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perennialessays · 4 years ago

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Crisis and Critique

What is critical theory, and whence the notion of critique as a practical stance towards the world? Using these questions as a point of departure, this course takes critical theory as its field of inquiry. Part of the course will be devoted to investigating what critique is, starting with the etymological and conceptual affinity it shares with crisis: since the Enlightenment, so one line of argument goes, all grounds for knowledge are subject to criticism, which is understood to generate a sense of escalating historical crisis culminating in a radical renewal of the intellectual and social order. We will explore the efficacy of modern critical thought, and the concept of critique’s efficacy, by examining a series of attempts to narrate and amplify states of crisis – and correspondingly transform key concepts such as self, will, time, and world – in order to provoke a transformation of society. The other part of the course will be oriented towards understanding current critical movements as part of the Enlightenment legacy of critique, and therefore as studies in the practical implications of critical readings. Key positions in critical discourse will be discussed with reference to the socio-political conditions of their formation and in the context of their provenance in the history of philosophy, literature, and cultural theory. Required readings will include works by Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Husserl, Benjamin and others, with suggested readings and references drawn from a variety of source materials ranging from literary and philosophical texts to visual images, film, and architecture. You are invited to work on your individual interests with respect to the readings.

Week 1

Critique, krinein, crisis (Koselleck, Adorno)

Required Reading

Reinhart Koselleck, “Crisis,” Journal of the History of Ideas 67.2 (2006), 357-400.

—, Chapters 7 and 8, Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1988 [German original, 1959].

Adorno and Horkheimer, "The Concept of Enlightenment," in Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. John Cumming (New York: Continuum, 1989), pp. 3-42.

Recommended Reading

Michel Foucault, “What is Enlightenment?” in The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984: 32-50.

—, The Politics of Truth. New York: Semiotext(e), 1997.

Friedrich Hölderlin, “Nature and Art or Saturn and Jupiter,” in Hyperion and Selected Poems. Ed. by Eric Santner. Translated by Michael Hamburger. New York: Continuum, 1990: 150-151.

Week 2

Judgment and Imagination (Kant)

Required Reading

Immanuel Kant, “Preface [A and B],” in Critique of Pure Reason. Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998: 99-124.

—, “Preface” and “Introduction,” in Critique of Practical Reason, in Practical Philosophy, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge UP, 1996), pp. 139-149.

—, §§1-5, 59-60 of Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews (Cambridge UP, 2000), pp. 89-96, 225-230.

—, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose,” in Kant: Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991 (2nd ed.): 41-53, 273.

—, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? [1784],” in Practical Philosophy. Translated by Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999: 11-22.

Recommended Reading

Immanuel Kant, "Analytic of the Sublime," in Critique of Judgment. Translated by James Creed Meredith; revised, edited, and introduced by Nicholas Walker. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007: 75-164.

Theodor Adorno, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (2001 [1959])

Henry Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism (2004)

Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (1992)

Geoffrey Bennington, “Kant’s Open Secret”, Theory, Culture and Society 28.7-8(2011): 26-40.

J.M. Bernstein, The Fate of Art: Aesthetic Alienation from Kant to Derrida and Adorno (1992)

Graham Bird, The Revolutionary Kant (2006)

Andrew Bowie, Aesthetics and Subjectivity: from Kant to Nietzsche (1990, 2003)

Howard Caygill, The Kant Dictionary (2000)

Ernst Cassirer, Kant's Life and Thought (1981)

Gilles Deleuze, Kant's Critical Philosophy (1984)

Will Dudley and Kristina Engelhard (eds.) Immanuel Kant: Key Concepts (2010)

Paul Guyer, Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment: Critical Essays (2003)

Martin Heidegger, Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1997)

Laura Hengehold, The BODY Problematic: Political Imagination in Kant and Foucault (2007)

Otfried Höffe, Immanuel Kant (1994)

Jean-François Lyotard, L’Enthousiasme: La critique kantienne de l’histoire. Paris: L’Éditions Galilée, 1986.

Rudolf Makkreel, Imagination and Interpretation in Kant: The Hermaneutic Import of the Critique of Judgment (1990)

Jean-Luc Nancy, A Finite Thinking (2003)

Andrea Rehberg and Rachel Jones (eds.), The Matter of Critique: Readings in Kant’s Philosophy (2000)

Philip Rothfield (ed.), Kant after Derrida (2003)

Rei Terada, Looking Away: Phenomenality and Dissatisfaction, Kant to Adorno (2009)

Yirmiahu Yovel, Kant and the Philosophy of History (1989)

Week 3

Recognition and the Other (Hegel)

Required Reading

G.W.F. Hegel, “The Truth of Self-Certainty” and “Lordship and Bondage,” in The Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by Terry Pinkard. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2018: 102-116.

—, “The Art-Religion,” in The Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by Terry Pinkard. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2018: 403-430.

Recommended Reading

G.W.F. Hegel, Introduction [§§1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 8], in Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art. Translated by T.M. Knox. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975: 1-14; 22-55; 69-90.

Stuart Barnett (ed.), Hegel after Derrida (2001)

Frederick Beiser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hegel (1993)

Susan Buck-Morss, Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History (2009)

Rebecca Comay, Mourning Sickness: Hegel and the French Revolution (2011)

Rebecca Comay and John McCumber (eds.), Endings: Questions of Memory in Hegel and Heidegger (1999)

Eva Geulen, The End of Art: Readings in a Rumor after Hegel. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006.

Werner Hamacher, “(The End of Art with the Mask),” in Stuart Barnett (ed.), Hegel after Derrida. London and New York: Routledge, 1998: 105-130.

Werner Hamacher, “The Reader’s Supper: A Piece of Hegel,” trans. Timothy Bahti, diacritics 11.2 (1981): 52-67.

H.S. Harris, Hegel: Phenomenology and System (1995)

Stephen Houlgate, An Introduction to Hegel: Freedom, Truth and History (2005)

Stephen Houlgate, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (2013)

Fredric Jameson, The Hegel Variations (2010)

Alexandre Kojève, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980.

