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laraehrlich-blog · 5 years ago

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Original content owned & copyrighted by Green Global Travel.

As the world nears the climate change tipping point, learning how to reduce carbon footprint is becoming increasingly important on both a personal and collective level.

While politicians wrestle with the question “ is climate change?” and debate the causes of climate change, most people can clearly see the harmful impact these changes are already having on the environment and seek out sensible solutions.

In the meantime, while we each strive to find ways to reduce our carbon footprint, the planet is getting hotter, its storms more severe, its record-breaking floods, devastating hurricanes, and brutally intense heat waves that drain the water supply and change insect life cycles.

Unless you’re a head-in-the-sand climate change denier, the impacts of climate change are pretty obvious. At this point, all you really need to do to see them is watch the weather report or note how global temperatures have risen dramatically in recent years.

Our search for climate change solutions leads us to two important questions: is carbon footprint, and how can you reduce your carbon footprint? Here we’ll help to answer both questions, providing actionable steps ranging from basic lifestyle changes to buying carbon offsets and creating a more READ MORE: Can the Maritime Forest Survive Climate Change?

HOW TO REDUCE CARBON FOOTPRINT (1 WAYS)

is Carbon Footprint?

to Reduce Carbon Footprint With Lifestyle Changes

Ways to Reduce Carbon Footprint at Home

to Use Carbon Offsets & Carbon Credits

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is Carbon Footprint?

Calculating carbon footprint is a way of measuring the mark an event, organization, person, or product leaves on the environment. You do this by examining how much carbon each action releases, and quantifying it in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Some scientists define carbon footprint as “the measure of the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) emissions of a defined population, system or activity, considering all relevant sources, sinks, and storage… Calculated as carbon dioxide equivalent using the relevant 100-year global warming potential (GWP100).”

Calculating this number (originally known as ecological footprint) is decidedly complex. For instance, when you

From the READ MORE: Ted Turner on Saving the World With Alternative Energy

to Reduce Carbon Footprint With Lifestyle Changes

“Plant-Based Dishes, Raw Food” by ella.o, licensed under CC BY 2.0

1. Reduce Your Food Carbon Footprint

The way we eat is having a dramatic impact on the climate. One of the worst offenders is mass-produced meat. Not only does keeping animals in factory farms make their lives miserable, but it has a horrendous effect on the environment.

When animals can’t roam freely, they’re unable to eat naturally by grazing. We now grow millions upon millions of acres of animal feed in order to raise these caged animals.

Even worse, we’re using water to grow the feed, water for the animals, gasoline to power CO2-emitting machines that plow and harvest the fields, and more gasoline to move the feed from the field to the factory farm.

Unfortunately, the list of negative environmental issues associated with factory farms grows longer. Forced into ridiculously close quarters, animals are more prone to disease, so they require antibiotics and other medications. Their waste, which carries all those drugs, is concentrated and ultimately READ MORE: A Guide to Ethical Eating When You Travel

2. Reduce Your Waste Footprint

Nearly a third of the greenhouse gas emissions in the United States come from resource extraction, manufacturing, transportation, and disposal. This statistic includes packaging. When we lakes

, as well as using incredible amounts of fossil fuels to mine metals and minerals.

With each product we dispose of, we increase the amount of garbage, which inevitably finds its way to landfills that are releasing greenhouse gases. Then the new products we replace them with require packaging and shipping, thus using another collection of resources.

So in order to reduce our CO2 footprint, we must learn to value the things we buy. We have to buy READ MORE: 1 Ways to Reduce Waste

Consignment Shop by Hebi B. from Pixabay

3. Lower Carbon Footprint By Buying Secondhand

Once you learn to reduce waste in your own home, you can also work towards a lower carbon footprint for others.

Many people look at online shopping as an opportunity to get whatever they want whenever they want. But smart shoppers know it’s also a great way to buy things secondhand.

Secondhand products are a sensible choice for our budget as well as our carbon footprints. Not only does buying secondhand mean that we aren’t having to tap the planet for more resources, but we’re also avoiding the need for more packaging. That spells responsible shopping.

Many items are easy to find secondhand, at reduced prices and often higher quality than new products. FreeCycle. They’re also easy to find at thrift stores.

Shopping secondhand is a great way become more CO2 neutral. In times when everything is so easy to get with the click of a button, it’s easy to forget the price the planet pays for convenience. Learn to shop smarter, be patient, and find what you want without getting it brand new.

READ MORE: to Save Money for Travel by Buying Secondhand Gear

Electric Car by MikesPhotos from Pixabay

4. Reduce CO2 Emissions by Driving Smarter

In an ideal world, we’d all have access to reliable, affordable public transportation. But the fact is that most of us in the USA don’t. Unless we live in a large city, odds are we need a car for every adult in the house. That’s just the sad state of our national infrastructure.

Nevertheless, we still can reduce CO2 emissions by traveling more responsibly in and around town. Even if we can’t READ MORE: The World’s Best Road Trips

. Buy Carbon Offsets & Consider Slow Travel

If there’s one thing we understand here at Green Global Travel, it’s the insatiable urge to get out and see the world.

Of course there are countless ways we can air travel has an abysmal carbon footprint: Aviation accounts for 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. One round-trip flight from 4.3 billion people traveled by air in 2018– an increase of 38 million over 2017– which caused the overall demand for jet fuel to rise by 3% at a time when we’re desperately working on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

In other words, READ MORE: is Ecotourism? The History/Principles of Responsible Travel

Ways to Reduce Carbon Footprint at Home

Bret & Mary’s Permaculture Garden

1. Grow Your Own Vegetables & Fruit

Growing food in your own home garden is as locally-sourced as it gets. When you plant and nurture your own herbs, fruits, and vegetables, you get affordable, organic, non-home garden has to be some sort of complicated or time-consuming thing.

We can grow fresh herbs on the kitchen windowsill. We can grow salad greens in pots on the patio. We can plant climate-appropriate fruit trees in the backyard. We can cultivate berry hedges along fences and, yes, we can READ MORE: Permaculture Design Principles (12 Steps to a Productive Garden)

Rain Barrel by ramboldheiner from Pixabay

2. Reduce Your Water Footprint

If you remember your high school chemistry, you know that water does not contain carbon. It’s H2O: two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. But getting water to our homes takes a tremendous amount of energy, and dealing with gray- and black-water requires even more.

When we turn on the tap and water flows effortlessly, it’s easy to forget how much effort went into getting it there. Water has to be sourced from somewhere, pumped to somewhere, filtered and sanitized, then moved along to our homes. Hot water on demand requires energy to heat.

Reducing our water footprint has been a common goal for decades. As a child in the ’80s, I was urged to turn off the tap while brushing my teeth. We knew back then what our rampant water waste was doing, and we know even better now that the planet is facing an increasingly urgent water crisis.

The real culprit behind the majority of home water waste isn’t dental cleansing. Toilets account for about a quarter of our household water consumption. Grass lawns are notably as bad, requiring copious irrigation to keep them green and growing. The plethora of appliances we now rely on (dishwashers, washing machines, etc.) account for a lot of waste as well.

Water conservation solutions are totally realistic. It’s a matter of buying low-flow taps and toilets, growing home gardens instead of lawns, choosing water-efficient appliances and using them responsibly, and making use of gray water—not fresh water—for things like irrigation. The trick lies in actually doing it!

READ MORE: Water.org Fights the Global Water Crisis

“Joe’s DIY Solar Panel Install Taken by Joe” by Dave Dugdale is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

3. Reduce Your Energy Footprint with Renewable Energy

As with water, we’ve become accustomed to flicking light switches, plugging in laptops, and having instant power. It’s been this way for so long now that we as a society have forgotten that electricity was a rare luxury less than 100 years ago.

Fossil fuels—coal, disastrous environmental impacts, and even cheaper than fossil fuels, and it’s a great way to do our part in fighting climate change.

The last couple of centuries have been a guiltless grab for power, but the next century is going to find us running out of fossil fuels and having done irreparable damage to the planet. So do us all a favor and switch to renewable energy however you can, as soon as you can.

READ MORE: Al Gore on Climate Change & Renewable Energy

Passive Cooling by Lars Eriksson from Pixabay

4. Use Passive Heating & Passive Cooling

First-world households (even “green” ones) often forego minimizing the amount of energy we need. In fact, heating and cooling our homes accounts for around 0% of the energy we use.

In truth, depending on where you live, the ambient temperature outside is generally comfortable for at least half the year. ever, we’ve become accustomed to controlling our indoor temperatures with extreme precision. Many of us no longer take advantage of pleasant days.

We don’t wear appropriate READ MORE: Arctic Activist Sebastian Copeland on Global Warming

Clothesline by Alina Kuptsova from Pixabay

. Create a More Energy Efficient Home

Many of us already own homes that we’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to make them more energy-efficient.

There are many simple solutions for retrofitting homes that were not designed to be environmentally friendly, which can both conserve energy and save us money long-term.

Many of these fixes don’t even require major construction. Adding better insulation around leaky houses will keep the cool in during summer and out during winter. Installing Energy Star appliances (particularly water heaters) can also make a huge difference.

Many little inexpensive changes can compile to make a notable difference as well. Putting up a clothesline instead of using an energy-hogging dryer is good. Switching to energy-efficient LED light bulbs saves a lot of energy and money in the long run, particularly for an entire household.

Of course, we can also add solar panels where appropriate. There are a variety of programs that allow us to feed energy into the grid and get discounts, rather than trying to power the entire house with solar.

READ MORE: to Audit Your Home for Energy Efficiency

to Use Carbon Offsets & Carbon Credits

Farmer’s Market by Alina Kuptsova from Pixabay

1. Use an Ecological Footprint Calculator

The first step towards going carbon neutral is to use an ecological footprint calculator (a.k.a. carbon footprint calculator), which is available for free from numerous sources online.

These calculators take users through a series of questions that help them determine the approximate number of pounds of carbon they use each year. It’s both an eye-opening process as well as a means of getting a firm grasp on where to work on improving your personal efforts.

The questions typically cover several facets of life we’ve discussed here, including your automobiles, air travel, home energy use, waste production, and dietary habits.

Each of your answers helps provide the program with a rough guesstimate of the carbon emissions you create each year. Most of us who live in the industrialized world lead lifestyles that would require several Earths to support them.

Here are 10 different online ecological footprint calculators to try: Global Footprint Network, Terrapass, CarbonFootprint.com, EPA, The Nature Conservancy, Carbon Fund, Ecological Footprint, Earth Day, and READ MORE:

Carbon Offsets Infographic courtesy of Terrapass

2. Buy Carbon Offsets

Once they learn their carbon footprint, some people like to buy carbon offsets to balance out the amount of carbon they put into the atmosphere.

