Monthly Archives: February 2017

How 3D and Self-Design Will Change Technology – Huffington Post

Posted: February 7, 2017 at 10:11 pm

There is no doubt 3D printing is more than a temporary nourish for the world. According to some recent surveys, the worldwide 3D printing industry is now projected to reach revenues $12.8 billion by 2018 and surpass an enormous $21 billion globally by 2020.

The role of 3D cannot be undermined -- from product design in the technology industry to modeling and presentation in the real estate sector, 3D has proven its stay. Self-design, an advancement on 3D designs that allows users to create custom designs from which manufacturers can create a customer-specific product is the new trend.

Here are some ways 3D and self-design are making the world a better place.

Touchable Picture Isn't it amazing if the blind and visually weaken could feel images? 3D technology has made it achievable for the world. With the advent of cutting-edge printers, the users can print the photographs and pictures in 3D version. What's more? 3D models of even unborn babies can be created with this technology.

Owing to amazing customization features of the 3D and self-design techniques, it will be possible to design and build implants depending on the needs and requirements of the clients. It means that the technology will help to get improved body parts. Sturdier and better means of transportation

Nowadays, most transportation companies are using 3D printed parts to increase the strength and protection of the vehicles. This technology is utilized to design even planes. 3D printed components to make the plans lightweight and sturdy. When it comes to evaluating a vehicle, we always look at fuel efficiency. With 3D components, vehicles are made fuel efficient.

Comfortable plaster cast for broken bones

Traditional plaster casts are somehow uncomfortable to carry. But modern plaster cast built with 3D design are easy to wear and more hygienic. Faster medical progress

The role of 3D technology is really great in the healthcare sector. It brings various new discoveries in medicine. It saves loads of time and resources spent on surveys and researches. Owing to the advanced printers and supplementary devices, it is now easier and faster to design and craft tailor-made implants. Improve working efficiency

Various tasks related to design have become quick, simple and efficient with 3D and self-design technology. It improves the efficiency and reduces the need for manpower. Ultimately, it speeds up the production and reduces the expenses. Faster solutions

At present scenario, designs and looks of almost everything are changed very rapidly. 3D printers allow the employees to save time and let them focus on their main work. It helps to streamline the work. Creating faster and a proficient solution are easy with a smart printer.

Brian Walker, Ph.D., the co-founder, and CEO of CircutScribe says self-design will make 3D adoption rate even faster. "Due to the speed at which jobs can be completed, from the customer interaction point to the printing and manufacturing stage, a lot of previously wasted time will be cut. This means more people will adopt 3D as a way of getting things done," he said.

Improved and engaging education

The emergence of art and technology has changed the way schools offer education to the students. With the 3D and self-design technologies, students learn various subjects especially, science, technology, engineering and math with fun. Art and technology have always been interconnected, but now they are allied more than ever before to change the world.

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A flare for self-destruction: How technology is the means, not the cause, of our demise – National Post

Posted: at 10:11 pm

The Dark Side of Technology By Peter Townsend Oxford University Press 320 pp; $50

Soon, a massive solar flare will bring the world to a halt, says Andrew Robinson.

A century and a half ago, a sunspot caused a massive solar flare. On Earth, the northern lights were visible as far south as Cuba. Morse-code telegraph cables state of the art in 1859 acted like radio antennae, sucking energy from the electrical-magnetic atmospheric storm. Their pulses of high voltage generated sparks in the telegraph offices and gave shocks to the telegraph operators, but caused no greater damage.

By 1921, however, when electrical generators and equipment had become commonplace in industrialized nations, a more modest sunspot wrought havoc. In the United States and Sweden, telegraph control buildings were incinerated by electrically generated fires. In New York, the Central Railroads signalling equipment was wrecked, and a fire burnt down at least one building. Fortunately, power grids were not yet widespread.

In 2012, a solar flare as powerful as that of 1859 crossed Earths orbit around the Sun, missing our planet by only nine days. Another such flare hitting Earth is quite likely a one-in-10 chance during the next few years, and is virtually a certainty by the end of the century. What will be its impact on our civilization?

Catastrophic, because of our now far more interconnected technology, according to the opening section of The Dark Side of Technology by Peter Townsend, a professor of experimental physics in engineering. Despite an uneven style and an unwarranted absence of any references or an index, his book is broad, thoughtful and justifiably disturbing about the perils inherent in humanitys long love affair with technologys astonishing benefits.

Less than 24 hours after another future massive solar flare, high-energy solar particles would reach Earth and knock out the sensitive electronics in satellites, maybe permanently, along with global communications, including air traffic control. On land, the burst of solar energy would disrupt power grids, with the pylons and electrical cable networks acting like enormous and efficient antennae. Larger cities would be gridlocked because they would have no lighting, including no traffic lights, a situation that would induce panic and mass attempts to escape. Fires would be inevitable; with no electrical power to pump water, many would rage out of control.

Although nothing can be done to control solar flares, technology is theoretically under our control. Efforts are being made to shift an unused satellite and to station a newly launched probe, the Deep Space Climate Observatory, away from Earth towards the Sun, to give advance warning of a big particle flux and possibly protect satellite electronics. But there are no plans by electricity companies to keep sufficient replacement parts, such as transformers, because of the variety and expense of what might be required. Townsend believes that protective energy grid measures should be funded as a priority by central governments.

He is not optimistic about the human race acting for its own good. I suspect that the truly catastrophic potential for global exploitation and destruction is primarily unrelated to technology, and related instead to the expansion of the population, as well as to self-interest and human nature. Technologies are just the enabling routes to self-destruction, not the cause.