Terry Pinkard, Hegel: A Biography (2001)

Week 4

Revolution … (Marx)

Required Reading

Karl Marx, “I: Feuerbach,” The German Ideology, in Collected Works vol. 5. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1976: 27-93.

Karl Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach," available online (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm)

Week 5

... and Repetition (Marx)

Required Reading

Karl Marx, “Preface” to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy [1859], in Collected Works vol. 29. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1976: 261-165.

—, “Postface to the Second Edition” and “Chapter 1: The Commodity,” in Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Trans. by B. Fowkes. London: Penguin, 1990: 95-103 and 125-177.

Recommended Reading

Louis Althusser, For Marx (1969)

Hannah Arendt, “Karl Marx and the Tradition of Western Political Thought”, Social Research 69.2 (2002): 273-319.

Étienne Balibar, The Philosophy of Marx (1995, 2007)

Ernst Bloch, On Karl Marx (1971)

Andrew Chitty and Martin McIvor (eds.), Karl Marx and Contemporary Philosophy (2009)

Simon Choat, Marx Through Post-Structuralism: Lyotard, Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze (2010)

Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International. New York and London: Routledge, 1994.

Werner Hamacher, “Lingua Amissa: The Messianism of Commodity-Language and Derrida’s Specters of Marx” (1999)

Jean Hyppolite, Studies on Marx and Hegel (1969)

Sarah Kofman, Camera Obscura: Of Ideology (1998)

Peter Singer, Marx: A Very Short Introduction (1980)

Michael Sprinker (ed.), Ghostly Demarcations: A Symposium on Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx (1999, 2008)

Moishe Postone, History and Heteronomy: Critical Essays (2009)

Moishe Postone, Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory (1993)

Jacques Rancière, “The Concept of ‘Critique’ and the ‘Critique of Political Economy’ (from the 1844 Manuscript to Capital)”, Economy and Society 5.3 (1976): 352-376.

Tom Rockmore, Marx After Marxism: The Philosophy of Karl Marx (2002)

Gareth Stedman-Jones, Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion (2016)

Week 6

Tutorial Week

Week 7

Will to Becoming Otherwise (Nietzsche)

Required Reading

Friedrich Nietzsche, "Preface" and "First Treatise," in On the Genealogy of Morality. Trans. by Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen. Indianopolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 1998: 1-33.

Week 8

Ascetic Ideal and Eternal Return (Nietzsche)

Required Reading

Friedrich Nietzsche, "Second Treatise" and "Third Treatise," in On the Genealogy of Morality. Trans. by Maudemarie Clark and Alan J. Swensen. Indianopolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 1998: 35-118.

Recommended Reading

Friedrich Nietzsche, §§341-342 of The Gay Science

Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Vision and Riddle” and “The Convalescent,” in Thus Spake Zarathustra III

Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense,” in: The Birth of Tragedy and other writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Uses and Abuses of History for Life,” in: Untimely Meditations. Trans. by R.J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.

Jacques Derrida, Spurs: Nietzsche’s Styles. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

Michel Foucault, "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History," in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Ed. by D. F. Bouchard. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977: 139-164.

R. Kevin Hill, Nietzsche’s Critiques: The Kantian Foundations of his Thought (2003)

Luce Irigaray, Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche. Trans. by Gillian C. Gill. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.

Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

Gianni Vattimo, The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Postmodern Culture. Trans. by Jon R. Snyder. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.

Alenka Zupančič, The Shortest Shadow: Nietzsche’s Philosophy of the Two (2003)

Week 9

Repetition Compulsion (Freud)

Required Reading

Sigmund Freud, “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” [excerpts], in Peter Gay (ed.), The Freud Reader. London: Vintage, 1995: 594-625.

Recommended Reading

Theodor Adorno, “Revisionist Psychoanalysis,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 40.3 (2014): 326-338.

Louis Althusser, Writings on Psychoanalysis: Freud and Lacan (1996)

Lauren Berlant, Desire/Love (2012)

Leo Bersani, The Freudian Body: Psychoanalysis and Art (1986)

Rebecca Comay, “Resistance and Repetition: Freud and Hegel,” Research in Phenomenology 45 (2015): 237-266.

Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (1995)

Jacques Derrida, The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond (1987)

Mladen Dolar, “Freud and the Political,” Unbound 4.15 (2008): 15-29.

Sarah Kofman, Freud and Fiction (1991)

Jacques Lacan, “The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious; or Reason after Freud”, in Écrits: A Selection. Trans. by A. Sheridan. New York: Norton, 1977: 146-175.

Catherine Malabou, “Plasticity and Elasticity in Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle.” Diacritics 37.4 (2007): 78-85.

Jean-Luc Nancy, "System of (Kantian) Pleasure (With a Freudian Postscript)," in Kant after Derrida. Ed. by Phil Rothfield. Manchester: Clinamen Press, 2003: 127-141.

Angus Nicholls and Martin Liebscher (eds.), Thinking the Unconscious: Nineteenth-Century German Thought (2010)

Charles Sheperdson, Vital Signs: Nature, Culture, Psychoanalysis (2000)

Samuel Weber, The Legend of Freud. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000.

Alenka Zupančič, Ethics of the Real: Kant and Lacan. London: Verso, 2012 [reprint].

Week 10

Crisis of European Humankind (Husserl)

Required Reading

Edmund Husserl, §§1-7 and §§10-21, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Trans. by David Carr. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970: 2-18; 60-84.

Recommended Reading

Edmund Husserl, “Philosophy and the Crisis of European Humanity [Vienna Lecture],” in The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Trans. by David Carr. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970: 269-299.

Jacques Derrida, The Other Heading: Reflections on Today’s Europe. Trans. by Pascale Anne Brault and Michael B. Naas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992: 4-83.

Paul de Man, “Criticism and Crisis,” in Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971: 3-19.

