text:
Zimbra on FreeBSD
General information
The Perforce cache gives users access to download and build/modify Zimbra source code for Open Source products. Building Zimbra Collaboration Suite from Zimbra's Perforce cache requires advanced knowledge of troubleshooting. It is not available for Network Edition components. Changes cannot be committed to the Perforce cache.
By building Zimbra, you agree to Zimbra's licensing terms. Building from source is not covered under the ZEUL, unlike pre-compiled binaries, but rather the YPL.
By fetching Zimbra from zimbra.imladris.sk, you agree to Zimbra's licensing terms. I am not good at legal stuff, screw it.
Technical support for source building can be found in the Zimbra Developers forum.
Zimbra does not support FreeBSD out of the box and there are no plans for the future support (or so we all heard). I tried to integrate FreeBSD into source tree as much as possible so the same version should compile fine on other supported systems.
GNR-601 *was* the latest 6.0 series release at the time of writing this document. Current version and changelist can be found on Pmweb.
This document summarizes everything related to GNR-601 on FreeBSD-7, however patched GNR-601 will build on FreeBSD-6 and FreeBSD-8 as well.
Patch notes
This is a complete rework of GNR-601 source tree and it sometimes makes things better than the original. Some notable changes:
1) openssl, bdb, libtool, popt, expat, pcre, libxml2, tcmalloc are used from base system.
Rest is too Zimbra specific and would be of no other use on the system.
2) most perl modules are used from base system. Those left unchanged are:
Getopt::Easy - not in /usr/ports and it's not really used at all besides one tiny script (no idea why not using Getopt::Long like usual),
DBD::mysql - mysql specific includes/libs not part of base,
Net-LDAPapi - ldap/cyrus-sasl specific includes/libs not part of base,
Mail-SpamAssassin - requires different datadir.
3) FreeBSD specific includes in ZimbraBuild/defs/FreeBSD* and ZimbraBuild/defs/ThirdParty/*
4) package generation is handled by pkg_create so we install real FreeBSD specific packages.
5) complete rework of PRE-INSTALL/POST-INSTALL/DEINSTALL scripts in ZimbraBuild/rpmconf/Spec/Scripts/FreeBSD.
6) every su - zimbra -c call has been replaced by sudo -u zimbra -i -- -c call because su+bash is hitting a race condition on FreeBSD-7.2 (and other systems.. like Linux) which causes some scripts to hang up indefinitely.
7) libexec/zmfixperms now fixes all needed permissions. It is called in every POST-INSTALL script.
Building GNR-601 on FreeBSD-7.2_amd64
Installing GNR-601 on FreeBSD-7.2_amd64 without building
Building GNR-601 on FreeBSD-7.2_i386
Installing GNR-601 on FreeBSD-7.2_i386 without building
Suggested tweaks
1) cpu spikes every minute or two:
su - zimbra zmlocalconfig -e zmmtaconfig_interval=6000 zmprov mcf zimbraLogRawLifetime 7d zmprov mcf zimbraLogSummaryLifetime 30d /opt/zimbra/libexec/zmlogprocess
sed -I "" -e s'|.* \* \* \* \* /opt/zimbra/libexec/zmstatuslog|\*/60 \* \* \* \* /opt/zimbra/libexec/zmstatuslog|' /var/cron/tabs/zimbra
1) create a Zimbra FreeBSD specific start-up script in /usr/local/etc/rc.d.
I failed miserably at the attempt so please someone supply somehow..
This is the part where opensource community unites to solve all the problems!
New versions
I will try to keep this project real. If you don't see the new version here, please write me a request. New versions require the same steps as the old versions unless stated otherwise (e.g.: just substitute '601' with '602').
patch GNR-601 -> GNR-601 FreeBSD
GNR-601 FreeBSD_7_amd64 packages
patch GNR-602 -> GNR-602 FreeBSD
GNR-602 FreeBSD_7_amd64 packages
patch GNR-603 -> GNR-603 FreeBSD
GNR-603 FreeBSD_7_amd64 packages
GNR-603 FreeBSD_8_amd64 packages
patch GNR-604 -> GNR-604 FreeBSD
GNR-604 FreeBSD_8_amd64 packages
1) sudo versions >= 1.7 do not work
sudo -u zimbra -l -- -lc command
fails so please use lower version until someone finds the fix!
--Solko 10:07, 9 February 2010 (UTC)


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Insulin level tracking?
I'm wondering something kind of stupid this morning, which is why we don't track people's insulin levels. Or maybe we do and I don't know about it? In which case, how do I get myself a Quantified Self insulin tracker?
Here's a bit of background to explain why I'm asking this. Insulin levels in your blood regulate the speed at which sugar in your blood is turned into fat, and similarly they regulate how quickly fat cells release fat into the bloodstream.
If someone without diabetes eats something sweet their insulin levels shoot up to collect all the blood so the blood sugar levels doesn't get toxic. Because what's really important, as diabetics know, is that blood sugar levels remain not too high nor too low. Type I diabetics don't make insulin, and Type II diabetics don't respond to insulin properly.
OK so here's the thing. I'm pretty sure my insulin levels are normally a bit high, and that when I eat sugar or bread they spike up dramatically. And although that might sound like the opposite of diabetes, it's actually the precursor to diabetes, where my body goes nuts making insulin and then my organs become resistant to it.
But first of all, I'd like to know if I'm right – are my insulin levels elevated? – and second of all, I'd like to know how much my body reacts, insulin-wise, to eating and drinking various things. For instance, I drink a lot of coffee, and I'd like to know what that does to my insulin levels. And what about Coke Zero?
I am probably going to be disappointed here. I know that the critical level to keep track of for diabetics, blood sugar, is still pretty hard to do, although recent continuous monitors do exist and are helping. So if anyone knows of a "continuous insulin monitor" please tell me!
One last word about why insulin. I am fairly convinced that the insulin levels – combined with a measure of their insulin resistance – would explain a lot about why certain people retain fat where others don't with the same diet. And it would be such a relief to stop arguing about willpower and start understanding this stuff scientifically.
One last thing. Please do not comment below telling me how to lose weight or talking about how to have more willpower: I will delete such comments! Please do comment on the scientific issues around the mechanisms of insulin, data collection, and potentially modeling with that data.
December 18, 2013 at 7:09 am
You can have your HbA1C levels checked and it gives you a good estimate of your average blood sugar levels over the past four months.
December 18, 2013 at 7:14 am
An interesting discussion of insulin and sugar imbalances can be found on "The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health and Disease", especially on chapter 10. It's not only about your sugar intake, but how (with or without fiber) you ingest it.
December 18, 2013 at 7:37 am
like all preventative care or testing, it has risks (infection for one, false positives for another – if I thought about it I could come with more). The question then becomes, does the risk outweigh the benefits? I would guess no, as I don't see any thing gained other than satisfying you're curiosity. If you were really interested you could find a freind that had gestational diabetes and borrow or buy their monitor – then just get test strips. If you drink coffee without sugar it should not matter.
December 18, 2013 at 7:44 am
I really recommend this lecture. It has enough detail to convince that he REALLY knows what he is talking about while remaining mostly accessible to the non-endocrinologist. He explains in great detail at the cellular level how the very complex systems of hormones and enzymes work to metabolize food and regulate hunger and weight.
Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin.
December 18, 2013 at 8:48 am
No one makes a continuous insulin tracker. I'm not entirely sure why, but I suspect it could be part due to people with diabetes not wanting to wear yet another device in the skin. Anyone who would wear an insulin monitor is likely already wearing a continuous glucose monitor and an insulin infusion pump. They have to rotate and maintain sites for these, as well as do finger sticks to confirm glucose several times a day. That said, as diabetes technology gets smarter and more algorithm driven (as we head towards an artificial pancreas, in which the pump and CGM talk and an algorithm does glucose control), perhaps the insulin data will become valuable enough that this device will be a reality. When thinking about health and medical devices, keep in mind that technology, standardization, data, use if algorithms, etc., is at least ten years lagging behind other areas : (
December 18, 2013 at 9:10 am
I always thought that glucose levels were a proxy for insulin and how your body produced and utilized insulin, and consequently, metabolized sugar. But, IMHO, no amount of genetic re-engineering can compensate for the piles and piles of refined sugar that we have introduced into the modern diet; nor for the high caloric values of junk food. Evolution never expected us to abuse our bodies the way that we do now.
December 18, 2013 at 9:05 am
Delighted that you started this conversation. I can refer you to http://www.diabetes247.com, an excellent resource for the type 1 diabetes community. Its author, Elizabeth Snouffer, has reported at length on her use of a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) and the data she captures about patterns in her blood glucose levels. Medtronic and Dexcom seem to be the primary medical device companies that offer the CGM, data capture/analytics, custom reporting, etc. Their websites likely explain it all clearly, and there are likely many other players in the market. The Medtronic system transmits glucose data to Medtronic insulin pumps, which many type 1 diabetics now use.
Separately, my 11 year old son has used a CGM on and off for a few years. In the next few weeks, he'll start up again with updated training on use. You are very welcome to join us for this session if you would like to learn more (we're in the NYC area). We're flexible and could likely accommodate your schedule.
Best wishes to you.
December 18, 2013 at 9:12 am
As a physician (not an endocrinologist), I would say that your understanding of insulin levels sounds fairly accurate–though it is not completely understood by anyone at this point.
It would actually be very useful to know exactly how insulin levels react to ingesting various foods, but we don't have a test that we can do continuously to follow this in the laboratory setting, much less at home. A site that explains the insulin test ( http://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/insulin/tab/glance/ ) states, "Although glucose levels can be monitored at home, insulin tests require specialized instruments and training."
