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Seminaries and the ecology of faith: An interview with Daniel Aleshire
Daniel O. Aleshire was elected last year as executive director of the Association of Theological Schools. The primary purpose of the ATS, an organization of some 237 graduate schools of theology in the U.S. and Canada, is to improve theological education. An accrediting agency, it also offers programs and services to member institutions. ATS members represent a wide range of denominational affiliations and theological perspectives, including Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox schools of theology, both university-related divinity schools and free-standing seminaries.
From 1990 to 1996 Aleshire served as the ATS's associate director for accreditation, and from 1996 to 1998 as its associate executive director. He is also a coeditor, along with Jackson W. Carroll, Barbara G. Wheeler, and Penny Long Marler, of Being There: Culture and Formation in Two Theological Schools. In that book the authors looked closely at how seminary culture contributes to the education and formation of students. The two schools examined were pseudonymously named Evangelical Theological Seminary and Mainline Theological Seminary. His longstanding and close involvement with North American theological schools provides him with a unique perspective on shifts and developments in seminary education. We talked with Aleshire in the Pittsburgh offices of the ATS.
Spiritual formation is not a term one would have typically heard at mainline seminaries 25 years ago, but now it's a subject of much discussion and activity. In 1996 the ATS even added spiritual formation to the criteria for seminary accreditation. What do you make of seminaries' current interest in this?
"Spiritual formation" is obviously a term borrowed from the Roman Catholic community, and it has a clearer meaning in that community. In mainline Protestant contexts it probably means three or four different things. On an elementary level, it refers to personal formation. Ministry is a relational kind of activity that requires certain interpersonal skills. A computer programmer or accountant may have had a religious awakening and perceived that he or she is called to the ministry, but that person needs a whole set of interpersonal skills to be an effective minister—skills that may not have been so crucial in computer programming or accounting.
At another level, spiritual formation has to do with socialization. There's a lot to learn about being a conference-appointed United Methodist minister that isn't learned through taking the denominational polity class. Part of the seminary's task of spiritual formation is taking the older student who has thought about ministry only in a general way, or the recent convert to Christianity who knows relatively little about ministry within a denomination, and teaching them how to function within the context of a particular ecclesial community.
A third meaning of spiritual formation is related to the diverse religious backgrounds that students bring to seminaries—which includes none at all. Seminaries try to help students think about being Christian people in the world in a way that moves beyond their limited experiences either within a particular religious community or in the absence of one. Yet another way of thinking about formation has to do with how one matures in one's own sense of being Christian. What is growth in faith? How are persons who lead communities of faith spiritually centered? While these last two characterizations of spiritual formation reflect the most common use of this form, the activities in ATS schools that are part of spiritual formation frequently reflect the first two characterizations.
Is it the task of seminaries to help form students on all these levels?
A significant debate is going on now about just that question. ATS's accrediting standards are pushing schools to assume accountability in these areas. The ATS requires that member schools address the issue of spiritual formation in a manner appropriate to the school's context and tradition. Of course, we can't define that agenda. What formation means in the Unitarian context is dramatically different from what it means in the Southern Baptist context.
Why is spiritual formation such a high priority for seminaries?
Much of it is related to the kind of people who are coming to seminaries, and ultimately to changes in North American Christianity. According to the old conventional wisdom, the typical seminary candidate had been in church since baptism or before, and had been acculturated within a particular denomination to particular patterns of piety and theological understanding. Maybe this student had started thinking about ministry in high school or college, in which case, if the local pastor knew it, the student was called upon to read scripture or lead public prayer or take responsibility for the devotions at a youth retreat. A congregational formation took place. Those who came to the seminary, therefore, were persons who had been thinking about ministry, who perhaps had served as part-time youth ministers while they were in college, and who had taken some preseminary courses in undergraduate school. A broad spiritual formation of the person who was to become a church leader was shared by the church and the seminary. The seminary's task was to, in a sense, deconstruct certain of the students' theological perceptions in order to reconstruct a more intellectually viable way of understanding their own sense of being persons of faith, as well as to deconstruct and reconstuct their understanding of life and ministry in a particular denominational context.
That's old conventional wisdom.
Yes. According to the new conventional wisdom, the typical seminary student is in his or her late 30s, is probably attending a church of a denomination in which she was not raised—even if she had been in church in childhood and in her adult years. This student probably did not think about a church vocation until recently, as a result of some kind of stirring, or a sense that what she could do in church is more rewarding than what she is doing with the rest of her life. For a variety of reasons, most of these students don't have the kind of formation that the church provided in an earlier time. The seminary may in fact be her point of entry into the faith tradition.
The seminary then has a choice. It can say, "We will provide students with an education in the disciplines of theological inquiry and other areas that pertain to the ministry, but it's the churches' responsibility to nurture them in leadership." Or it can say, "We have to assume part of the formation responsibility, because—if for no other reason—these students only have 20 career years left when they graduate."
Clearly, there has been a change in the ecology of ministerial call and formation. More of it is located in the life of the seminary, and the seminary is struggling to do a good job. The seminary is being asked to do things it really hasn't done much before. Seminaries are trying to figure out how to be appropriately rigorous intellectual environments, while at the same time they are being asked to provide remedial work on what it means to be a believer before God and a community of believers, and what it means to be, for example, a Presbyterian—that there are things called presbyteries that make certain kinds of decisions, and here's how you participate in presbyterial life. Seminaries are not going to be able to do the job of spiritual formation as well as it was done by the church and the seminary together.
So seminaries should say to churches, "Don't place all the blame on us if a graduate doesn't meet your standards for a thoroughly formed and tradition-grounded student." Presumably, churches would have something to say to the seminary in return. Are you looking for a new, perhaps less adversarial, conversation between denomination, congregation and seminary?
I think there should be such a conversation. There is a tendency among Protestants—both mainline and evangelical—to lay at the doorstep of the theological school many of the problems they're perceiving in ministry. Maybe seminaries need to say to the church, "We're doing the best we can with the students that you send us and that our recruitment officers find." Those discussions don't go very far, though. Seminaries begin to look defensive.
And churches would probably counter that seminaries have lost sight of the requirements of the church.
They will say to seminaries, "If we do find good candidates for church leadership, we're not sure we want them to be exposed to some of the stuff you want to expose them to." I've seen ATS schools expose some students to everything that worries some denominations, and yet those students become deeply committed to ministry in the denominational context and are much more sturdy in their own sense of faith and commitment and in their sense of what the mission of the congregation ought to be. The reality is not nearly as adversarial as the rhetoric. But the antagonistic rhetoric exists for underlying reasons.
So what is the deeper issue that causes the rhetoric to run as hot as it sometimes does?
Part of it is related to profound worry over the dislocation of mainline Protestantism in North American culture. Pastors are working as hard as, if not harder than, their predecessors 50 years ago, with fewer visible results and with less social prestige. The pastor says, "I'm doing what they taught me, but look what's happening"—or isn't happening. That creates anxiety, not only for pastors, but for congregations, denominations, and seminaries. It's true that new kinds of congregational paradigms are emerging, and the evangelical seminaries in particular are paying a lot of attention to those new forms. But a school is always a conserving environment. It takes time for innovations of congregational life to find a response in a seminary's curriculum. There's always a tension between the most avant-garde congregational life and the education provided by seminaries.
Is it safe to say, at the very least, that relationships need mending between seminaries and denominations and between seminaries and congregations?
Without a doubt. Seminaries are derivative environments; they are creatures of the church, broadly understood. If every denomination in North America ceased to exist next year, there would be little reason for ATS schools to continue. A few could carry on the intellectual inquiry defined by the historic theological disciplines. But seminaries were started by denominations and religious movements. Historically they function best when their students have emerged out of these denominations and religious movements.
But the seminary now has become responsible for finding potential clergy. In addition to educating on behalf of the church, and doing spiritual formation on behalf of the church, it is also enlisting students on behalf of the church. But remember, seminaries are not just recruiting students, they're recruiting religious leaders. And in the end, theological schools are not very good recruiters of religious leaders. Communities of faith need to call out their leaders.
I often wonder if congregations are attending to their responsibilities for church leadership. What happens in a good, mainline congregation when the bright, talented, able high school junior says, "I'm thinking about ministry"? According to current conventional wisdom, many people will respond by saying, almost by reflex,"Are you sure?" rather than, "That would be wonderful." Which of those two responses the high school junior hears is terribly important for the quality of work that seminaries can do. The systems that nurtured potential leaders, and the circumstances that led people to say, "That would be wonderful," have changed.
How do you explain such hesitancy about the ministry? Earlier you referred to the decline of social prestige associated with ministry. Is that an important factor?
Prestige is an issue, but only in a tangential way. Pastoral work has become very hard work, and many pastors, I think, wonder if they should encourage others to journey down that path. The generation that entered ministry in mainline Protestant denominations after World War II has been the focus of much attention. The people of this generation were educated in the early-to-mid-1950s, and lived out their entire ministries during a time when the denominations of which they are a part lost approximately 30 percent of their membership. During their careers they have seen wonderful congregations with rich programming undergo significant transitions in their communities—transitions in numbers and in levels of commitment. Those experiences, some of them quite painful, may prompt some to be cautious in encouraging others to enter the ministry.