As evidence, he cites our blinkered pursuit of technology in fashion, past and present, such as immense wigs, constraining corsets, breast implants, Botox and filler procedures. These have all been seen as desirable, despite their known risks to hygiene, the skeleton, internal organs, the skin and physical fitness. And there have always been engineers and surgeons willing to encourage such fashions in pursuit of profit. If we cannot recognize the dark side of this technology, which intimately impinges on our own health, asks Townsend, what chance is there that we shall respond with foresight or far sight to complex technological problems that lie way outside our daily experience, such as a communications satellite irradiated by a solar flare or a nuclear power plant flooded by an earthquake-induced tsunami?

Consider, too, fashions in personal computing. IT companies now encourage us to store all our data in what is euphemistically known as the cloud, rather than on our own desktop computers, arguing that the company will constantly update the storage formats for our data, thereby allowing us to avoid the inevitable problem of obsolescence.

Many computer users go along with this promise, because cloud storage is cheap, convenient and seemingly infinite. But this means that the company has access to our confidential information. Moreover, there is no guarantee that it will keep its side of the deal. It may get taken over, or it may go bankrupt. Moreover, if we stop our payments or, for that matter, die the company may render our data inaccessible, or even delete it. Perhaps cloud computing should be renamed cloud-cuckoo computing.

On the whole, advances in technology are dehumanizing. They tend to replace face-to-face contact with human-machine contact, as in social media and online purchasing. We have all seen cafes with a whole table of friends using their mobiles for talking, texting or emailing other people, observes Townsend. As I sat down to write this, Amazon proudly announced on Twitter and YouTube its first test in Cambridge, England of a delivery by drone as follows: First Prime Air delivery. Fully autonomous no human pilot. 13 minutes click to delivery.

The book is stronger on analysis of technologys dark side than on enlightened and feasible proposals for change. But in the final chapter, Radical suggestions and a grain of hope, Townsend suggests an intriguing reform of the democratic process. In the British House of Commons, rather than each political party seated together, facing the opposition, why not use technology to reduce tribalism?

On entering the chamber, MPs would present their identity cards to a random seat number generator and must then occupy their allotted seats, regardless of their party affiliation, while speaking and voting. Moreover, instead of the division bell and public vote, MPs would vote from their seats using a confidential three-button system indicating whether they were for, against or an abstainer.

This is not going to solve all political problems, says Townsend. Nevertheless, the random seating would force a very different style of debate that might be far more rational, and stop the confrontational rubbish that we currently witness.

Whether that would lead to the humanizing, or the dehumanizing, of democracy by technology is an interesting debate although not, I suspect, a debate likely to be held in Westminster as things stand.

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Broadcaster dangles new technology for Winter Olympics – Reuters

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By Ossian Shine | St Moritz, Switzerland

St Moritz, Switzerland With the Winter Olympics just a year away, Europe's broadcast rights holder is dangling a host of technological breakthroughs - from "ghost skiers" to performance patches - which it says will enhance the drama of the Pyeongchang Games.

Feb. 9 marks the one year countdown to the South Korean Games, and Eurosport CEO Peter Hutton says the sports broadcaster will spend that year continuing to test new technology as it looks to revolutionize coverage.

"Subject to all the approvals from federations and the International Olympic Committee, I'm hopeful we will be able to use some very cool technology to bring more data to the sports than ever before," Hutton told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Skiing Championships. "We've seen tests of patches which show not only heart rate and positioning of athletes, but can also show how tired an athlete is, or how much power they are using.

"These patches feed data direct to viewers, or to commentators which can make sport more understandable... more dramatic."

Hutton said he was confident the technology would mark a big leap forward for sports viewers and that he had held talks with sports federations eager to harness the data for themselves.

"Some of this data is really revolutionary, the challenge now is knowing what to do with it, how to use it to tell stories."

One of the most compelling technologies being tested is the use of "ghost skier" graphics depicting the last run, or quickest run so far, to compare with the skier on the course.

"It is not as easy as you might think... everything happens so quickly," production head Arnand Simon told Reuters.

"With the human eye it is very, very difficult to be able to tell who is doing better or who is leading. But with technology we can show many aspects from a skiers speed to their acceleration."

Hutton says the "ghost skier" could transform the viewing experience in a way similar to the world record line being beamed onto swimming races.

"It instantly puts the performance in context," he said.

Initially, the technology would have to be voluntary, Hutton said, but the Paris-based Englishman does not see that as a barrier. "We have seen cyclists asking for technology to be put on their bikes, he laughed. "Because it puts them centre stage in the story... and typically athletes like to be centre stage."

Eurosport, through parent company Discovery Communications, bought the exclusive multimedia rights to broadcasting the Olympics in some 50 countries and territories in Europe in a 1.3 billion Euros ($1.37 billion) deal which began on Jan. 1 and takes them through to the 2024 Olympic Games.

(Editing by Richard Lough)

(The Sports Xchange) - If Gisele Bundchen had her way, Tom Brady would have called it a career after winning his record fifth Super Bowl championship on Sunday.

The Atlanta Falcons were left to wonder what might have been and what will be of their future in the aftermath of their Super Bowl collapse on Sunday.

Sacramento Kings power forward DeMarcus Cousins is facing a suspension after receiving his 16th technical foul of the season on Monday against the Chicago Bulls.

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These Four Black Women Inventors Reimagined the Technology of the Home – Smithsonian

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As 19th century urban living became more cramped, some women began to reinvent the domestic sphere with technology.

