japanese attack but were able to land safely. Later in December the remainder of the air echelon flew B-17's from the United Staates to Java, with the unit establishing its headquarters in Australia. From 14 January to 4 March 1942, during the Japanese drive through the Philippines and Netherlands East Indies, the group operated from Java, being awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation for its action against enemy aircraft, ground installations, warships, and transports.
  • On 7 December 1941 (8 December in the Philippines), when the Japanese first attacked Clark Field, the 19th Bombardment Group suffered numerous casualties and lost many planes. Late in December the air echelon moved to Australia to transport medical and other supplies to the Philippine Islands and evacuate personnel from that area. The men in Australia moved to Java at the end of 1941 and, flying B-17 Flying Fortress, LB-30, and B-24 Liberator aircraft, earned a Distinguished Unit Citation for the group by attacking enemy aircraft, ground installations, warships, and transports during the Japanese drive through the Philippines and Netherlands Indies early in 1942. The men returned to Australia from Java early in March 1942, and later that month the group evacuated Gen Douglas MacArthur, his family, and key members of his staff from the Philippines to Australia. After a brief rest the group resumed combat operations, participating in the Battle of the Coral Sea and raiding Japanese transportation, communications, and ground forces during the enemy's invasion of Papua New Guinea. From 7 to 12 August 1942 the 19th bombed airdromes, ground installations, and shipping near Rabaul, New Britain, being awarded another DUC for these missions. Captain Harl Pease, Jr. was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during 6–7 August 1942: when one engine of his bomber failed during a mission over New Britain, Captain Pease returned to Australia to obtain another plane; unable to find one fit for combat, he selected the most serviceable plane at the base and rejoined his squadron for an attack on a Japanese airdrome near Rabaul. By skillful flying he maintained his position in the formation and withstood enemy attacks until his bombs had been released on the objective; in the air battle that continued after the bombers left the target, Captain Pease's aircraft fell behind the formation and was lost. The group returned to the US late in 1942.
  • The 24th Pursuit Group was wiped out on Luzon in the spring of 1942 during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. Some pilots escaped to Australia where they were assigned to other units. The unit was never remanned or reequipped, but remained on active status until 2 April 1946

Post World War II[edit]

In 1978, Australia and the United States established a Joint Geological and Geographical Research Station (JGGRS) in Alice Springs.[12] The US Air Force "Detachment 421" was centred there, and were granted Freedom of Entry to the Town in 1995.[13]

In 1981, Australia and the United States agreed to station up to three B-52 and six KC-135 aircraft, supported by about 100 US Air Force personnel and associated equipment at RAAF Base Darwin.[14]

See also[edit]

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency website http://www.afhra.af.mil/.

  1. ^ a b c d e f American Caesar, Wm. Manchester, 1978, Little Brown Company, pp.300–307: On and about July–Dec 1942 and Kenney's impact on MacArthur and the war, his support for Guadalcanal and his daring offensive gamble in going to meet the Japanese in the difficult jungles of New Guinea in defense of Australia, rather than risk a war of maneuver when he had insufficient forces to move around.
  2. ^ Mesko, Jim (1994), A-20 Havoc in Action, Aircraft Number 144, Squadron/Signal Publications
  3. ^ Wilson, Stewart (1992),Boston, Mitchell and Liberator In Australian Service, Aerospace Publications
  4. ^ Tillman, Barrett, The Dauntless Dive Bomber of World War II
  5. ^ Staecker, Gene E., (2001), Fortress Against the Sun, Da Capo Press
  6. ^ Freeman, Roger A. (1969), The Consolidated B-24J Liberator, Profile Publications
  7. ^ Tannehill, Victor C. (1997), The Martin Marauder B-26 Boomerang Publishers
  8. ^ Jeffrey L. Ethell, Joe Christy, 1978, P-38 Lightning At War
  9. ^ McDowell, Ernie, 1989, P-39 Airacobra At War
  10. ^ Ethell, Jerry, 1982, Warbirds, American Legends of World War II
  11. ^ Scotts, Jerry, 1995, P-47 Thunderbolt, The Operational Record
  12. ^ "Exchange of Notes constituting an Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the United States of America to amend the Agreement regarding the Management and Operation of the Joint Geological and Geophysical Research Station at Alice Springs of 28 February 1978. ATS 9 of 1984". Australasian Legal Information Institute, Australian Treaties Library. Retrieved on 15 April 2017.
  13. ^ "Seventh Council 1992-1996". www.alicesprings.nt.gov.au. Alice Springs Council. 18 March 2014. Retrieved 13 June 2017.
  14. ^ "Exchange of Notes constituting an Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the United States of America for the Staging of United States Air Force B-52 Aircraft and Associated KC-135 Tanker Aircraft through Royal Australian Air Force Base Darwin. ATS 9 of 1981". Australasian Legal Information Institute, Australian Treaties Library. Retrieved on 15 April 2017.