James Dodd, Crisis and Reflection: An Essay on Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences (2004)

Burt C. Hopkins, The Philosophy of Husserl (2011)

David Hyder and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Science and the Life-World: Essays on Husserl’s Crisis of European Sciences (2010)

Leonard Lawlor, Derrida and Husserl: The Basic Problem of Phenomenology (2002)

Dermot Moran, The Husserl Dictionary (2012)

Paul Valéry, "Notes on the Greatness and Decline of Europe” and “The European,” in History and Politics. Trans. Denise Folliot and Jackson Matthews. New York: Bollingen, 1962: 228; 311-12.

David Woodruff Smith, Husserl (2007)

Barry Smith and David Woodruff Smith (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Husserl (1995)

Week 11

Crisis-Proof Experience (Benjamin)

Required Reading

Walter Benjamin, “On Some Motifs in Baudelaire,” in Selected Writings vol. 4. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2003: 313-355.

Recommended Reading

Walter Benjamin, "Experience and Poverty"

—, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproducibility”

—, “Theses on the Concept of History”

—, “Epistemo-Critical Prologue,” in The Origin of German Tragic Drama. Trans. by John Osborne. London and New York: Verso, 2003: 27-56.

—, “Convolute J,” The Arcades Project

—, The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire (2006)

Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, “Exchange with Theodor W. Adorno on ‘The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire,” in Benjamin, Selected Writings vol. 4 (1999).

Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil; The Painter of Modern Life

Ian Balfour, “Reversal, Quotation (Benjamin’s History)”, Modern Language Notes 106.3 (1991): 622-647.

Eduardo Cadava, Words of Light: Theses on the Photography of History (1997)

Tom Gunning, “The Exterior as Intérieur: Benjamin’s Optical Detective,” boundary 2 30.1 (2003).

Werner Hamacher, “Now: Benjamin on Historical Time” (2001; 2005)

General Background

Julian Wolfreys (ed.), Modern European Criticism and Theory: A Critical Guide (2006) Simon Critchley, Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2001) Terry Pinkard, German Philosophy 1760-1860: The Legacy of Idealism (2002)

Andrew Bowie, Introduction to German Philosophy: From Kant to Habermas (2003)

Kai Hammermeister, The German Aesthetic Tradition (2002) Gary Gutting, French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (2001)

Eric Matthews, Twentieth-Century French Philosophy (1996)

Jonathan Simons (ed.), From Kant to Lévi-Strauss: The Background to Contemporary Critical Theory (2002)

Learning Outcomes

- You will have a grasp of the broad trends in the development of critical theory.

- You will have a good understanding of how different modern philosophical traditions from German Idealism to Phenomenology inform the different strains of critical theory.

- You will be able to expound and analyse the ways in which a range of different writers and tendencies in the history of modern thought conceive of the specificity of critique.

- You will have a sound grasp of the primary and secondary literatures in critical theory, both on general issues and specific thinkers or schools.

- You will be able to use the ideas and texts explored in the module to inform your readings in critical theoretical texts.

Assessment Criteria

- Students should show a clear command of how their chosen thinker(s) and texts relate to the broader trajectories of critical theory.

- Students should show a detailed critical knowledge of at least two of the module’s key thinkers or theoretical tendencies.

- Students should show a knowledge and capacity to use a good range of secondary literature on both general issues in the field and on the specific thinkers and texts they address.

- Students should be able to read the relevant texts from both critical and genealogical perspectives.

- Students should demonstrate their capacity to develop a distinctive and coherent interpretative and analytical perspective on their chosen subject.

#goldsmiths #crisis and critique

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g-evans-pdx · 4 years ago

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Works Cited

For The Rights Of All: Ending Jim Crow In Alaska. Directed by Jeffry Silverman, performances by Diane E. Benson, Thomas Mark Higgins, Vision Maker Media, 2009.

Haycox, Stephen W. “William Paul, Sr., and the Alaska Voters' Literacy Act of 1925.” Alaskool, http://www.alaskool.org/native_ed/articles/literacy_act/LiteracyTxt.html.

Schenck, Alberta. “Communications.” The Nome Nugget [Nome, AK], 3 March 1944

“Super Race Theory Hit in Hearing,” The Alaska Daily Empire [Juneau, AK], 6 February 1945, p. 8.

Swensen, Thomas M. “The relationship between Indigenous Rights, Citizenship and Land in Territorial Alaska: How the Past Opened the Door to the Future.” University of Alaska, https://scholarworks.alaska.edu/bitstream/handle/11122/5825/The%20Relationship%20between%20Indigenous%20Rights,%20Citizenship%20and%20Land%20.pdf;sequence=4. Accessed November 15, 2020.

Vaughan, Carson. “Overlooked No More: Elizabeth Peratrovich, Rights Advocate for Alaska Natives.” New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/obituaries/elizabeth-peratrovich-overlooked.html.

Wills, Matthew. “Alaska’s Unique Civil Rights Struggle.” Jstor Daily, https://daily.jstor.org/alaskas-unique-civil-rights-struggle/.

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lapdropworldwide · 3 years ago

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‘He Had This Gift’: Teen’s Death in Airbnb Party Attack Shatters Family

Jeff Swensen/Getty Images A teenage boy shot to death this weekend at a house party had recently started to turn his life around after a difficult childhood, spending much of his time mentoring other kids, preparing to launch a clothing line, and campaigning against gun violence, school officials and family members told The Daily Beast. Matthew Steffy-Ross, 17, was killed when shots rang out…

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rossorubinotv · 4 years ago

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83° Festival del Maggio, il Requiem di Mozart per ricordare le vittime della pandemia

Sul podio dell’Orchestra e del Coro del Maggio il maestro Daniel Harding. Solisti Christiane Karg, Sara Mingardo, Matthew Swensen e Gianluca Buratto

Dopo le due attesissime inaugurazioni, con il concerto sinfonico corale del 26 aprile e la prima dell’opera Adriana Lecouvreur del 27 aprile che sono coincise con l’apertura dei teatri al pubblico, l’83° edizione del Festival del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino prosegue con un solenne concerto per ricordare le vittime toscane colpite dalla pandemia: il Requiem in re minore K. 626 per soli coro e…