You might find the following links interesting, as well–discussing the effect of Splenda on insulin levels, ( http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/261179.php ), and the relationship between insulin levels and obesity, ( http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/253713.php ). I haven't looked up those particular studies, but the discussion in these articles sounds reasonable. If you wanted to really get into this, you could look up the abstracts on PubMed ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed ), but they can be difficult for someone without a medical background to interpret.
December 18, 2013 at 10:28 am
Here's a good resource, a blog called "Diabetes Mine" and Amy is great and debunks a lot of stuff you read that's not accurate. It's been around for quite a few years and I interact with her and if have questions, she's right there to add comments without obtrusive or "telling you what to do"…there's enough of those out there. As far as devices, they do a good job over there talking about many of them as well.
You can certainly get good information from Amy and others there without being tracked and marketed. Again I like the blog because they put and the bad out there.
December 18, 2013 at 2:07 pm
Insulin is a signaling hormone; its presence needs to be detected by cell receptors that have evolved to detect insulin. Glucose is a basic fuel required for the body to do much of anything, which includes making insulin. Based on this, one would expect the concentration (in molecules/volume) of glucose in blood to be several orders of magnitude higher than insulin. Wikipedia presents some easily accessible information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin#Blood_content in particular, see the figure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Suckale08_fig3_glucose_insulin_day.png for an "Idealized" graph.
According to Wikipedia, typical blood levels of insulin between meals are 57-79 pmol/L, while glucose levels are 4.4-6.1 mmol/L. pmol:mmol is 10^-9, or parts-per-billion. You want to use molar quantities to think about this instead of mass, because moles are directly proportional to the number of molecules (insulin has a mass of 5.8 kD, glucose only 0.18 kD). I'll leave the back-of-the-envelope calculation for how much more sensitive an insulin test would have to be to you, but this is one reason that tests for insulin require specialized equipment/training, while tests for glucose are essentially OTC.
As for modeling insulin resistance, there's probably quite a bit out there. You should look on Pubmed (search for "insulin resistance mathematical models" revealed ~7000 articles). However, my guess is that most of these are epistemological regression models, and if you poke around you'll (hopefully) find more mechanistic models. Quite a bit of work has gone into the signaling mechanisms (Pubmed for "insulin signaling pathway" returns 20k articles), both in the pancreas and in other cells, and they seem pretty key to understanding type II diabetes.
Your mechanism/hypothesis linking insulin/fat retention is vague, so it's hard to actually evaluate it. Why isn't there a simpler answer: some people just burn more calories by existing than others? If there is a link between insulin levels and fat retention, it's probably not simple. You do need to actually process glucose into fat. This means that glucose has to be taken in by fat cells, presumably through insulin signaling. This suggests that the link, if it exists, may involve downstream pathways, a different uptake mechanism, or a difference in uptake between fat/muscle cells.
There's a lot already known about this, and an entire NIH institute that funds grants to study it. And there are certainly good opportunities for solid contribution; there may be enough known for models to start being quantitative (if they aren't already), at least for cultured cell studies. However, it is a situation where I'd be wary of "spending a few months in the lab to save a few hours in the library."
December 19, 2013 at 8:12 am
Signaling to what, for what? You don't say.
December 20, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Okay. Keep in mind that this is not my field, so this is largely a cartoon of what happens. If you're actually interested, your local state university library will have these and, if you want to know more, actual access to the research articles.
In multicellular organism, it turns out that different cells need to coordinate with each other, and often use small concentrations of specific molecules for doing so. Cells receive these molecular signals using proteins that sit on the cell membrane; when a signal is received, it is usually amplified internally, and then something happens. The specifics (signaling molecule, receptor, amplification, what happens next) are specific to the process.
Insulin is one of those signaling molecules. Glucose in the blood needs to be tightly regulated. All cells require it to produce the highly-volatile tri-phosphates that let them do anything (ATP and GTP, for example). The process of creating ATP from glucose is the Krebs cycle, and is well-known.
The problem is this: we eat at specific times, but require some amount of glucose at all times, and too much glucose in blood can cause problems (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetic_ketoacidosis). So the body needs to buffer the amount of glucose in the blood by storing it elsewhere and then releasing it upon demand. The body stores glucose, for the long term, in two basic forms: glycogen (in muscle cells) and fat (in fat cells). The basic problem, then, is how does the body keep a certain range of glucose in the blood, given that we eat large quantities 2-3 times a day. The answer is, partially, through insulin.
Insulin is released by the pancreas in response to elevated blood sugar. It's detected by specific receptors on muscle and fat cells which, upon its detection, haul out their glucose uptake machinery and prepare to haul in a lot of excess glucose for conversion into a longer-term storage.
Insulin itself plays no direct role in transforming glucose to fat or glycogen, and it plays no direct role in metabolizing glucose. All of these processes are, more or less, well-known. Insulin primarily regulates glucose uptake by specific cells. There's a whole other side to releasing glucose from longer-term storage when blood sugar levels are depressed, but I don't believe insulin is involved in those pathways.
December 26, 2013 at 9:55 am
Thanks for clarifying — insulin itself plays no direct role in transforming glucose to fat …. [but] primarily regulates glucose uptake by specific cells.
I also found Dr. Attia's blog and discussion on this, very deep.
December 18, 2013 at 6:47 pm
there are a couple reason for not tracking insulin levels: (1) it's tough, compared to sensing glucose levels, due to lower concentrations and more difficult-to-perform bio-assays, and (2) the medicine has all been based to date on controlling the glucose; That is to say it would be quite expensive to develop insulin measuring techniques, and one doesn't know how much it would pay off (compared to measuring glucose).
Maybe it could be useful for you to use a continuous glucose monitor just to see what happens to your glucose levels under various circumstances (eating, not-eating, resting, exercise, etc.). I use a Dexcom: one injects a subcutaneous sensor with a little radio transmitter module (something like 5 microwatts at 450 MHz), and one carries a receiver with graphical readout. It's not really continuous — the data points come every 5 mins or so, but compared to finger-sticking, it's effectively continuous.
I've learned from this meter how really some foods will not work their effects until a couple of hours after eating, while others (e.g., orange juice) will work its effects within 15 minutes (YMMV).
December 18, 2013 at 8:12 pm
The Wikipedia page says it forms up into hexamers and the monomer is the active form. I guess that the UniProtKB sequence length 110 AA means 110 amino acids. So you'd need to detect the specific protein, google says there are monoclonal antibodies available for insulin. So maybe a MEMS device could be used to test for it in blood.
December 18, 2013 at 9:52 pm
Crikey. I hate to be troll-like, but why was my comment deleted? It was topical, sincere and, I thought, helpful.
December 19, 2013 at 3:38 am
Interesting idea. I have read that artificial sweeteners cause insulin to be released, kind of like classical conditioning. You taste something sweet, thus insulin is released but then there is no sugar in your blood to actually get rid of, and thus you have a problem. Those with diabetes are given the ok to ingest artificial sweeteners because it doesn't mess with their blood sugar, but it does seem to affect insulin levels which is also a problem, but as insulin levels aren't readily measured, one that isn't noticeable.
I have a basic biochemistry book, and in the chapter about metabolic profiles it talks about how adipose cells (aka fat cells) interact with glucose and insulin. It seems like triacylglycerols (fatty acid packages) are delivered to adipose cells when insulin is present, and can only be released from the adipose cell, when glucose is scarce. Thus the idea is that with regulated blood sugar and insulin, fatty acids aren't continuously stored in adipose cells and are instead only transitionally stored until they are needed. At leas that is a simplistic explanation
December 19, 2013 at 2:11 pm
You might be interested in seeing that at least one study ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20929998 ) showed that changes in diet alone (Mediterranean vs. low fat diet) can lead to lower incidence of developing DM 2 over 4 years. The next step, as you suggest, is to better understand how various elements of one's diet trigger this change.
December 20, 2013 at 6:40 am
Clearly a better understanding of insulin's action should be invaluable to those of us trying to avoid Type 2 Diabetes (that includes me, as my father suffered from this in his later years, and my body type is much like his).
To that end, here's a very insightful article: http://bit.ly/19gYO3a
Even if you don't want to read it, because it contains the awful words 'weight loss' and 'exercise', I think that judging from the comments put forward so far, many of your readers would find it very illuminating.
December 21, 2013 at 12:25 pm
I was also going to suggest Peter Attia's excellent work, but Richard King beat me to it :-). As an endurance runner, I'm very interested in fueling and insulin resistance, and have had good results with cornstarch, a low glycemic index / high molecular weight starch.
As the parent of a child with type 1 diabetes, I'm very interested in the dynamic relationships between carbs, insulin, and blood glucose. The JDRF is sponsoring work to develop an insulin sensor, http://jdrf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/EOI__for_Insulin_Sensor_Final.pdf. The technical challenges are huge, including but not limited to the small amounts of insulin to be detected, consumable reagents, battery life, cost, size, and inconsistent diffusion of insulin in different sensing locations.
It is for these reasons I believe it will be a challenge to develop near-real-time monitoring of insulin levels. Alternative approaches include modifying insulin with radioactive or biomarkers and then injecting that insulin to measure its diffusion / absorption / effect on blood glucose. These approaches also have their own set of challenges.
All of these approaches suffer from the same problem: there is no way to measure the production of insulin at its source, the pancreas. Same goes for other important hormones like glucagon and amylin.
An area which I think shows far more promise in terms of developing an understanding of insulin resistance is studying the effect of exogenous insulin delivery in people with type 1 diabetes who have low c-peptide levels (their pancreas no longer works).
Imagine a closed loop system which uses feedback control from a continuous glucose monitor to adjust the level of insulin delivered from an insulin pump in order to maintain blood glucose within a tight range, i.e. 90-160mg/dl. Looking at the trend of insulin delivery over time, one can develop an understanding of insulin resistance as a function of internal and external factors such as circadian rhythms, menses, puberty, illness, stress, exercise, BMI, and genotype.