While it’s vitally important to take the aforementioned steps to reduce our individual carbon footprints, buying carbon offsets (or carbon credit, in the case of corporations) is way to ensure you’re truly living a carbon neutral life.

So what is carbon credit? Carbon credit is a consolidated way to make monetary investments to help with the reduction of carbon emissions on a global scale.

Carbon offset programs allow individuals, companies, and governments to purchase offsets that invest in renewable energies, energy efficiency, reforestation, and similar ventures in order to counteract their own carbon emissions.

It’s important to understand that a carbon tax is not the same thing. Carbon taxes are levied on companies that create an abundance of carbon, and are not optional. But, like carbon offsets, they help to thwart climate change by financing READ MORE: Eco-Friendly Initiatives That Will Change the World

3. Do Business with Eco Friendly Companies

Often we aren’t given green options when choosing the companies with which we do business. Large power companies in particular seem to have a monopoly, leaving little to no eco-friendly choices in the areas in which we live.

ever, that isn’t to say that we can’t make the effort. READ MORE: to Choose An Eco Hotel

4. Support Passionate NGOs

Finding NGOs focused on protecting the environment is easy, but narrowing down the ones you’d like to support can be hard.

Along with making changes at home, you can reduce your carbon footprint by supporting these organizations, whether it be with time, money, or promotion.

NGOs are working for the same reductions we’ve discussed here, but with a larger, collective ecological footprint. Supporting that work is almost as important as doing our own part at home.

If those of us who can afford the time and/or money each chose just one NGO to support, these organizations could do their work much faster and with more resources at their disposal. This work affects the entire planet, and time is increasingly of the essenece.

Here’s a list of 10 environmentally-focused NGOs to check out: The Climate Reality Project, Global Footprint Network, EarthShare, Environmental Defense Fund, Carbon Trust, Ceres, Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, and GreenBlue.

READ MORE: The 20 Best Environmental Charities & Animal Charities

. Live Carbon Neutral

Ultimately, with all of the information we have co;lected here, it’s possible to begin living carbon neutral today.

We can buy carbon credit to offset our less-than-green lifestyles as we transition ourselves into more responsible homes, cars, appliances, and energy production. We can invest in our future, both through direct action and through donations to envioronmental NGOs.

In other words, we already have the power to use less power.

We have the power to start making individual changes now. We have the power to set examples for our out-of-whack governments. We have the power to support companies that care about the planet as much as profit. We have the power (and tools) to hold ourselves accountable.

And it all starts at home, with the way each of uses power! –Jonathon Engels; video by Simpleshow via CC BY 3.0 license

The post to Reduce Carbon Footprint With Carbon Offsets, Carbon Credit, & More appeared first on Green Global Travel.

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erictmason · 7 years ago

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Top 10 Disney Movies They SHOULD Remake

The Great Disney Remake Train shows no sign of stopping, especially after its most recent entry, “Beauty and the Beast”, managed to make a killing at the box office despite being, y’know, pretty Not Good At All. Combine that with the fact that, last year, they were even willing to do a remake of “Pete’s Dragon”, a movie which has only ever been a cult classic at best, and it becomes clear there’s basically no aspect of its considerable film library Disney isn’t willing to mine going forward. So, rather than bemoan the admittedly-tiresome reality of just how Corporate that strategy is, I thought I’d take the opportunity to think over a few Disney films that I’d actually like to see receive a remake. The only criteria here are pretty simple:

1.) If Disney publicly attached its name to the film in question, regardless of in what capacity, it’s eligible.

2.) The movie cannot have been remade by Disney already, nor can a remake be, concretely, in the offing. There are a lot of prospective remakes supposedly under development at Disney right now, but if they don’t have as much as an announced director, I don’t count them as really underway.

Otherwise, though, it’s basically all fair game. So let’s see what Disney movies might, in fact, have something to gain by being revisited, shall we?

10.) Atlantis: The Lost Empire (Gary Trousdale/Kirk Wise, 2001):

I don’t necessarily share the immense nostalgic affection with which quite a few Disney fans view the original “Atlantis: The Lost Empire”. Even so, I do feel like it’s a movie with an easily workable core and a solid cast of characters which, by virtue of the rather-desperate circumstances under which it was made (the movie was pretty transparently aiming to capitalize on the then-recent explosion of Anime into the American mainstream, to the point where some suspect it cribbed more than slightly from “Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water”), came out rushed and incoherent. A remake, able to capitalize on the aforementioned Nostalgia cache the move has built up over the years thanks to its atypical-for-Disney aesthetic and tone, could very easily step in and fix those flaws (not least of all by doing more to address the White Savior stuff that fuels the plot). As well, I can’t help but feel like Live Action/full-stop CGI animation could prove a much better fit for the Mike Mignola-designed aesthetic of the original. And, if nothing else, don’t you want to find an actress capable of bringing Kidagakash to life?

9.) Oliver and Company (George Scribner, 1988):

For the most part, the beginning of the “Disney Renaissance”, that period of consistent box-office and critical success Disney experienced during the late 80’s and early-to-mid-90’s, is credited to the 1989 release of “The Little Mermaid”. And to be sure, that mega success is unquestionably important. But prior to that, Disney kept itself afloat with somewhat humbler success stories. But where, to my mind anyway, 1986’s “The Great Mouse Detective” is basically perfect as it is, its successor, a peculiar attempt to translate Charles Dicken’s classic “Oliver Twist” to modern-day New York City with animals as its primary characters, feels like an interesting concept marred in the execution. Keep the animal conceit, sure, and maybe some of the songs too. But dump the more dated stuff (Bill Sykes as a predatory lender especially) and try to find some way to put Dickens’ edges back into the story a bit. Definitely work to make the cast better defined and more engaging, too. Do all that, and you could wind up with a version of this story that is just crazy enough to work.

8.) Condorman (Charles Jarott, 1981):

You know what’s all the rage these days at the movies? Superheroes. And wouldn’t you know it, Disney currently owns the absolute cream of that particular crop in the form of Marvel Studios. But, as the smash-hit successes of both “Deadpool” and “Logan” over at 20th Century Fox have shown, audiences are also growing hungry for works that poke fun at, deconstruct, and do something to meaningfully comment on the nature of the genre as a whole. So far, though, Marvel Studios proper, and thus Disney itself, has yet to capitalize on that quickly-growing trend. The thing of it is, though, they already have a perfect vehicle to do so if they choose to use it. The original “Condorman” is not an especially good film, awkward and uneven as it is. But its dopey attempt to send up Spy Films and superheroes, combined with the brilliant design of its title “hero” (in reality a dorky comic book artist who stumbles into an espionage plot almost purely by accident), creates, to my eye at least, a perfect blueprint for a potential remake to run with in a sharp, satirical direction.

7.) The Aristocats (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1970):

The 1970’s were not one of Disney’s better periods, either creatively or financially, and a lot of that can be seen pretty clearly in “The Aristocats”. It’s not without its charms, to be sure, but it’s also pretty obviously just “101 Dalmatians” all over again, except with contemporary-England-and-dogs swapped out for old-school-France-and-cats. Still, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that idea, and hey, as far as I’m concerned, cats could always use more movies about them that portray them in a positive light. Plus, the opportunities for a remake to improve on this one are almost painfully obvious: heighten the absurdity, tighten the pacing, and if you’re really feeling daring, maybe do more with the class gap between O’Malley and Duchess the original only ever lightly touched. It’s the absurdity element that feels especially key to me, though, especially in terms of differentiating “Aristocats” from “101 Dalmatians”. The original’s best moments are unquestionably its most ridiculous, after all, and amping that up, could do a lot to inject the movie with a more unique and enjoyable sense of personality.

6.) The Black Cauldron (Ted Berman/Richard Rich, 1985): At this point, "The Black Cauldron"'s reputation as one of the biggest flops in Disney history precedes it, even given the not-insignificant cult following it's picked up after finally receiving its first home video release in 1998 (nearly a decade and a half after its theatrical run). But lost in analysis of its contentious place in the studio's canon is the fact that it's also a weirdly garbeld adaptation of the first two books of Lloyd Alexander's "Chronicles of Prydain" cycle of fantasy novels. And as often happens in those cases, that means there are a lot of details that go unexplained or unresolved, from running gags like Flewder's harp and its breaking strings to significant plot points like the magic sword Taryn discovers. But a big recurring choice in a lot of Disney's remakes of late is restoring elements of the source material that the previous Disneyification left out, and I don't know that any movie in the canon would benefit from that choice more than "The Black Cauldron". You can keep the broad structure of the original, i.e. the characters of the first Prydain book, "The Book of Three", placed into the general plot of the second book for which the film is named. But not only can we add some clarification around the edges (seriously, it is so easy to connect the story of that sword to even the heavily-revised version of the Horned King Disney created), more importantly we can also implant a lot more of the arch tone the books had, which would go a long way toward reconciling the original's rather confused take on the more-than-slightly deconstructionist story elements, to say nothing of likely making the movie less of a chore to sit through. Supposedly, a new "Chronicles of Prydain" movie is in fact under development at Disney, so who knows? Maybe we'll get the chance to see if this idea could actually work sooner than we think.

5.) The Black Hole (Gary Nelson, 1979): You've probably noticed a running theme of my choices here, namely that a lot of them come from eras where Disney, facing the loss of its traditional audiences in the wake of a changing cultural landscape, decided to start experimenting well outside their usual wheelhouse. And perhaps the most wildly experimental periods of them all occurred in the late 70's and early 80's, when Disney committed its efforts to making some surprisingly-dark Sci-Fi/Fantasy live-action films. But where 1982's "Tron" became a cult classic (if not an especially strong box office success) and 1983's "Something Wicked This Way Comes" has its Ray Bradbury source material to keep it alive in the cultural memory, "The Black Hole" has more or less fallen down the memory hole. Not that it's hard to figure out why; its grim, existential tone and nightmarish imagery (most noticeably its robotic villain Maximillian) combined with its vague, confusing plot make it a movie without much in the way of a natural audience. And while that sort of thing is no easier to sell to a massive audience now than it was back then, there is nonetheless too much potential that can be dug out of "The Black Hole" without really having to alter too much of the fundamentals. Working to really dig into the sense of cosmic dread of the original, clarifying the moral and personal conflicts that drive its central antagonist, the Captain Nemo-esque Reinhardt, maybe easing up on the cutesy robot sidekicks (or else leaning into them as a way to underscore just how unnerving the atmosphere really is)...but most importantly, working to earn the frightfully illogical ending of the original. Of all the picks on this list, "The Black Hole" strikes me as the least likely, because even today an outright Horror movie seems outside the Disney purview...but for that very reason, it feels all the more compelling a choice.