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#arossorubino.tv #Cultura #Firenze #maggio musicale #vittime pandemia

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brucearnold · 5 years ago

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Chord Workbook for Guitar Volume Two

Add digital copy to cart - $13.99 Have you ever wondered what those chords are that you see pro-guitarist play on the upper 4 strings of the guitar? Do you want to play chord/melody but don't know which chords to use? What to funkify your chord playing with some great chord voicings? Need to understand the relationship between chords and scales? Want to learn the chords that will help you stay out of the bass players way? Want to learn those chords you hear in classic R & B? Want to work on sight reading 4 note chord voicings? Need information on the use of tensions in chords and chord progressions? Want to understand one of the most crucial reharmonization theories used by great guitarists? Want to learn the secret "passing diminished" scales that make your soloing effortless when playing over diminished chords? Need a logical way to organize the massive number of upper four string chord voicings? If the answer is YES then Chord Workbook for Guitar Volume Two is your Rosetta Stone for understanding, applying and memorizing the upper four string chord voicing that are so much apart of Alternative Rock, Jazz, R&B and Funk. Basically this book is a must own for any guitarist that wants to take their chord playing to another level.. Probably one of the hardest things to find for the intermediate to advanced guitarist is a book that covers all the common chords a professional guitarist uses when they play chords on the upper four strings. Many guitarists don't realize these upper four string chords are the "secret" chords that professional guitarists use to create those catchy chording patterns that make them the "in demand" guitarist because of the awesome sounds it creates. More importantly you will have 24 chord progression that you can play and reference for years. The theory behind these progressions is also included so you really can start creating your own progressions or reharmonizing jazz standards at will.

This book is power house when it comes to chord knowledge it will give you:

A convenient section showing you how all the most used scales relate to the most used chords a killer way to help you memorize all this information … The secret "passing diminished" scales that help you sound great on diminished chords. To our knowledge this is the only place to get this information …. Chord progression written with both chord diagrams and chord voicings to improve your sight reading skills in these two crucial areas … A logical way to organize and learn massive amounts of chords … The chords used in bands like James Brown and Dave Matthews … In-depth reharmonization section so you can understand the theory behind chord progressions. Common ii V I chord progressions in both major and minor keys that really can open up your jazz playing … Twelve 12 Bar Blues chord progressions. One in each key. Twelve 12 Bar Minor Blues chord progressions. One in each key. PLUS crucial chord reharmonization concepts to understand how using chord tones and available tensions can revolutionize your chord playing … Get this highly acclaimed book and really get your chord playing together with a logical well organized system. Additional Information: Digital Edition IBSN: 978-1-59489-872-3 176 page PDF What people are saying: This book really gave me everything I needed, to learn chording for guitar on my own. A great product. S. Kaufman When I first got this book I was more than a little intimidated... I had worked through CW1 and wasn't quite prepared for the number of chord possibilities found on the upper four strings of the guitar. I think if this book wasn't so well organized I would have given up because man are there a boat load of chords for every chord type. 5 ways to play a Major 7th chord how on earth am I going to remember all those chords. But Mr. Arnold to the rescue! He recommended I practice each chord cycle 5 and only learn the 1st four chord types to start with and then apply them to songs. This made the process something I could bite off and chew. It also helped me to start using the chords right away in real music that I want to play. I guess the recommendation is if you get this book and start freaking out contact Bruce via email he will get you back in the saddle. F. Frankel Chord Workbook for Guitar Volume Two is the type of book you will reference for the rest of your life. I should mention that these chords are also found in Mr. Arnold's New York Guitar Method Volume Two so if you have that book already you can skip CW2. That said this book was a life changer for me. I was sooooo bored with the usual chords that are found in CW1 and really needed something new especially because I'm really into to chord/melody playing both in a Jazz and Country style. i.e. Chet Atkins vibe. If solo guitar playing is something you have a desire to master then this book is a must own. Between all the chord voicings and the music theory knowledge contained between CW1 and CW2 you will have all the info you need to be one of the best chord players on the planet. S. Swensen So many chords so little time :) This is a serious book that really opened my eyes to what funk guitarist do when they play. You want to be funky get this book and you will learn all the chords that are used in that style. I've mostly concentrated on the Major, Minor, Dominant chords because those are the ones I use the most in my funk band but believe me any chord you want is found in this book. I also worked through the Comping Styles for Guitar Volume Two FUNK which is really cool for solo funk guitar playing. I have a duet with a singer and we use many of the grooves presented in that book when we perform. Bottom line get the book man you won't regret it. As with all Mr. Arnold books (I own 15 of them) they are always leading you towards becoming the best musician you can be. In my opinion if you want to prepare yourself for the real world of music get this book! W. Woods I purchased both the Chord Workbook for Guitar Volume 1 and 2. I am at the University of Alaska learning guitar (beginning my second semester), and I was looking for additional instruction. These books are full of clear, easy to understand chord diagrams. Volume 1, in addition to being full of chord diagrams, touches on much needed basics of music theory and chord construction. It is very helpful. I am thankful to have Mr. Arnold's books at my side. Also, I want to mention that I emailed Mr. Arnold with some questions about rhythm, time, notation, scales, and just some things I needed help on. He guided me to the right places and answered all my questions with great detail and encouragement. I was very impressed with his care and thoughtful response. You won't be disappointed putting your trust in the knowledge he has to share about guitars! S. Cartwright. The chord progressions in this book are a gas. Basically Bruce took the reharmonized chord progressions from Chord Workbook V1 and reharmonized them again. You will find some very cool sounds and ideas in these chord progressions. Personally I think they are a little over the top sometimes but I just grab sections of them and use them when I play more of a jazzy blues thing. Had quite a few interactions with Mr. Arnold via email. Great cat, answers my emails faster than my best friends, and is always helpful, knowledgable and seems like he cares about my musical journey. E. Samson. I'm a intermediate to advanced guitarist and got this book before I shipped off the college. When I got into my first ensemble the instructor pointed out how well I was comping and staying out of the bass players range. Thank you very much Mr. Arnold that made my semester. I was nervous like crazy with so many great musicians at school this that comment by my famous teacher really was a shot in the arm I desperately needed. A. Calhoun. I'm a intermediate to advanced guitarist and got this book before I shipped off the college. When I got into my first ensemble the instructor pointed out how well I was comping and staying out of the bass players range. Thank you very much Mr. Arnold that made my semester. I was nervous like crazy with so many great musicians at school this that comment by my famous teacher really was a shot in the arm I desperately needed. A. Calhoun. This book was worth it just for the passing diminished scales. I haven't found those anywhere else. I even turned my teacher on to them! W. Williams.