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Grow a Wildlife Garden in a Small Space

If you have a small garden, you may be wondering if it can be wildlife friendly in such a small space. The good news is that no matter how small your garden, you can still attract moths, butterflies, and bees to the gorgeous flowers you have. If you are one of the many people wondering how to grow a wildlife garden in a small space, then read on!

Creating a Container Garden

If you haven’t heard of this before, container gardening is growing plants and flowers in pots and containers, rather than in the ground, and can produce vegetables and fruits that are excellent. Especially if you focus on growing plants that can grow easily: tomatoes, salads, peppers, and cucumbers. You can also grow some plants such as packed-egg flowers, phacelia, and fennel right next to them that will attract insects away from the crops that you have planted.

Create Boundaries

For fences or walls you could cover them with plants that climb, such as the clematis. You could also use window boxes and baskets that can be hung to help you maximize the space!

Make it Simple

When creating a garden with limited space, it would be best to avoid adding too much colour because it can look very overwhelming. Instead, you can mix up the textures that you have to create a beautiful effect. As you might know, when grass seeds germinate, a small space can quickly become overcrowded so always make sure you know which species can grow too large, too quickly.

Add a Small Pond

One of the most valuable things for wildlife in your garden is having a pond. You can dig one, or why not create one by recycling an old sink? Grow some plants that are perfect for ponds, including miniature oxygenators, iris, and water lily. Once you are done, all you have to do is to wait for the wildlife to move to the pond!

Retaining Water

When growing plants in boxes and baskets, bear in mind that they can dry out quickly, so remember to water them regularly!

You could even use a natural coconut fiber to line the plant pot and help the soil to keep hold of more water. Of course, don’t forget the visitors that your plants may get once in a while, so place a pan near the plants, so they have something to drink when they get thirsty.

Plants that can Survive in Indirect Light

Normally, gardens that are small don’t get the sunlight that they need, so choose plants that can live without direct sunlight. But if your garden can get five hours of sunlight every single day, then planting junipers, spruces and pines would be perfect.

I’m Ann from http://sumogardener.com! I have dedicated most of my life to gardening and I have been a fan of flowers and plants ever since I was a kid.


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Update 3-19-11

An update from Greg’s daughter, Lea:

“He is really opening his eyes more today, the gaze isn’t there yet but he’s trying. And his vitals are perfect.”

She also said that when they started the dialysis today, his blood pressure was doing better than yesterday.  Today we will hit the 48 hour mark from the start of the Capsofungin treatment.  I am praying so hard today that we see some true improvement.  She did ask him to wiggle his toes, and he did…on both feet!

Thank you to all our faithful prayer warriors!

9 thoughts on “Update 3-19-11

  1. Randi, the report sounds encouraging, I pray the medication is the key to getting him on a solid road to recovery (and back home).

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March 13, 2014

US EPA Hearings Set On Mahomet Aquifer

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has scheduled two hearings in May on a proposal to declare a central Illinois sole source aquifer an important source of drinking water.

Illinois tops Indiana

(Rob McColley)

March 13, 2014

Abrams Leads Illinois Past Indiana 64-54

Tracy Abrams had 25 points to lead ninth-seeded Illinois to a 64-54 win over eight-seed Indiana on Thursday in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament.

March 13, 2014

Some Illinois Counties Oppose Wind-Power Bill

Some counties in Illinois are raising objections to legislation that would give the state Department of Agriculture the authority to regulate the locations of power-generating wind turbines.

Tatyana McFadden wins silver in cross country one kilometer sprint at Paralympics

(AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)

March 12, 2014

McFadden Wins Silver At Paralympics

Tatyana McFadden of Champaign added to her 10 Summer Paralympic medals by claiming her first of the Winter Games on Wednesday.

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Why the PCEHR is not internet banking

There is currently a lot of angst as to why the Personally Controlled Electronic HEalth Record has not had massive uptake. This is hardly as surprise when NBN isn’t even close to being rolled-out but let’s look a little closer.

Sharing of medical records is often compared to internet banking: the banks can do it so why can’t health care deliver?

Point Number 1: Health care is not banking.