In 1888, a woman named Sarah Goode applied for and was granted a patent in Chicago, Illinois. Goode had just conceptualized what she called the "cabinet-bed,"a bed designed to fold out into a writing desk. Meeting the increasing demands of urban living in small spaces, Goode invented the cabinet-bed so as to occupy less space, and made generally to resemble some article of furniture when so folded.

Goode was a 19thcentury inventor who reimagined the domestic space to make city living more efficient. Yet unless youre a very specific kind of historian, youve probably never heard of her name. She doesnt appear in history books, and what she did remains largely unknown. The same goes for Mariam E. Benjamin, Sarah Boone and Ellen Elginall 19thcentury African-American women who successfully gained patents in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

In a post-Civil War America, job opportunities and social mobility for African-American citizens were highly restricted. The obstacles for African-American women were even stronger. Universities seldom accepted womenlet alone women of colorinto their programs. And most careers in science and engineering, paid or unpaid, remained closed off to them for decades to come.

Women faced similar discrimination in the patent office, as law professor Deborah Merritt notes in her article Hypatia in the Patent Office, published in The American Journal of Legal History. Restrictive state laws, poor educational systems, condescending cultural attitudes, and limited business opportunities combined to hamper the work of female inventors, Merritt writes. And in the era of Reconstruction, [r]acism and a strictly segregated society further encumbered female inventors of color.

As a result, historians can identify only four African-American women who were granted patents for their inventions between 1865, the end of the Civil War, and the turn of the 19th century. Of these, Goode was the first.

The second was schoolteacher named Mariam E. Benjamin. Benjamin was granted her patent by the District of Columbia in 1888 for something called the gong and signal chair. Benjamins chair allowed for its occupant to signal when service was needed through a crank that would simultaneously sound a gong and display a red signal (think of it as the precursor to the call button on your airplane seat, which signals for a flight attendant to assist you).

Benjamin had grand plans for her design, which she laid out in her patent paperwork. She wanted her chair to be used indining-rooms, in hotels, restaurants, steamboats, railroad-trains, theaters, the hall of the Congress of the United States, the halls of the legislatures of the various States, for the use of all deliberative bodies, and for the use of invalids in hospitals. Intending to see her invention realized,Benjamin lobbiedto have her chair adopted for use in the House of Representatives. Though a candidate, the House opted for another means to summon messengers to the floor.

Next was Sarah Boone, who received a U.S. government patent from the state of Connecticut for animprovement on the ironing board in 1892. Before her improvement, ironing boards were assembled by placing a board between two supports. Boones design, which consisted of hinged and curved ends, made it possible to iron the inside and outside seam of slim sleeves and the curved waist of womens dresses.

In her patent paperwork, Boone writes: My invention relates to an improvement in ironing-boards, the object being to produce a cheap, simple, convenient, and highly effective device, particularly adapted to be used in ironing the sleeves and bodies of ladies garments.

Ellen Elgin might be completely unknown as an inventor if not for her testimony in an 1890 Washington, D.C. periodicalThe Woman Inventor, the first publication of its kind devoted entirely to women inventors. Elgin invented a clothes wringer in 1888, which had great financial success according to the writer. But Elgin did not personally reap the profits, because she sold the rights to an agent for $18.

When asked why, Elgin replied: You know, I am black, and if it was known that a negro woman patented the invention, white ladies would not buy the wringer; I was afraid to be known because of my color in having it introduced to the market, that is the only reason.

Disenfranchised groups often participated in science and technology outside of institutions. For women, that place was the home. Yet although we utilize its many tools and amenities to make our lives easier and more comfortable, the home is not typically regarded as a hotbed of technological advancement. It lies outside our current understanding of technological changeand so, in turn, do women, like Goode, Benjamin, Boone, and Elgin, who sparked that change.

When I asked historian of technology Ruth Schwartz Cowan why domestic technology is not typically recognized as technology proper, she gave two main reasons. First, [t]he definition of what technology is has shrunk so much in the last 20 years, she says. Many of us conceptualize technology through a modernand limitedframework of automation, computerization, and digitization. So when we look to the past, we highlight the inventions that appear to have led to where we are todaywhich forces us to overlook much of the domestic technology that has made our everyday living more efficient.

The second reason, Cowan says, is that we usually associate technology with males, which is just false. For over a century, the domestic sphere has been coded as female, the domain of women, while science, engineering, and the workplace at large has been seen as the realm of men. These associations persist even today, undermining the inventive work that women have done in the domestic sphere. Goode, Benjamin, Boone and Elgin were not associated with any university or institution. Yet they invented new technology based on what they knew through their lived experiences, making domestic labor easier and more efficient.

One can only guess how many other African American women inventors are lost to history because of restricted education possibilities and multiple forms of discrimination, we may never know who they are. This does not mean, however, that women of color were not therelearning, inventing, shaping the places in which we have lived. Discrimination kept the world from recognizing them during their lifetimes, and the narrow framework by which we define technology keeps them hidden from us now.

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How 3-D technology helped surgeons separate conjoined twins – CNN

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Jadon and Anias McDonald were born as craniopagus twins, an incredibly rare condition affecting just one in millions, and October 13 was the day their family had been waiting for. It was the day this team of doctors and nurses at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York would separate them.

The operation was risky and complicated, but the surgeons were confident.

Before they had made a single cut, they felt like they knew what to expect. Like they'd seen it before. And in some ways, they had -- virtually.

Across the country, a team of designers and engineers anxiously awaited the outcome of the surgery. Some of the members were in the operating room, as it was their work that gave the surgeons a look into Jadon and Anias' shared brain before they were anywhere near the operating room.