Mainline Protestants have also asked a lot of questions over the last 30 years about their fundamental religious vision, and ministry is something that grows out of religious vision. What is the religious vision that compels people to do the hard work of ministry? That's a central question. The Peace Corps brings in volunteers by billing itself as offering one of the toughest jobs around. I wonder how clearly the church is articulating a compelling religious vision that the world needs and that inspires young people to take up the ministry despite inconveniences and a growing lack of social standing.
More than evangelicals and Roman Catholics, mainliners have raised important questions about the Christian faith. But the vocation of the ministry requires a persuasive religious vision to which one gives oneself—a vision that requires both critical questions and passionate affirmations. The church has to form and inculcate that vision. Theological education, at its best, is the work of deconstructing and reconstructing these visions; it's not very good at inculcating them, although it does that sometimes.
The relationship between seminary and denomination touches on another important recent development in seminary education—the trend toward contextual education. Emory University's Candler School of Theology, for example, is undertaking a sweeping overhaul of its curriculum in order to integrate theological studies with Christian practices, and it has instituted a new contextual education program. Presumably, one of the contexts for such an education is the congregation. What do you make of this trend?
Good theological education is always multicontextual. One important context is the school. An educational environment and resources are required to learn the syntax and the rules of a language so that people can study ancient texts at a deeper level. A school environment is also best suited for other areas of the seminary curriculum in which students are accountable for reading and discussion—for a certain kind of learning related to texts, analysis and reflection. One very important context of contextual education, therefore, is the theological school as school.
But that's never enough. Students can't learn what they need to learn in an M.Div. program only in a traditional school environment. They also have to be immersed in a context in which practices of religious leadership occur. The disciplines that compose seminary education have as their goal practices that constitute the activities of ministry and religious leadership. Seminaries, then, must be aware of the context in which ministerial leadership is exercised, and of how the continuous and divergent questions that arise in those contexts are articulated and understood.
In many ways the contextualization movement is a de-disciplining movement. That is to say, theology and church history and New Testament don't run as separate streams in the life of the church. When a minister runs up against a group of people who are fussing over the inclusion of new members who represent minorities in the community, the biblical text and the theological tradition come together in the context of who has power and who doesn't have power in the congregation. Contextual education means helping students understand how ways of knowing related to the disciplines become realized in the contexts in which they're going to have leadership responsibilities. Seminary students, at least M.Div. students, are not learning the New Testament so they can be New Testament knowers. They are learning New Testament so that they can exercise religious leadership—preaching and teaching and helping persons in their corporate and individual faithfulness—in light of their understanding of scripture.
To go back to the issue of formation: the contextual education that most schools are talking about is also a faithful response to students who are uncontextualized. There was a time when seminaries could do more work in a classroom because the students had an intimate, firsthand knowledge of church—they had been there and had stories to bring to the seminary. In the Baptist seminary my father-in-law attended in the 1930s, students had to be ordained to be admitted. Ordination was the responsibility of the local community, and the seminary wasn't going to take students in for postbaccalaureate theological study if they hadn't been confirmed by the church. What those students needed was a classroom.
We now have a generation of students whose classroom needs to be the church. Many of those within the current generation of students have had little leadership experience in churches. They represent the complete opposite of those Baptist students of the 1930s.
Contextual education is also a response to a theological issue. Many theologians now argue that substantive theological issues emerge out of practice, and that, on one level, theology is fundamentally unsystematic. In the context of the messiness and the complexities of real life, it's unreal to focus on tidy intellectual partitions that permit certain ideational structures to exist. I'm not trying to discipline-bash here. I affirm disciplines and sustained, scholarly attention to specific areas of inquiry. But virtually everyone in the academic world agrees that the disciplines need to be complemented by interdisciplinary and contextual learning.
I want to offer one caution about contextual education. I notice an almost naïve perception—especially on the part of those who are mad at the seminary, for whatever reason—that if you could just get students educated in the congregation rather than the theological school, everything would be better. No, it would just be different. Also, such a radically congregation-based education would contribute to the development of a whole new set of deficiencies, and remedying them would probably lead to a shift back to the schools. In fact, historically, theological education moved from the cathedral church to the academy.
Given the changes you are talking about in the areas of spiritual formation and contextual education, how long should students be in seminaries? Is the standard three-year M.Div. program sufficient?
Given the needs that exist now, and all the resources in the world, I could make a compelling case for a five-year M.Div. program. The first two years would be an intensely residential educational environment and would include education in the text and tradition of the believing community. Having schooled students in a hot-house environment of the disciplines—theological, biblical, historical, philosophical, ethical, sociological, behavioral scientific—I would place students in full-time ministry for nine months a year over three years. For three months during each of those years they would return to the seminary and take what would be, cumulatively, the third year of the M.Div.
No matter how you contextualize education, when the seminary temporarily shifts students into the church, it's a very different experience than being at Mt. Pisgah over time, or at First Community where 30 percent of the people are related to each other and where church conflict is family conflict. The quality of contextual education would be heightened if students brought back to the seminary issues relating to the preaching, teaching, counseling, and administrating that they encountered over time in congregational ministry. They could then, over a three-year period, work through those problems and questions with mentors, professors and peers. But they would do it having had a foundation in theological schooling and in the congregation where faith is practiced. There is a wisdom related to practice that is intellectually as rigorous as the wisdom related to the disciplines.
Of course, this educational vision is probably neither economically nor practically viable. Supervision would have to be provided during the years in ministry for the sake of the candidate and for the protection of the congregation. Congregations would have to get by without their pastor for two and a half months every summer.
Are you then talking about an impossible possibility?
Some schools have developed a shortened version of the program I've outlined. Every student in a seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America does an in-ministry year between his or her second and third year in seminary. The ELCA has a four-year M.Div. program. Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, a United Methodist school, has had an in-ministry year for a long time. I don't want to say that such an integrated seminary education is impossible. It would be more possible with a younger student body who are more movable. It's less possible when persons are starting seminary at age 50.
You mentioned economic viability. How does the drop in funding from denominational sources, which makes seminaries more tuition dependent, affect their recruitment policies and admissions criteria? Can seminaries afford to turn down students?
In the average ATS school, about a third of the income comes from tuition, a third from earnings from endowments and a third from an annual fund, which includes gifts from the denomination. So most ATS schools are not making it or breaking it on the basis of tuition. (The typical independent undergraduate college in the U.S. is 65 percent or more tuition-driven.)
Having said that, tuition is a bigger factor than ever for most seminaries. Are some schools admitting the wrong kinds of students? Yes—for two reasons, neither of them directly related to economics. While I don't think any ATS school is unscrupulous, seminaries can stretch their pastoral imaginations concerning how qualified potential students may be. Most schools would like to be more selective on academic criteria, but there's another issue to take into consideration: What are the proper criteria for excluding potential candidates from theological study? Is it just intellectual ability? We all know persons who are academically talented but who are less skilled with people and don't do very well in ministry.
Given the personal, intellectual and religious factors that must be considered, it's not always an easy call, especially when there is less contact between church and seminary. In the older system, someone from a church could tell a concerned seminary administrator, "We've tried 14 different things with this individual in our church and it never works." Now we don't have as rich a prior formation tradition to rely on in admissions, so I think schools are admitting students who ought not to be admitted. If schools could figure out who should be refused admission, they would do so primarily for moral and religious but also for economic reasons. The students who are admitted to theological schools but shouldn't have been frequently end up costing the school more than they contribute in tuition.
We've been tossing around the term "religious leadership." It's what we want seminaries to produce. Perhaps we should give the words greater substance.
Communities of faith, like most social systems, have historically identified individuals who would help them do their work. For me, that's what religious leadership is. Notions of religious leadership are articulated differently; in some communities it is defined more sacerdotally, in other denominational settings it's understood much more functionally. But in all these settings religious leadership has to do with congregations looking to certain persons to help them understand and claim what they are doing as a religious community, to provide them with the support and encouragement they need to get their work done as a community of faith, and to celebrate with them as they do this work.
That's a fairly process-oriented description. Could we, perhaps, get such a leader from Harvard Business School?
Religious leaders foster a relationship with God and an understanding of God's purposes within a community. That's not just an administrative or managerial skill. That requires a theological vision and an understanding of the religious vocation of the community. On the basis of such a theological vision religious leaders call people to work on behalf of the community and to give their time and money to this work. The community looks to someone to help it do all this.
I don't think that the religious leader is an enabler who's job is to help the community do what it has already decided to do. The leader, as part of his or her theological vocation, is called to help the community decide what its task is. The religious leader is able to help the religious community go about its task in ways that are appropriate to its religious vision.