Get Started today and take your chord playing to a new level!

Add digital copy to cart - $13.99 Status: In stock, pDigital book is available for immediate access. Recommended books to use with Chord Workbook for Guitar Volume Two Rhythm Ear Training Music Theory Workbook for Guitar Volume One Ear Training One Note Complete Contextual Ear Training MetroDrone™ What should I work on after Chord Workbook for Guitar Volume Two? Sonic Resource Guide

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#chords #reharmonization #tensions #voicings #funk #chordtones

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dinafbrownil · 5 years ago

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UVA Doctors Decry Aggressive Billing Practices By Their Own Hospital

Prominent doctors at UVA Health System are expressing public outrage at their employer’s practices to collect unpaid medical debt from its patients.

A Kaiser Health News report in September that showed UVA sued 36,000 patients over six years for more than $100 million, seizing wages and savings and even pushing families into bankruptcy.

Special Reports

Investigation

'UVA Has Ruined Us': Health System Sues Thousands Of Patients, Seizing Paychecks And Claiming Homes

By Jay Hancock and Elizabeth Lucas Sep 10

Over six years, the state institution filed 36,000 lawsuits against patients seeking a total of more than $106 million in unpaid bills, a KHN analysis finds.

Like many physicians who work at U.S. medical centers, the UVA doctors said they had little idea how aggressively the hospital where they practice was billing and pursuing their patients for payment.

Although the health system has announced some interim measures to scale back collections practices, some of the system’s most senior physicians are now calling for UVA to stop suing its patients altogether. And they are urging the pursuit of an “immediate solution” to address the national epidemic of health care debt.

“We were appalled by the revelations of the aggressive, pitiless billing and collections practices” at UVA, Dr. Scott Heysell and two other senior staff members wrote in a letter to KHN published Saturday. “We felt betrayed,” they wrote, “and we had, by extension, betrayed those who had relied on us.”

Heysell, an infectious-disease specialist and associate professor at UVA School of Medicine, and his co-authors echoed other UVA researchers and clinicians contacted by a reporter who said they were surprised and dismayed by the health system’s practices.

UVA initially defended its practices, pointing to the Virginia Debt Collection Act of 1988, which requires state agencies to “aggressively collect” money owed. But within days of the KHN report, UVA said it would reduce its use of the courts and make it easier for patients to qualify for financial assistance.

That’s not enough, said the letter’s authors, who include Dr. Rebecca Dillingham, director of UVA’s Center for Global Health, and Dr. Michael Williams, director of the UVA Center for Health Policy.

They ask “why UVA cannot join other public hospitals that have effectively stopped suing patients altogether?”

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Other University of Virginia faculty said the system’s practices undermined their efforts to improve care for middle- and lower-income families and was not in keeping with an ethos of putting patients first.

KHN’s findings “made me feel utterly hypocritical about my work and efforts to promote health equity,” Rajesh Balkrishnan, a UVA public health professor who researches cancer treatment in Appalachia, said in an interview.

“This is a public university with one of the richest endowments in the country,” he said. At least take care of the immediate community you serve.”

In September, UVA Health said it would “reduce our reliance on the legal system,” suing patients only if their household income is more than 400% of the federal poverty level, or $103,000 for a family of four. It also pledged to increase discounts for the uninsured and upgrade its financial assistance for patients.

Those measures are “a first step,” it said. On Oct. 28, it named an advisory council of community leaders, patient advocates and UVA students and staff to consider further changes.

“We are continuing to thoughtfully review our billing and collection practices to find additional ways to better serve our patient as well as improve fairness and transparency,” said UVA Health spokesman Eric Swensen. “We are looking at all options to achieve these goals.”

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, who oversees the state’s university system and public hospitals, is a pediatric neurologist.

“As a doctor himself, Gov. Northam agrees with the doctors who have taken a stand against unfair and aggressive medical billing practices,” his spokeswoman said. “Much more can and should be done to address this issue.”

KHN’s report prompted discussions across the campus in Charlottesville about how to treat uninsured patients or those with coverage who still struggle with thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses, doctors and faculty said.

“No physician wants to be responsible for bankrupting a patient — not one physician, not one patient,” said Dr. Mohan Nadkarni, UVA’s chief of general internal medicine. He is the only physician on the advisory council.

“UVA physicians were completely taken aback by the scale and magnitude of the collections practices,” Nadkarni said. Discussion at the council’s first meeting reflected “lots of pent-up dissatisfaction from community leaders” about UVA’s practices, he said.

But many knew the health system was suing patients, they said. Some had firsthand experience with aggressive tactics from the billing office.

At one “town meeting” of health system employees, held at UVA’s Leonard Sandridge Auditorium in response to KHN’s report, somebody took the mic and asked, “Who in this room has been taken to collections by UVA?” said Matthew Gillikin, a speech therapist who was there. A third to half the people raised their hands, he said.

Court data analyzed by KHN showed that UVA Health was suing about 100 of its employees every year.

Also at the town meetings, “we heard many agonizing stories of patients and employees having been sued or having wages garnished,” Nadkarni said. “We heard loud and clear from many physicians that they heavily supported significant liberalization” of UVA Health’s financial assistance policies.

Family physician Dr. Alex Salomon, who worked at UVA for seven years and now is with Augusta Health in Fishersville, Va., had “a lot of patients” with UVA bill and lawsuit problems, many who had insurance but could not make out-of-pocket payments, he said. Still, he added, “I didn’t realize UVA was so much worse” than other hospitals.