December 29, 2013 at 9:02 am
Is there another chemical or mechanism in the chemical cascade from eating that might be easier to measure and monitor? The new type 2 diabetes medicines, the incretin mimetics such as Byetta and Victoza, insert their pharmaceutical magic earlier in the chemical cascade before insulin is triggered. Maybe there is another way to get at this.
December 31, 2013 at 1:59 pm
Despite the availability of various biochemical assays to measure the presence of the insulin molecule in various analytes such as blood, a significant challenge remains. If the insulin is subject to mechanical or thermal stress (shake and bake), then its biological activity can be compromised (it unfolds improperly and can no longer bind to insulin receptors). This is known as denaturing and can be caused by "frying your insulin", i.e. leaving it out in the sun. It can also be caused by mechanical shear if the syringe is filled too rapidly from the vial. There are even cautions in using pneumatic tubes to transport insulin in pharmacies. Then there is the whole question of dissolved air in insulin pump reservoirs and bubble formation / degassing due to Henry's Law.
Unfortunately the gold standard for insulin bioavailability rests with our friend the rabbit, http://www.pharmacopeia.cn/v29240/usp29nf24s0_c121.html "The most prominent manifestation of insulin activity, an abrupt decrease in blood glucose, was the basis for biologic assay from the time of its first clinical use. The procedure, although relatively cumbersome, has the great merit of accurately reflecting the effect on the diabetic patient. The advent of practical yet sophisticated physicochemical methods (e.g., liquid chromatography) to measure insulin potency quantitatively has resulted in a more accurate and precise compendial test for insulin and insulin products. However, the bioidentity of insulin and insulin products cannot be assessed by these methods.".
If you really want to know how much "effective" insulin is in that syringe, you need a rabbit (six rabbits, actually).
January 18, 2014 at 2:12 pm
Let me prove that high blood sugar and insulin levels are not caused by being fat. If you take a fat person and do a gastric bypass (bypass top 1/7 of digestive tract) then they will eventually lose weight. But their type2 diabetes (high blood sugar levels) is cured immediately after the operation. QED.
Also note that for given levels of physical activity, the higher the weight the higher the life expectancy. You can reduce weight without exercise, and also reduce blood sugar levels, by going on a low carb diet, but this now seems problematic as a health strategy.
February 9, 2014 at 12:27 am
The best way to check pancreas function is an insulin clamp test. Not cheap but the gold standard. I've wondered about the continuous monitor for a few years as I have reactive hypo and not diabetes..

subset: commoncrawl


text:
I have a few protein models I want to take pictures of with various ligands bound. It would be nice if I could do it from the same "position", but the only way I can figure out to repeat the same view is with
zoom resi. 64, 152, 150 or the like, which isn't framed that well.
How can I manually position the viewport, capture it's parameters, and repeat it in the script?
I have found get_view, e.g.
### cut below here and paste into script ###
set_view (\
0.590180993, 0.670941532, 0.448923886,\
-0.507570565, 0.740831316, -0.439937204,\
-0.627747774, 0.031782545, 0.777776182,\
0.000000000, 0.000000000, -417.497009277,\
0.741809845, 7.078243256, 16.473480225,\
329.157806396, 505.836212158, -20.000000000 )
### cut above here and paste into script ###
but this doesn't work in a
.py script, where I need to modify it to
cmd.set_view(...), as it complains it wants just (or up to 5) arguments, not 18. The wiki is vague about it, it just says
cmd.set_view(string-or-sequence view)


text:
Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
Q: What is MERS?
A: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is a viral respiratory illness. MERS is caused by a coronavirus called "Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus" (MERS-CoV).
Q: What is MERS-CoV?
A: MERS-CoV is a beta coronavirus. It was first reported in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. MERS-CoV used to be called "novel coronavirus," or "nCoV". It is different from other coronaviruses that have been found in people before.
Q: How was the name selected?
A: The Coronavirus Study Group (CSG) of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) decided in May 2013 to call the novel coronavirus "Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus" (MERS-CoV) [5 pages].
Q: Is MERS-CoV the same as the SARS virus?
A: No. MERS-CoV is not the same coronavirus that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003. However, like the SARS virus, MERS-CoV is most similar to coronaviruses found in bats. CDC is still learning about MERS.
Q: What are the symptoms of MERS?
A: Most people who got infected with MERS-CoV developed severe acute respiratory illness with symptoms of fever, cough, and shortness of breath. 30% of them died. Some people were reported as having a mild respiratory illness.
Q: Does MERS-CoV spread from person to person?
A: MERS-CoV has been shown to spread between people who are in close contact.[1] Transmission from infected patients to healthcare personnel has also been observed. Clusters of cases in several countries are being investigated.
Q: What is the source of MERS-CoV?
A: We don't know for certain where the virus came from. However, it likely came from an animal source. In addition to humans, MERS-CoV has been found in camels in Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and a bat in Saudi Arabia. Camels in a few other countries have also tested positive for antibodies to MERS-CoV, indicating they were previously infected with MERS-CoV or a closely related virus. However, we don't know whether camels are the source of the virus. More information is needed to identify the possible role that camels, bats, and other animals may play in the transmission of MERS-CoV.
Q: Is CDC concerned?
A: Yes, CDC is concerned about MERS-CoV. Most people who have been confirmed to have MERS-CoV infection developed severe acute respiratory illness. They had fever, cough, and shortness of breath. About 30% of these people died. Also, in other countries, the virus has spread from person to person through close contact, such as caring for or living with an infected person. CDC recognizes the potential for the virus to spread further and cause more cases globally, including in the United States.
Q: Has anyone in the United States gotten infected?
A: Yes, on May 2, 2014, the first confirmed case of MERS-CoV was reported in a traveler to the United States. This is the only confirmed case in the United States. Read more.
Q: What is CDC doing about the first case of MERS in the United States?
A: CDC works 24/7 to protect people's health. It is the job of CDC to be concerned and move quickly whenever there is a potential public health problem. CDC is working very quickly to investigate this first U.S. case of MERS and ensure that Americans are safe. We expect to learn much more in the coming hours and days. We will share updated information through this website.
CDC is also closely monitoring the MERS situation globally. We are working with WHO and other partners to better understand the virus, how it spreads, the source, and risks to the public's health. CDC is engaged in the following ways:
- CDC developed molecular diagnostics that will allow scientists to accurately identify MERS cases. CDC also developed assays to detect MERS-CoV antibodies. These lab tests will help scientists tell whether a person is, or has been, infected with MERS-CoV. CDC will evaluate genetic sequences as they are available, which will help scientists further describe the characteristics of MERS-CoV.
- As part of routine public health preparedness in the United States, CDC has provided MERS-CoV testing kits to state health departments so they can test for patients under investigation for MERS-CoV infection. CDC also developed Interim Guidance for Health Professionals. This includes case definitions, and guidance for evaluating patients,reporting cases to CDC, infection control in healthcare settings, preparedness, caring for MERS patients at home, and handling clinical specimens.
- CDC is offering recommendations to travelers when needed. CDC is also helping to assess ill travelers returning from affected areas.
- In addition, CDC has participated in several international public health investigations of MERS. CDC continues to provide advice and laboratory diagnostic support to countries in the Arabian Peninsula and surrounding region.
Q: Am I at risk for MERS-CoV Infection in the United States?
A: You are not considered to be at risk for MERS-CoV infection if you have not had close contact, such as caring for or living with someone who is being evaluated for MERS-CoV infection.
Q: Can I still travel to countries in the Arabian Peninsula or neighboring countries where MERS cases have occurred?
A: Yes. CDC does not recommend that anyone change their travel plans because of MERS. The current CDC travel notice is an Alert (Level 2), which provides special precautions for travelers. Because spread of MERS has occurred in healthcare settings, the alert advises travelers going to countries in or near the Arabian Peninsula to provide health care services to practice CDC's recommendations for infection control of confirmed or suspected cases and to monitor their health closely. Travelers who are going to the area for other reasons are advised to follow standard precautions, such as hand washing and avoiding contact with people who are ill.
For more information, see CDC's travel notice on MERS in the Arabian Peninsula.
Q: What if I recently traveled to countries in the Arabian Peninsula or neighboring countries and got sick?
A: If you develop a fever and symptoms of respiratory illness, such as cough or shortness of breath, within 14 days after traveling from countries in the Arabian Peninsula or neighboring countries[2], you should see your healthcare provider and mention your recent travel.
Q: How can I help protect myself?
A: CDC advises that people follow these tips to help prevent respiratory illnesses:
- Wash your hands often with soap and water for 20 seconds, and help young children do the same. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
- Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze then throw the tissue in the trash.
- Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands.
- Avoid close contact, such as kissing, sharing cups, or sharing eating utensils, with sick people.
- Clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces, such as toys and doorknobs.
Q: Is there a vaccine?
A: No, but CDC is discussing with partners the possibility of developing one.
Q: What are the treatments?
A: There are no specific treatments recommended for illnesses caused by MERS-CoV. Medical care is supportive and to help relieve symptoms.
Q: Is there a lab test?
A: Lab tests (polymerase chain reaction or PCR) for MERS-CoV are available at state health departments, CDC, and some international labs. Otherwise, MERS-CoV tests are not routinely available. There are a limited number of commercial tests available, but these are not FDA-approved.
Q: What should healthcare providers and health departments do?
A: For recommendations and guidance on the case definitions; infection control, including personal protective equipment guidance; home care and isolation; case investigation; and specimen collection and shipment, see Interim Guidance for Health Professionals.


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I don't have much to show for myself on a workweek bogged down by the aftermath of a storm and bisected by a national holiday. (The following inventory leaves out Discovery reposting my explainer about DNSChanger malware that I wrote back in April.) I am okay with that.