4.) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Gary Trousdale/Kirk Wise, 1996): Even just a couple years ago, I don't know that I would have put this one on here at all, let alone this high up. Disney's first "Hunchback" movie, while certainly not perfect, is nonetheless one of the more uniquely mature and well-crafted entries in the canon, and I don't know that the various simple nips and tucks one could make to it (like committing to the Gargoyles as solely creations of Quasimodo's imagination, as was originally planned) would really warrant a full-blown remake. But then, early last year, I learned about a Broadway-style stage musical based on the movie (adapted from a German production from 1999). This version, though it retains the original's soundtrack and some of its creative choices, incorporates a lot more of Victor Hugo's brutally-dark novel into the story (in particular, it is one of the only adaptations ever that allows Frollo to be the archdeacon of the cathedral as he was in the book). That is not a choice I ever would have expected Disney to sanction (indeed, the original German version is a much more straightforward adaptation of the Disney movie), but now that I know they have, I'd say it is a very, very intriguing notion to bring that idea to the big screen. Like "The Black Hole", that would indeed mean a movie the tone, themes, and aesthetic of which would indeed be well outside the studio's usual box, but not only is that a risk the company can afford to take more so now than ever before, I'd say there's a not-insignificant audience out there that is waiting for them to make exactly that kind of choice. After all, as Disney and the studios it owns take up more and more space on the release schedule, a movie like this one could be might be welcomed as a positive sign that the studio can and will use its power position to take genuine risks.

3.) The Rescuers (Wolfgang Reitherman/John Lounsbery/Art Stevens, 1977): Sometimes, you want to see a remake because the original has some kind of untapped potential; a wasted premise, an unexplored thematic angle, that sort of thing. Other times, you want to see a remake because you love the original, and simply want to see the thing you love expanded upon. That isn't quite the case for how "The Rescuers" wound up in this slot; I do love that movie, indeed it and its sequel (the very first Disney-made sequel to one of its animated films, and by a fair margin the best of them to date) are among my personal favorites of the Disney canon. But you know what else I love? The original "Miss Bianca" books by Margery Sharp, to which the film version, whatever else its merits, bears only the faintest resemblance (in particular, as you might note from the admittedly unofficial name I gave to the series, Bianca herself is much more emphatically the main character). It's another case, in other words, of a Disney movie whose remake could benefit tremendously from returning to the source material and re-integrating it into the overall mixture. But it's also the case, to my mind at least, where it's not only the easiest to reconcile the original movie with said source material (like "The Black Cauldron", the original movie essentially plucks the characters from one book and plugs them into the plot of another, though the attendant adjustments to the characters are less radical in this case, and the plots of both books have a lot more overlap), but also the easiest for me to envision what, exactly, the resulting movie would look like. I realize that one can count, on one hand, without needing all the fingers, the number of actually-good movies centered around realistic tiny CGI characters interacting with a real-life environment, but I can think of no story more ideally suited to the format than "The Rescuers".

2.) Bedknobs and Broomsticks (Robert Stevenson, 1971): When one thinks of "splashy Disney musical primarily done in live-action but with significant animated elements", one naturally thinks first of "Mary Poppins". Which makes sense, because "Mary Poppins" is a stone-cold classic (with a sequel/remake/??? on the way in the not-too-distant future, in fact). But, even as its attempts to replicate that earlier success are pretty transparent, "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" has always struck me as an underrated little gem in its own right. An ambitious narrative combining witchcraft with World War II, magical talking animals, and more, it's always resided mostly in "Poppins"' shadow, but its peculiar, distinctive identity not only could stand a bit more attention, it feels like a strong enough basis for a story that a second bite at the apple would seem warranted. A remake in the present day would not have to contend with the legacy of "Mary Poppins" quite so tightly (even setting aside the aforementioned new "Poppins" film coming down the pipe), which means it wouldn't feel the need to imitate it quite so consciously, allowing the particular personality of its own story to shine through. Because, for real, especially these days? The idea of an older woman, seeking to explore the full potential of her abilities forced to contend with the relentless destruction of the Nazi War Machine, as seen through the prism of her reluctantly taking on a group of helpless kids in need of shelter? Almost feels too relevant, on multiple levels, to The World Today, even as you don't need to draw the necessary lines all that explicitly to make those connections compelling. And that's without even touching a finale that feels like it's begging for the modern effects industry to give it a go. A "Bedknobs" remake, in other words, would not only rehabilitate a too-often-overlooked original, but provide a great experience in its own right.

1.) Robin Hood (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1973): Hear me out on this one, folks. I love this movie too, a great deal. A lot of people my age do; even as it is still largely considered "minor" Disney at best, it has become a real nostalgic touchstone for a whole generation of kids. And it's a great deal of fun, with wit and genuine whimsy and wonderful characters and even a remarkably adult perspective on Romance that is nonetheless entirely in keeping with Disney's usual fairy-tale love stories. But even with all those things being true, it was also made on a nearly non-existent budget, not only forcing large chunks of it to be done by way of re-used animation (with some swipes going back as far as "Snow White And The Seven Dwarves", for goodness sake), but forcing the whole thing to just sort of...stop, rather than properly end. It seems to me a remake could easily resolve both those problems (oh what I would not give to see the film's originally-planned ending executed properly), without losing an ounce of the special charm that made the original such an enduring movie for me and so many others. Heck, it might even provide Disney a good excuse to do a cel-based movie for the first time in over half a decade, since they have every reason to think this thing would have a strong built-in audience that will show up no matter what and can thus afford to risk one last try at the olden ways. After all, two of their biggest hits of 2016 were "The Jungle Book" (a remake) and "Zootopia" (a movie about anthropomorphic animals, with a fox as one of its lead characters no less). Still, it's the creative more so than the financial potential that secures "Robin Hood" the top slot here. The original is a good, special movie, but there is so obviously a great well of potential right there in plain view, begging for the opportunity to truly realize itself. And that's the best reason for a remake there is, in the end.

#disney #movies #top 10 #Countdown #ericthemason #my writing

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vampiresmiled · 6 years ago

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✩ nutkins

nutkins married life ? they’d kill themselves, just making that loud and clear. jot it down, memorize it, – show up at their murder-suicide funeral.

DISAGREEMENTS

who is more likely to raise their voice? not a question. luka raises it for absolutely no reason. they’re out of sauce for their nuggets at mcdonalds ? somebody’s getting ratatata’d … who threatens to leave but never actually does? i feel like it goes like this. they’ll say they’re going to leave but when they turn around to go the other person’s like “ also you stink ” so now they have to turn back around. they cannot not have the final word. they’re pathetic. who actually keeps their word and leaves? i think the first person to break the cycle would be scout. like, if she didn’t fight back obviously he’d bounce. but if they were doing that back and forth shit, she’d be the first to ditch ‘cos she’d get her feelings hurt or some shit, y’know. who trashes the house? um, considering it already happened … do either of them get physical? luka would slam her against a wall for the teensiest shit. he’s a bitch like that.how often do they argue/disagree? so much. it’s unhealthy but that’s business, baby.who is the first to apologise? my ass was gonna write neither but did she not just show up at his door with money and an uwu sorry x ? normal circumstances though, definitely neither. she just needs him right now, let’s not talk about it.

SEX

who is on top? insert that one gif of veronica lodge straddling reggie mantle. but let it also be known that all imagined scenarios of them fucking have been vertical, so. yes, i consider these things. who is on the bottom? get pegged luka. who has the strangest desires? i feel like they’re both pretty odd. luka could be like “ do you, per chance, wanna fuck on the bar in silhouette’s, m’lady ” and scout would be like “ i thought you’d never ask, mister ” any kinks? luka definitely has a thing for her cheerleading uniform, calling it right now. boy didn’t get to boink any of them in high school and now he’s projecting onto her. who’s dominant in bed? him. she’s a brat, though, as we all know, so she’ll make him work for it. is head ever in the equation? scout will blow him in his car. does he have one ? isn’t it a motorcycle ? she’s getting him a car solely for this purpose. if so, who is better at performing it? luka, unfortunately. she’ll still choke on it, though.ever had sex in public? did we not hc their first time to be in silhouette’s bathroom … who moans the most? scout is loud and annoying always.who leaves the most marks? luka. and she has to work real hard on hiding them. sometimes she gives him a taste of his own medicine and when she does, he’s not a happy camper. who screams the loudest? i refuse to engage in this question anymore. who is the more experienced of the two? clearly, luka. he’s slept with half the town and everyone she’s slept with are either a. gross, b. her step-brother, c. a girl whose name i never headcanoned. do they ‘fuck’ or ‘make love’? they don’t do romance. they fuck. hard. rough or soft? did i stutter.how long do they usually last? i feel like they can go on forever. like everyone else is getting one of them o’s but scout is out here channeling her inner owl all night, every night. is protection used? literally, no. she’s on the pill and he doesn’t like how it feels with a condom. that’s ought to end well.does it ever get boring? if it does, they’ll switch it up. i have so much faith in them in that department. where is the strangest place they’d have sex? ed’s desk. sorry pal.

FAMILY

do your muses plan on having children/or have children? hell to the no. scout is pro-abortion and luka is pro-beating-scout-up-if-she-wasn’t.if so, how many children do your muses want/have? none, zero, nada. who is the favorite parent? neither of them. i don’t see them becoming remotely successful parents if they opportunity presents itself. scout would want a nanny. she had one and she turned out just fine ! and luka would … not want to be there. who is the authoritative parent? the nanny. who is more likely to allow the children to have a day off school? luka. scout is all about that flawless academic record, y’know.who lets the children indulge in sweets and junk food when the other isn’t around? still luka. when he comes around during mandatory visitation, he gives them chips and then he lets them play video games in another room ‘till he leaves.who turns up to extra curricular activities to support their children? scout. for the image. now i’m gonna say something controversial. i feel, maybe, if they did luka would be into soccer games and such. he would be the weirdo to watch the games from afar and then leave. who goes to parent teacher interviews? scout, no doubt.who changes the diapers? the nanny, love that bitch.who gets up in the middle of the night to feed the baby? see the answer above.who spends the most time with the children? reluctantly, scout.who packs their lunch boxes? say it with me … THE – NAN–NY.who gives their children ‘the talk’? animal planet.who cleans up after the kids? you thought i’d say the nanny, didn’t you ? jokes on you … it’s the maid !who worries the most? scout. eighteen years of this shit ? she’s exhausted. who are the children more likely to learn their first swear word from? luka is out here cussing in front of his children that he sees twice a year ? oof.