At 3D Systems outside Denver, traditional two-dimensional imaging like CT scans were converted into complex three-dimensional models. Some of the models became virtual files the surgeons could manipulate. Others were created by 3-D printers, models the surgeons could hold in their hands.

"We worked hand in hand with the neuroradiologists," said Katie Weimer, vice president of medical devices for 3D Systems. "We were online for hours with that team, looking at each slice of the imaging data, deciding, is this side Jadon? Is this side Anias? What's happening with this particular set of vessels?"

3-D printing is not new in the medical field. For years, it has been used for a variety of items such as splints, implants or models for other operations, like heart surgery.

3D Systems has collaborated on dozens of conjoined twins' cases over the past decade, but the McDonald boys presented a complex new challenge.

Craniopagus twins are extremely rare, occurring in only one of out of every 2.5 million births. About 40% of these twins are stillborn, and another third die within 24 hours of birth.

There are not many surgeons who have operated on craniopagus twins, but Dr. James Goodrich, at Children's Hospital at Montefiore, is a world expert on them.

For his team, the surgery started with a virtual planning session courtesy of 3D Systems.

"It takes the guess factor out," Goodrich said. "When you are doing a reconstruction like this, even when we are working on craniofacial cases, there's a lot of guessing. ... You are no longer guessing. You have firm numbers in your mind of what you need to do. I can look at the size of the vessel; I can calculate it out; I can take it out and put it back in."

The virtual look allowed the surgeons to practice their approach, knowing what cuts to make and when, with the luxury of starting all over again if they needed to. It provided a level of comfort and reassurance.

"When they approach a case like this, there is no guidebook," Weimer said. "They didn't go through medical training and learn how to separate conjoined twins, so what we're able to do with the 3-D visualization and physical printing of the models is create that guidebook. The goal for us is by the time they get into that operating room, they are effectively doing the operation for the second time."

On surgery day, Weimer was in the operating room. Throughout the 27-hour operation, the surgical team repeatedly referenced the models. Despite the details visualizations, Jadon and Anias' brains were fused even more than originally thought, and at one point, the surgeons considered stopping.

But they continued on, and when it was complete, the boys were lying on different beds for the first time. It was an experience Weimer will never forget.

"For me, it was a life-changing event," she said. "The use of the technology in the operating room, the visualizations used and referenced throughout the full 27-hour period, was really something I had not seen or experienced before. It really was a testament to how important it is to continue to evolve these technologies to get closer to the hands of the surgeons and the surgical team that uses them."

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Microsoft’s AI group debuts customizable speech-to-text technology, rapidly expanding ‘cognitive services’ for … – GeekWire

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Microsofts Artificial Intelligence and Research Group, a major new engineering and research division formed last year inside the Redmond company, is debutinganew technology that lets developers customizeMicrosofts speech-to-text engine for use in their own apps and online services.

Thenew Custom Speech Service is set for releasetoday asa public preview. Microsoft says itletsdevelopers upload a unique vocabulary such as alien names in Human Interacts VR game Starship Commander to produce a sophisticated language model for recognizing voice commands and other speech from users.

Its the latest in a series of cognitive services from Microsofts Artificial Intelligence and Research Group, a 5,000-person division led by Microsoft Research chief Harry Shum. The company says it has expandedfrom four to 25 cognitive services in the last two years, including 19 in preview and six that are generally available.

The company says it will bring two more cognitive services,Content ModeratorandBing Speech API, out of preview and make them generally available next month. Content Moderator analyze images and videowith technology including optical-character and objectrecognition, helping companiesfilter out unwanted content. The Bing Speech API converts audio into text, interprets the intent of the language and converts text back to speech.

Microsoft formed the group to accelerate its artificial intelligenceadvances, aiming get more of its technologies out of the labs and into itsown products as well as its services for third partydevelopers. TheAI and Research Groupalso includes MicrosoftsCortana voice-based assistant and Bing search engine.

The company is competing against rivals including Amazon, Google and others in the booming field of artificial intelligence. AI and machine learningare increasingly becoming integralparts of their cloud platforms, as well.

Microsoftsnew Custom Speech Servicealso includesan acoustic model that cancels out background noise to improvespeech recognition. Microsoft citedthe example of using Custom Speech Service at anairport kiosk where the environmental noise would otherwise make speech recognitionvery difficult.

The combination of a language model and this acoustic model in a single API that is customizable for your vocabulary is truly unique in the market, said Irving Kwong, group program manager, in an interview. In going from a private preview to a public preview, the servicewill be able to take on tens of thousands of new customers.

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The Cost of Progress – Slate Magazine

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President Barack Obama delivers remarks during a BET event on the South Lawn of the White House on Oct. 21 in Washington.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The era of Barack Obama is over. Eight years of liberal governance yielding a surprisingly comprehensive list of achievements. A stimulus program that stanched the bleeding of the Great Recession and set the stage for an extended period of job growth and rapid innovation in key sectors of the economy. A bailout of the automotive industry that rescued millions of jobs and saved an entire region from economic ruin. A health reform law that, despite its flaws and problems, patched critical gaps in the U.S. health care system and extended coverage to millions of Americans. A financial reform law that established strict new requirements for banks and made consumer financial protection a key priority of the federal government. And an ambitious plan to reduce carbon emissions and spare the world from the worst consequences of global climate change. Within each of these, you could find smaller programs that brought outsize impact, seemingly modest initiatives that, if they happened under any other Democratic president, would be praised as major achievements.

Jamelle Bouie isSlates chief political correspondent.