7/3/2012: Staying Online After a Storm, CEA Digital Dialogue
After seeing how many neighbors were struggling after last weekend's derecho, I decided to scrap my plan to write about what your next desktop operating system should and should not borrow from your current mobile operating system. (That should happen next week.) Instead, I shared a few tips about how to get back online, informed by lessons from friends and my own experience battling unreliable bandwidth and dwindling batteries at tech events like CES and SXSW.
7/6/2012: Galaxy S III: Good Phone, Troubled Android, Discovery News
Apparently, I'm one of the only tech reviewers not to rave about this Android smartphone. Ars Technica's Casey Johnston liked it; the Verge's Vlad Savov really liked it; Eric Zeman at PhoneScoop loved it. It's quite possible that I'm placing too much stress on the differences between this phone's tweaked Android interface and Google's standard front-end… but, damn, the pushy keyboard Samsung felt compelled to load on this thing in place of Google's is outright infuriating. (Its auto-correct dictionary alone seems to beg for a HUAC hearing; on my loaner phone, it knew "Xinhua" but not "iOS," "BBC" but not "BBQ.")
7/8/2012: How Flash failed JetBlue, and you, USA Today
I could have written this years ago, but I didn't get my introduction to JetBlue's broken boarding-pass system until May. The column discusses how a foolish use of Adobe Flash kept Mac users from being able to print their passes and notes another example of Flash misuse wrecking a site's login page. (If you read that as a general critique of Flash, you read it right; one of the things I aim to do in this column is look beyond each week's bug to explain the conditions that fostered that issue.) The piece also offers a refresher course about taking screenshots in iOS and Android.


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Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. – Henry A. Kissinger
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build bridges when there are no rivers. – Nikita Kruschev
Nations are born in the hearts of poets, they prosper and die in the hands of politicians. – Muhammad Iqbal
Frank A. Pelaschuk
Over the years, even recently, I have heard excuses for why some do not, will not, vote. "I'm not into politics." "I don't know enough about politics." "I don't know who to vote for." "They're all the same." "They're all a bunch of crooks." "They all tell you one thing and do another." "I don't know if I can trust them." "My vote doesn't count." "My vote is wasted." "Them" and "they", of course, are the politicians and their parties.
The excuses confound me, for I have known some of those making them. With exceptions, none are stupid nor are they shirkers. Yet, when it comes to doing their civic duty, they are precisely that: lazy, stupid, irresponsible.
Almost everything is our lives is affected by politics and yet too many fail to see it; they drift through life expecting others to bear the burden and responsibility of making decisions that impacts them in almost every way. It seems their priorities are skewed the narcissism of self-regard, the shallowness and emptiness of glitz, glamour and gossip of more importance than health care, education, prison reform, and their own government's perversion of democracy. They would be screaming from the rooftops if Stephen Harper passed a law what music they must listen to or that the long gun registry be reintroduced and yet remain silent when he rams through anti-terrorist bill, C-51, that has the potential to criminalize their behaviour in the way of a thoughtless comment or for visiting a web site that Harper and gang deemed a threat to Canada. It is not as if they are absolutely blinkered and numb, they do follow the web and see those horrific ISIL images of beheadings and mass slaughter and, even if below the din of their own inner world, they do hear Harper and the gang go on and on about the terrorist threat to Canada. Perhaps dimly, with half a mind, they accept what they hear and embrace the fear that Harper wishes us to experience, but they do so uncritically perhaps considering the threat remote or just part of the white noise that surrounds them. Is the threat real? Is bill C-51 really necessary? Don't we already have anti-terrorist legislation in place and aren't they more than sufficient? These are questions they should ponder but they don't. They exist in a vacuum. Nothing touches them.
If not, why not? Every citizen has a duty to hold those elected accountable. That means knowing who they are, what they stand for, what they promise and what promises they have kept and broken. As a citizen, we have a duty to protect, not just our country, but ourselves and all our fellow citizens from harm and from the abuses of a government corrupted by the corrosive allure of power and a desire to pander to special market interests. In order to do that, we have a duty to inform ourselves. When Fidel Castro overthrew the Batista regime, the US placed an embargo on Cuba that isolated the tiny nation until recently when Obama finally threw open the doors. Castro was denounced as a Marxist-Leninist tyrant. Yet, for all its poverty, thanks to the American embargo, Cuba has a world-class healthcare system and a literacy rate of 99%. Tyrants do not support education or an informed population. With the recent thawing of American-Cuban relations, Harper, a staunch vocal opponent of Communism appeared particularly loath to be photographed with Cuban president Raul Castro during the recent Summit of the Americas. That was odd but not surprising of a man who will trade with any murderous despot and gladly shake his hand. This is important. Harper talks a good game but what he believes of Cuba and Communism doesn't square with what he does at home. Like any good despot, he, too, does not believe in an informed public. We have a regime that keeps information from its citizens, that has changed electoral laws to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands, that engages in the politics of fear and bigotry, that spreads the myth of itself as sound fiscal managers that has, nevertheless, stripped Canada of a surplus plunging it into a massive deficit, and yet has managed to convince 40% of the population that it is the Conservatives who are best able to save the country from debt, terror, and error. How is that possible? Well, we have a population of folks unwilling to inform themselves of the harm the Harper regime is really doing to this country and a government all too eager to keep them ignorant. For me, Harper's anti-communist cant must be taken with a grain of salt. The hypocrite will work with anyone if money and trade is at stake.
If not, why not? What do the various parties offer, promise and follow through on. What about your elected representative? Is he or she all about the main chance or do they demonstrate by their deeds the extent of their belief in the words they tend to spout when electioneering? Words like democracy, openness, transparency, honesty, integrity, truth, duty, civility, honour, and decency. Are the men and women we look at capable of experiencing shame? If not, I would not trust them. How about you? And for those who voted for Harper and gang my question is this: How could you knowing that this regime is shameless in its partisanship, pettiness, mean-spiritedness, and secrecy.
We have all heard Harper and gang utter the words democracy, transparency, duty, openness as noble sentiments all too often when running for office and, all too often, have witnessed them twist the meanings, betraying their intent, denying them their place, degrading them with sneers, and then booting them aside when elected. Harper lends no credence to the words and their fine sentiments when he utters them; for him, they are useful niceties when it suits him but mostly act as hindrances to his goals. For those not knowing for whom to vote (again, why not?), I say look out for the panderers, the snake oil salesmen and wizards who proclaim themselves the one and only with magical cure-alls and who make easy promises – to be kept after they are elected. That is Harper and gang. Beware of the man and party that offer bribes: income splitting that helps the rich and big fat child benefit cheques a few months before election day; they believe you pliable, easily and cheaply bought and, in the end, will treat you exactly how they see you: of no further interest until next election for they know you can always be bought with trinkets and cheap promises. No man, no party, should win your vote for what they promise you but rather for what they do that is in the best interest of you and every member of our society including the poorest and meanest of us all. That leaves out Harper. He's a bully who treats all those on welfare as potential fraudsters. He is more interested in corporate welfare than the welfare of Canadians. But you would know that if you took the time to inform yourself.
That's a lazy response and again calls for self-education. While I admit to having utter contempt for Stephen Harper and his gang, I suspect if one looks hard, there may be one or two Conservatives who have proven themselves decent, honourable and even pleasant. I don't know who they are. Frankly, I'm not looking, I don't care for Conservatives in positions of power. I would not however say that of Stephen Harper, Peter MacKay, the oily Pierre Poilievre, Steven Blaney, Rob Nicholson, Paul Calandra, Shelly Glover, Leona Aglukkaq, liar Brad Butt, Mark Adler, Michelle Rempel, Candace Bergen, Kellie Leitch, Chris Alexander, fictionalizer Jason Kenney, well, you get the drift, most of these actually are the same in my view: partisan, mean-spirited and very, very unpleasant. If you think not, look at how they have gone after Omar Khadr, at the age of fifteen dragged off to war in Afghanistan by his father, charged with killing an American combat medic, tortured, held in the notorious Guantanamo prison. He has spent thirteen years in prison for a crime to which he confessed, under torture of sleep deprivation, waterboarding and who knows what other horrors. For the Harper gang, he is not a human being but a symbol of fear, a symbol of the "evildoers", the face of terrorism itself. It is nonsense. It is vengeful and just plain wrong. They likely have never read William Blake: For mercy has a human heart/Pity a human face…No, not all politicians are the same. While the Liberals support Harper's incursion into Iraq against ISIL and his expansion of the war and the level of involvement Canadian troops will play, the NDP has stood in opposition. You may not agree with their stand, but at least you know where they stand.
Not all. But enough in the past for the outraged public to turf out the Liberals for their role in the sponsorship scandal nine years ago. The Conservative replacement in 2006, under Stephen Harper is even worse, if that's possible. It's one thing to be corrupt, venal and to steal money, it's another thing to bring Parliament to disrepute, to appoint a Speaker of the House who is not impartial, to abuse your offices for partisan purposes, to deny opposition members the right to be heard, and to undermine the foundations of democracy by questioning the patriotism of critics and targeting the civil liberties of citizens. Harper and gang have done all this. But they, too, have had members who have used the public coffers as their personal bank accounts with bogus expense claims. Too many Conservative Party members appear to have low thresholds when it comes to the question of ethics. We have Harper appointees, Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau and Mike Duffy facing allegations of abusing expense claims. Duffy is presently facing the courts. We have renewed allegations of Senators David Tkatchuk and Carolyn Stewart Olsen, on behalf of the PMO, whitewashing the Deliotte audit on good ole' Duffy to burnish his image. I wrote about this several times since June of 2013, so it's not new news even though some are acting as if it is. We have Bev Oda, gone now, caught for padding expense claims, not once, but twice. Peter Penashue, called by Harper, the best MP from Labrador ever for illegal accepting corporate donations while campaigning. Just recently, Reginald Bowers, official agent for the former Labrador Cabinet minister faces three charges for breaching the Elections Act during the 2011 election. We have Shelly Glover and James Bezan initially refusing to submit full and proper audit reports for their campaigns facing allegations of exceeding their entitled amounts and Shelly Glover (again) and Susan Aglukkaq at fundraising events attended by those standing to gain from decisions made by their ministries. We have Mike Sona, a young Conservative staffer; found guilty and serving time for his involvement in the robocalls scandal. We have loudmouth Dean del Mastro, who (along with oily Pierre Poilievre) impugned the integrity of the Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand for his investigations into the robocalls scandal in "in-out" scam for which the Conservative Party paid a $52,000 fine. Del Mastro, himself found guilty of election fraud in the 2008 election and waiting to be sentenced.