AFFECTION

who likes to cuddle? neither of them are big into cuddling, but … it happens, y’know. she sits in his lap a lot despite meredith’s protests. probably luka’s, too. he likes it, though. she can tell from his raging boner.who is the little spoon? hear me out … he won’t spoon her ‘cos he’s an asshole. but battered and bruised luka ? exhausted from whatever shit he just went through ? he’ll be getting a small latina backpack whether he cares for it or not. s*ft kisses against his back and arms tight around his torso … it’s kind of good shit, if you ask me. who gets naughty in the most inappropriate of places? depends where they are. if it’s some fancy schmancy place, then luka. if it’s silhouette’s, then scout. who struggles to keep their hands to themself? luka has a tendency to like, always touch her to move her out the way or just make sure she stays doing nothing stupid. scout has no excuse and just straight up grabs his arm. “ stop taking my hand ” – rey to finn, the force awakens. how long can they cuddle until one becomes uncomfortable? sober, not even 2 minutes. high, 2 hours. thanks for coming to my ted talk.who gives the most kisses? scout, obvi. what is their favourite non-sexual activity? bickering. they do kinda like it. anything illegal is also exhilarating. but their favorite thing … smoking ! you know it is, bud. you can scrap everything i’ve said above if they’re high. high!nutkins are big time touchy-feely and they will snuggle. where is their favourite place to cuddle? he’s a big boy, so the bed. who is more likely to playfully grope the other? scout. she will smack his ass and he cannot stop her. that said and playfully erased, luka is the type to grab her ass when nobody’s paying attention. and frankly, i cannot blame him. it’s a good ass. how often do they get time to themselves? like all day, every day. they make their own schedules, bitches.

SLEEPING

who snores? luka seems the snoring type. she’ll get him those nose strips to save herself some headaches. i say as if he stays long enough for her to take notice.if both do, who snores the loudest? GHHHHHGHHHH – luka snoring. do they share a bed or sleep separately? separately. but, but – when HIGH … uwu.if they sleep together, do they cozy up together or lay far apart? they start out far apart and then, you know . . . who talks in their sleep? i bet, I BET – if she has to stay with him ( in the many scenarios which we discuss in the privacy of imessage ), she will mutter shit in her sleep. like his name. tragic. he can pretend he didn’t hear that.what do they wear to bed? scout wears those fancy silk nightgowns and he prolly sleeps shirtless. if she’s at his place, though … t-shirt and panties. say it with me, PANTIES. are either of your muses insomniacs? maybe luka, maybe.can sleeping pills be found by the bedside? scout, she needs her snoozes.do they wrap their limbs around each other or just lay side by side? side by side : her arms snaked around his and just her wittle chin on his shoulder. who wakes up with bed hair? he … got no hair. who wakes up first? in terms of bouncing after accidentally falling asleep, luka. he’s just out the motherfuckin’ door. otherwise, she’s an early riser.who prepares breakfast in bed for the other? she’d try, and then he’d have to swoop in to save the day.what is their favourite sleeping position? as far apart as humanly possible. who hogs the sheets? luka, that rat. do they set an alarm each night? scout does but, y’know.can a television be found in their bedroom? in luka’s, maybe. in scout’s, doubtful. depends on if she moves into the dang hotel or not.who has nightmares? i feel like he should have nightmares due to all the murders he commits but … scout sure as hell got none.who has ridiculous dreams? neither, they’re boring.who sprawls out and takes up most of the bed? luka and his long, annoying legs.who makes the bed? scout. and 2 minutes after she’s done he flops back down on it and messes it up. what time is bed time? 3 am. witching hour. ‘cos they’re from hell.any routines/rituals before bed? murder.who’s the grumpiest when they wake up? LUKA. that sun of a gun.

WORK

who is the busiest? scout. she has school, that’s a lot. he has murder, that’s easy and breezy. who rakes in the highest income? luka, but she still has more money than him.are any of your muses unemployed? i mean, technically scout. but not for long. who takes the most sick days? luka. without a shadow of a doubt.who is more likely to turn up late to work? luka. he’s never on time. fix that shit.who sucks up to their boss? luka sucks ed’s dick every thursday afternoon, but go off i guess.what are their jobs? he’s a cupcake maker and she’s a child of god.who stresses the most? scout.do your muses enjoy or despise their careers/occupations? i wanna say they do but they don’t, really, let’s be honest. time to move to paris and reinvent themselves.are your muses financially stable? scout is, he wishes.

HOME

who does the washing? nobody. i mean, i’m assuming he does his own but when he inevitable crashes at her place, the maid staff.who takes out the trash? he is the trash, so. get out of her hotel room, lukey boy.who does the ironing? hotel service, kay.who does the cooking? luka. and he’ll teach her. we’ve been over this. one day she’ll be able to make instant noodles without instantly burning the house down.who is more likely to burn the house down just trying? see above.who is messier? he is. but without, like, somebody to clean her shit up – she’s pretty messy, too. which is why she cannot live with him in his stupid trailer without maid service. who leaves the toilet roll empty? luka. and she hates him for it. who leaves their dirty clothes on the floor? luka and scout. they’re kin that way.who forgets to flush the toilet? they don’t have a toilet, actually.who is the prankster around the house? neither of them. despite acting like children, they’re more mature than that. who loses the car keys when it comes time to go somewhere? neither. luka has to be organized and scout got her license revoked. lots to think about.who mows the lawn? what lawn.who answers the telephone? scout ‘cos he doesn’t have one. sucks.who does the vacuuming? me, personally.who does the groceries? nobody. she can’t cook and luka forgets.who takes the longest to shower? obvi, scout.who spends the most time in the bathroom? scout spends like an hour and a half in there. perfection takes time.

MISCELLANEOUS

is money a problem? for him, lol.how many cars do they own? she’ll inherit her dad’s car, xoxo.do they own their home or do they rent? own, bitch. at least they will.do they live near the coast or deep in the countryside? don’t ask me this shit ever again.do they live in the city or in the country? eye – do they enjoy their surroundings? fuck, no. i said what i said, time to elope to paris, bitches. go get a passport, luka. it’s time !what’s their song? bang bang by miss nancy sinatra.what do they do when they’re away from each other? celebrate.where did they first meet? silhouette’s. super romantic. how did they first meet? she asked him to merk her father. it was real cute. love at first sight.who spends the most money when out shopping? uh, is this even a question. he doesn’t have the money to spend, she does.who’s more likely to flash their assets? SCOUT, obvi.who finds it amusing when the other trips over? luka, he’s an asshole that way. and he’ll make her walk in her high ass heels through the most difficult terrain just for the sake of seeing it happen, too.any mental issues? they wouldn’t be getting together if there weren’t any.who’s terrified of bugs? scout screams when she sees ants. she hates ants. don’t ask.who kills the spiders around the house? she’ll kill the spiders. swat them with her pumps.their favourite place? the hotel, xoxo.who pays the bills? scout.do they have any fears for their future? nope. i mean, she fears getting caught for merking her father but other than that, nope.who’s more likely to surprise the other with a fancy dinner? scout. we’ve been through this, kay, she’d buy him a nice outfit and she’d take him out for dindin. except, driver roll up the partition please. who uses up all of the hot water? scout, and she’s not sorry about it. if they showered together they’d save water :~)who’s the tallest? her, obviously.who’s more likely to just randomly hop into the shower with the other? both. she’d do it for cutesy purposes, he’d do it ‘cos he’s invasive and annoying and she’s taking too damn long. it’s not gonna go any faster with your dick up her ass, luka. who wanders around in their underwear? luka. and she absolutely loves it.who sings the loudest when singing along to the radio? scout and then he turns the radio off.what do they tease each other about? she’s rich and spoiled, he’s dirty and emotionally stunted. who is more likely to cringe at the other’s fashion sense at times? scout would claim to but that shit’s hot, okay. he’d probably ask her to slow down with the polo’s. ain’t got nothing against those knee socks, though, now do you.do they have mutual friends? jesus. who crushed first? scout. oof.any alcohol or substance related problems? loads to go around.who is more likely to stumble home, drunk, at 3am? luka … that sloppy piece of shit.who swears the most? his middle name is i-cuss-to-assert-myself-as-masculine, if you didn’t know.

#all posts / sa.#starring luka / sa.#answered / sa.#ask #holydepths

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evilelitest2 · 8 years ago

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100 Days of Trump Day 50: The Wire

Welcome back to 100 Days of Trump where we understand WTF happened in 2016 through 100 recommendations and....we did. We survived 50 days of Trump, the nation is still alive, and Trump has...accomplished very little actually. Turns out being in Power and using power are very different things. And Speaking of systemic institutional problems that leads to through the corruption of the American dream and those in power being too ineffective to actually take advantage of their power, lets talk about the Wire, the best thing on TV you’ve never heard. And when it comes to this project I’m doing, if I had to boil this project down to only a few works, it would be Assassins, Veronica Mars, The Wire, Marat/Sade, I Claudius, Chinatown, Breaking Bad, Yes Prime Minister and M, that more than anything else sums up WTF happened in 2016. And the Wire is very close in theme to Veronica Mars to the type of system that already existed in America that make the election of Donald Trump possible, the Game is the Game.

Actually can we just take a moment and acknowledge something, in a world where everybody is like “OMG, you can’t have minorities on TV or the audience won’t sympathize with them, its somehow impossible” this show is gigantic and 80% of the cast is black. Because it is set in Baltimore, a predominantly black city. And this is a show made by a white Jew, so its not like it is fucking impossible for people to do this, this show is living proof that a mostly black cast is not impossible to manage. But lets be honest here, almost everybody here knows of the wire, but doesn’t know anything about The Wire other than “its the smart depressing show that nobody watches” so shut the fuck up, sit down, and prepare to learn. The Wire is a show that is very good at teaching you. And if you want to know why this show is awesome, let the show teach you hear.

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So what is The Wire about other than drugdealers learning chess? Well basically it is about how the Drug Trade works in Baltimore, one of the poorest cities in America, formerly an industrial trading port but after the Reagan, Bush and Clinton, all of the jobs have been lost (Thanks Free Trade), all of the social programs have been gutted (Thanks Tax Cuts) the education program has been utterly destroyed (Thanks Military Industrial Complex), the city is decaying (Thanks States Rights), and there is pretty much nothing being done about it (Thanks money in Politics). Stop me if this all sounds familiar? So with the increased poverty, lack of opportunity, and incredible corruption, what happens in Baltimore? Oh right, it becomes one of the drug capitals of the US, because the Drug market is one of the only places where you can actually make money in this town. And since it is the only game in town, everybody gravitates towards the drug market. Which leads to the police becoming increasingly militant in response, which leads to the Drug Dealers becoming more violent and the cycle continues. Trump’s campaign in many ways was predicated on the notion that the American dream had failed, and while his reasoning and solution were wrong (Cause Trump is a Liar) that basic statement was correct, the American Dream has failed, in many ways because the individual isn’t valued.