Or at least, thats the argument New York magazines Jonathan Chait makes in his early retrospective on the Obama presidency, Audacity: How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail. And in the wake of recent eventsthe election of Donald Trump, his inauguration, and his rapid move to implement an ethno-nationalist, plutocratic agendaits almost a comforting argument. As Chait writes, Barack Obamas presidency represented one of those great bursts. It was a vision and incarnation of an American future. His enemies rage against and long to restore a past of rigid social hierarchy or a threadbare state that yields to the economically powerful. But he, not they, represents the values of the youngest Americans and the world they will one day inhabit.

There is no doubt that some portion of Obamas presidency will endure. Republicans are just now, for example, beginning to see the massive political challenge involved in repealing the Affordable Care Act and upending the health care system as it presently exists. But Chait, in his optimism, understates the force of backlash, of the fierce reaction that always meets progress and often overtakes it, both as it exists and as it can exist. And his confidence that Obamas legacy will survive gives short shrift to how backlash isnt just a bump on the road to a better future. It is a lived experience, one that can consume entire liveswhole generationsbefore the arc of the universe begins to move back toward progress.

Whats missing from Chaits analysis, put simply, is a sense of tragedy. In that hes not too different from Obama himself, whose soaring invocations of a more perfect union often understated the costs of backlash, even as he acknowledged the possibility. Given his place in the landscape of political journalism, however, its no surprise Chait makes the same omission. Writing from first the New Republic and later New York magazine, Chait has long been a strong defender of the Obama administration and Obama-style liberalism, not just from the right, but from the left as well. Wary of the dogmatism (and increasingly illiberalism) that now defines movement conservatism, Chait also critiques what he sees as the same when it emerges on the left (or more precisely, to his left).

You could see all of thishis affinity for Obama and support of mainstream liberalism, his optimistic view of the present course of American life, and his wariness toward left-wing critiquesin his 2014 exchange with the Atlantic magazines Ta-Nehisi Coates that ranged over topics including welfare reform, the New Republics racial history, the notion of a culture of poverty, and the question of racial optimism. In that debate, which he recapitulates in somewhat veiled form at the beginning of Audacity, he endorses Obamas view of racial progress against Coates more skeptical and circumspect position. It is one thing to notice the persistence of racism, quite another to interpret the history of black America as mainly one of continuity rather than mainly one ofprogress, wrote Chait, a line echoed in the book, as he contends that Obama made substantive progress on advancing racial equality. The growing awareness of racism among liberals during his presidency gave new force and prestige to a belief that racism was endemic not only to [Americas] history but its very character, he observes. When liberals bring up the history of American race relations, they usually emphasize how little has changed, rather than how much.

Audacity is a work of triumphalism, hardly diminished by the outcome of the election.

Chaits self-positioning in the ecosystem of American politics isnt mindless contrarianism. It comes from a sincere belief that liberals (and the left more broadly) are too stubbornly fatalistic to see that Democratic presidents, and Obama in particular, make real headway on their goals and priorities, despite inevitable obstacles, setbacks, and failures. The American state of the present day has a dramatically more progressive cast than it did a half century ago, and it had a more progressive cast a half century ago than it did fifty years before, and on and on. Yet the progressives who produced these victories have lived them as deflating failures. They have made the same errors of perception again and again, writes Chait.

Audacity is his attempt to correct this error. To show progressives that their pessimism and fatalism is unfounded, and to show thatpace their view of the presentObama was a success. A huge one. Obama presented a new vision of America, to the world and to itself. And he had, to a degree hardly anybody recognized at the time, made his vision of a new America real, writes Chait. But heres where the problems begin. Its not that Chait doesnt have a pointalthough, this point may have been stronger had Hillary Clinton prevailed in the presidential contestbut that he overcorrects, understating the real political and policy failures that marked Obamas tenure. He fails to tackle the more sophisticated critiques of the administration, from both the left and the right, typically aiming his counterarguments at Obamas weakest critics instead.

And so, on the recession and housing crash, Chait spends his time dueling with tendentious and partisan opponents like Amity Shlaes and Charles Krauthammerwho slammed any stimulus as unnecessary and harmfulrather than critics like journalist David Dayen, who argues that the administration dropped the ball on housing relief in a way that prolonged economic pain, undermined the recovery, and contributed to the discontent that nearly derailed Obamas presidency at several points, and may yet derail his legacy.

You could lodge a similar complaint about Chaits own treatment of heath care reform in this book. For as much as the Affordable Care Act has been a successand Chait details all the ways that is truehe gives short shift to glaring problems like inadequate subsidies (premiums and deductibles are still too high for many millions of Americans) and the absence of actual universal coverage. Chait is correct to argue that all major social programs are inadequate at the start (Social Security was threadbare and designed to appease Southern segregationists in the Roosevelt coalition), but that doesnt erase the impact of what that means in the moment for actual people.

This gets to the general problem with triumphalist narratives, and Chaits brand of triumphalism in particular. A teleological framing of history tends to discount what it actually means to live through and experience setbacks. The eight-year administration of Ulysses S. Grant saw genuine progress for black Americans. They secured voting rights and won federal protection from racist vigilantes; they elected leaders to the House and Senate, and built thriving communities for themselves. This was dismantled in fairly swift fashion by a backlash of conservative politics and while vigilantism. One way to look at this is to say that, in the long run, Grants legacyand that of those black Americanssurvived. The story since that period has been one of slow progress built on those gains and experiences. But the other way to describe it is as a long twilight, where black Americans struggled under the weight of oppression until circumstances and events allowed them to recover and reassert earlier gains. Yes, there was progress, but at the cost of generations of pain and suffering.