But, if not all crooks, the Conservatives are certainly duplicitous in the integrity front by being party to omnibus bills in which legislation is slipped in with hopes of no one noticing. In the past the gang attempted to slip in online spying legislation, which led to howls of protest and Vic Toews, then minister of public safety, to accuse critics of siding with pornographers! In the latest budget bill we see another example of this type of dubious manoeuvring, the Harper gang bypassing labour laws to impose legislation that greatly erodes public servant sick leave and disability plans. This is a government that is not only anti-union, anti-public servant, but also abusive of thousands of hard working men and women whom Tony Clement referred to as "deadwood". Clement, president of the Treasury, is most noteworthy for creating a $50 million slush fund during the 2010 G8 and G20 summits and for losing $3 billion of taxpayers' money. Public servants are deadwood. This from a member of a government that works about 100 days on behalf of corporate interests and spends the rest of the time working to get re-elected by spending taxpayers' monies, in the millions, informing us what a good job they are doing. Tell a lie often enough even they begin to believe it. We have Poilievre, laughably placed as minister of democratic reform, rigging the Elections Act that threatens to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters. So, while not all crooks, those in the Conservatives are certainly not above dishonesty, talking out of both sides of their mouths, of resorting to dirty tricks (no dirty trick is too dirty or too vile to not be used), of low-down chicanery, and pillaging the public purse for partisan purposes. While there are many other examples of the extent of their lack of integrity and looseness with the truth, two examples stand out and both have to do with Harper's Economic Action Plan. A few years ago, over $21 million was spent advertising job-creating programs that were non-existent. During this year's hockey play-off season, Harper is spending over $13.5 million touting, well, you guessed it, his job creation plan for young people, the disabled, immigrants and illiterate adults. That, too, is a hoax. On May 7, 2015, we have learned that $97 million allotted to help them has been mostly unspent. Youth has not been helped by this funding program any more than have the disabled, immigrant and the illiterate. The Conservatives call this sound management. Others call it juggling the books. No, they are not all crooks, just dishonest in ways that, if not criminal, are certainly deceptive and unethical and worthy of brutal reprisal with an election defeat come next election.
Well, that's probably true with the Conservatives in particular. Remember, Harper promised to reform the Senate, to be more open and transparent. That got him elected. Well, of the 105 Senators, Harper appointed 59. Right now there are about 17 Senate vacancies. With the Duffy trial and a secret audit report floating around, Harper, burnt with Duffy, Wallin and others (more Conservatives perhaps?) facing serious allegations of questionable expense claims, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, is likely to leave the seats vacant until the next election.
But there are other things Harper has to be worried about. In 2006, he loudly proclaimed his support of Canadian troops during the Afghan war by declaring his was not a government that cut and runs. Well, he did precisely that twice when facing opposition questions regarding his budgets. Rather than answer questions, he shut down Parliament: TWICE and, just this year, held back on the budget delaying it for two months. He is the loud, cowardly lion willing to roar his disapproval of allies for not doing enough in the war effort and the economic front and talking big about his prowess as a fiscal manager. His is the best government on the globe. He is the only leader capable of saving Canada from economic disaster; this inflated bulletin from a guy who inherited a $13 billion surplus and then squandered it with seven deficits in a row that has left Canada with a debt of $159 or so billion. Too, he will modestly have us know that his is the only government that can save Canadians from the jihadist terrorists. This is the guy who oversaw the mistreatment of our veterans with clawbacks to disability pensions, closure of Veterans offices, etc. This is the guy who supports our military so much that he exploits our men and women with photo-ops while in Iraq. He loves and respects them so much that he placed special combat troops and their families in danger by showing their faces on video on the tax funded government "news" channel 24Seven, his personal advertising agency. He did this without approval or consent from the military. Did I mention that we are paying for this? Harper had issued an edict warning journalists not to do what he did. The media have been scrupulous in keeping to this protocol. Not so Harper. Not so Jason Kenney who tweeted the photograph of Sgt. Andrew Doiron for the world to see. Doiron was later killed by friendly fire. While Kenney's tweet likely had nothing to do with his death, Kenney's disregard and misuse of the media is not unique. This is the man, and I wrote of his before but it bears repeating, who, in a fund-raising letter suggested Justin Trudeau supported terrorists when he visited the Al Sunnah Al-Nabawiah mosque in Montreal. The mosque had been cited by American intelligence as a breeding ground for the recruitment of terrorists. This was reported in the New York Times. The thing is, neither Kenney, Harper, nor all other government member who spread the story had the decency to point out that Trudeau's visit to the mosque was prior to its exposure of having links to al-Qaida. This was no mistake. This was a deliberate attempt to smear an opposition member by questioning his loyalty and linking him as a supporter of terrorists. This was done by a man who wishes to be prime minister one day, a man who has illegally used government letterheads to fundraise for the Conservative Party, the same man who tweeted photos of bound women re-enacting a historical event and tried to pass them off as news photos of captured ISIL slaves. He also tweeted a photo of a child bride, hands bound, in the presence of a much older man. But that too was a fake photo. This is the minister of defence. How trustworthy is this man? How trustworthy is any member of the Harper gang? Not very. Harper makes the rules, he can break them, I guess. But, despite this preponderance of incompetence, dishonesty, perversion of truth, not all politicians are like these vile bodies in the Conservative Party. Despite his youth and inexperience, despite his readiness to woo votes by pandering to our fears by supporting C-51 (with a promise to revisit the bill if elected), Trudeau strikes me as a decent individual. But the truth is, there is not much difference between the Liberal and Conservative economic plans. As for attitude, well, the Conservatives are just plain nasty. Thomas Mulcair may come across as rigid, gruff, a man who does not smile easily. I don't care. I want a leader who is capable and Mulcair is that man. Set aside your prejudices and watch him during Question Period. He is by far the most effective member in the House we've seen in years. In fact, I will say that of almost every member of the NDP caucus.
When one looks at the behaviour of Conservatives, tainted with corruption, abusive of taxpayer money, and parsimonious with the truth while generous to their business cronies and themselves (MPs gave themselves a raise five times that allowed public servants), I can almost sympathize with those who feel no desire to vote. Almost. You don't like what's happening, you can change it. Vote. But you change nothing going with the same old same old. It is not enough to go back and forth between the Conservative and Liberal Parties. Nothing changes that way. It becomes a rigged game.
This is something I have heard far too many times and it's often said of the NDP. My response, of course, would be, "How can you know unless you give them a chance? What do you do when the party you vote for lets you down?" "Well, I know them both. Then I vote the other party (Conservative or Liberal), I don't know the NDP. " Now, when I hear that, I want to pull my eyeballs out; it's bad enough hearing stupidity without having to look at it as well.
So, then I ask, "What does socialist mean for you?" "Umh, ah, well, it's hard for me to define but they are, umm, against business and are, umm, soft on crime." I think I've heard that phrase before. Resisting the urge to shake them, I ask, "Where do you learn this stuff?" "Well, umm, Harper believes life should mean life and our laws are too lenient, we have, killers walking our streets and the jails are like hotels." Well, I worked briefly in a BC prison in the early 80s. It was no hotel. And, contrary to what Harper and gang would have us believe, crime rates are down to the levels of the early 70s. Building more jails, depriving prisoners of programs preparing them for a life outside, and offering punishment without the hope of parole, without the belief that even bad people can be redeemed, will not make for a safer society. The dangers will, in fact, be greater. Prisoners who have had parole denied and programs cut will be ill prepared for a life of freedom. They will also be angry.
When I hear such inane comments, I bring up this quote by Frank Hague, "You hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words, I say to myself, 'That man is a Red, that man is a Communist!' You never hear a real American talk like that." Usually the other person doesn't even blink! It appears these people seem to agree with Hague that civil rights and a free press are socialistic values! Call me Frank the Red, but I'll accept that.
"Why not?" I ask. "Well, it would be wasted, the Conservatives or the Liberals always win so it doesn't matter if I vote. " Now, I admit, I'm an impatient fellow and this last used to make me believe I was on the verge of an apocalyptic fit with my head about to explode. After counting to one, I often ask, if I'm still capable in the face of such breathtaking ignorance, "But, if all of you who say they want to vote for the NDP actually voted NDP, don't you think your vote would count? Isn't this just an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy, I don't do such and such because it makes no difference?" "No, because the Conservatives or Liberals always win. My vote would still be wasted." Arrgh! If they do vote, it's often a choice of "the lesser of two evils." So, they've bought the argument: the lesser of two evils. Or they have bought the other one, which is no argument but simple fearmongering: "Don't split the vote. Voting NDP is the same as throwing away your vote. Vote Liberal."
Is this ignorance or the real thing – stupidity? In a free society, this is dangerous. These folks have been told something by others they believe more knowledgeable and they accept it as fact; they do not consider the motives of the party passing on the information, they do not examine the information, they do not question it, and they do not doubt it. Political parties know that and prey on it and none more effectively than the Harper Conservatives. They feed us the lies in the full knowledge that most of us will just open our maws without even considering whether it's digestible or even safe.