I see patients with cancer every working day and basically I feel confident in saying that until they get sick people actually pay more attention to their bank statements than their health. When you feel sick you feel sick and when you don’t , well, you don’t. But in banking you need to to know how much is in your account. People don’t feel this way about health.

Point Number 2: Consumer orientation is the wrong message.

The Government deliberately labelled the electronic health record as being ‘personally controlled’. The problem is that health care providers actually need to enter data and in many cases it is these providers that depend on the data…..as much as the consumer. In the case of banking both the banker and the customer want to know the balance and the history of transactions. Yes, make it seem the consumer is the focus but the reality is that PCEHR is a tool for communication between medical practitioner….incidentally, it’s so the consumer gets the best medical care. The real message is that PCEHR is for all of the stakeholders.

Point Number 3: Uptake is poor because it hasn’t been promoted well.

Most people actually haven’t heard of it. I tried to sign up and couldn’t because I didn’t have a recent Medicare transaction. People haven’t had a teaser. Inn the the case of internet banking there was the ATM. People trust ATMs to dispense their money and deal their transactions. Internet banking was a logical progression. There is no equivalent in health care. You can’t go to a box in a wall and check your health balance (yet). And who has seen an actual promotion for PCEHR? I’m aware of it but nobody has come out to me and said you must put this in your software.

My view is: make the approach to healthcare more like how we manage personal finance and then a PCEHR might get somewhere

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Perfect is the Enemy of Good

We all either interacted with, or contain the traits and/or tendencies, of perfectionism. These relational experiences help us understand the qualities of perfectionism, so we may resist entering into a more extreme mental health condition known as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Aligned with the mind-numbing repetition of tasks observed in OCD individuals, a trend toward Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) has placed priority on efficiency of rote, replicable tasks like filing and organizing without human error. I see this trend as maturing to an immutable benefit where administrative tasks are performed efficiently and devoid of error, which liberates humans to perform engaging and fulfilling strategic tasks requiring uniquely human traits of empathy and morality to instill a service-oriented culture. The Law of Mechanical Turks outlines the structure for task completion through newly introduced AI and perfected by ML.

The Law of Mechanical Turks was outlined in the book Linchpin by Seth Godin where the author stated that individual tasks can be compartmentalized and predefined into their constituent parts. For instance, if we discuss constructing and shipping a cardboard box. We can assign one individual to construct the cardboard box in its entirety to include sourcing of materials (tape, cardboard, scissors if applicable) and construction and shipping, which is a painstaking process with many steps that introduce the possibility of human error. However, a supervisor or manager can compartmentalize and assign individuals separate tasks on an assembly line or in a cell to minimize human error while heightening efficiency. An example would be, one individual over sourcing materials like a shipping and receiving representative, another individual transports the materials via forklift such as a material handler, one individual such as an assembly cell technician constructs the sides, bottom, and top of the box with available cardboard, and another assembly cell technician secures the structure by taping the sides, bottom, and top of the cardboard box in preparing it for shipment to the end consumer. The end product would be moved to the shipping and delivery area and shipped for order fulfillment. This process is already occurring throughout the country and can be completed to and beyond specification by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Therefore, we must become “indispensable”, like Seth Godin describes throughout his novel, by crafting and developing our uniquely human traits, and following sound business principles evidenced by leading organizations in industry.

In business school, you are taught the concept known as the “last mile.” This concept is conveyed through the example of cable connectivity for both telephone and internet to a specific household. The infrastructure created by laying coaxial cable lines hundreds and thousands of miles is 99% of the task, and is relatively easy to perform when accounting for time, costs, and obstacles or an impedance. However, the final 1% referred to as the “last mile” is increasingly difficult with exorbitant costs as government zoning and ordinances must be met, internal house cabling and outlets must already be in place, software and hardware must be properly connected with a sustained signal that can be monitored and corrected at a central organizational location, a customer service team must be hired and trained to identify, assess, inform, and correct any issues that may arise during service, and contract and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) must be prepared in accordance with government entities like the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and to the satisfaction of the end user. I will abstain from including the numerous organizational departments that ensure complete product and service delivery from customer acquisition to fruition of the customer/organization relationship.

This example outlines the shortfall of perfectionist thinking in diverting resources away from their intended purpose. We spend more time perfecting a task or process while it already exceeds sufficiency for our intended audience. A prolific company everyone is both familiar with and enamored with, Apple, intuitively understands that the speed to market takes precedence over perfectionism.