Chaits triumphalism, his teleological view of American history, discounts what it means to experience that twilight. Put in more concrete terms, the fact that Obamas accomplishments will likely endurethe fact that Donald Trump cannot blot them from the recordwill not console the Americans who see family deported, who see children killed by unaccountable police officers, who see the richest Americans siphoning the nations wealth for themselves. Even if we recover from the policies of the Trump administrationeven if a new liberal era emerges in responseit wont change what ordinary people suffered through; it wont restore the loss.

Audacity is a work of triumphalism, hardly diminished by the outcome of the presidential election. And in its confident defense of the mainstream liberal consensus, it fits comfortably into Chaits oeuvre as a writer and a thinker. Which is to say it suffers from the same overconfidence that led those same liberalsObama includedto discount the threat of Donald Trump. Committed to a teleology of progress, albeit open to the reality of historical irony, this liberalism lacks a visceral sense of the tragic. That sense of tragedythat sense that those inevitable reversals engender real pain for real peopleis vital. It puts confidence in its proper context, revealing thateven if we are right about the direction of the worldwe cannot forget the suffering that comes in those zigs and zags of history. Perhaps, if liberals like Chaitor even myselfwere more attuned to that possibility of profound loss, then maybe we would have better anticipated the present moment and all the pain it promises.

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Can US disrupter-in-chief trigger some progress? – Jerusalem Post Israel News

Posted: at 10:11 pm

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump salutes as he arrives at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, on Monday. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus first summit with US President Donald Trump probably wont revolutionize the Middle East. But with America reeling from its disruptive new leader, and Israel recovering from the nightmare of extremists clashing with police officers at Amona, there may be an opportunity for a reset.

After eleven years as prime minister, Netanyahu should start taking some risks, to push Israelis and Palestinians beyond the status quo. The despicable violence at Amona demonstrates the dangers of kowtowing to a shrill, aggressive minority. There is no excuse for attacking Israeli security officers these hoodlums should be punished severely. Netanyahu should reduce the absurd million- shekel-per-family bribe he paid Amonas residents to leave, which didnt even buy him peace. Some of these funds should be redirected to compensate every security officer who participated in the eviction doubling the share for the 46 wounded officers. Every Knesset member who respects democracy should endorse a law demanding such adjustments; the settler movement must learn that their violent extremists hurt their cause.

By (finally) confronting the fanatic settlers, Netanyahu could strengthen his credibility for a second step: reviving the two-state solution by reimagining it. He should help Israelis accept four realities. First, right-wing Israelis must realize that the Palestinians exist; their national aspirations must be met somehow. Second, a Palestinian state already exists in many ways the Palestinian Authority controls territories which even the most ideological settlers never enter because Israeli law prevents them.

Third, left-wing Israelis must learn that contiguity is passe. In an age of missiles and instant communication, for a Palestinian people still deeply tribal and even more deeply divided between Hamasistan in Gaza and the PLOs West Bank kleptocracy, it is time to start thinking Hawaii or Singapore. Palestinians can fulfill their national aspirations through an archipelago of non-contiguous territorial centers, building on the Singaporean model of the thriving city-state. And fourth, culture counts; Palestinians must end incitement, delegitimization, terrorism and rule by dictatorship they even torture their own people! while nurturing a democratic culture of mutuality, accountability, non-violence, civil society.

The Israeli Left must first accept the last two propositions.

If extremists with what we could call their faultanalogiphilia, addiction to faulty, inflammatory analogies start yelling Bantustans and rationalizing Palestinian terrorism as justified given the occupation, this challenging plan will die at childbirth. Israelis must reconsider their encrusted positions which sustain an unsustainable status quo. Palapologists (i.e. Palestinian apologists) who claim Israelis would never accept such compromises should remember that the Jews accepted the 1947 UN Partition Plan, because half a loaf their clich was better than none.

After the Israeli debate, the conversation can go global to the Americans and President Trump; to Israels newly-recruited anti-Iranian allies the Saudis and the Egyptians (thank you Barack Obama); then, finally, to the Palestinians.

Abandoning contiguity will correct two mistakes Israelis and the Oslo peace processors keep making. The dynamics since the 1990s keep undermining moderates and boosting extremists. By disengaging from Gaza unilaterally, Ariel Sharon deprived PA President Mahmoud Abbas of any credibility for being less fanatic than Hamas and received no concessions or any sense of responsibility from the PA. Hamas declared victory, claiming that terrorism pushed out the Zionists. Similarly, Netanyahu should state explicitly: the reduced amount of land Israel is offering, compared to Ehud Baraks and Ehud Olmerts more sweeping proposals, is punishment for Palestinian incitement, terrorism and rejectionism.

Peace will only come when the reasonable Palestinian majority silences the murderous Palestinian extremists who usually dominate. Triggering a Palestinian backlash against the Palestinian fanatics for costing them land might reestablish the proper equation. Palestinians must learn: peaceful, reasonable compromises yield positive results; hateful and vicious attacks, verbal or physical, cost them land.

Beyond this, Israels security needs need addressing. The John Kerry-era conversation about the military presence Israel requires in the Jordan Valley should be revisited.

Beyond that, every passenger on every plane taking off and landing in Israel must be confident that no Palestinian with an RPG is waiting on some withdrawn-from Israeli high point overlooking Ben-Gurion Airport to shoot down the jet. Israel must also guarantee that the Palestinians dont use a renewed peace process and more autonomy to return to the rule-by-gangs that emerged in Yasser Arafats terrorist state. Back then, these criminals terrorized their fellow Palestinians indiscriminately while attacking their Jewish neighbors brazenly. Their crimes spilled over into a wave of car thefts in Jerusalem, Kfar Saba and other towns abutting the open, non-security- barriered borders. Palestinian thieves knew they only needed a few minutes to reach their territory and a virtual free pass.