Yet, and yet, sometimes, rarely, but sometimes nevertheless, something happens. For some reason, closed minds open and open mouths close. They listen; refuse to ingest the swill offered them for decades. Something has happened. They will ask themselves why must I do what we have always done. Why must I fear what I don't know simply because someone tells me I should? Maybe what happens is less an embracing of something new than a resounding rejection of the same old same old. Nevertheless, the embracing of the new and unknown is still a change, a move, a signal of life and hope and defiance. It might only last for one four-year dance, the new dance partner only loved because the old flame, another in a long line from the same family, has betrayed and angered you. Now, the interest in the new dance partner might be short lived. It is also true that as the dance continues you might learn some new steps and like what you discover. You may not be ready for another forty-year affair but you may be interested enough for another dance, at least. Perhaps this is the real thing. And if your are disappointed, well, it will be easier to find a new dance partner, maybe even from the old familiar, but chastened family with whom you danced for so many years. Meanwhile, you may realize that the bad, dangerous individual you are partnered with was just the product of vicious gossip, envy and fearmongering by your previous partner, the one who betrayed you and lied to you, the one who offered you empty promises only in return for the favours you offered when he or she wanted to take them.
That might have been what happened in Alberta on May 5th, when Albertans woke up and grew up and tossed aside their lying, cheating, abusive and arrogant partner of over four decades. Perhaps it was simple anger rather than Albertans embracing Rachel Notley and the NDP. But if she does her job, and does it well and with integrity, she may last for a few dances. I hope so. It took a long time, too long, and perhaps it had something to do with newcomers from other provinces who have lived under NDP governments, but it was clear Albertans wanted a change. Those who may have thought differently just a few months ago clearly no longer bought the message of the wasted vote, of votes not counting, of blood-thirsty socialists ready to pillage the till and slaughter all capitalists. They proved that they could do and try something different and wake up in the morning and not hear the sound of frightened capital fleeing the province.
My vote doesn't count. Of course it doesn't if you don't vote. One vote makes a majority. My vote doesn't count. Is this how one lives, never doing something because it goes unrewarded, unnoticed? Then why get out of bed? You might stumble and end a quadriplegic. Why cross the street? A truck might mow you down. Why dream and hope, marry and have families? In the end, we're all dead so why bother? Yet we go on in spite of our defeats, failures and fears. The Alberta vote has shown the way. There is nothing to fear. Take that step.
If you believe you will wake up tomorrow, why can't you believe your vote will count?
But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing. – Thomas Paine.
They that can give up essential liberties to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin


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Japan has one of the oldest and quickest aging populations in the world. The country has not reached replacement rate for its population for quite some time and the population will likely decrease by a third by 2060. In spite of this rapid population decline, young people appear unwilling to help the situation, if a recent survey is to be believed.
According to the results of the survey, young people simply don't want to have sex. More than one third of all male teens between the ages of 16-19 (36%) insist they are "indifferent or adverse" towards having sex. The numbers are even more shocking for female teens. 59 percent of female teens aged 16-19 feel the same way towards doing the nasty. Those numbers represent an increase of 19 and 12 percent, respectively, since the survey was last conducted in 2008.
Married couples didn't do well in the survey either. Among the married couples surveyed, "vague reluctance after child birth," "can't be bothered," and "fatigue from work" were cited as the top three reasons for not being intimate. Over 40 percent of married couples hadn't had intercourse within the last month, according to the survey.
Doesn't sound like the population crisis is going to get any better anytime soon.
Photo: Danny Choo


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Let $A$ be a non-zero symmetric $n \times n$-matrix with integer entries and suppose that $\det(A) =0$.
Question: How long is the shortest non-zero integer vector in the kernel of $A$?
Example: If $A$ has non-zero eigenvalues $\xi_1,\dots,\xi_k$ (not necessarily counting with multiplicities), then the polynomial $p(t) = (\xi_1-t) \cdots (\xi_k -t)$ has integer coefficients. Hence, $p(A) \in M_n {\mathbb Z}$ and at the same time $Ap(A)=0$. Clearly, $$p(A) = {\rm det}'(A) \cdot Q_{\ker(A)},$$ where $\det'(A) := \xi_1 \cdots \xi_k$ and $Q_{\ker(A)}$ denotes the orthogonal projection onto the kernel of $A$. Hence, we get for the operator norm $\|p(A)\| = |\det'(A)|$. Now, there exists an index $1 \leq i \leq n$, such that $v:=p(A)e_i \neq 0$ and one gets $\|v\| \leq \det'(A)$. At the same time $v$ has integer entries and lies in the kernel of $A$.
In many examples one can do much better. I would hope someone is able to bound the length in terms of the operator norm of $A$ alone. Is that possible?
The problem can also be phrased in terms of additive combinatorics. Indeed, if one identifies the image of ${\mathbb Z}^n$ under $A$ with ${\mathbb Z}^{k}$ for some $k < n$, then injectivity of $A$ on the set $X=\lbrace-m,\dots,m\rbrace ^n$ implies that $X$ can be embedded in ${\mathbb Z}^k$ preserving the addition whenever it made sense on $X$. This alone seems to require a lot of distortion, i.e. a large operator norm of $A$.
What kind of literature can be recommended?


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As an long-time mostly-vegetarian, I know a thing or two about vegetarian feasting in general and the Vegetarian Thanksgiving in particular.
The rules below are mine. What are your ideas or family traditions for feeding the vegetarians on Thanksgiving? Please share your own insights—or feel free to request advice!—in the comments. Continue reading


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Fredrika Bremer (1801 – 1865) was a Swedish writer and feminist reformer. Wikipedia (which I was forced to turn to as the 1844 introduction to the book spoke only of translation, not the author herself) states she is she is regarded as 'the Swedish Jane Austen' and further that 'her novel Hertha prompted a social movement that granted all Swedish women legal majority at the age of 25 and established Högre Lärarinneseminariet, Sweden's first female tertiary school.' Also that in '1884, she became the namesake of the Fredrika Bremer Association, the first women's rights organization in Sweden.'
Worth a read, then.
New sketches of every-day life: a diary as translated by her contemporary Mary Howitt (released in 1844 in its English edition) is widely available for free, which is why it is the book I have read. It is quite an enjoyable romance, complete with women's rights and corruption in the regiments bringing ruin onto 'good' families and evil old rakes, and I enjoyed the form of diary entries. While I hate that people call her the Swedish Jane Austen (and she is far more romantically and grandly melodramatic), yet there is quite a similarity in morals and manners along with a sprightly heroine. I suppose this isn't surprising given how interwoven European monarchies were, and the centrality of French culture. But how curious that apart from a host of references particular to Sweden and descriptions of scenery, I should never have guessed this did not take place in England or France.
Felix in the mean time is better, but his health appeared deranged by the irregular life which he has led. He recovers slowly. Lennartson endeavours to animate his mind, and to cheer his spirits. He often spends the evenings in reading Sir Walter Scott's romances to him. (250)
Does Scott explain everything?
I am reading Mary Wollstonecraft's letters on Sweden at the same time, which is fascinating. Bremer actually shares more with her, I think, both in terms of judgments laid upon polite society, as well as the exclamatory sentimentality afforded to emotions, especially those raised in relation to love, friendship and scenery.
I am leaving for Sweden today! Hurrah!
I am not above exclamation points myself. I have been reading much in preparation, as I enjoy, so there shall be a slew of Swedishness upcoming. But back to Bremer.
On Women
Women and the romanticism of their connections to nature, and much on the constraints of society (though quite a bit on its joys as well):
…I was a violent child, and in my whole being the opposite of the lovely and the agreeable, which my stepmother so highly valued, and of which she unceasingly spoke in quotations from the romances of Madame Genlis. I was compared with the enchantresses in these romances, and set down in proportion. In one word my stepmother could not rightly endure me, and I could not endure—Madame Genlis and her graces, who occasioned me so much torment. Ah! the sunburnt, wild girl grown up in the 'moors' of Finland, whose life had passed in woods and heaths, among rocks and streams, and amid dreams as wild and wonderful as the natural scenery amongst which she grew; this girl was in truth no being for the salon, for a French Grace. Transplanted from the fresh wilderness of her childhood into the magnificent capital, where huge mirrors on every side reflected every movement, and seemed scornfully to mimic every free outbreak which was not stamped by grace,—she was afraid, afraid of herself, afraid of everybody, and especially of the goddess of the palace. The governess and the servants called me 'the Tartar-girl, ' 'the young Tartar.' (18-19)
I like how she describes two periods in relation to her step-mother, the 'period of my adulation', from 11-15 and the 'epoch of opposition' during her later teens. The 'diary' starts with her having returned after an unnamed disappointment at the age of 30. She is admired:
My stepmother said I was exactly at the handsome, 'modern age,' for a charming woman; in one word, 'la femme la trente ans, la femme de Balsac;' (26)
There are remarks throughout praising kindness, simplicity and virtue, and noting its absence in many women of society:
The Baroness Bella B., the Beauty, and Helfrid O Rittersvard, paid us a visit. Afterwards, Ake Sparrskold, Felix, and others. 'The Beauty' expatiated (quite mal-a-prapos, methinks) on the unhappiness and disagreeableness of ugliness. She pities 'from her heart, plain people;' but they must at least know that they are plain, and must stop nicely at home, and not exhibit themselves out in the world, and in society, where they can awaken only disagreeable feelings. I was provoked at this speech (93)
Thus it is, that the meoldrama emerges from ugliness underneath — what she likens to a volcano more than once:
Among all these dissipations, which reign in the house; amid all those beautiful toilets and artificial flowers, and all these so-called pleasures, still strange symptoms break forth, which testify of the volcanic soil upon which they dance. (142)
Hers remains a terribly romanticised vision of women's place, and the happiness they may attain.