As part of the University of Virginia, UVA Health is a state institution that is not subject to taxation. UVA Medical Center, the system’s flagship hospital, made a $91 million operating profit on revenue of $1.8 billion in the fiscal year ending in June and held stocks, bonds and other investments worth about $1 billion.

Doctors are realizing that financial barriers to treatment and budget squeezes from bills can be as harmful to patients as disease, said Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon and researcher at Johns Hopkins Medicine who studies hospital debt collection and is urging UVA alumni to press for further change.

“I have not talked to a single patient or student of UVA or faculty member or alumni who thinks it is reasonable for the hospital to sue patients who cannot afford their bill,” he said.

News of UVA collections practices served as a teaching moment for at least one class.

“Many of the students in my class work for the UVA Health System, so the recent media coverage about UVA’s billing practices has been painful for them as nurses who care deeply about the patients and families they serve,” Kimberly Acquaviva, a professor who teaches health policy at UVA’s nursing school, tweeted in September. “As a class, we talked about the power that nurses have to shape the lives of the patients and families” by advocating for system change, she said.

She declined a request for an interview, as did five other doctors or professors. Several referred a reporter to UVA spokesman Swensen. About 20 others did not respond to interview requests.

Dr. Chris Ghaemmaghami, an emergency and internal medicine doctor, became UVA Health’s acting CEO after Pamela Sutton-Wallace announced her resignation in September. Her departure was unrelated to KHN’s revelations, UVA said at the time.

“I understand the disappointment some fellow physicians felt when our historic billing and collection practices came to light,” he said in an email responding to questions from KHN.

Heysell, Williams and Dillingham, the doctors who wrote the letter, go further.

“To be clear, we are outraged,” they write. “We stand with those that have been financially injured, whose bank accounts have been looted, whose homes have been swallowed as if they were built on quicksand, whose credit scores were ruined, and whose mental health and energy were spent in a courtroom or in anxious conversations with lawyers — all as a result of having sought our care.”

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/uva-doctors-decry-aggressive-billing-practices-by-their-own-hospital/

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longislandweekly-blog · 5 years ago

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Long Island's Jake Carlock And His Life On The Giants Practice Squad

Long Island's Jake Carlock chats with Long Island Weekly's Chris Birsner about his life on the New York Giants practice squad.

Jake Carlock is from Babylon High School and LIU Post. He is now a practice squad member for the New York Giants. (Photo by Matthew Swensen/New York Giants)

Jake Carlock remembers watching his older brother playing football back when he was just a preschooler. It was the moment that football permanently entered his life. “I got started playing it with all my best friends growing up,” said Carlock,…

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instapicsil1 · 6 years ago

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Swipe to see photos from last night’s election night parties. Governor Charlie Baker and Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito celebrated at a post-election rally in Boston. (Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff) Lori Trahan, the Democrat candidate for the open Third Congressional seat from Massachusetts, gives her victory speech while her daughter Caroline blocks her ears from the noise. (Jim Davis/Globe Staff) Senator Elizabeth Warren celebrated her win. (John Tlumacki/Globe Staff) Jodi and her daughter Lia embrace as they wait for polling results to finalize at a Yes on 3 campaign watch party. (Michael Swensen for The Boston Globe) Governor Charlie Baker greets supporters at his campaign election night rally at the Hynes Convention Center. (Barry Chin/Globe Staff) Nurses listen as Donna Kelly-Williams, President of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, concedes on Question 1 at the Yes on 1 at the Massachusetts Nurses Association. (Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff) https://ift.tt/2qAonbs

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mikemortgage · 6 years ago

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The Cannabis Power List: Movers and shakers we’re buzzing about in the pot world

Serruya Brothers back row left to right, Michael, Jack, Simon and Aaron Serruya. Front row, Aaron, Nathaniel and Sammy.

The Money: Serruya Brothers, Private Equity

By Joe Costaldo

Michael Serruya has never used cannabis. “But I am anxiously awaiting October 17,” says the managing director of Serruya Private Equity, referring to the date on which Canadians can legally consume the plant. “I think there are a lot of people like me out there.” It’s more than an idle observation: He’s deeply invested in the cannabis sector.

Michael and his brothers, Aaron and Simon, are perhaps best known to most as the trio behind Yogen Früz, founded in 1986. Today, their stable of brands also includes Yogurty’s, Pinkberry and Swensen’s ice cream. Despite their sweet tooth, their investments through Serruya Private Equity have ranged from telecom to real estate over the years, but they have also invested in around two-dozen cannabis-related firms since 2013. They’re now planning a chain of retail dispensaries and developing edibles and marijuana-infused beverages.

The Serruyas are betting their three decades in food retail will allow them to emerge as significant players in the cannabis industry. The family declined to put a dollar value on their cannabis investments, but the sector represents a large portion of their portfolio. “By our standards, it’s very significant,” Michael says.

The Serruyas got their start in the sector through a seed investment in a Leamington, Ont., flower farm that was in the process of converting to a licensed producer under the federal government’s medical marijuana program. That company, Aphria Inc., is now one of the country’s largest producers with a market cap of roughly $4 billion. They’re also the largest shareholders in Liberty Health Sciences Inc., a medicinal marijuana company based in Florida. Another holding, a California maker of edibles called Plus Products Inc., filed a preliminary prospectus in August to trade on the Canadian Securities Exchange. “We believe the U.S. is five or six years behind where Canada is today,” Michael says, adding he believes federal legalization is inevitable at this point given that so many states have already moved forward.

For now, though, much of the Serruyas’ attention remains at home. They have applied for retail licences in Alberta and plan to do the same in Ontario and British Columbia once the process is opened. They’ve already developed two different retail brands: One Plant, with the “Let’s be buds” slogan, is positioned as a higher-end label, while Purpl Flowr is designed to be a mid-market dispensary. Store renderings for both brands show bright, open concept layouts not unlike an Apple outlet, with display cases for cannabis strains, accessories and a clothing line. The stores will eventually be stocked with the Serruyas’ own line of edibles, including cookies, chocolates and gummies, which are in various stages of development. “We have an incredible ice cream,” Aaron says with a smirk. “Let’s leave it at that.”