In short, Israelis and Palestinians must reexamine assumptions, learn some Oslo lessons, and start adjusting to new realities. Trumps unnerving leadership-by-chaos might be useful here. The Palestinians perpetuating their reputation as the worlds brattiest nationalist movement are whining that the Trump people dont even bother to respond to us. Good. Obamas indulgent responsiveness toward them only escalated their demands. Its time to give the Palestinians terrorist dictatorship-in-formation tough love and the Israelis democratic state some love love. The Saudis and Egyptians are also fed up with Palestinian tantrums and want a recalibrated Middle East.

We know in the Middle East how to hunker down in our usual trenches; its time for new leadership, new thinking and new openness, among Israelis and Palestinians, the leaders and the led.

The writer, professor of history at McGill University and a visiting professor at the Ruderman Program at Haifa University, is the author of The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s, published by St. Martins Press. His next book will update Arthur Hertzbergs The Zionist Idea. Follow on Twitter @GilTroy.

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Cavaliers’ pitching rotation a work in progress – The Daily Progress

Posted: at 10:11 pm

Approaching a week until Virginias first baseball game, Brian OConnor is closer to answers for the 16th-ranked Cavaliers biggest questions.

When will UVa decide on its weekend rotation? Soon.

What day will Adam Haseley move from center field to the mound? Sunday.

Who are the other starting options? Daniel Lynch, Evan Sperling, Derek Casey and Noah Murdock.

And, as a bonus, whats the confidence level in this mostly unproven staff? High.

OConnor will officially begin his 14th season as Virginias coach on Feb. 17 against Liberty in Charleston, South Carolina. Unlike past years, theres no certain ace to throw on that afternoon. Such a role will have to develop over the next few months, as is the case with many of the pitching jobs in 2017.

For now, though, the competition has been great, OConnor said Tuesday at Davenport Field. This last weekend in the scrimmages I thought we started to turn the corner a little bit. Theres a lot of guys that are throwing the ball really well, throwing strikes.

Haseley, a junior left-hander with 11 career wins and an ERA of 1.86, is the most polished of the bunch. But hes also an everyday outfielder with a career .275 batting average, seven home runs and 56 RBI.

The plan is for Haseley to play his position twice a weekend and then begin the third game of every series as a pitcher.

As for Haseleys rotation mates, OConnor will likely make that announcement early next week.

The candidate pool is intriguing.

Lynch, a sophomore lefty, is coming off a trying freshman season that included six weekend starts, but also bouts with sickness and injury. He went 1-3 with a 5.49 ERA.

Coming out of the gate last year, he pitched a great ballgame opening week for us, OConnor said, nodding to Lynchs five shutout innings and nine strikeouts against Appalachian State on Feb. 19. And he had a tough time sustaining it for a lot of different reasons. Strength level is one, and then he got sick and things like that. He had some back issues and some different things that made it tough for him.

But I still think he gained some valuable experience. He is way more improved now. Hes stronger, hes more confident. Hes throwing the ball more aggressively. I really like what I see.

Sperling has been with the program for two years, but is still seeking his first pitch in a Cavalier uniform. The 6-foot-6, 215-pounder had Tommy John surgery before touching Grounds and then went through two knee surgeries while redshirting last spring.

He joins Casey, now 21 months removed from Tommy John, as talented options with limited college rsums. Casey, a redshirt sophomore with a career 4-1 record and 3.06 ERA, hasnt pitched in a game since April 2015.

Theyve been around here for a year or two, and theyve learned, OConnor said. So they are a year wiser and things like that.

Derek Casey did pitch half a season for us. So they know whats going on, they know whats expected. Even though they havent been in a whole lot of situations, they have been there and have witnessed it.

But I use the word uncertainty. I think the talent is there, I think the skill level is there. They just havent had to do it yet.

Sperling told reporters last week he feels stronger than before.

It feels great, feels like youre part of the team again, Sperling said. You kind of feel isolated when youre hurt and you cant do much, but I feel good and I can contribute a lot.

Murdock, a 6-8 freshman righty from the Richmond area, was selected by the Washington Nationals in the 38th round of last Junes MLB Draft. Initially, OConnor said, Murdock could be a mid-week starter or come out of the bullpen, can be a swing guy for us.

Inexperience at starter is going to expected to be blended by veterans out of the bullpen. OConnor mentioned senior Alec Bettinger, juniors Jack Roberts, Bennett Sousa and Tommy Doyle (closer) as key pieces to potential mound success in the seasons early months.

I think theres real value in the first part of the season where you have guys coming out of your bullpen who have experience, OConnor said. It gives you a good feeling. Early in the season, these guys [starters] arent going to go out and throw seven or eight innings. So whos going to come in?

OK, youve played five innings, youre tied, youre up a run or youre down a run, whos going to come in to throw the next two or three innings? Thats critical.

Andrew Ramspacher covers UVa football, men's basketball and baseball for The Daily Progress and Cavalier Insider. Contact him at (434) 978-7250, aramspacher@dailyprogress.com or on Twitter @ARamspacher.

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Haupt’s Take: It took eight years to destroy 50 years of progress – Watchdog.org

Posted: at 10:11 pm

By William Haupt III | Haupts Take

If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen. (Ronald Reagan)

In the dog days of summer during the 60s, many northern Americans crossed the Mason-Dixon Line to help put an end to inequality for Americans of all races, cultures, and religions. Many did not know why they went. Maybe it was to listen to Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and others or just for the camaraderie. But reflecting back 50 years we know it was right.