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The Wire isn’t about individuals being awful (though there is plenty of that) its about the system, the institution itself being broken and how it is extremely difficult to fix it, particularly when you have selfish motivations. Blaming any problem on one person or single bad policy just doesn’t work, because with the exception of Ted Cruz, no human being is that malicious, its a system. This is what people mean when they systemic problems. And America since 1980 (arguably 1978) has been basically neglecting all of our fundamental underlying problems and pretending they don’t exist, just kinda staring off in the distance going “This isn’t an issue”. The collapse of our Education Sytem, Wealth Inequality, Stagnant Wages, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, the Israeli Palestinian Conflict, Money in Politics, Environmental Damage, Lowering of the Standard of Living, the Rich Being Held to a difference standard than the Poor, the Prison Industrial Complex, Police Brutality, Alliance with Saudi Arabia, Lack of Social Services, unrestrained Wall Street Greed and of course political ineptitude, we have spent the last 40 years pretending these aren’t problems and just ignoring them, kicking the can down the road. Well 2016 is when we ran into a fucking roadblock of cans we’ve kicked down the road and smashed right into it. And when you push things so far, it makes Reform that much harder.

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Remember, alot of the shit in the Show was put in place by the Clinton Era, Reagan and Bush bear most of the blame, but Clinton Passed NAFTA and his Neoliberal policies that helped destroy the working class economy, and not just for whites, and he allowed far more power to the wealthy in goverment. And while these problems got worse and worse, the entire Democratic Party Leadership were just walking around pretending there wasn’t any problem, and happily talking about how great TPP was going to be and how wonderful Free Trade is, and really we need to move past that hating Wall Street Business. And for years it looked like the election was going to be Hillary Clinton vs. Jeb Bush after the dismal Obama/Romney face off and the American people went a little crazy. And since there wasn’t any democrat talking about system problems after Sanders lost, all these working class people made a deal with the Devil to try to fix the country, or at least fuck over the people who made it possible. It won’t help, it will make actually make things worse, but its what happens when you leave people out there to die.

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If you want to know the motto of so many Rust Belt Voters who stayed home, its here (Spoilers for Season 2 BTW)

There is something deeply wrong with this country and on a much bigger level, and to solve them you need broader long term thinking than our leadership seems capable of displaying. And there is a total lack of long term thinking on the part of pretty much everybody involved. Take the War on Drugs for example...how does that end? Like wars are suppose to end right? Are we going to kill the king of drugs and have all Cocaine in the world magically vanish? What is the end goal? There isn’t any, not out of any malice or ideological reason (ok some but not primarily) but because it continues due to inertia, it keeps going mostly because it is harder to stop something than to keep it going. But what the show does well is tie this to individual humanity, and how you need to understand people in order to understand these problems. And that when people get part of a system, they become very resistant to fixing it, which we see on display with Police Brutality.

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The show isn’t perfect (it has issues with female characters) but the Wire alongside Veronica Mars truly Trump didn’t come out of a vacuum, he emerged as a part of a larger problem, and if we had fixed any of our problems before this shit happened Trump running for president would still be a fucking Simpsons joke. Instead, President Trump has happened and America’s problems continue to get worse. Refusal to to acknowledge the problems of America just makes them worse and makes fixing them that much harder. 2016 was the year the mask came off and every terrible truth of American politics came out into the open.

for those who have seen the Wire, check this out and this cause spoilers.

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houstonreggaefestival-blog · 8 years ago

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H.R.F. Exclusive interview with Ted Bowne of Passafire

1. First things first, what can you tell us about the new album?

TB:The new album is finished! We have completed the recording/mixing/mastering part. Now we are finishing up the art work and copy stuff to get it ready for manufacture. We recorded a lot of material in 10 days! Out of those songs we chose 12 for the album. The process was a lot more live and natural than past approaches as we set up "in the round" and tracked as much as we could live before going into overdub mode. I think it turned out well because of this approach.

2. Are there any plans to drop a single in the near future?

TB: We have talked about a single. It's all up to the label (Easy Star) now and how they want to roll out the release. I think there will most likely be a single released with the pre-order package somehow.

3. Every Passafire album has always had its own unique sound, how would you describe the overall sound of the new album?

TB: The new album is an updated culmination of our experiences in music both individually and as a group. The overall theme is a message of hope for continual growth as artists and as people in general. As always we touch upon both the highs and lows of the human experience in as relatable a way as we can to reach a broad spectrum of music lovers. Musically, we are exploring all of the avenues we've previously gone down while maintaining a good amount of reggae elements that keep it as true to the genre as it can be. We have a huge love for reggae, but can't deny the power of all types of music and love to allow those things to be absorbed into our sound as well.

4. How did y’all come up with the name Passafire?

TB: In 1973, Bob Marley &a The Wailers released the iconic album "Catch a Fire" which was released by Island Records and quickly spread worldwide bringing reggae from Jamaica to the far reaches of the globe. 30 years later, myself and the other original members of Passafire decided that we had caught that fire and it was time to "pass it on" as they say in one of the songs on that record. Playing music in a live setting is a cycle of energy being passed back and forth from band to crowd and back. We feel that the meaning of the name reflects our desire to share that energy with everyone who hears our music.

5. If you could collaborate with any current reggae artist who would it be?

TB: There are a few on my list personally. We are all big fans of John Brown's Body and would love to have Elliot Martin sing on a track some day. I am currently a big fan of Chronixx and would be SO stoked to collaborate with him in any way. We got to meet him when we opened for him at a festival in Vienna, Austria this past summer. He's a very nice guy and super talented live performer.

6. Y’all do some amazing covers during y'all live sets, whats your favorite song to cover and why?

TB: We covered "Give It Away" by RHCP on our fall tour 2 years ago which was a dream come true. They have been one of my favorite bands since I was a kid. That song was fun to learn and difficult to play and sing at the same time so it was a challenge that I embraced every night. I think the best performance of it was in LA (appropriately).

7. What's your favorite memory you've made while touring with the band?

TB: Oh... so many it's hard to choose just one. Any time I've had the chance to perform in front of thousands of people and many of them are singing along to our music is a moment that makes all the struggle worth it. Meeting people who have our logo or lyrics tattooed on their bodies is also very surreal.

8. A lot of artist in the genre look up to y’all and what y’all do, what advice would you give an upcoming reggae artist based off your own experiences?

TB: Tour hard! Just go for it and don't look back. We were given a chance to do a national tour only after 4-5 years of relentless touring up and down the east coast. Humble yourself and be prepared to face uncomfortable situations in the name of making a name for yourself as an artist. Sacrifices are made every day. Be open to uncertainty and make music that people can enjoy. That's my advice.

9. A lot of y'alls music has been recorded at Sonic Ranch studios here in Texas including some of the new album, what brought y'all out to Texas to record and how has recording here influenced your music?

TB: We actually recorded the entire new record at Sonic Ranch. It was our 5th time recording out there. We have a great relationship with the ranch and love to go there to be creative. It's the world's largest residential recording studio which means you can stay there at the ranch and record on your own schedule. Creativity doesn't always hit at the same time every day. We love the flexibility we are given out there and the ability to use a plethora of amazing gear. The hospitality is top notch and the food is authentic Mexican cuisine that will fuel your creative energies. The staff has a strong grasp on the equipment and can make things sound exactly how you want them to quickly and efficiently.

10. What is your opinion on the current state of Reggae music? Do you think the culture is negatively affected by the stereotypes associated with Reggae music?

TB: Every now and then I meet someone who says "reggae is too repetitive" or something like "all they sing about is weed." These opinions are usually held by people who have only heard a few reggae songs and have decided to generalize the entire culture. I have listened to reggae from all over the world. It is a genre like Jazz, Blues, or Rock that has been adopted by different cultures everywhere and transcends race or religion. I believe as we start to educate ourselves on the benefits of cannabis and open up the world to opportunities to explore it as a path to wellness and reason, we can expect to see less of a negative connotation associated with Reggae. People are starting to recognize it as something that is not just background music for your island vacation and more of a way to spread the message of love and positivity in these troubled times we are facing today. I have faith that the genre will grow more and more in the coming years.

11. Do you think that those stereotypes make it more difficult for bands trying to expand the genre to tour/find an audience?

TB: I think those "stereotypes" are actually what is drawing people to the genre in the first place. People who are laid back and enjoy to be around other laid back people flock to reggae shows. We see our fans meeting one another and traveling to see us in remote places far from their homes. They came together because they like those things that are associated with Reggae and the feeling they get when they are gathered together to enjoy a show. There will always be people who aren't into it... and so it's not for them. To each his own. Live and let live.

12. Did y'all experience any difficulties trying to get traction when y'all first started in the reggae scene?

TB: Starting out in Georgia? Absolutely! We quickly found that Florida was a much better market for our style of music and luckily it was close by. Not to say that we don't do well in GA, but we had to branch out to the places where the scene is blossoming to gain traction. Colorado, California, and Texas have been great places for our style of music and we try to frequent those spots as much as we can. Now we are trying to gain traction in Europe and it is very similar to the early days here.

13. One of my favorite things about Passafire is that y'alls sound is always evolving, has that resulted in a more fluid fanbase for the band or would you say the majority of fans have become dedicated because of y'alls reluctance to settle on a specific part sound spectrum?

TB: I think we have a sound that allows for people from all kinds of backgrounds to gravitate to it. The ones who don't like the "repetitive" nature of reggae are given relief when we break into a metal riff or funk breakdown here and there. The fact the we change it up often adds dynamics to our show and albums. Music, in my opinion, should reflect the many aspects of life. Love, sadness, joy, thoughtfulness, philosophy, abstraction... these are all things that can be expressed through music. We strive to continually explore all of these things.

14. Do you think the band will release a documentary/DVD of y'all playing an entire live show and maybe gives fans an inside look what life is like on tour with the band?

TB: We have so much footage from the 14 years we've been a band. Someday I hope to do a more in depth style doc about the band that includes live footage, studio footage, interviews, and behind the scenes stuff. I would love to tell our story thus far with film.

15. What's left on the bucket list for Passafire?

TB: Red Rocks, South America, Australia/NZ, Asia, Africa, the world! We have several ideas for alternative tour formats such as an all brewery tour where we can team up with small craft breweries nationwide. Beside that, we're looking forward to continuing to build our relationships and fanbase over in Europe in the coming years.

16. How would you describe Passafire to our fans who are just now being introduced to the band?

TB: We bring a lot of energy to the stage. Our albums are enjoyable and very diverse musically, but the live show is where we shine. We thrive off of crowd interaction and overall good vibes. Our music is reggae infused progressive/alternative rock but we jump around to many different points of the spectrum.

17. If you had to choose one Passafire song to be broadcasted into the depths of outer space which one would you choose?

TB: Start from Scratch, of course! ("Like black holes in space")

18. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Houston?

TB: "Houston, we have liftoff!"