There is virtually no social community that doesn't somehow call out leaders. The Democratic and Republican parties scour the countryside for candidates; General Motors looks carefully at graduates and persons within the company for leadership. All social systems depend on leadership. And religious life depends on a particular kind of leadership that isn't just a composite of skills that would make a good general manager or vice-president. Religious communities must understand that they need leadership—a particular kind of leadership. They understand this at a lay level; they elect officers every year. But they also need theologically trained, interpersonally able people who have their own sense of what it means to be persons of faith, who have the capacity to invite a congregation to think about its being a community of faith. Ultimately the task of ATS schools is to cultivate persons who are authentically religious and who are able in their respective communities and contexts to exercise leadership.
It seems that with the emphasis on spiritual formation, the move toward contextual education, the need to respond to a very different generation of students, along with the responsibility to teach courses in theology, Bible and so on, the seminary has a lot on its table. Presumably this means that the seminary faculty has a lot on its table. Are faculty equipped to meet these challenges?
According to the old wisdom, ATS schools during the 1950s were overpopulated with persons whose primary vocation was ministry, but who had been recruited to the academic world of seminary education. The perception existed that ATS faculty were not sufficiently scholarly. I think the work that Barbara Wheeler and her colleagues have been doing at the Auburn Center suggests that the younger generation of faculty tend more to be educated as theological scholars but may be less experienced in the activities of ministerial leadership than the previous generation. Earlier, ATS faculties contained ministers whom we had to help as scholars. Now we have scholars whom we have to help think about the activities of ministry. Teaching theology at a seminary may not be different in content from a similar course taught in a religious studies program, but its educational goal is certainly different.
Faculty, therefore, need to understand the contexts in which students are going to use the information taught in the classroom. They need to raise questions about the seminary's educational goals, and the impact they have upon the way biblical studies or theology or Christian ethics is taught. I don't think such an adjustment is an insurmountable problem. ATS faculty are very bright, well-intentioned people who care about their students and their disciplines. Caring about one's discipline is not a minor matter. Anyone who cares about a discipline is interested in how that discipline lives itself out. To have seminary faculty with that level of dedication is important.
Caring about one's students and one's discipline is not the same thing as caring about the church. We've talked about vocation with regard to seminary students bound for the pastoral ministry. Shouldn't we also talk about the vocation of the theological educator?
Yes. Barbara Wheeler's recent study of ATS faculties shows that by and large they're a churchy group. At least 85 percent of them report being involved in patterns of denominational or congregational service (on average 15 days a year). It's a misperception that the faculty in ATS schools do not care about the church. They may not be as experienced in congregational ministry as other leaders are, but that difference in experience shouldn't be interpreted as not caring about the church. Because faculty may not have been pastors or associate pastors or directors of Christian education simply means that seminaries and other institutions have to help them both broaden and sharpen their understanding of the issues and challenges of these roles.
In 1996 the ATS for the first time articulated some things about theological scholarship. The pre-1996 accrediting standards did not say anything specific about what theological scholarship is or what it involves. The 1996 standards say that scholarship involves teaching, learning and research. Good scholarship always includes these three components. The standards also say that research must attend to the academic community, the ecclesial community and the broader public. So seminary scholarship is work that is related to the academic community, but it is not just academy-related research. Nor is it just research that benefits the church community. The scholarship done in seminaries should address broader public issues. A theological faculty may place different emphases on different parts of the scholarly enterprise based on its internal dynamics—of promotion, tenure and so forth. But according to the ATS, scholarship within its schools requires teaching, learning and research that benefits the church, the academy and the public.
A key development issue is helping faculty learn how to write more convincingly to church audiences. Most younger seminary faculty are trained to write for and to academic audiences. William Placher's recent article in the Century suggested—rightly, I think—that mainline Protestants don't have a body of theological literature aimed at the laity. The ATS has to find ways to assist faculty in making their work more available, and to help schools develop internal structures for encouraging such work. Will seminaries support and reward a faculty member who, for example, writes a good book about who Jesus was that, while it may not be groundbreaking research, is read widely and becomes the basis for a lot of study groups in mainline Protestant congregations? That's a faculty development issue that directly involves how one understands the vocation of the theological faculty.
What issues of theological education keep you up at night? What should we be most concerned about when we think about seminary education?
Finances, the quality of students, perspectives on faculty—these are important issues, but ultimately the problems they represent are annoyances. They're the things that can be fixed. If the church becomes unconvinced of its religious vision, that's something the seminaries can't fix. Christianity is represented by rich and diverse expressions in North America, and each community, each tradition, possesses an authentic, centering, powerful, culture-changing vision of the gospel. I do worry, however, that the community of faith, or some communities of faith, will in effect say that, while the gospel message is nice, it may not matter all that much.
If that happens, those communities will not produce good leaders. They will not create the kind of rich contexts out of which theological education emerges and in which it flourishes. Schools can find the money to train leaders, and they will work with the faculty and students to do the necessary development and education, but if a broadly based religious vision is lacking, then theological educators become curators.
I can't state this too strongly. Theological schools, to the extent that they train and educate religous leaders, are dependent upon the religious vision of broader religious communities. I believe there is an absolutely compelling liberal Protestant vision, a Roman Catholic vision and probably a postdenominational vision. This society, which is struggling with enormous problems, needs to hear all those versions articulated in passionate and intellectually compelling ways, and it needs to see them practiced in ways that are faithful to each. If that happens, theological schools are going to get all the good students they need.


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"The Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. XX) and the Regulatory Flexibility and Improvement Act (H.R. 2542) would threaten the health and safety of the American people, by disarming standards like the ones that keep children safe from faulty cribs and toxic toys. These bills would block enforcement of critical laws by creating new bureaucratic hurdles and impossibly short timelines for approval of public health rules.
"The Regulatory Accountability Act would add layers of new bureaucratic processes before even simple public health rules could be enforced, and empower special interests to use the courts to delay protections that have been years in the making. For example, in 2011 after a 10 year fight, Congress authorized and the Consumer Product Safety Commission developed new safe crib standards. Parents finally received protection against collapsing cribs that injured and killed far too many infants. The RAA Act would make it easier for special interests to contest the new crib standards in court, delaying these critical protections.
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Eazel officially shut down today.
A number of people wonder what this means to GNOME and whether this is the end of free software.
Ximian will of course contribute to Nautilus in the future, as it is part of our desktop strategy. It is sad to see Eazel go, and we will miss the guys, but we will continute working with their code base.
Andrew posted bits of my reply here
Jacob is currently working on the new file selector for GNOME, using the gnome-vfs and wondering what this means: GLib-ERROR **: could not allocate 2080374800 bytes
Posted on 15 May 2001


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3 top tools to fight insider threats
Lurking inside
We tested three products, each concentrating on a different aspect of the insider threat problem. Fortscale did an amazing job protecting a traditional network. Its machine learning capabilities and concentration on access and authentication logs gives it an extremely high accuracy rate. Cloud-based insider threats can be even harder to detect, yet Avanan uniquely protects against threats related to trusted insiders within the cloud. PFU Systems applies insider threat security to mobile devices with their iNetSec system. (Read the full review.) Here are the individual reviews:
Fortscale: Machine learning right out of the box
Fortscale is nearly complete and ready to go out of the box. It is installed on a network as a single server which is then linked into whatever security information and event management (SIEM) system is already being used. There are no rules to configure or programming to be done by administrators as Fortscale uses machine learning and complex algorithms to find anomalous or dangerous behavior associated with insider threats.
Fortscale's `Followed Users' dashboard
A neat feature is the fact that certain users can be pinned to the login splash page for extra scrutiny. Called Followed Users, these people are added to the far right column of the dashboard, complete with their pictures, titles and network groups, if such information is available.
There are no set criteria needed to add someone into the Followed Users pool. Perhaps investigators suspect the employee for some reason, or perhaps Fortscale admins are seeing low level anomalies tied to one account. Clicking on a user within the Followed Users group will bring up all the information that Fortscale has collected about them over time.
Fortscale's printer catch
Where Fortscale's interface really gets good is when you drill down into alerts. In our testing, the program was able to identify an anomaly where a user first made an "all records" call to the Oracle database and then printed over 350 pages. This could be a case where an employee was preparing to leave the company and wanted to take proprietary information with them using a very low tech way of capturing and stealing the data. But even the low-tech approach was not able to escape the watchful, and insightful, eye of Fortscale.
Avanan: Penetrating the cloud
Avanan runs completely in the cloud, so the setup has no physical components. It works with all the biggest cloud providers including Amazon, Google and Microsoft. The setup process for our test cloud only took a few minutes. Many cloud providers retain up to a year or more of data regarding the various actions by users and programs within the cloud. Avanan can tap into that data and begin working right away, even identifying suspect insider threat activity that happened months ago.
Avanan's added benefit
By itself, Avanan is a powerful tool for protecting against insider threats. However, another strength of the product is that it offers one click installation of many popular security programs. Avanan does not charge users to install those apps inside the cloud. Users only need to pay whatever the other vendor charges, and their existing license may even cover cloud deployments. In the course of our testing we installed Check Point, Palo Alto and Symantec software into our test cloud. In all cases, we got full cloud functionality.