I now know very well that I never can love Felix properly, because I cannot highly esteem him, as I will and must highly esteem my husband; but"
"But what, my sweet Selma?"
"If I can make him and others happy, then—neither shall I myself be unhappy. And then—God will give me, perhaps, a child, which I can love, and in which I can have pleasure in the world."
"With this Selma wept quite softly, leaning on my shoulder. (141)
But not all of them…there is another kind of life possible for women, one more of the mind and culture. There is a desire independence here, though clearly it requires independence of money and position:
I like Brenner greatly; but not so much as I love my own independence, the peace of my soul, and the prospect of a peaceful and care-free future. I will be his friend, but no more. I dread marriage; I dread that compulsion, that dark deep suffering, which the power of one being over another so often exhibits. I have seen so much of it. (191)
Thus class and gender intersect, though Bremer would claim all the suffering for the wealthy even as she acknowledges the poverty around her — though this is one of the very few places she does so:
On the long ill-built street, I saw a herd of ragged, pale children, old women and aged men, living pictures of sickness, of poverty, and age; and I contemplated misery in all gradations of human life—in all its weeping shadows. And amid all these shadow-figures there yet probably was not one who would have exchanged his lot with mine, if he could have seen into my heart. Ah! the severest kind of-wretchedness is not that which exhibits its rags in the streets, and at night conceals itself in great deserted buildings — it is that which smiles in polite companies, which shews to the world a joyful exterior whilst sorrow gnaws its heart. (222)
Fredrika Bremer is herself of this wealthy class, of course.
On the Country
I love these descriptions of nature, and pearls! Who knew these could be found there…
On the shore where I was born, on the alder- fringed streams of Kautua, I often went, as a child, pearl-fishing, when the heat of the sun had abated the rigour of the water. I fancy still that the clear cool waves wash my feet; I fancy still that I see the pearl muscles [sic mussels they must be] which the waterfall had thrown together in heaps in the sand of the little green islands. Whole heaps of these muscles I collected together on the shore, and if I found one pearl among them what joy! (23)
On Stockholm
We dwelt upon the Blasieholm, exactly upon the limits of the fields planted with trees, where the Delagarde Palace, with its towers, had elevated itself for centuries, and had been burnt down in one night. I look out from my window, and see and hear the roaring of the broad stream which separates the city from Norrmalm, and on whose shores have been fought so many bloody battles; on the haven, the bridge of boats, the royal castle, with the Lion Hill; the river promenade, further on, beneath the north-bridge; and on the other side of the island of the Holy Ghost, the blue water of the Malar, and the southern mountains. From among the masses of houses upon the different islands, raise themselves the bold spires of the church-towers. To the left I have that of St. Catharine; to the right, that of St. James; and further off, the royal gardens, with their rich alleys, and I should never come to an end, were I to name all that I have and govern—from my window. And in my chamber, I have my pencils, my books, and myself. (29)
The older sections:
…over the bridge and through the streets into the city. There are the oldest memories of Stockholm; here is the heart of the Stockholm city, which also has the form of a heart; here flowed the blood of the nobles of Sweden in streams from the hand of Christiern; here the streets are narrow, the lanes dark; but here also is the Castle of Stockholm; and here lift themselves even now, a mass of houses, which shew by their inscriptions cut in stone, the strong fear of God which built up in ancient times the realm of Sweden. (169)
And this, on what a city, particularly a capital city of a hierarchical and cultured society, should be:
Once saw I a chief-city without any towers, with- out any one building exceeding in beauty and size the rest; all were equal, and people said, 'see here the image of a true social community.'
But no! thus appears it not. When a people come to the consciousness of its full life, its cities and its buildings will testify of it: there must the flaming spires of the temples ascend to the sky; there must columns of honour stand in memorial of great men; there must magnificent palaces (not private ones!) express the sense of greatness in a noble public spirit; there must the beautiful express in manifold forms the good in the life of the state. (89-90)
On the pageantry of the aristocracy's life
This is ongoing — glittering balls in glittering palaces and a parade of notables in beautiful dresses.
I confess, I love the dresses.
She makes much of the sledges, and I could almost wish we were going at a time when we could have done something similar
Felix wished to drive Selma, and St. Orme invited Flora to his sledge. This was to be covered with tiger-skins, and would be drawn by fiery piebalds, which Flora had seen, and found much to her liking. This sledge was to lead the procession, which was to drive through the principal streets of the city to the park, where they were to dine, and after that were to dance, and so on. (74)
There is more:
Yet is it a purely-northern enjoyment, which a purely northern life has—such a pleasure-excursion as this in the clear winter air, under the bright blue heaven, upon the snow-white earth! They fly away so gaily and lightly,—the open ones covered with skins and with white nets, which flutter over fiery, foaming horses, they fly along so fleetly to the play of the jingling bells. And it feels so irresistibly pleasant thus to drive away over the earth in a train of joyous people, and by the side of a friend who participates in every feeling, every impression. (195)
On even the Swedish benefiting from the 'adventure' of colonialism
I think this means Brenner joined the French Foreign Legion, and helped conquer Algeria…and this saved him.
at the time when France made war on the States of Barbary. Lennartson managed so with Brenner's connexions that he should take part in this campaign, and fitted him out at his own expense, though at that time he was anything but rich. Lennartson, in his plan, had rightly judged of his friend, and accomplished his salvation.
With strong natures there is only one step between despair and heroism. With a lock of Lennartson's hair upon his breast, and his image deeply stamped upon his soul, the young Brenner plunged forward upon a path on which dangers of every kind called him forth to combat. To him, there was more than the conquering of people and kingdoms; to him, there was the winning again of honour; the winning again the esteem of himself, of his friends, and of his fatherland. And with the most joyful mad-bravery, he ventured his life for that purpose. The young Swede divided dangers and laurels with the Frenchmen. And upon the wild sea waves, in battle before the walls of Algiers, in combats with Arabs and Kabyles on the soil of Africa, the French learned highly to esteem a bravery equal to their own (a greater is impossible), and to love a humanity towards vanquished foes, with which they are not so well acquainted.
Afterwards, Brenner accompanied some French learned men on their dangerous journey into the interior of Africa. (67)
I am bewildered at the gap by what she imagines his travels in Algeria and Africa to have been, and the harsh reality of conquest as they actually were. Small wonder he rarely spoke of them:
Many times I request that he should call forth some remembrances out of his restless life, pictures of another climate, of seas and wildernesses, of glowing Africa and strange Egypt; scenes from the battle-fields around Atlas. It is rare that he will relate anything of this; but how curiously and desiringly do I not then listen! These pictures are so grand, and, I acknowledge, something grand also in the nature which has conceived them. (134)
This anecdote serves as such a brilliant metaphor for Europe's colonial legacy:
Brenner now related— "It was in Egypt, near to Thebes. I rambled one morning out into the surrounding desert to hunt, and happened to see a vulture sitting not far from me, among the ruins of fallen monuments. This bird is known for its strong power of life, and is dangerous to approach when it is wounded; it has a strength almost incredible. I shot at him, and hit him on the breast, and as I believed mortally. He remained however sitting quietly in his place, and I rushed to him that I might complete my work, but in that same moment the bird raised itself, and mounted upwards. Blood streamed from his breast, and a part of his entrails fell out, but notwithstanding this he continued to ascend still higher and higher, in wider and wider circles. A few shots which I fired after him produced no effect. It was beautiful, in the vast silent wilderness to see this bird, mortally wounded and dyeing the sand with his blood, silently circling upon his monstrous wings higher and ever higher; the last circuit which he made was unquestionably a quarter of a mile in extent; then I lost sight of him in the blue space of heaven." (272-273)
While the company are impressed with such a strange story, it somehow causes them to think even better of Bremer. How better to explain colonialism and orientalism — the European admires great strength and beauty, shoots it, and then admires it still more as it struggles through its death throes.
For a final hilarious, and slightly ill-judged sentence:
Even the larva of suffering can receive wings, can fly in the night, and be lighted by its stars, and bathe in its dew. (233)
Perhaps it suffers in translation. The whole introduction sheds an interesting light on the ongoing problems of translations not rceieving enough pay, not being credited, of being stolen and violently edited down and released in cheap editions that can never earn enough royalties to pay for the translator's time — if indeed there were ever an intention of paying for it. Some things never change, this is from Mary Howitt the translator:
And what have we got instead, from this advocate of public good? An importation and reprint of anonymous abridgments of these works, got up and curtailed, both in style and quantity, into the limits suited to the American cheap market, and abounding with Americanisms, which all well-educated persons will be careful not to introduce into their families; as "she is a going"—" vanity belittles a woman"—"sleighs, and sleds, and sleighing," for sledges and sledging—"surroundings," for environs; with such Yankee slang as "he got mad in love, and she gave him the bag," etc.; as any one may convince himself who looks into these eye-destroying small prints. (vii)
— Mary Howitt, 1843, The Grange, Upper Clapton
[Bremer, Fredrika (1844) New sketches of every-day life: a diary. Vol. 1 Tr. [from the Swedish] by Mary Howitt. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans]


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Long after Mr Orme had left the topic, Kate remained lost in its contemplation. She had begun to perceive that the fair surface of life was honeycombed by a vast system of moral sewage. Every respectable household had its special arrangements for the private disposal of family scandals; it was only among the reckless and improvident that such hygienic precautions were neglected. Who was she to pass judgment on the merits of such a system? The social health must be preserved: the means devised were the result of long experience and the collective instinct of self-preservation. She had meant to tell her father that evening that her marriage had been put off, but she now abstained from doing so, not from any doubt of Mr. Orme's acquiescence — he could always be made to feel the force of conventional scruples — but because the whole question sank into insignificance beside the larger issue that his words had raised.