19. If you were to choose a lineup for the Houston Reggae Festival who would you want to see on the bill?

TB: Chronixx, John Brown's Body, The Expanders, Jesse Royal, Raging Fiya, or Steel Pulse

20. For the final question I want to give our fans something to look forward to, when can we expect to see Passafire in Houston again?

TB: Possibly spring, maybe summer.

#Houston #Reggae #Festival #Houston Reggae Festival #HRF #Passafire #Ted Bowne #Exclusive #Interview #Music #Passafire Army #Movement

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networkingdefinition · 5 years ago

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January Quotes

Official Website: January Quotes

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• A lot of the listeners don’t realize that the Daytona 24 Hours is the most difficult race in the world. It’s 24 hours, a lot of darkness because it’s held at the end of January, so you’re talking about 13-14 hours of darkness. – Scott Pruett • A secret blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure regime change even before he took power in January 2001… It has been called a secret blueprint for US global domination. … A small group of people with a plan to remove Saddam Hussein long before George W. Bush was elected president. … And 9/11 provided the opportunity to set it in motion. Not since Mein Kampf has a geopolitical punch been so blatantly telegraphed years ahead of the blow. – Ted Koppel • A stock market decline is as routine as a January blizzard in Colorado. If you’re prepared, it can’t hurt you. A decline is a great opportunity to pick up the bargains left behind by investors who are fleeing the storm in panic. – Peter Lynch • A woman I loved [Andi Parhamovich] was killed in Baghdad in January 2007 – al-Qaeda in Iraq took credit for it … The memorial service with me crying over an empty coffin. – Michael Hastings • After I knock out Randy Couture, I’ll fight for the heavyweight title, the real heavyweight boxing title in October or November, come back and fight in the UFC in January or February. It doesn’t matter, I’m a two sport athlete. The oldest man to ever do that. – James Toney • After that transition to the White House, Donald Trump will settle in for his first day of work, January 21, 2017. He’s already proposed the actions he wants to take within his first 100 days in office, but which campaign promises can he realistically tackle in that time? – Hari Sreenivasan • After that transition to the White House, Donald Trump will settle in for his first day of work, January 21, 2017. He’s already proposed the actions he wants to take within his first 100 days in office, but which campaign promises can he realistically tackle in that time? – Hari Sreenivasan • ‘All in the Family’ took ten weeks to take off in 1971, and we were lucky to start in January, because if it had started in the regular fall season of 1970, I don’t know if we would have lasted. The ratings didn’t take off until the end of that fall season, when the other two networks ran out of fresh shows. – Norman Lear • An estimated 7 million illegal immigrants were residing in the United States in January 2000. This is double the size of the illegal immigrant population in January 1990 and constitutes 2.5 percent of the total U.S. population of just over 281 million – Gary Miller • And now, since I’ve been governor since last January, I have written numerous letters to the administration in regards to securing our borders with absolutely no response. So we have been facing this crisis, and it’s devastating the people of Arizona. And I feel as governor I have a responsibility to protect the citizens. – Jan Brewer • Are you such a dreamer To put the world to rights? I’ll stay home forever Where two and two always makes a five I’ll lay down the tracks Sandbag and hide January has April’s showers And two and two always makes a five It’s the devil’s way now There is no way out You can SCREAM and you can shout It is too late now Because… You have not been Payin’ attention! Payin’ attention! Payin’ attention! Payin’ attention! You have not been paying attention! – Thom Yorke • As far as sometimes being involved with different demonstrations, I did an anti-war protest in San Fran in January, and I’m standing there, amongst all these people, and it’s this great thing to see people being active and actually standing up for what they believe in and still letting the government know that there are people who will still sacrifice a portion of their day to stand up for what they care about, but I’m just thinking to myself, “God, man, these protests have been going on throughout I-don’t-even-know-how-many years, and here we are again.” – Mr. Lif • As my other obligations are beginning to take an inordinate amount of time, I have asked to step down as WMG’s board chairman, effective January 31, 2012. However, I will remain a director of the company and in that way, continue my association with Warner Music and its extraordinary people. – Edgar Bronfman, Jr. • At the end of October I started doing a bit more swimming and learning how to swim properly, because I hadn’t really done it since I was at school. Then I really accelerated in December and for the whole of January’s I’ve been doing at least one thing a day – normally a swim and a cycle, or a swim and a run, every single day. – Greg James

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• Blessing will happen to you and your family throughout the year because you faster in January. – Jentezen Franklin • Boots in January are always a good look, and some of the cutest ones I’ve seen lately were designed by Ivanka Trump, who knows a thing or two about style. – Gayle King • By the time I stepped down as Xerox’s CEO in 2009 – and as chairman in January 2010 – Xerox had become the vibrant, profitable and revitalized company that it still is today. What made the difference was a strong turnaround plan, dedicated people and a firm commitment from company leaders. – Anne M. Mulcahy • Certainly there is a depression I think a lot of Black folks are getting ready to have come January [2017] and that might be an interesting story to tell. – Ed Gordon • Come, ye cold winds, at January’s call, On whistling wings, and with white flakes bestrew The earth. – John Ruskin • Cultivo una rosa blanca, En julio como en enero, Para el amigo sincero Que me da su mano franca. Y para el cruel que me arranca El corazon con que vivo, Cardo ni oruga cultivo Cultivo una rosa blanca. I have a white rose to tend In July as in January; I give it to the true friend Who offers his frank hand to me. And to the cruel one whose blows Break the heart by which I live, Thistle nor thorn do I give: For him, too, I have a white rose. – Jose Marti • Dandelion wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered…sealed away for opening on a January day with snow falling fast and the sun unseen for weeks. – Ray Bradbury • December is the toughest month of the year. Others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, October, August, and February. – Mark Twain • Dieting on New Year’s Day isn’t a good idea as you can’t eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second. – Helen Fielding • Dirty days hath September April June and November From January up to May The rain it raineth every day All the rest have thirty-one Without a blessed gleam of sun And if any of them had two-and-thirty They’d be just as wet and twice as dirty.”