The concept as depicted in the renderings, which show ample product branding, likely won’t comply with Canada’s strict approach to packaging, but the Serruyas believe governments will eventually loosen those restrictions. “We’re trying to stay ahead all the time to understand what the second and third innings will look like,” Michael says.

The Serruyas have identified around two-dozen properties in Ontario that could serve as retail locations. By April 2019, the date by which the provincial government has pegged for private sales, the Serruyas hope to have opened at least 10 stores followed by an aggressive rollout. The government has yet to outline private retail regulations, including how many outlets a single owner can operate. But the Serruyas are wagering Ontario will follow Alberta’s model, and the cap will be somewhere between 75 and 100 stores per operator. “We want to get to the max,” Michael says.

The cannabis business is a multi-generational family affair for the Serruyas. A fourth brother, Jack, is a director at Serruya Private Equity, and Michael and Aaron’s sons — Aaron, Samuel and Sammy — are driving the dispensary and edibles strategy. But Michael has made multiple trips to the U.S. states where cannabis sales are legal, spending hours hanging out in dispensaries to observe customers and staff, and glean which products are selling. (The family has also planted other observers in stores to count foot traffic.) “There are some insane, ridiculous numbers coming out of some of these dispensaries,” Michael says.

The older Aaron, meanwhile, can talk with ease about microdosing, dabbing and the high quality of California cannabis. If he gets a headache, he rubs some cannabidiol cream on his head. Even his mother, he notes, now uses CBD cream to help with a sore shoulder. “A friend of mine sent me an article recently that said there’s more money in cannabis than there is in ice cream,” he says. “It seems like a good time to transition.”

The Visionary: Bruce Linton, Canopy Growth

By Geoff Zochodne

A day after his company announced the biggest deal in the history of the cannabis industry, an audience with Bruce Linton had become a hot ticket. Originally, though, he was just supposed to give an early-morning PowerPoint presentation. “I thought, ‘How the hell am I actually going to get anybody to attend?’” he said to his audience. “And so then I orchestrated to get $5 billion invested. Because I didn’t want to be here by myself.”

The chairman and co-CEO of cannabis producer Canopy Growth Corp. looked and sounded confident that August morning, as he sat in front of a full room at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. His good mood was just- ified. Linton and Smiths Falls, Ont.-based Canopy had announced a day earlier that U.S. alcoholic beverage giant Constellation Brands Inc. would be boosting its stake in Canopy to around 38%. As Linton had noted, this worked out to an investment of about another $5 billion. The terms of the deal are such that Constellation, a Fortune 500 company, could increase its stake even further and become majority owner of Canopy.

The investment was the biggest yet in the cannabis sector, according to the two companies, and it followed an earlier investment by Constellation that had teed Canopy up to become a top player. Moreover, it sparked speculation that other big-name consumer companies may want to get into cannabis. Global giant Diageo PLC is one reported possibility.

The Constellation deal also puts Linton at the forefront of a part of the industry that isn’t even legal yet in this country. Of course, recreational cannabis isn’t quite yet legal either, though Canada will shortly become the first G7 country to take such a plunge. No wonder that audience with him in August was a full house. As he sat back, Linton weighed in on a wide variety of cannabis-related topics, as the blunt-talking exec has become a sort of spokesperson for his entire industry. “What I’ve learned is that if you’re not fairly specific and clear in your own head, and fairly specific and clear in how you express where you want to go, the best outcome could be random luck, because you’re easily misinterpreted,” Linton says.

After the Q&A in August, Linton allowed a scrum of media and conference attendees to form around him and lob questions for a length of time that would give any PR person nightmares. Selfies were taken. A green-and-white “Toronto Marijuana Leafs” jersey was produced and handed to Linton. The scene was a bit different than the one where Linton began his business career. According to his company bio, he started out at Ottawa-based firm Newbridge Networks Corp., which was gobbled up by French phone company Alcatel 18 years ago. But Linton has not strayed too far from those roots. He also co-chairs Martello Technologies Group Inc. alongside Terry Matthews, the billionaire founder of Newbridge. “To me, it’s something that means quite a bit,” says Linton of working with a former boss and mentor.

From Newbridge, Linton worked in leadership positions at webHancer Corp. and CrossKeys Systems Corp., before co-founding the company that would grow to be Canopy. His technology background might have shone through a bit in August, when he predicted there would be “Google-like” company in the cannabis industry. “Canopy is a tech company that produces and converts and commercializes marijuana,” he says. “Everything in tech is about how we go from creating one idea to one million units the fastest.”

Meanwhile, when acting as a de facto cannabis industry spokesperson, Linton tends to give a good quote. After the latest Constellation transaction was announced, and Canopy’s stock price took flight, Linton assured BNN that his lifestyle would not be in for any major changes. This, of course, was despite Linton owning approximately 2.8 million shares of Canopy, which are now worth more than $190 million, according to recent Bloomberg data. “I don’t think I need anything,” Linton told the business television network. “I got this suit at Winners. It looks okay on TV.”

Canopy still has some big plans, including one to tap the emerging medical marijuana market in Latin America. Linton has suggested Canopy could go even further with the added capital from Constellation. “This is really rocket fuel,” he says. “We’re going to be expanding production, we’re going to be doing more research, we’re going to develop more intellectual property, we’re going to create more leading brands, we’re going to have more products, and we’re going to be way more global.”

The Innovator: Brendan Kennedy, Tilray

By Rosalind Stefanac

Innovation is par for the course when you’re a company of firsts in an emerging market, and medical cannabis producer Tilray Inc. has been setting the bar high for what’s possible for what seems like ages in an industry that’s only just begun. “There’s a reason we’re in so many countries and why, when a country like the U.K. legalizes medical cannabis, Tilray products are the first they choose,” says CEO Brendan Kennedy, who joined the company’s Canadian subsidiary as CEO in 2013. “I think we are the gold standard.”