Avanan identifies Shadow IT
The main Avanan console is basically like a SIEM itself, though it consolidates data from any other SIEM or security program running in the cloud. It also has a robust shadow IT function, which shows applications that have been installed within the cloud, who is using them and what they are doing. Entire applications can be denied and removed from the cloud regardless of the number of users, preventing any program from becoming an insider threat itself, or acting as a vehicle for things like prohibited file transfers or data sharing.
iNetSec Smart Finder: Agentless scanning of mobile devices
PFU Systems, a Fujitsu company, aims to manage the increased potential for insider threats generated by mobility programs with their iNetSec system. The iNetSec Smart Finder system is deployed as a network appliance that generally sits between the LAN segments of a network and the VLAN segments used by mobile users. Once deployed, the iNetSec Smart Finder appliance discovers, classifies and manages all mobile devices in order to enforce network access policies. In addition to device management, it will graph and visualize all application traffic broken down by device to prevent bandwidth abuse and stop high risk applications from operating.
INetSec: APT protection
While iNetSec is mostly concerned with insider threats, it can also scan internal network traffic to detect the presence of Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) based on behavioral correlation. It is able to do all this without the need to install agents on any mobile device. Once our iNetSec testbed went live, the appliance scanned for every mobile device connected to the network. The appliance was able to find any device with a MAC address, including routers and VoIP phones. It does this in order to monitor traffic moving through the network gateway as well as any lateral movement that might be an indication of an active APT.
INetSec: Denied
Once each device is approved or rejected, and a policy put in place to govern any new devices that want to connect, iNetSec begins monitoring what those devices and users are doing. The main dashboard displays every connected device and its current activity. Administrators can choose to permit or prohibit any application's use on the network. While this would not remove them from the mobile device, which iNetSec has no direct control over, it would prevent them from being used to transfer files or to interact with a protected network. In cases an administrator considers to be extreme, the presence of certain programs or malware could trigger a device to be immediately denied network access all together.
Copyright © 2016 IDG Communications, Inc.


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In a recent survey we conducted among pet owners, we asked about microchip identification. We found that cat owners and dog owners are equally likely to say that having their pet microchipped is a necessary component of pet ownership. That's the good news.
The bad news is that when it comes time to doing it, the majority haven't taken that precaution. 69% of the cat owners and 64% of the dog owners we surveyed say they haven't microchipped their companion.
Why is microchipping so important? Petfinder reports that The American Humane Association estimates over 10 million dogs and cats are lost or stolen in the US every year, and that 1 in 3 pets will become lost at some point during their lifetime. ID tags and collars can get lost or removed, which makes microchip identification the best tool shelters and vets use to reunite pets with their owners.
One barrier to microchipping is cost – it runs in the $25 to $50 dollar range for dogs and cats. Not a staggering amount, but pet ownership can get expensive – with all the "stuff" you need for your new friend, this can be a cost some people aren't willing to bear. Vets, shelters and rescue groups sometimes discount their pricing when the animal is receiving other services, such as vaccines. Which begs the question, if vets want their patients to be microchipped, what's the best way for them to price their services to make this important service more likely to be included?
It seems that pet microchipping would benefit from some pricing research. Beyond simply lowering the price, bundle offers may hold more appeal than a la carte. Then again, a single package price may be so high that it dissuades action altogether. Perhaps financing or staggered payments would help. And of course, discounts on other services, or on the service itself, may influence their decision. All of these possibilities could be addressed in a comprehensive pricing survey. We could use one of our pricing research tools, such as conjoint, to achieve a solid answer.
Regardless of whether or not cost is a reason, we hope that raising awareness of the importance of microchipping will persuade more pet owners to get their pets chipped.
VP / Research Management
Michele likes to hijack TRC's online consumer panel to get relevant answers to her burning research questions. She loves asking questions relating to her favorite hobbies - TV and movies, golf, casino gambling and travel - and more often than not the answers can be generalized across industries.
Contact Michele


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News In Brief
PC approves measures to address impact of war
April 29, 2019 - 14:24
Written by: SafaAlharathy
The Presidential Council (PC) head, Fayez Al-Sarraj adopted Saturday the recommendations approved by the emergency committee entrusted by him at a meeting last Monday.
The recommendations include the allocation of an emergency budget to municipalities, in order to support the displaced and war-affected people and to ensure that citizens continue to receive the basic services.
The decision further stipulates the allocating of an emergency budget to the General Electricity Company of Libya (GECOL) for the maintenance of the network and transmission lines affected by the clashes.


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Montana Agate Sunrise Pendant
Montana agate like a pond you stumble upon while you are walking in the woods. This one is cut in a mountain shape, set in sterling silver prongs and features a hammered sterling halo.
A 24" sterling cable chain makes this the perfect statement piece with sweaters and t-shirts.


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Limited standing at £15 here
Celebrating both 50 years of the group, and also Han Bennink's 75th birthday, the Instant Composers Pool (ICP) take up a 2 night residency at the Vortex. The Instant Composers Pool is a unique and internationally renowned collective of Dutch composer-improviser-instrumentalists formed in 1967 by Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennink and Willem Breuker.
Over the years, the ever-evolving orchestra has collaborated with many giants of the experimental music world. Their current line-up consists of ten of the most innovative musical voices from around the globe, including ICP co-founder Han Bennink – one of the most in demand drummers in Europe, saxophonists/clarinettists Michael Moore, Ab Baars and trombonist Wolter Wierbos.
They are joined by Tobias Delius (clarinet, tenor sax), Ernst Glerum (double-bass). Thomas Heberer (cornet, trumpet), Tristan Honsinger (cello), Guus Janssen (piano, organ) and Mary Oliver (violin, viola) all of whom are highly active with bands across Europe and North America. Sadly co-founder Misha Mengelberg, who appeared along with Han Bennink at the 2006 Gateshead International Jazz Festival is no longer well enough to perform.
The exact programme is always a surprise, as the band decides just a few minutes before the performance what they will be playing. From ragtime to swing, bop to free jazz, classical to carnival, the ICP Orchestra continues to be at the forefront of experimental music. Nothing else sounds quite like them and no two gigs are ever alike.
"…The Instant Composers Pool Orchestra, from Amsterdam, ….they are scholars and physical comedians, critics and joy-spreaders." New York Times
This video shows their energy, made when Misha Mengelberg made his last trip abroad to the Vortex.


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Birds in Flight: Cormorant
. . .
It's a gorgeous morning in Novato, California, and Cormorant and Invisible Oranges are stuffing our collective faceholes with breakfast at a swanky establishment simply called Toast. Between forkfuls of huevos rancheros, oatmeal with raisins (a healthy decision for which bassist/vocalist Arthur von Nagel receives light ribbing from his bandmates) and the tastiest Belgian waffle this side of Brussels, discussion turns to shows in the area, which turns to marathon outdoor event Outsidelands, which leads to drummer Brennan Kunkel and guitarist Nick Cohon's preference for reggae festivals. From there, Coachella's relevance is mulled over, as is the hologram of late rapper Tupac, which leads us to festival-friendly acts like Feist, who of course links to metal by way of her split 7-inch with Mastodon set to be released on Record Store Day (April 21, 2012), which happens to be the very day of this interview. We all agree that the Canadian indie pop songstress must have a hell of a sense of humor to cover a song by one of the most important metal acts of the last decade, and from humor we immediately jump to the funniest man on the planet, Louis CK.
"Didn't he do what we're doing?" asks guitarist Matt Solis about the comic who released his latest stand-up video openly on the Web with a $5 donation request, trusting that the denizens of the Internet would stay honest and pay for someone's hard work. The rest of the guys nod in confirmation, a silent note of kinship for other artists like them. It's a growing means of business among independent artists in many mediums, the posting of one's work online for the world to do with it what it feels is right.
It's also made Cormorant the definitive "Bandcamp metal band," a tag they seem pretty alright with wearing considering how much the digital music distribution service has boosted their profile worldwide, often putting the band in contact with fans in increasingly exotic locales. First there was the Australian fan of Aboriginal descent who thanked von Nagel for addressing the worldwide oppression of native peoples of all continents – and Aboriginals specifically – in "The First Man," the opener to last year's last minute end-of-year list crasher Dwellings.
Then there was the Lebanese fan who actually broke federal law to acquire both the bands' full lengths. "He said, 'I want to order your music, but this is going to get killed in customs because it's metal,' which is illegal there," von Nagel recalls. "So he had to ship it to Saudi Arabia and then had to cross the border and smuggled it in as contraband. He couldn't do PayPal because that was blocked, so he actually mailed money to my house."
"That's the cool thing about being DIY is that we get to see all these crazy places our albums are going to," adds Solis. "Nick put together this interactive map showing where everything was going."
"It was like 35 different countries," says von Nagel, widening his eyes in disbelief.