“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. – William Shakespeare • Donald Trump said that he would likely have a decision and an announcement by the end of January [2017] and that’ll obviously take a great deal of energy. It’s enormously important in the life of the Court and the life of the nation. – Mike Pence • Donald Trump said that he would likely have a decision and an announcement by the end of January [2017] and that’ll obviously take a great deal of energy. It’s enormously important in the life of the Court and the life of the nation. – Mike Pence • Early this morning, 1 January 2021, three minutes after midnight, the last human being to be born on earth was killed in a pub brawl in a suburb of Buenos Aires, aged twenty-five years, two months and twelve days. – P. D. James • Even though it was January, in Los Angeles it was beautiful and sunny and the blue skies were out and it was hot everyday, so I think it was just a product of our environment. And California to me as a concept or as an idea always seems like endless optimism and endless opportunity – when people think of California they think of palm trees and blue skies and gorgeous sunsets and beaches and everything else. But there’s also this weirdness to California, this darkness, it’s a place where people come to follow their dreams and sometimes don’t make it. – Mark Hoppus • Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past. – Henry Ward Beecher • Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page – Henry Ward Beecher • Feeling a little blue in January is normal. – Marilu Henner • Following 25 children for the TV series ‘Child of Our Time’ has been extraordinary. The BBC’s original plan was to commemorate the new millennium. What better way than to film a number of expectant mums from across the U.K.? Coming from widely different backgrounds, all were due to give birth on January 1, 2000. – Robert Winston • Frost in January minus 20 for a week. Dead birds frozen on the branch—they fall with the first thaw like ripe fruit—death-ripened. We shall all end like them—just a stain in the snow. – Lawrence Durrell • Government is saying to the average citizen every January 1: ‘For the next five months you’ll be working for us, for goals we shall determine. Is that clear? After May 5 you may look after your own needs and ambitions, but report back to us next January. Now move along.’ … If nearly half of what you make is spent by someone else, that means that half your work time is spent working for someone else. Call me a radical, but I think that comes dangerously close to being a form of indentured servitude. – Dick Armey • Having survived her 10th London winter (she got through January by assigning it “international month,” and amusing Moses and his big sister, Apple, 9, with a visiting Italian chef, Japanese anime screenings, and hand-rolled-sushi lessons, no less), Paltrow admits that her dreams of relocating the family to their recently acquired residence in Brentwood, California, are becoming ever more urgent. – Gwyneth Paltrow • Here Churchill repeats with approval a statement he had first made in January, 1930 “at a meeting at the Cannon Street Hotel.” “Sooner or later you will have to crush Gandhi and the Indian Congress and all they stand for.” – Winston Churchill • Honestly, I just go to restaurants to eat so I won’t die. If there was a pill I could take in January and then I wouldn’t have to eat again for the rest of the year, I would take it. Of course, I wouldn’t want to sacrifice my chocolate cake and ice cream. – Steven Wright • I actually looked up in my journal trying to figure out some dates and, in January 1991, America is about to go back into its first sort of actual war since Vietnam, with the Gulf War. It just seemed unbelievable at the time that this country would do that – which is funny to think about now. – Ian MacKaye • I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house. – Henry David Thoreau • I arrived in San Francisco in January 1951. After the Second World War, the population was so uprooted. Soldiers came back home for brief periods and took off again. So the population was very fluid, and suddenly it was as if the continent tilted west. The whole population slid west. It took 10 years for America to coalesce into a new culture. And the new culture happened in San Francisco, not New York. – Lawrence Ferlinghetti • I began my pilgrimage on the first of January in 1953. It is my spiritual birthday of sorts. It was a period in which I was merged with the whole. No longer was I a seed buried under the ground, but I felt as a flower reaching out effortlessly toward the sun. – Peace Pilgrim • I co-pastor now, so I preach six months, then another guy preaches six months. So that’s really why I’m preparing for January, because I’ll finish in June; then I’ll be writing and doing other projects for the rest of the year. – Max Lucado • I co-pastor now, so I preach six months, then another guy preaches six months. So that’s really why I’m preparing for January, because I’ll finish in June; then I’ll be writing and doing other projects for the rest of the year. – Max Lucado • I do go back to Ireland, and I’ll probably be doing a film in Ireland in January, and I guess that kind of keeps me classified as ‘the Irish actor,’ but the last four or five projects that I’ve been in are either American or English, so I don’t feel terribly trapped in that. But sometimes, yeah, you would like to not be called ‘the Irish actor.’ You’d prefer to just be called ‘the actor.’ – Colm Meaney • I do not love you except because I love you; I go from loving to not loving you, From waiting to not waiting for you My heart moves from cold to fire. I love you only because it’s you the one I love; I hate you deeply, and hating you Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you Is that I do not see you but love you blindly. Maybe January light will consume My heart with its cruel Ray, stealing my key to true calm. In this part of the story I am the one who Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you, Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood. – Pablo Neruda • I ended up meeting this guy Stefan Simchowitz, who produced Requiem for a Dream and also went to AFI. I randomly met him in Cannes. By September of 2000, we had made a deal with this company that he was working with. They merged with us and in January of 2001, we opened WireImage. It was pretty crazy because I only started shooting celebrity stuff in 1998 – literally two and a half years later, I’m opening this company. – Jeff Vespa • I got stopped in front of the bras in Victoria’s Secret; I get interrogated in airport bathrooms. I went to South Africa in January to see my family, and even there people would stop me and ask, “Sasha, who’s A?” Even my grandma. – Sasha Pieterse • I got stopped in front of the bras in Victoria’s Secret; I get interrogated in airport bathrooms. I went to South Africa in January to see my family, and even there people would stop me and ask, “Sasha, who’s A?” Even my grandma. – Sasha Pieterse • I guess I’m okay with that. But it’s not going to be easy for you. They don’t have a lot of fishing or mudding around here.” “I figured.” “And not a lot of beach volleyball, either. Especially in January.” “I guess I’ll have to make some sacrifices.” “Maybe if you’re lucky, we can find you some other ways to occupy your time.” – Nicholas Sparks • I have eight times online since January [2016] in which Hillary Clinton has had massive coughing fits in which she couldn’t complete her speech. I’ve seen her lifted onto airplanes. And I don’t know what’s wrong with her. – Rudy Giuliani • I have seen women looking at jewelry ads with a misty eye and one hand resting on the heart, and I only know what they’re feeling because that’s how I read the seed catalogs in January. – Barbara Kingsolver • I have to admit, in January and February I was in an absolute fuzz. I had no one on board. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what I was doing, but we didn’t have all the pieces put together. – Donna Shalala • I miss All Stars, by the way. I was just telling people: how am I going to get by until January? – Jason Wu • I miss everything about Chicago, except January and February. – Gary Cole • I started singing for The Phantom in January, and we started filming in October and I sang all the way through to the next June. In fact, I was singing for about two months before I even knew I had the role. – Gerard Butler • I started to call myself a “rational therapist” in January 1955; later I used the term “rational emotive.” Now I call myself a “rational emotive behavior therapist.” But from the start, I always included philosophic techniques as well as experiential, emotional and behavioral techniques. – Albert Ellis • I started to call myself a “rational therapist” in January 1955; later I used the term “rational emotive.” Now I call myself a “rational emotive behavior therapist.” But from the start, I always included philosophic techniques as well as experiential, emotional and behavioral techniques. – Albert Ellis • I think I can safely call 2012 average. Overall, it was a stronger year for nonfiction than fiction – a situation that would’ve surprised me back in January, when I was looking forward to big new novels from several authors I really love. – David Edelstein • I think I can safely call 2012 average. Overall, it was a stronger year for nonfiction than fiction – a situation that would’ve surprised me back in January, when I was looking forward to big new novels from several authors I really love. – David Edelstein • I traveled for seven years, and when I came back home I was completely lost. I didn’t know what to do with my life, so I decided to let people decide for me. For month I followed strangers on the street. For the pleasure of following, not because the party interested me. I photographed them without their knowledge, took note of their movements, and finally lost sight of them. At the end of January 1980, I chose a man and followed him to Venice. That’s how I started. That’s all. – Sophie Calle • I was born in my parents’ bedroom on January 16. The World Almanac says it was 1909. I say it was 1912. But what difference does it make as long as I feel 33? – Ethel Merman • I was born January 6, 1937, eight years after Wall Street crashed and two years before John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath, his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the plight of a family during the Great Depression. – Lou Holtz • I was born on the same day as Edgar Allan Poe and Dolly Parton: January 19. I am absolutely certain that this affects my writing in some way. – Eden Robinson • I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. – Jeffrey Eugenides • I worked with my coach to develop some new spiral variations to make my program more interesting. Each one is different and you’ll have to wait until January to see them. – Sasha Cohen • I write one poem a year, usually in January or February. – Emily Susan Rapp • I, George Bush, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the decade beginning January 1, 1990, as the Decade of the Brain. – George H. W. Bush • If I had my way, I’d remove January from the calendar altogether and have an extra July instead. – Roald Dahl • If it’s January, I’m dead in three hours. But in June, I’d be hungry, but I’d make it out. I’d find my way without a map or compass. I say that with confidence. I can build a fire without a match. – Rob Corddry • If it’s January, I’m dead in three hours. But in June, I’d be hungry, but I’d make it out. I’d find my way without a map or compass. I say that with confidence. I can build a fire without a match. – Rob Corddry • If January is the month of change, February is the month of lasting change. January is for dreamers… February is for doers – – Marc Parent • If you go to Minnesota in January, you should know that it’s gonna be cold. You don’t panic when the thermometer falls below zero. – Peter Lynch • I’m not going to just take office in January, I’m going to take responsibility. – Mitt Romney • I’m right now wrapping up the sermon series on grace. I’d like to figure out what this next series will be in January. To do that, I’m going to come up with four or five really good ideas – at least that I think are really good ideas – and if I don’t sense God really highlighting one of those, I will go to the elders of our church and my co-pastors. – Max Lucado • I’m right now wrapping up the sermon series on grace. I’d like to figure out what this next series will be in January. To do that, I’m going to come up with four or five really good ideas – at least that I think are really good ideas – and if I don’t sense God really highlighting one of those, I will go to the elders of our church and my co-pastors. – Max Lucado • I’m trying to make it a little bit more personal this time. All my shows are hodge-podges, and this one is no exception but this one delves a little more deeper into my life and my world. Hopefully it’s funny. I did a version of this at Birdland last January and it’s similar-ish to what I’ve done before. But I’ve been working on it all year; I did it out here in Los Angeles in a theatre and kept developing it. Hopefully it’ll be better. – Jason Graae • I’m trying to make it a little bit more personal this time. All my shows are hodge-podges, and this one is no exception but this one delves a little more deeper into my life and my world. Hopefully it’s funny. I did a version of this at Birdland last January and it’s similar-ish to what I’ve done before. But I’ve been working on it all year; I did it out here in Los Angeles in a theatre and kept developing it. Hopefully it’ll be better. – Jason Graae • I’m used to a very busy schedule. Right now it revolves around training and preparing for Nationals in January. I’m usually at the rink from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. and then I attend public school for two hours, three times per week. – Sasha Cohen • In Chicago 3,000 people have been shot since January 1st. We’re not going to let that happen. Our inner cities are almost at an all-time low, run by the Democrats for sometimes more than a hundred years, chain unbroken. – Donald Trump • In Chicago, they’ve had thousands of shootings, thousands since January 1st [2016]. Is this a war-torn country? What are we doing? And we have to stop the violence. – Donald Trump • In early January I introduced my legislation, which, besides prohibiting Federal funding of human cloning, also expresses the sense of Congress that foreign nations should establish total prohibition on human cloning as well. – Cliff Stearns • In January 1912 Leonard proposed marriage. She was unable to answer directly and he pressed further in a passionate letter: ‘It isn’t, really it isnt, merely because you are so beautiful – though of course that is a large reason & so it should be – that I love you: it is your mind & your character – I have never known anyone like you in that – wont you believe me? – Jane Goldman • In January 1944 I was called up by the Forced Labor Service, but I deserted on October 10, 1944. – Gyorgy Ligeti • In January 1962, when I was the author of one and a half unperformed plays, I attended a student production of ‘The Birthday Party’ at the Victoria Rooms in Bristol. Just before it began, I realised that Harold Pinter was sitting in front of me. – Tom Stoppard • In January of 1969, after a meeting to discuss the leadership of UCLA’s new Afro-American Program, [Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter and John Huggins, Jr.] were murdered on campus by a rival black nationalist group, the United Slaves Organization. This shook up all the students, black and white, and made us all realize that what we were doing wasn’t just an academic exercise, but had repercussions in the real world. – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar • In January of 1969, after a meeting to discuss the leadership of UCLA’s new Afro-American Program, [Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter and John Huggins, Jr.] were murdered on campus by a rival black nationalist group, the United Slaves Organization. This shook up all the students, black and white, and made us all realize that what we were doing wasn’t just an academic exercise, but had repercussions in the real world. – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar • In January we start saving money, getting out of credit card debt, funding our retirement accounts, and we’re doing wonderful. Then, every single year like clockwork, starting in November, all of you fall into this trap that says, ‘I have to buy this gift… I can’t show up at this party and not have something for everybody. – Suze Orman • In March 2011 I’m trying to decide on a sermon series that I will preach in January 2012. So, I’m about six months out. – Max Lucado • In the Land of Toys, every day, except Sunday, is a Saturday. Vacation begins on the first of January and ends on the last day of December. That is the place for me! All countries should be like it! How happy we should all be! – Carlo Collodi • It [our best show] was this year, the 7th of January in Eilat, Israel; 6,000 people in the desert going absolutely mad! – Tiesto • It is deep January. The sky is hard. The stalks are firmly rooted in ice. – Wallace Stevens • It was February sixth: eight days until Valentine’s Day. I was dateless, as usual, deep in the vice grip of unrequited love. It was bad enough not having a boyfriend for New Year’s Eve. Now I had to cope with Valentine datelessness, feeling consummate social pressure from every retailer in America who stuck hearts and cupids in their windows by January second to rub it in. – Joan Bauer • It was Russia, January 5, 1943, and just another icy day. Out among the city and snow, there were dead Russians and Germans everywhere. Those who remained were firing into the blank pages in front of them. Three languages interwove. The Russian, the bullets, the German. – Markus Zusak • It’s best to think of these as two things – they’re related, but there’s different dynamics going on with each of them. A key difference is Abyei is contested territory. We still do not know whether Abyei is going to belong to the new country of South Sudan or effectively the new country of Sudan, the northern part. That was supposed to be decided by a referendum in January; that referendum never happened, so it was being dealt with through political negotiations. – Rebecca Hamilton • It’s only life. We all get through it. Not all of us complete the journey in the same condition. Along the way, some lose their legs or eyes in acidents or altercations, while others skate through the years with nothing worse to worry about than an occassional bad-hair day. I still possessed both legs and both eyes, and even my hair looked all right when I rose that Wednesday morning in late January. If I returned to bed sixteen hours later, having lost all my hair but nothing else, I would consider the day a triumph. Even minus a few teeth, I’d call it a triumph. – Dean Koontz • It’s the premium time, the fourth quarter. October, November, December and now, if you will, going over into the first quarter in January. But really, football, that’s when the interest is in the game. – Jerry Jones • I’ve been writing a book called The Economics of Innocent Fraud. I published part of it already in The Progressive (“Free Market Fraud,” January 1999). But I’ve been interrupted these last few months. It deals with all of the things we do, in an innocent way, to cover up the truth. – John Kenneth Galbraith • I’ve been writing a book called The Economics of Innocent Fraud. I published part of it already in The Progressive (“Free Market Fraud,” January 1999). But I’ve been interrupted these last few months. It deals with all of the things we do, in an innocent way, to cover up the truth. – John Kenneth Galbraith • I’ve lived in Washington now for 44 years, and that’s a lot of folly to witness up close. Whatever confidence and optimism I felt towards the central government when I got here on January 1, 1970 has pretty much dissipated at the hands of the government. – George Will • I’ve translated two of Bae’s novels, A Greater Music and Recitation, which are coming from Open Letter and Deep Vellum in October and January respectively. A Greater Music is a semi-autobiographical book centred on a Korean writer moving to Berlin, learning to live and even write in a foreign language. – Deborah Smith • I’ve translated two of Bae’s novels, A Greater Music and Recitation, which are coming from Open Letter and Deep Vellum in October and January respectively. A Greater Music is a semi-autobiographical book centred on a Korean writer moving to Berlin, learning to live and even write in a foreign language. – Deborah Smith • January 8 has been a lucky day for me. I have started all my books on that day, and all of them have been well received by the readers. I write eight to ten hours a day until I have a first draft, then I can relax a little. I am very disciplined. I write in silence and solitude. I light a candle to call inspiration and the muses, and I surround myself with pictures of the people I love, dead and alive. – Isabel Allende • January brings the snow, makes our feet and fingers glow. – Sara Coleridge • January cold and desolate; February dripping wet; March wind ranges; April changes; Birds sing in tune To flowers of May, And sunny June Brings longest day; In scorched July The storm-clouds fly, Lightning-torn; August bears corn, September fruit; In rough October Earth must disrobe her; Stars fall and shoot In keen November; And night is long And cold is strong In bleak December. – Christina Rossetti • January gray is here, like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier, march with grief doth howl and rave, and April weeps — but, O ye hours! Follow with May’s fairest flowers. – Percy Bysshe Shelley • January is always a good month for behavioral economics: Few things illustrate self-control as vividly as New Year’s resolutions. February is even better, though, because it lets us study why so many of those resolutions are broken. – Sendhil Mullainathan • January is here, with eyes that keenly glow, A frost-mailed warrior striding a shadowy steed of snow. – Edgar Fawcett • January is my favorite month, when the light is plainest, least colored. And I like the feeling of beginnings. – Anne Truitt • January is the garbage can of movies in America, directly after all the Oscar contenders have been out. – Michael Caine • January is the month for dreaming. – Jean Hersey • January, month of empty pockets! let us endure this evil month, anxious as a theatrical producer’s forehead. – Sidonie Gabrielle Colette • January. It was all things. And it was one thing, like a solid door. Its cold sealed the city in a gray capsule. January was moments, and January was a year. January rained the moments down, and froze them in her memory: […]Every human action seemed to yield a magic. January was a two-faced month, jangling like jester’s bells, crackling like snow crust, pure as any beginning, grim as an old man, mysteriously familiar yet unknown, like a word one can almost but not quite define. – Patricia Highsmith • Just because Congress passes a law and says it’s all right to do a certain thing does not mean that it’s all right to do it. Abortion is still just as wrong today as it was the first day of January, 1973. – Shelton Smith • Last year was the fourth or fifth attempt to get fall launched till ‘American Idol’ comes in January. To be honest, the reality programming we had on last year was considered filler until we could get to the good stuff. It was meant to hopefully get us to January andor to November. To get past baseball. But (it) didn’t work very well. – Mike Darnell • Lets talk about the holidays, more specifically, consumption during the holidays. If it’s true that ‘We are what we eat,’ most of us would be unrecognizable during the period that ranges from the night before Thanksgiving through that day in early January when everyone decides to return to the gym. – Rachel Nichols • Look lak she been livin’ through uh hundred years in January without one day of spring. – Zora Neale Hurston • Lots of people go mad in January. Not as many as in May, of course. Nor June. But January is your third most common month for madness. – Karen Joy Fowler • Major league baseball players and owners should meet immediately to enact the standards that apply to the minor leagues, and if they don’t, I will have to introduce legislation that says professional sports will have minimum standards for testing. I’ll give them until January, and then I’ll introduce legislation. – John McCain