The Apple iPhone 4 was noted to contain coverage issues if an individual placed their hand over the back of the phone, such as when one would engage in a typical phone call. Apparently, Apple’s design only contained an antenna placed in only one direction, rather than bi-laterally in two direction, blocking any signal from transmission to include both sending and receiving like an impervious Farraday cage. The faulty episode was aptly named ‘Antennagate’ with immediate short-term ramifications for the company’s stock:

In The Wake Of 'Antennagate', Apple's Stock Takes A Hit

While the short-term effects were impactful, Apple understood the degree of brand loyalty they fostered for long-term success while capitalizing on another concept known as the first mover advantage. Samsung invested 2-3 years into research and development to reverse engineer the iPhone’s innovation(s) for end consumers. The first mover advantage afforded Apple a majority market share while other companies toiled away at developing alternatives and/or substitutes to compete. Apple’s competitive advantage is analogous to patents obtained in the Pharmaceutical industry with a disparity in the timeline of only 2-3 years without relevant competition for Apple versus an astronomical 20 years for pharmaceutical companies.

Essentially, Apple continued to excel as a primary innovator in the Consumer Technology space, as the stock price appreciated in concert with the organization’s leadership position. Innovation may always outstrip trends like Artificial Intelligence (AI), but as a conservative measure you should always seek to serve and understand others. Robots are useful in completing tasks and processes with efficiency and effectiveness, yet they fail to fully understand the human condition in its entirety of arduous trials and seemingly fleeting tribulations.

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Collision center owner goes on trial for crash that paralyzed victim

March 06, 2018 06:16 PM

The trial of John Cole is getting underway in Saratoga County Court. He's charged with driving while intoxicated and causing an accident that left a woman a quadriplegic.

Cole, 53, is the well-known owner of Cole's Collision Centers. The Clifton Park man is being tried on assault and vehicular assault charges. Both charges are felonies. He's also charged with misdemeanor DWI and reckless driving.

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This all stems from a crash in Halfmoon last March that left a woman critically injured.

Cole is accused of driving while intoxicated when he lost control of his BMW and crashed into a tree on Sitterly Road.

A 49-year-old passenger in Cole's car, Deanna Shapiro, suffered a spinal cord injury that left her paralyzed from the shoulders down. She was hospitalized for five months and is now confined to a wheelchair.

During opening arguments on Tuesday, Assistant District Attorney Katherine DeMartino told jurors that Cole was reckless, driving 78 miles per hour in a 40 mile per hour zone and that he was intoxicated after drinking at restaurants before losing control and crashing into a tree.

Cole's attorney, Cheryl Coleman, told jurors that prosecutors can't prove intoxication, calling the crash beyond her client's control.

"You will have so many reasons to doubt the accusations made by the prosecutor and you will have reasonable doubts not only based on the evidence, but then you will have reasonable doubts on the lack of convincing evidence," Coleman told the jury.

"The facts will show that this crash was the direct result of the defendant's reckless conduct in conscious disregard for the safety of his passengers. A responsibility that they had placed in his hands and a responsibility that was solely his own," countered DeMartino.

The husband of the profoundly injured woman is expected to be among the first to testify when testimony begins at 9:30 on Wednesday morning.

If Cole is found guilty of the top count, he could be looking at up to seven years in state prison.

WNYT Staff

Copyright 2018 WNYT-TV LLC, a Hubbard Broadcasting Company. All rights reserved

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Guide to a Fitter You

Nike She Runs the Night 2013 Sydney Route

On Thursday, 3 May 2012, Nike Australia made history, hosting the country’s first ever female night race.

More than 3,200 women descended on the iconic and picturesque grounds of Centennial Park in Sydney for the 13km race. The inaugural event forms part of the Nike Women’s Race Series taking place in 15 cities around the world, involving more than 50,000 women.

This year, they’re hosting the event in Sydney again, on May 4th 2013 at Centennial Park.
It’s a great event and part of the ongoing Nike She Runs campaign to bring the women of Australia together to share their passion for running and sport.

I ran the 2013 route last Friday with a few others and below is the GPS mapping of route. The route isn’t exact as we missed a turn off to Robinson Drive (between the 4th and 5th kilometer) and took Loch Ave instead. We also stopped for water at the 7km mark (so we were suppose to stay on the road). It’s a 10K run and we hope the map will give you a guide to the route for the event (especially the elevation profile).

You can download the GPX file if your running app allows you to load routes so that you can do a practice run of the route prior to the event.
The GPX file is available at

More information available at:
She Runs the Night Facebook Page
Facebook Event

Enjoy the race. Also if it is like last year, you can post your best shots to Intagram and Twitter using the hashtag #NikeSheRunsAU to share it with everyone.

Edwin Kwan

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