By now, our plates have been cleared, and everyone checks the time. The fifth San Jose/Columbus NHL playoff game starts at 4:30 and Solis, today decked in a Sharks t-shirt and matching hat, wants to be back by the time for faceoff. We've got five hours, which is deemed more than enough time to complete the hike the guys have planned for us. We all pile into Cohon's Rav4 and are set to hit the road when Solis points to a red Volkswagen van from the backseat. "Is that Chuck Brown?" he asks. Kunkel looks over from the passenger seat and realizes the driver of the van is indeed his old drum instructor, a legendary jazz drummer who taught future superstars Terry Bozzio and Dave Garibaldi. His private studio, located a few blocks away from the strip mall we're parked in, is where Cormorant rehearsed the material for Dwellings. By the entire band's account, it was a perfect location, with an actual stage and excellent acoustics. And they'd still be jamming there if hard financial times hadn't hit Brown and forced him to close the space overnight. "We actually had to call the landlord and ask him to open it again so we could go grab our instruments," von Nagel explains. "We had like a half hour to haul all of our gear out before they closed it for good."
Cormorant are no strangers to storied practice spaces. On the way out of town Cohon realizes we're near their first space in the Novato suburbs and suggests we stop by to see how it's held up since they moved out a few years back. On the way, von Nagel explains that soon after the band formed in 2007, he and Kunkel rented a house and started building a small, soundproof booth in the middle of the conveniently sized second living room. With materials "borrowed" from construction sites and high quality Auralex soundproofing foam to line the inside, the guys eventually had a workable room-within-a-room walled in with thick plywood that reached the ceiling, all reinforced with metal plates on the outside. Hell, they even fashioned a door with thick-paned glass so the numerous people the place eventually became host to could watch without shattering their eardrums inside. After writing and rehearsing both The Last Tree and most of full-length debut Metazoa, the band turned the house over to some friends, and it essentially became a squat not too long after.
As we pull up to the house, the guys let out a collective "holy shit." The place is a wreck. A bass amp and a few odds and ends are sitting on the driveway with "FREE" spray painted on a piece of cardboard behind them. The lawn is overgrown and the entire property looks like it's a few spores of black mold away from being condemned. "Oh God, you're taking pictures," von Nagel says dryly as he whips out his phone to make a call while the rest of the guys venture into the house. Turns out Greg Nelson – the luthier who's crafted guitars and basses for Solis, Cohon and von Nagel – lives next door. Turns out he's also von Nagel's father-in-law as of last week.
From the wood, a bugled shriek
After a brief tour of Nelson's garage workshop and the band's former practice space/party house, we're back on the road heading west to the Tule Elk Preserve at Point Reyes. During the bumpy 45-minute ride soundtracked by Cohon's "anything goes" playlist including old tyme country, Agalloch, and anything Wino, it hits us just how seriously Cormorant take their DIY identity. Outside of publicist/metal scribe Kim Kelly, the artists who designed the covers for Metazoa and Dwellings (Kunkel's aunt created the art for The Last Tree) and those same albums' producers, every aspect of the band's output exclusively involves the band members and their family. It's the kind of in-house, fiercely independent attitude you'd expect from a punk band, which is kind of how Cormorant started.
"Brennan and I were in a thrashy crossover band called Natural Selection Agency, and then we got kind of bored because we were listening to weirder and weirder music," states von Nagel once we're out on the trail. "I think we heard Agalloch at that point, and Amon Amarth and Opeth, and we sort of wanted to go a little more expansive."
Soon enough, von Nagel and Kunkel broke off and formed Screams and Whispers, a pre-Cormorant band that also marked the beginning of the band's expansive network of family and family friends who have helped the guys out along the way. "We did an EP actually," remembers Kunkel. "It was me on guitar, Arthur on bass and we did it all in one day at this guy's house who didn't even know how to record. He was just this wealthy guy who owed Arthur's relatives a favor. It was really interesting being in this million dollar home just screaming our heads off and playing distorted guitar while his daughter and his wife were staring at us like we're crazy."
And thus, Screams and Whispers', er, Cormorant's recording career was born. But according to both, Cormorant wasn't Cormorant until they acquired Cohon, which took some convincing to lure him away from his job in the country.
"I was in Colorado picking peaches and apricots all year and living in a school bus at the time," recalls Cohon. "Brennan said, 'Hey, I just got a new house with a studio, you can park outside for free.' They were sending me these pictures of their unfinished studio with these really pathetic letters like, 'Come join our little band!'"
It's the kind of ribbing indicative of a band with real chemistry, which is surprising considering how little the guys actually see each other. With members spread across the Bay Area and each working full-time, there just aren't many chances to get together outside of twice-a-week band practice. But back in Cormorant's salad days, they could work out material and jam to their heart's content. After a quick demo, the trio of von Nagel, Kunkel and Cohon set out to write and record the songs that would become The Last Tree, and began several longstanding Cormorant traditions.
"We would always jam; that was what was weird about us in terms of metal," says von Nagel. "We always just come in and jam for the first 20 minutes of practice, even now."
"We had a Pro Tools setup there," continues Cohon. "So every time we jammed we'd put a mic in the middle of the room. We have recordings from maybe 200 practices, all different jams."
The majority of material for The Last Tree shows a band consumed by the melodic sensibilities of the Scandinavian death metal scene. Opener "A Dance of Elk Entwined" reflects its animalistic lyrical theme (the rituals of an alpha male elk to keep his status) by hammering primeval Amon Amarth riffery over thumping double bass, while "Two Brothers"' more sophisticated tremolo breaks and double tracked leads were taken from an early Screams and Whispers version of Metazoa's mid-album epic, "Hanging Gardens."
"It's all riffs being taken from other things we had done," admits von Nagel. "'Ballad' was written before many of the other tracks on the EP."
"Ballad" would be 9-minute closer "Ballad of the Beast." Opening with von Nagel's brooding bass line before delving into a tumultuous trek through subdued moments of Agalloch reverb, soaring major key harmonies and numerous time changes bookended by Cohon's father on rainstick and Kunkel's sister, Deborah Spake, dueting with von Nagel in her gorgeous operatic soprano during the outro, the track was not only the band's most ambitious at the time, but also the trail they would follow to even more expansive pastures on Metazoa.
It's those roller coaster twists and that unpredictability that betray the disparate personalities and musical backgrounds which compose Cormorant. Kunkel's interest in reggae and dub music has already been established, and Cohon goes on at length about his teenage years spent playing bluegrass festivals in the Pacific Northwest. Von Nagel was raised on '60s American folk and French traditionals, and didn't discover metal until his late teens. In fact, it was the guitarist for Natural Selection Agency who was responsible for hooking von Nagel on the heavy stuff when the two met in a college course. "He bypassed all that nu metal shit and started me on the good stuff right away," says von Nagel, adding with a laugh, "then he told me I should play bass because it was the easiest. It only has four strings!"
Which leaves Solis as Cormorant's de facto "metal dude." A longtime active member of the Bay Area scene with bands like Shitstorm and power metal outfit In Virtue on his resùmè, the amiable guitarist with the flowing blonde locks so closely resembles a hirsute Scandinavian metaller that his initial meeting with the band was a case of mistaken identity.
"I was at an Enslaved show with my friend Luke, who incidentally is an old classmate of Nick's," recalls Solis. "They were passing out CD-R copies of The Last Tree, and they just gave it to me because Nick and Luke were talking."
"I thought he was Grutle [Kjellson, Enslaved bassist/vocalist]!" says Cohon, laughing. "I was standing in front of him like, 'Arthur, isn't that the singer? How does Luke know Grutle?'"
Cohon may not have spotted black metal royalty that night, but he did pick out his musical foil. Solis' disciplined playing complemented Cohon's emotive bursts of bluesy classic rockisms. The two jived during Solis' first jam session (the guys won't call it an audition), and pretty soon he was in. Solis squints against the midday sun breaking through the mountains of fog rolling in off the Pacific Ocean as he explains what made him join the relatively unknown, unsigned band with only an unpackaged EP under its collective belt. "I've played in bands enough that I know when I don't have a musical connection with someone," he says. "I'm not like a big technical, sweepy guy, but that's more of my style and how I came through playing with bands. If you listen to our band, you can definitely tell the difference between Nick's style and my style. I never understand when there's two guitarists in a band playing the same shit. There are so many places you could go with two electric guitars that we're still exploring."
Fins punctured cities, bled sulfur and smoke
Cormorant and their newfound guitarist set out on their musical expedition almost immediately, with Solis contributing to the few new songs the band had in the tank. "The only songs that were partially written for Metazoa were 'Scavengers Feast' and the first part of 'Uneasy Lies the Head,' recalls Cohon. "Matt came in and added the whole Viking chant to the end of 'Uneasy' and then brought in 'Emigrant's Wake.' It blew up after that."