For over 40 years, America was the benefactor of the Civil Rights Movement. We witnessed the battle of James Meredith entering the University of Mississippi. Our black and white brothers and sisters were killed and beaten as the chaos spread throughout the South. But we put an end to segregation and maltreatment for all minorities and all underclasses. This was not a black thing, a white thing, it was the right thing to do.

Itll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. For the times they are a-changin. (Bob Dylan)

The history of civil rights in the twentieth-century in the US is inseparable from the history of the Great Migration from the end of World War I through the 1970s. Ethnic groups such as African Americans, religious minorities and others chose to relocate to the North and West to escape the pervasive system of legalized racism and social indignation.

While we often associate the Great Migration with the decades around the two World Wars, many more relocated to other regions of the US after 1940 than before. Between 1940 and 1980, five million Americans moved to the urban North and West, double the number with the first wave of migration from 1915 to 1940. By 1980, trans-migratory residents made up 35 percent of their populace.

Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. (Ronald Reagan)

The relocation of Americans from all classes of society with unique cultures helped blend the America we once knew in the last decade. Drawn by employment opportunities and the desire to escape de jure stereo-typed segregation in their under-cultured cities, towns and counties, they moved for social and economic improvement to escape local brands of inequities and other types of social exclusion.

United we stand, divided we fall.

Neighborhoods, schools and workplaces changed to accommodate this new melting pot of cultural trans-migration. Equal treatment and full participation in civic life, better wages and social integration dismantled many of the old stereo-type mores their ancestors had to endure for decades. People of all ethnic cultures benefited as America grew closer together as a nation rather than a country of isolated sub-cultures.

United we stand, divided we fall. (Aesop)

America took great strides to overcome the rituals of ethnic, cultural and social segregation. We had accomplished what our founders had hoped for when they created a more perfect union of free men. But of course like all good things, something happens and they come to an end. And that end was the beginning of a fast track trend to moving backwards by an up young man who promised to bring complete and total homogeneity to our nation.

Yet he excelled in leading out nation into its past transgressions, culturally, socially, and ethically, to former days before America had learned to dismiss this demeanor. He destroyed the learning experience and societal development that it took 40 years to accomplish.

The Obama years have devastated our American culture. (Joel Page)

Under the current president, we have seen Americans of every social ethnic class pitted against each other: Young against old; black against white; straight against gay; and urbanites against the police. President Obama has presided over a fictional War on Women. He made more Americans despise each other than ever.

This brings back memories of the days of community organizers like Sal Alinsky. This is the game plan he put forth in his book Rules for Radicals. Obama rushed to the microphone to disparage the Cambridge police, whom he said acted stupidly when they were only trying to protect their community. When an incident in Florida took place and a young man was killed he took the opportunity to tell all of America If I had a son he would look like Treyvon Martin.

He exploited every incident that happened on his watch to cleverly remind America there was a great cleavage between minorities and whites. He has used every opportunity to disparage all of the good that we have done in the last five decades to promote similitude in our nation.

The legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and discrimination, is still part of our DNA. (Barack Obama)

The Obama years embraced eight years of decadence and perversion that brought cultural and ethnic doom to this country. This has proven that the promises of progressive politicians mean nothing. This makes one wonder how we ever survived the Obama years without more strife and trouble than we experienced in our communities and townships.

This has been liberal, social, and cultural micromanagement at its best, or perhaps worst. Ripping a nation apart by racial, ethnic, and gender strife is a key ingredient in the progressive equation to control society and stuff the progressive agenda down the esophagus of every American. This enables them to control free markets, free enterprise and all public and private institutions in our nation and gives them total control over our lives.

To say weve actually made significant progress over the last 50 years isnt as true as it sounds. (Obama)

Welfare is way up under Obama. Jobs with decent salaries are way down. The only thing that prospered under Obama is the largest growth in government since FDR. He nationalized college tuition, our banks, and our healthcare. He has created an unrelenting and ever-growing under-class of cultural dependents on government support.

America, the beautiful.

There is no telling how much worse this would have gotten if Hillary Clinton had been elected. She had promised to double down on every failed program that Obama had set forth. And she too had done her very best to keep the ethnic, cultural, and societal divisions between Americans alive and well to improve her chances of being elected.

America is lucky Donald Trump had a message they wanted to hear. (Raymond Castro)

Ronald Reagan said, We cant help everyone, but everyone can help someone. To reverse this trend, we must support the policies of our new president and bring back opportunities for everyone who wants them. We must take the social abnormalities and traditions that Obama and his regime created and toss them into the junk heap of history.

We must reform liberal schooling and prevent liberal media from promoting the decay of the young and nuclear family. We must stop this cultural atrophy and putridity of our great nation and this adulteration of our social and cultural traditions.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.)

It will not be an easy task to wean people off of the government udder that they have been nursing on for so many years, but it has run out of milk to feed them. To promote and rebuild racial, ethnic and social congruity we must encourage everyone to reap the harvest and the rewards of our free market capitalism.

There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. (Ronald Reagan)

We have a president who owes nobody any favors except to return the ones America gave him. Donald Trump said his top 6 issues are: Smaller government, lower taxes, less regulation, stop illegal immigration, rebuild our military, and bring back traditional values.

The road to social and cultural equality is not paved with the good intentions of spreading the wealth and misery, but by offering everyone a chance to capture their share of the American dream. (James Moore)

This article was written by a contributor from Franklin Centers independent network of writers, bloggers, and citizen journalists.

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