Among its many firsts, this Nanaimo, B.C.-based company — which was born out of a Seattle-based private-equity firm founded by Kennedy called Privateer Holdings — in October 2017 was the first Canadian producer licensed to export medical marijuana outside of Canada. Today, its products are available in 11 countries across five continents. “What differentiates us from competitors is the fact we’re recognized as being a scientifically rigorous pharmaceutical brand that is approved by governments and regulators across the world,” says Kennedy, noting that Tilray was also the first cannabis company to be approved by Health Canada in a clinical trial.

A recent collaboration with pharmaceutical manufacturer Sandoz Canada will extend Tilray’s reach even further. “By being the first to partner [with a pharma company] we get to collaborate on the development of new products,” Kennedy says. “Partnering with a pharmaceutical brand that physicians and pharmacists are familiar with also inspires confidence with the mainstream medical community here and globally.”

Most of Tilray’s products outside of Canada are already distributed through pharmacies so its supply chain is identical to drug company supply chains around the world. The company will also ship its first product to a pharmacy chain in Canada within the next six months.

It’s this kind of global thinking at the helm that has set Tilray apart from the get-go. “This isn’t an industry you can study behind a desk or outsource to other people,” says Kennedy, who spent his first year in the industry back in 2010 conducting “boots on the ground” research. At times, that entailed travelling the world to talk to everyone from growers and processors to patients and politicians. “I started in Oregon and went right on through to the dirt roads of B.C. and coffee shops of Amsterdam,” he says. “I had to form my opinions first-hand.”

This hands-on approach to research has certainly paid off. Under Kennedy’s leadership, Tilray was the first pure-play marijuana company to go public on the Nasdaq, a tactic others are sure to follow, and continues to expand its cultivation facilities in Canada and Portugal. It has also secured distribution deals with five provinces and two territories for several of its brands. “We are very excited with these contracts and expect to see additional agreements coming,” he says.

With the impending legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada, Kennedy anticipates another enormous marketplace for Tilray to grow. This past April, the supplier announced the creation of High Park Co., a wholly owned subsidiary based in Toronto that will produce and distribute a broad base of adult-use products in Canada. “There’s this misconception that cannabis legalization is specific to North America and other niche areas, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,” he says. “We’re in the midst of a global paradigm shift where a multi-billion-dollar illicit industry will be transitioning to a legal one.”

Canada may be one of the first countries to legalize recreational cannabis, but other countries are looking at adopting a similar regulatory framework. Kennedy says that trend gives companies such as his a tremendous opportunity to build global, adult-use brands. “There is no road map for building an industry from scratch, but we really are trying to do it right from a scientific and business perspective.”

The Lawyer: Trina Fraser, Brazeau Seller Law

By Rosalind Stefanac

Early on, if someone had told contract lawyer Trina Fraser she’d be dedicating her career to the business of commercializing cannabis, she would have thought it unfathomable. “It didn’t enter my consciousness that I would be doing this, because I didn’t realize medical cannabis was even available,” she says.

But in 2013, while trying to help a family member access cannabidiol (CBD) oil for a severe form of epilepsy, Fraser’s advocacy side kicked in. “When I saw all the roadblocks preventing patients from accessing the medicines that would actually help them, I had to jump in and say, ‘That’s not right’,” she says.

Today, as one of the most prominent cannabis legal experts, Fraser says the cannabis business makes up 90% of her practice. As well as acting for licensed producers of medical cannabis, she advises industry players, including clinics, software/application providers, capital investors and those seeking entry to the consumer market. (Many of her clients are looking to be involved in both.) “There is no shortage of potential clients,” says the Ottawa native who is a co-partner at Brazeau Seller Law (BSL) and head of the firm’s CannaLaw Group. “I get multiple emails and phone calls [from prospects] every single day.”

Five years ago, BSL was among the first law firms to take on entrepreneurs and investors interested in the medical cannabis market when no one else would have them. It was a unique opportunity to be at the forefront of an emerging industry, Fraser says, and her firm’s partners were fortunately unconcerned by the stigma that prevented many established companies from participating. Yet even at that point, she never anticipated consumer legalization would be just around the corner. “Now the industry at large is getting seduced by the fact we are making law in uncharted territory and there are a ton of legal and financial firms looking at the opportunities.”

The craze is not just limited to those law and finance firms either. The looming deadline for legalizing consumer cannabis in October is causing a frenzy of new industry players of late. “In the last six months to a year, alcohol, tobacco and pharma companies are seeing the writing on the wall and recognizing they need to get in here too,” Fraser says. “This industry is not going away and the fact it’s grown to this behemoth even before recreational legalization is mind boggling.”

If Fraser sounds excited, she is. “I literally spend hours every day reading up on legislation and keeping track of what’s going on in the world at large in this area.” Her enthusiasm and knowledge has attracted 8,500 Twitter followers and she is regularly called on for speaking engagements, media comment and expert opinion, such as giving evidence to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health on Bill C45 when the cannabis act was being studied in 2017. “It’s an adrenaline rush to check my Twitter feed to see what deals were announced or who got licensed today.”

Indeed, Fraser, who also serves on the board of directors for Canadians for Fair Access to Medical Marijuana and provides legal advice to the Cannabis Council of Canada, is sometimes criticized for pushing the cannabis agenda a little too vehemently. But this mother of two says she would never promote policies or regulations that come at the expense of her children and the world they live in. “I believe legalization will benefit my children, because I can have a fact-based discussion with them about risks and good choices,” she says. “I’d much rather have a legalized cannabis store in my neighborhood than an illegal one.”

In the future, Fraser hopes to be remembered for having a “principled and balanced approach” to the business of cannabis. That means continuing to advocate for a system that makes cannabis accessible to the people who need it and ensuring there is space for a variety of players. “This is a diverse industry and Canada is being looked at as a world leader with a high-quality product and robust regulatory framework,” she says. “I don’t want the industry taken over by big operators at the expense of smaller ones who have unique products.” FPM

from Financial Post https://ift.tt/2xYTktX via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

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