The rest of the summer of 2008 was spent sweating out the new material in the band's "space pod" home studio, occasionally demoing the tracks for whoever happened to be in the house at the time. "You get a bunch of tube amps plus a bunch of sweaty guys," says Solis. "And sometimes there'd be other people watching us practice. There were four people living in that house at all times and these guys have a lot of friends. We'd have parties and play with the door open. I just remember it being fucking hot in there, which might have lent itself to the aggression of the riffs in a certain way."
Metazoa reflects the conditions under which it was written. Equal parts boisterous melody and gnashing metallic ferocity, the album is brimming with Cormorant's newfound energy from a freshly solidified lineup and a willingness to include damn near anything they could think of at the time. Visions of mandolins, pianos, cellos, operatic female vocals (again courtesy of Kunkel's sister) and drunken pirate wails all swirled together to form the chaotic miasma that would eventually become Metazoa. The band demoed the entire album at home in late 2008 before reaching out to the one producer in the Bay Area with the ear for the weird it took to flesh out the material's sparser moments.
"Billy Anderson is like your awesome uncle," says von Nagel with a grin. "He tells dirty jokes and he's awesome to work with. He's kind of like Pollock where he'll throw shit all over the place and see what works."
The famed producer of West Coast heavy hitters like Neurosis, the Melvins and High on Fire inherited a band so well rehearsed they kept most of the scratch tracks after banging the entire album out live in a four-day frenzy. Layer upon layer of guitar leads were added, and an entire jam, "Hole in the Sea," made its way onto tape. Cormorant were on fire, as was the rest of the Oakland neighborhood where Shark Bite Studio was located.
"That guy was shot on BART on New Year's Eve and Billy was looking it up online and said, 'That's like right here,'" says Solis. "We came outside and there were helicopters and cars on fire."
Oakland's apocalyptic landscape didn't scare away Cormorant's buddies in Judgement Day and Giant Squid from stopping by to make some guest shots. Lewis Patzner and Aaron Gregory lent their cello and "drunken pirate vocals," respectively, to the aforementioned "Hole in the Sea," with Patzner adding his mournful strings to a few more tracks. "Aaron has a distinctive vocal style that's difficult to fit with what we do," says Solis. "'Hole in the Sea' was the first thought because it's so experimental, plus it's got that nautical theme to it. We sent him some demos and bought him a six pack of Newcastle and a pizza and he did those vocals in about five hours."
Von Nagel's vocals didn't come nearly so easily. If his lyrics on Metazoa read like poetry, that's because they are. And if detailed verses like "Hanging Gardens"--11-and-a-half-minutes of iambic pentameter--weren't difficult enough to shoehorn into a song, most of his words were written well before the music.
"I realized how different writing poetry is from writing lyrics because you have rhythm imposed on you," says von Nagel. "I had to fit it in. When I was growing up I wanted to write poetry and philosophy, so that's my background. Writing lyrics after the music is a totally different experience. Nick was the one who was recording the demos so we would do those and then we would change the syllables and just pop random screams in there. Then I would try to map the lyrics into that basic scheme."
Like the rest of Metazoa, it was a chaotic process that somehow begat a uniform finished product. Take Metazoa's opener "Scavengers Feast" and last song proper, "Sky Burial," for example. The former is a reflection on how carrion ruthlessly harvest the lifeless husks of Earth's creatures for nutrition, no sense of order to the madness: "The flies, the ants, the carrion thrive . . . and the world, the world still turns." The latter details a ritual practiced by Buddhists in which they leave the corpse of a recently deceased person in the open air for indigenous birds of prey to eat: "In parts I lie, staring at the clouds/And listening to the vultures sing." This act allows the person's soul to return to the sky from which it came, bringing his life full circle: "At light I wake, a being reborn." The two bookending tracks do the same for Metazoa, bringing to close a record unintentionally tied together by the common theme of animals, hence the title.
None speak of the pious in history
Overall, as pleased as Cormorant were with how Metazoa turned out, the band regarded it as a learning experience, a set of dos and don'ts to adhere to for future records. Or, as Solis puts it, "It's a giant pain in the ass when you're trying to adhere to a schedule and keep things simple as possible." By the time they self-released Metazoa in late 2010, Cormorant already had a few songs in the tank that fulfilled the collective aim for simplicity.
Cormorant nailed down the rest of Dwellings at Chuck Brown's studio, a safe haven for a band looking to buckle down and strip away the material they deemed unnecessary. "At the old house where we wrote Metazoa it was a lot easier to let recreation in," says Kunkel. "You get a little side tracked. This place we were only there to play music."
The result was seven songs as feral, raw and primal as Metazoa was triumphant, melodic and ambitious, which is exactly how von Nagel saw them when it came to write the lyrics, this time after the music. "None of our albums are concept albums, but they all have a theme," he says. "Dwellings was very human and dark, and about ambition and conflict. It was very much about human structures and buildings and language and different ways we constrain the world around us and try to dominate it as human beings."
Bookended by the aforementioned "The First Man" and "Unearthly Dreamings" (the tale of the first casualty in space, Vladmir Komarov), Dwellings is a collection of chapters about mankind's struggle; either against our fears, each other or the pale blue pebble in the vast cosmic stream we've inherited from our ancestors.
Throughout Dwellings we conquer those fears, as told in "Funambulist," based on Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between the Two Towers in 1974. The idea for the song came after Solis saw Man on Wire – the 2008 documentary detailing the events up and to including the actual walk – and told von Nagel about it after the initial syllables and some spoken word were already written. "That was the first song we wrote from that album after Metazoa, and we were playing it live back in 2010," says Solis. "I think I had just seen the movie, and that part at the end where Arthur's speaking French always sounded to me like what he would sound like being alone on the wire. So I connected the two and Arthur saw the film and read about the story. A lot of the riffs are airy, and there's some fast, gallopy stuff that lends itself well to the drama of them trying to sneak into the World Trade Center, so it kind of worked out storywise."
Thus, the benefits of matching lyrics to the finished music paid off immediately. "I just listen to the riffs and close my eyes and wait for images to show, and then I match those images to stories I know or want to embellish," explains von Nagel. "For example, we called 'The Howling Dust' 'The Western Song' for months, because it feels dusty and has that old time folky start to it a little bit. So I read four or five books on Western things and found that one."
It's a staggering amount of dedication that von Nagel applies to each and every song. If there were a Pulitzer Prize for metal, von Nagel would be the top candidate solely for his work on "Junta," Dwellings' masterful centerpiece retelling the atrocities committed by the Guinean military against a crowd of protesters in 2009. "I heard that story and I tried to write a song about it for a year," von Nagel reveals. "It was just really horrible; I didn't really have the words for it. That song is pretty different. It's not very structured in a poetic sense; it's just really stark. It's journalistic."
Reading lines like "Bayonets puncture eyes" and "Women raped with gun barrels" is chilling enough, but to hear von Nagel deliver them in his untamed roar is downright terrifying. He credits his ferocious performance throughout Dwellings to producer Justin Weis, who recorded, mixed and mastered the album at Trakworx Studios in South San Francisco. "He really cared about the delivery in terms of almost making it like a play," says von Nagel. "He'd go through the lyrics with me and say, 'What's your character? You need to be consistent all the way through.' And if I deviated from that character, he'd call me on it and say, 'Stop, you need to start again.'"
Weis' vocal coaching, combined with von Nagel's having written his lyrics around the structure of each song, allowed for the some of the most dramatic moments captured on a metal record since Bruce Dickinson's desperate cry of "Run for your lives!" Von Nagel's description of a girl too in fear of disgracing her family to consult her doctor after being raped by Guinean soldiers in "Junta" is as disturbing as his chant of "Burn, burn the ties that bind/Mortals from this terrene rind" is triumphant on "Unearthly Dreamings." "It's not like writing poetry," he reveals. "It's like writing an adapted screenplay, because you're fitting a lot of content into these little snippets of verses, and you have to pick the most essential parts of the story so that it makes sense. And I'm trying to make it where, if it's intense, somebody has to die or something horrible has to happen. Or if it's quiet here, somebody has to be contemplative."
It's those moments – the parts of the songs' stories told by both the music and the lyrics – which truly stand out. There is great sorrow in the solo following von Nagel's spoken word section on "The First Man," as well as tactile serenity as Petit walks, lies down and turns on his tightrope on "Funambulist." One can sense the lull in the crowd of protestors through Kunkel's martial pacing on "Junta"; one can hear ambition and avarice consume infamous conquistador Lope de Aguirre as he commits increasingly savage acts against Peruvian natives in his quest for El Dorado in "The Purest Land"; and one can hear the celebration of human achievement mixed with impending tragedy as Solis and Cohon's riffs intertwine like twin exhaust trails climbing further into the stratosphere as "Unearthly Dreamings" draws to its fatal end. Each song is about something and each song tells a story. Every note played on Dwellings ties into the album's theme in some way.