Edith Newbold Jones grew up in that high society world and knew firsthand the perceived value of keeping those social secrets — the reference may be inaccurate but it is said her family is the source of the phrase "keeping up with Joneses". Her unhappy marriage to a Boston Brahmin, Edward Wharton, took her even further into it. She spent most of the last four decades of her life portraying aspects of it in her fiction.
Sanctuary was published in 1903 — only her third published fictional work, after The Touchstone (another novella) and The Valley of Decision. But if you have read any Wharton at all, the paragraph quoted above could serve as a synopsis of a condition that will feature in almost all her famous works — it is an apt description of the world of Lily Bart in The House of Mirth, Undine Spragg in The Custom of the Country and a whole cast of characters in The Age of Innocence. Great artists often do detailed sketches to prepare for their larger canvases — Sanctuary is only 94 pages, but it is a distinctive sketch of the world that Wharton will explore in much more intricate detail in the future.
Like many of Wharton's heroines, Kate Orme is a hopeless romantic who, when we first meet her, has experienced life as a bird living in a gilded cage:
Kate Orme was engaged in one of those rapid mental excursions that were forever sweeping her from the straight path of the actual into uncharted regions of conjecture. Her survey of life had always been marked by the tendency to seek out ultimate relations, to extend her researches to the limit of her imaginative experience. But hitherto she had been like some young captive brought up in a windowless palace whose painted walls she takes for the actual world. Now the palace had been shaken to its base, and through a cleft in the walls she looked out upon life. For the first moment all was indistinguishable blackness; then she began to detect vague shapes and confused gestures in the depths. There were people below there, men like Denis, girls like herself — for under the unlikeness she felt the strange affinity — all struggling in that awful coil of moral darkness, with agonised hands reaching up for rescue.
Until her discovery of what she perceives as a moral outrage, Denis has a "happy literalness" — an easy, overall acceptance of the world as it is — that served to offset Kate's "visualizing habit". Now, in a circumstance that will be reflected by future Wharton heroines, she finds herself isolated, unguided and searching for a compass.
And, in another trait that will occur in future works, Kate opts not to engage with the world to deal with her distress but to internalize it completely and arrive at her own self-centred (and inherently selfish) resolution. I won't spoil by revealing exactly how she resolves her dilemma, but it gives nothing away to say that the marriage to Denis goes ahead.
Part Two of Sanctuary takes place more than 25 years later. Denis died eight years into the marriage, but not before it produced a son, Dick. Kate has devoted her life, in a not-totally-healthy fashion, to her son, including accompanying him to Paris where he studied as an architect. When Part Two opens, Dick Peyton is busily engaged in preparing drawings for a competition to design a museum extension that he believes he must win to "make" his career. His best friend from Paris, Darrow, is preparing for the same competition — even Dick knows that Darrow has more talent and he regards his friend as his only competition.
And, to complete the Wharton pattern that will show up in future work, Dick also has a prospective mate, Clemence Verney, an early example of the kind of delightful, intriguing secondary characters who add so much to Wharton's overall work — Clemence too has a "happy literalness" although in her case it is leavened by an unshakable determination to do whatever is required to get ahead.
Part Two features another moral dilemma and, again, Kate responds with complete internalizaton of the consequences even though in this case she is not directly involved. As much as we might want to love her, Kate has a destructive selfishness that rises to the surface whenever reality threatens.
Edith Wharton is on my shortlist of "best authors ever" and Sanctuary joins my list of worthwhile works that she has written, even if it does come from very early in her career (she had just started The House of Mirth when this was published — in some ways, it reads as though she was "purging" herself of some external characteristics or circumstances that she did not want Lily Birt to have). If you know Wharton's work, I think that, like myself, you will find it a fascinating indication of what is yet to come. If you don't know her work, it is a quick read with which to start getting acquainted — but remember it is only a "sketch" of what Wharton will eventually produce.
Indeed, I can come up with no better critical assessment than that which William Fiennes supplies in the Hesperus Press edition that I read:
Later, in A Backward Glance, Wharton describes her friendship with a judge named Walter Berry, who would read her manuscripts with forensic attention. 'With each book,' Wharton writes, 'he exacted a higher standard in economy of expression, in purity of language, in the avoidance of the hackneyed and the precious.' Sanctuary doesn't always meet the Berry standard. The opening paragraphs, with their surfeit of abstract nouns (happiness, beatitude, peace, joy, confusion, harmony) and imprecisions (seemed, a certain, somehow), are some way from the shimmering specificity of The House of Mirth or The Age of Innocence. Those novels contain some of the most thrilling prose of the twentieth century. Sanctuary is a flexing of wings.


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I've been planning to upload a track by the Rotorua Maori Choir since April of 2008, when I posted a song by a Lithuanian choir. Besides the fact that I truly enjoy today's piece, it brings up a number of issues which, while I can claim no expertise in discussing, I feel obliged to address nonetheless. So, the ruminations in this post are sort of a continuation of April's thoughts.
There was very little so-called "ethnic" music recorded in either Australia or New Zealand during the 78rpm era. I know of a set of ethnographic recordings of Australian Aboriginal music made by the Australian Broadcasting Commission, but I've not once seen a copy. It may have been pressed as a limited edition. As for commercial releases, there were several sessions of Maori music from New Zealand dating from the late 1920s/early 1930s, on Parlophone and Columbia. The first recordings were by the singer Ms. Ana Hato and her cousin Deane Waretini. While ostensibly traditional Maori songs, they had a distinct Western bent. Both were trained as singers by westerners, and the songs they recorded were accompanied by piano – some were written by non-Maori songwriters. Despite this, Ana Hato had said that they sang "as Maori, not pakeha" – the latter being the Maori term for New Zealanders of European ancestry. Their recordings brought Maori culture and music to a larger audience, making the duo legendary and their music beloved.
The same can be said of the Rotorua Maori Choir, who formed in the early 20th century and recorded at least 30 songs for Columbia in April of 1930. The recordings were engineered by Reg Southey, and the music was conducted and directed by Gil Dech, a music director for Columbia. It's been documented that it took an entire three months on the Columbia docket for Dech to learn the Maori songs, rehearse the choir of about 30 members, record the wax masters, and wrap up the sessions. Nearly all the tracks are solely choir, without piano. The group rehearsed in the Tamatekapua meeting house at Ohinemutu, often until 2AM, when they would make a recording. According to an article in Te Ao Hou, a magazine published by the Maori Affairs Department in New Zealand, Dech would let the choir harmonize naturally…except when he felt the need to step in, as when the group were singing in unison. The recordings remained in print for years, eventually making it onto LP almost three decades letter. None are in print now.
I must admit that it's a little difficult to read accounts of a white man dutifully instructing a group of Maori on the finer points of western harmony, or the accounts of Dech becoming frustrated that he had to drag "choir members out of mud pools" in order to get them to rehearsal. But at the same time, when it comes to early Maori music on 78, this is what we have and little else. Further, these recordings are proudly held as an important part of Maori history and as examples of outstanding Maori music – yes, with the exception of two English hymns, it is their songs, their music, their lyrics, their poetry. And, to offer a comparison, what about the African-American "jubilee quartets" as we had here in the States, who sang a formal gospel style based on European/Western harmonies? As difficult as it is for me to reconcile direct interference such as this on a recording – whether from missionaries or simply hired guns from a record company – it's just as difficult for me to judge these fine recordings as being simply "inauthentic." Collectors of old music have the reputation for searching out only the raw, the plaintive, the music that stems from rural, poor cultures cut off from urban civilization or industrialization – and believe me, all of that makes me salivate too, with this website being living proof. But again, who am I to judge? In 1931, even the Rotorua Maori Choir's hymns were strange to western ears, as a review in the April 1931 issue of Music & Letters states: "The singing is harsh, though that may be a national characteristic."
So, I give you the Rotorua Maori Choir with E Hara Te Waea, or "Love Never Dies" – as good a sentiment as any to kick off 2009.
Rotorua Maori Choir – E Hara Te Waea
Technical Notes
Label: Columbia
Issue Number: DO.57
Matrix Number: T.910


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The 'Emily' Bow.. The Bling Society's 'Lounge' Collection…
Here at The Bling Society we are beginning to spread our wings and fly with the news we are now in partnership with Qantas' Frequent Flyer Program. To celebrate we are releasing a brand new line of jewellery purely for the Qantas Frequent Flyer store.
Taking off with 11 brand new items, this line totaling 16 pieces of the finest costume jewellery is ready to set sail and see the sights of the world. The 'Lounge' line of jewellery is built around the concept of effortless beauty. The designs are very minimalistic, with the intention of highlighting the natural beauty of whoever is wearing them.
Less is more when it comes to this range and we hope that the simplicity of these designs can make them a flexible jewellery choice. Whether you are on a long haul flight, on vacation or at a business meeting, let these pieces travel side by side with you through your busy and diverse life..
Check it out here: https://store.qantas.com/Catalogue.a2?ProductCategoryId=7618&alt_cam=au:ff:edm:140813:blingsociety.articlelink&utm_source=edm_140813&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=link
Be Guided by the Guild.
Sean Hyatt.
Accessories Contributor.


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On Monday night, the Atlanta Falcons abruptly cut defensive end Ray Edwards. Per a league source, Edwards has now cleared waivers.
The window closed at 4:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, with no teams making a claim for the man who spent five years with the Vikings and 25 games with the Falcons.
After the trade deadline, all players who are released must pass through waivers, regardless of their tenure in the NFL.
He's now an unrestricted free agent, with the Falcons on the hook for the balance of his $3 million base salary. If he chooses to collect the seven remaining game checks from the Falcons as his one-time entitlement to in-season termination pay, Edwards can keep whatever he may make from a new team.
But first he needs to find a new team. With 3.5 sacks in the last two seasons, that's hardly a given.