Hell, even winding, "YYZ"-esque instrumental jam "Confusion of Tongues" is named for the dispersion of languages through the mixing of cultures over time. It also relates to the Tower of Babel, which was the basis for the massive, Bosch-inspired triptych foldout in which the CD is housed. Von Nagel scoured DeviantArt for months before finding Alice Duke's work. The band communicated with her daily, sending back nearly a dozen pieces before the final product made its way from Duke's native England. Kunkel shrugs and laughs, saying "After the Metazoa album cover, we said, 'We can't outdo this, we're going to scale back and make it much simpler.' And I don't know what happened from there."
Aside from its packaging, everything else about Dwellings isn't just simpler than Metazoa, but more direct. There's minimal multitracking, and the band didn't employ any guest musicians or other instruments outside of the basic guitars, drums, bass and vocals. Weis proved to be just the guy to produce an album that was the antithesis of its predecessor in nearly every way, right down to his workmanlike approach. Where Anderson would "get up and walk around really restlessly," Solis says, Weis "sits in a chair for 10 straight hours, eats some pizza, looks like Chris Cornell and goes down the list."
"He's like a goddamn machine," he adds.
Which isn't to say Cormorant didn't enjoy their experience at Trakworx. In fact, the guys were fascinated by the intensely focused sessions, taking in every minute detail Weis employed to make sure the 50-odd minutes of music laid to tape attained the gorgeous analog glow that previous recordings by Bay Area vets like Hammers of Misfortune and Ludicra did. "He actually hooked up a mannequin head and put two mics right where the ears are and set it in the middle of the room so he could get a good drum mix," enthuses Cohon. "Arthur was singing out of $10,000 mics. He has these eight foot ribbon speakers and all this vintage gear."
"He has a really sensitive ear," Kunkel continues. "He spent a lot of time listening to it turned down really low. He'd play it, then turn it down really softly and listen to the mix, then he'd pan it to this shitty little radio and have it come out of there so he could hear it on all levels."
After a half-year delay due to their repeated rejection of Duke's artwork ("she probably regretted working with us afterwards," von Nagel jokes), the fulfillment of their offer to print the names of every fan who preordered the physical album on its liner notes and an all night, assembly line flurry led by von Nagel's mother to compile and mail the various hundreds of package deals, Cormorant finally self-released Dwellings in December 2011, just in time for the staff at every print and online music publication to argue over whether it was too late to be eligible for best-of-lists. Lars Gotrich of NPR seemed pretty sure of Dwellings' stance among 2011's best releases, as he not only declared it the best metal record of the year, but also secured it a spot on the site's general year-end list. "It wasn't just the metal ghetto," says von Nagel as the rest of the guys chuckle. "There's Beyoncé, and there's the Cormorant album."
Not bad for a self-released record by a band that has yet to complete a full tour. With no label to back them and a growing but widely dispersed fan base, booking shows is a patience-breaking task von Nagel's just starting to get a handle on, especially when "I swear, we're huge on the Internet" won't cut it for many venue bookers. "Show promoters are notoriously weird," laments Solis. "And even though our record has been doing OK, no one on a large level knows who we are. So, we're pretty much coming at these people like, 'Hey, want to book these two bands you've never heard of?'" That would be Cormorant and Young Hunter, the Arizona psych-doom band the guys will be taking along for a 10-day jaunt up the West Coast this June. It's the next step towards proving DIY isn't just a phase, but a real, sustainable approach to making art in this age of music industry scheistery and major label implosions.
Cormorant self-released Metazoa out of necessity after sitting on it for eight months looking for a label. Dwellings represents the full realization of the band's determination to create great art independent of anyone outside of the four guys playing the instruments. Think of it as quality control. Free of label input, Cormorant's music is uncorrupted by any outside ears, a 100% authentic creation. The best part? Fans know exactly where their money is going, and they feel like a part of the finished product is theirs. "People feel good about supporting us and that their money is helping the band they like do what they want to do," says Solis. "All you need to worry about is distribution, and all you need to do to figure that out is put in some work. As long as a band is willing to do that, there's no reason they would need a label."
As evidenced by the near-sweat shop conditions von Nagel's mother's home took on during the packaging for Dwellings, Cormorant are at about the limit with what they can handle by themselves as a small business. Distribution is indeed difficult, and the band received so many preorders that their PayPal account was temporarily shut down until von Nagel could prove they could deliver everything. If business grows any larger than the massive package deals for Dwellings, von Nagel says, Cormorant will need to incorporate as a label, much like Neurosis did in the late '90s after breaking from Relapse. And really, there's much worse company to keep than with one of the most ethical, influential and fiercely independent bands in the history of heavy music. Cormorant have a ways to go, but this is all hypothetical anyway. There's really no end goal for the band other than to make thoughtful, artistically sound music as an autonomous collective, and they're doing a pretty damn good job of that at the moment.
The next thing on the horizon is sharpening the material for their upcoming tour. As we hike back across the trail's final stretch overlooking the Pacific with the sun at our backs, the guys talk about the current rehearsal space they share with a group of other bands, a place that's sure to become a second home as they hunker down to tighten up over the next few weeks. After three years, they're back in a sweaty room with a ton of people. They'll surely reacclimate to it. And hey, it beats a plywood box with no ventilation in the suburbs.
Cormorant's Remaining Tour Dates
June 06
The Crocodile
Seattle, Washington
June 08
Hell's Kitchen
Tacoma, Washington
June 09
The Shakedown
Bellingham, Washington
June 10
The Town House Lounge
Sacramento, California


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Multiple Teams · New Baseball Assistants join CHS staff
Cleveland High School is pleased to announce the hiring of Dustin Fromm and Dustin McPherson as assistant baseball coaches for the upcoming school year. Both have a tremendous amount of experience and success as coaches in highly competitive baseball programs. Longtime Cleveland High School Baseball Coach Ted Carson will continue to be active the baseball


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Condition : Toshiba Reconditioned to A+ Standards With Toshiba Quality Seal.. 1 Year Warranty. First 3 Months Free Collect & Return Direct with Toshiba followed by 9 Months Return To Base / Store Warranty with Laptop Outlet. (See Terms / Warranty / FAQ section for More Details. )
- Description
Buy Cheap Toshiba Portege R30
This light weight laptop tips the scale like an ultra-portable, but packs a punch like a heavyweight. Its features like DVD drive and a wide range of full-size ports makes it superior to other light weight laptops. This 1.5kgs heavy laptop features Intel Core processors which gives you great performance and saves energy at the same time.
Speed You Need
With amazing Intel Core processor your laptop can dazzle in all situations. Get your job done quickly and save power at the same time with CPU and improved integrated HD graphics. Toshiba Portege R30 takes your computing device to the next level as it is ideal for multitasking and running power-hungry graphics application. With its long lasting battery you get up to nine hours of productivity between the charges. Toshiba Portege R30 is ideal for full day meetings and long flight.
More Drive
Unlike many other ultra-portables, the Portege R30 features a built in SuperMulti DVD Drive to give you professional performance. SuperMulti DVD drive can read and write the most popular disc formats. With Portege R30 you get the freedom to choose between fast 7200 rpm HDDs or even faster state-of-the-art SSD drives.
Fully Connected
Toshiba Portege R30 does not compromise on connectivity. It provides you a complete range of connectivity options so you can easily connect to your world. VGA and HDMI lets you connect to projector and large screen TVs whereas SD card slot lets you share files and load programs quickly and easily. Share your data more quickly or charge your devices with USB 3.0 port. Gigabit LAN enables you to take advantage of high speed local networks, and also support high speed Bluetooth 4.0.
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Enjoy vibrant and bright visuals indoor and outdoor with its backlit 33.8 cm (13.3) Toshiba High Definition Display. Its built-in stereo speakers are enhanced with DTS Studio Sound for a richer laptop audio experience. Enjoy better presentations with high audio quality by connecting it projector via HDMI or VGA port.
Ultra Durable Design
Toshiba Portege R30 has highly durable chassis which features Toshiba's reinforced honeycomb structure for rigidity and high impact resistance. Passing through HALT test is promises high performance under extreme conditions, including drops, sudden shocks and spills. It features HDDs which are padded against shocks and also uses a sophisticated 3D accelerometer to shut down the drive when it senses unexpected shock or vibration.
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It allows remote updates of users' systems by Intel Active Management Technology (AMT). Make your data more secured and prevent it from loss by Intel® Trusted Platform Module (TPM). For further security it features a fingerprint reader, Kensington lock slot and optional smart card.
- Specification
SKU RCN-R30-A-15D Condition Status Toshiba Reconditioned Model R30-15D Warranty 1 Year HDMI 1 × HDMI-out supporting 1080p signal format Network Card Gigabit Ethernet LAN Card Reader Multi-Card Reader MPN PT341E-03U00SEN Speakers built-in stereo speakers, enhanced by DTS Studio Sound Bluetooth Bluetooth 4.0
- Delivery
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If you want your desired product to be delivered next working day you will have to place your order before 3pm. The delivery charge is £6.95 at the time of placing order. This option does not include delivery on Saturday or Sunday.
- Reviews


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Drug breaches in endurance must be cut, delegates agree
A round-table meeting called by the FEI on endurance has mapped out a strategy for the discipline, but only time will tell whether it will ease tensions over worrying levels of drug infractions and injuries in the Middle East.
The world governing body for equestrian sport said Wednesday's meeting at its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, achieved unanimous support for a strategy mapped out for endurance by the FEI.
The meeting drew 22 delegates, including representatives from Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the European Equestrian Federation, the FEI Endurance Committee and FEI Headquarters.
Delegates agreed that, globally, all efforts would be made to reduce the numbers of horses testing positive for prohibited substances and suffering injuries.
The FEI said delegates agreed that the current rules, when fully implemented, already served the sport well.
However, the group recommended a plan for the FEI Bureau to consider, which included the support of all rule changes already proposed for consideration by national federations and approval at the FEI General Assembly, and a series of short-term proposals for immediate consideration by the FEI Bureau.
These are:
- A global endurance injuries project to be started as soon as possible;
- Reinforcement of the duties and obligations of FEI Officials;
- Increased levels of testing for prohibited substances across the discipline in all regions.
Delegates also called for the establishment of a strategic planning group to develop a plan for the future of endurance over the next decade. The FEI Bureau will be asked to approve the proposal, its mission, terms of reference and its constitution at its teleconference meeting on August 12. If approved by the bureau, the strategic planning group will present its "plan in outline" at the General Assembly.
"Today we have had a full and frank discussion about the challenges for endurance," said Andrew Finding, the European Equestrian Federation board member who chaired the round-table session.
"The outcome of today's meeting is that we have unanimous agreement over the tasks to be completed. I have been impressed by the courage, commitment and determination of all delegates to move forward positively throughout today's meeting."
FEI Secretary General Ingmar De Vos added: "We are very satisfied that this round table was able to come up with a unanimous conclusion, which shows the engagement and understanding of all involved in the sport of Endurance."
The meeting was called as a result of growing concerns expressed by several national federations over drug infractions and injury rates in the Middle East.
One European national federation even raised the prospect of a breakaway group to distance the wider sport from the ongoing problems.
For the last decade, endurance has been the fastest-growing FEI discipline in terms of the number of FEI events and FEI riders and horses. Two years ago it surpassed dressage as the second-largest FEI discipline and there has even been talk of the FEI trying to gain Olympic status for endurance.
But the disciplinary decisions from the FEI over the last eight years provide a sorry litany of drug infractions in endurance, with a solid majority originating from the Middle East. It has been a blight on the growing status of the sport.
The Swiss Equestrian Federation led the charge on the issue over infractions in the Middle East, writing to FEI secretary general Ingmar de Vos late in March on the issue.
Its president, Charles Trolliet, and a board member, Peter Christen, laid out the federation's concerns in a three-page letter, saying they were writing on behalf of worried riders, trainers and officials, as well as the public, media, and animal protection groups.
The pair said the Swiss federation could not accept the situation any longer, citing animal welfare concerns and the fairness of competitions.
The letter discussed drug concerns and "tremendous" fracture rates.
It noted that, from 2010 to 2012, 41 endurance horses were found to be positive for banned substances.
By comparison, the discipline of jumping, which had 31,064 registered horses – more than three times the number registered for endurance – recorded 19 infringements in the same period.
Notably, the letter said, 82.9 per cent of the cases in endurance originated from the FEI's zone VII – the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and Jordan.
The letter asserted that such breaches indicated "a clear disrespect of certain riders, trainers and veterinarians concerning the welfare of horses in sport and the FEI code of conduct".
The federation called on the FEI to take immediate measures to increase medication controls, especially in nations known to have a high frequency of positive test results.
It suggested a system be introduced allowing for the temporary exclusion of nations with a poor doping record.
"This critical situation … is of the highest potential explosive relevance," the letter said, "putting at risk the image of all other FEI equestrian disciplines."
The Swiss raised the prospect of an international movement of riders, trainers and officials being created who were no longer willing to accept the situation.
The French federation had written to the FEI about the welfare issue, in rather briefer terms, in October last year.
National sports director Pascal Dubois suggested if the issue was not addressed, it threatened to tarnish the reputation of endurance.
It is understood that Belgian officials had also complained.


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$310,000 Japanese cosmetic box has one lucky investor 'made-up'
$310,000 Japanese cosmetic box has one lucky investor 'made-up'
An early 20th century Gyokuzan cosmetic box was the leading lot at Bonhams last week
A rare early 20th century cosmetic box by Asahi Gyokuzan was one of the highlights of Bonhams' fine Japanese art sale in London on May 12.
The cosmetic box, which realised 192,000, is made of white paulownia wood and represents the hallmark of the finest Japanese art: the depiction of the transience of nature.
This 192,000 Japanese box was the top lot at Bonhams
Asahi Gyokuzan was a designated Imperial Court Artist and one of the most famous and influential carvers in Japan during the Meiji period (1868-1912).
Another highlight of the sale for investors was a lacquer tobacco container by the renowned artist Zibata Zeshin, one of the most admired painters and lacquerers of the Meiji period.
It made 96,000, far beyond its 30,000 high-side estimate.
The bookmarklet lets you save things you find to your collections.
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Click and drag the Collect It button to your browser's Bookmark Bar.


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Teodorin Obiang's car collection
Many cars in France and Switzerland have been confiscated, but he still own at least 50 Super Cars, in total Teodorin spend over usd200million on cars
Teodorin Obiang get 11 more Super cars confiscated by Swiss Police in Geneva Airport(Free Zone) 3rd of November 2016.
Nine luxury sport cars owned by Teodorin Obiang, the playboy son of Equatorial Guinea's president, have been auctioned in Paris, fetching $4.1 millones.
Some of the cars lost recently
Confiscated in Geneva 11 coches
Aston Martin One 77 red burgundy
Bugatti Veyron blue
Ferrari 599 GTO yellow
Ferrari F12 black
McLaren P1 yellow
Ferrari Enzo Yellow
Ferrari LaFerrari yellow
Koenigsegg One:1, blue
Porsche 918 Amarillo
Confiscated in Paris 9 coches
Maserati MC12
Lamborghini Veneno Roadster
Confiscated in Malibu
En 2014, the US Department of Justice accused Teodorin Obiang of laundering funds from corruption and seized his $30 million mansion in Malibu, a Gulfstream jet and 28 collector's cars.
Follow Obiang on Instagram
https://www.youtube.com / watch?v=sCrCDq52Xes


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Reconciliation and First Reconciliation
The Catholic sacrament of Reconciliation (also known as the Sacrament of Penance, or Penance and Reconciliation) has four elements: conversion, confession, forgiveness and celebration. In it we find God's unconditional forgiveness, and, as a result, we are called to forgive others.
Reconciliation is celebrated at St. Gabriel Catholic Church:
- Weekly, every Saturday, from 3:30 to 4:30 pm. The Confessionals (which offer the penatent the option of face-to-face or anonymous/screened confessions) are located in the hallway to the left of the narthex.
- By appointment with one of our priests. Find contact information here.
- At parish-wide Penance Services during Advent and Lent. The service dates and times are announced in the bulletin and on this website several weeks before the date.
There are four steps in the sacrament of Reconciliation:
- We feel contrition for our sins and a conversion of heart to change our ways.
- We confess our sins and human sinfulness to a priest.
- We receive and accept forgiveness (absolution) and are absolved of our sins.
- We celebrate God's everlasting love for us and commit to live out a Christian life.
Sin hurts our relationship with God, ourselves and others. As the Catechism states:
The sinner wounds God's honor and love, his own human dignity…and the spiritual well-being of the Church, of which each Christian ought to be a living stone. To the eyes of faith no evil is graver than sin and nothing has worse consequences for the sinners themselves, for the Church, and for the whole world. (CCC 1487, 1488)
A mature understanding of sin includes reflecting upon our thoughts, actions and omissions as well as examining the patterns of sin that may arise in our lives. With contrite hearts, we are also called to reflect upon the effects of our sins upon the wider community and how we might participate in sinful systems.
Contrition and conversion lead us to seek a forgiveness for our sins so as to repair damaged relationships with God, self, and others. We believe that only ordained priests have the faculty of absolving sins from the authority of the Church in the name of Jesus Christ (CCC 1495). Our sins are forgiven by God, through the priest.
The Spiritual effects of the Sacraments of Reconciliation include:
- reconciliation with God by which the penitent recovers grace
- reconciliation with the Church
- remission of the eternal punishment incurred by mortal sins
- remission, at least in part, of temporal punishments resulting from sin
- peace and serenity of conscience, and spiritual consolation
- an increase of spiritual strength for the Christian battle (CCC 1496)
Individual confession with a priest is the principal means of absolution and reconciliation of grave sins within the Church. The Sacrament of Reconciliation frees us from sinful patterns of behavior and calls us to complete conversion to Christ. Reconciliation heals our sins and repairs our relationships.