• My dad liked how January went with Jones. My sisters’ names are Jina and Jacey Jones. – January Jones • My last visit to China as secretary, January of 2011, I told President Hu Jintao, just like this, “President of the United States wanted me to tell you that we now consider North Korea a direct threat to the United States.” And it had no effect whatsoever. – Robert M. Gates • My most embarrassing moment was when I was a student at Tufts University and decided to go ‘streaking’ with a group of girls in the middle of January. Somehow I lost them and ended up being chased by the campus police. – Meredith Vieira • My question is what non-Microsoft browsers were you concerned about in January of 1996. – David Boies • My wife and I always have a winter holiday that I call the “fly and flop”. In January and February, you don’t want culture, you just want to get your bones warm and eat, drink, sleep. We usually go to the Caribbean. – Alan Titchmarsh • My wife and I always have a winter holiday that I call the “fly and flop”. In January and February, you don’t want culture, you just want to get your bones warm and eat, drink, sleep. We usually go to the Caribbean. – Alan Titchmarsh • No one ever regarded the first of January with indifference. – Charles Lamb • No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common Adam. – Charles Lamb • No one’s ever achieved financial fitness with a January resolution that’s abandoned by February. – Suze Orman • No other woman had that air of spring in January, that ever-bubbling fount of love and hope. – Rosalind Miles • Now, in New Jersey, we have more government workers per square mile than any state in America. But since I’ve been governor we now have fewer people on the state payroll at any time since Christie Whitman left office in January 2001. That’s the right direction, Mr. President, not the wrong direction. – Chris Christie • On January 1, 2006, Medicare will begin to offer a prescription drug benefit, and for the first time, it will place an emphasis on preventive care and early treatment of disease. – Michael C. Burgess • On January 10, 1963, I was sworn in as a lawyer, so next January 10 I will have practiced law for 40 years, and I’ve loved every minute of it. – Johnnie Cochran • On January 20, 2017, Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, and he will be given the nuclear codes and the power to launch the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which is comprised of some 7,000 nuclear weapons. A military officer will always be close to Trump, carrying the nuclear codes in a briefcase known as the “football.” – David Krieger • On January 20, 2017, Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, and he will be given the nuclear codes and the power to launch the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which is comprised of some 7,000 nuclear weapons. A military officer will always be close to Trump, carrying the nuclear codes in a briefcase known as the “football.” – David Krieger • On January 27, 2001, the focus of my career and the process of changing the desires of my heart all began. It was no longer about me but rather how I could impact others for the Kingdom. I officially was in the people business. That philosophy, combined with a warrior mentality, I believe, has endeared me to being labeled a positive clubhouse influence. – Tony Clark • On January 30, 1988, my twenty-seventh birthday, I became a strict vegetarian. I developed a passion for health and nutrition. My diet consists of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and legumes only, and has for the past 15 years now. – Dexter Scott King • One January day, thirty years ago, the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown away. – Willa Cather • One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine trees, crusted with snow, And have been cold a long time, to behold the junipers, shagged with ice, the spruces, rough in the distant glitter of the January sun, and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of a few leaves, which is the sound of the land, full of the same wind, blowing in the same bare place for the listener, who listens in the snow, and, nothing herself, beholds nothing that is not there, and the nothing that is. – Wallace Stevens • Our task force put to sea in early January 1942, to attack the Japanese in the Marshall and Gilbert islands, but the mission was called off on the eve of the attack. – Jack Adams • President Bush says now he is sticking to his plan for handing over power to the Iraqis on June 30. It’s also part of his plan to hand over power to John Kerry on January 20. – David Letterman • Scott Brown may be the last Republican to win a statewide fight in Massachusetts for a very long time. He caught the machine flat-footed in January 2010 when he out-hustled Martha Coakley and stole the Senate seat Ted Kennedy held all those years. And since then, the Democrats haven’t lost a single statewide fight. – Howie Carr • Senator [Tom] Cotton has campaigned on wanting to kill Obamacare. He voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act back in January, but he now says, despite these marathon all-night sessions going on in the House, Republicans need to do better, they need to start over, they need to come up with something that the Senate says will actually reduce prices for insurance and keep it affordable. – Rachel Maddow • Senator [Tom] Cotton has campaigned on wanting to kill Obamacare. He voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act back in January, but he now says, despite these marathon all-night sessions going on in the House, Republicans need to do better, they need to start over, they need to come up with something that the Senate says will actually reduce prices for insurance and keep it affordable. – Rachel Maddow • Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent. – Dave Barry • Since January 1993 there have been 27 other countries not in the EU that have done better than the UK at exporting goods into the single market. – Boris Johnson • Since January 2002, when the United States began detaining at Guantanamo Bay enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other fronts in the war on terror, critics have complained of human rights abuses. – Linda Chavez • Since the Bush-Cheney Administration took office in January 2001, controlling the major oil and natural gas fields of the world had been the primary, though undeclared, priority of US foreign policy… Not only the invasion of Iraq, but also the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan, had nothing to do with ‘democracy,’ and everything to do with pipeline control across Central Asia and the militarization of the Middle East. – F. William Engdahl • Since the Kingstonfirst BID started in January 2005, retailers have enjoyed three years of impressive sales growth, which has taken many of us to the top of our peer group. The BID period has also seen Kingston rise to 12th place according to Experian, and 13th place according to the Javelin Venuescore, in their respective retail super leagues of UK town and city centres. I am confident the platform that our BID provides will allow us to continue to maintain Kingston as the place that people love to shop and visit. – David Barford • Since, O sweet Lord Jesus, Thou art the present portion of Thy people, favour us this year with such a sense of Thy preciousness, that from its first to its last day we may be glad and rejoice in Thee. Let January open with joy in the Lord, and December close with gladness in Jesus. – Charles Spurgeon • Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January. – Hal Borland • Sunday, January 27, 1884. — There was another story in the paper a week or so since. A gentleman had a favourite cat whom he taught to sit at the dinner table where it behaved very well. He was in the habit of putting any scraps he left onto the cat’s plate. One day puss did not take his place punctually, but presently appeared with two mice, one of which it placed on its master’s plate, the other on its own. – Beatrix Potter • Take the entire 4.5-billion-year history of the earth and scale it down to a single year, with January 1 being the origin of the earth and midnight on December 31 being the present. Until June, the only organisms were single-celled microbes, such as algae, bacteria, and amoebae. The first animal with a head did not appear until October. The first human appears on December 31. We, like all the animals and plants that have ever lived, are recent crashers at the party of life on earth. – Neil Shubin • Thank god, and now all I have are, twenty one years together, in January and, you know, I, you know I forgot this all about things. And anyway the first place is good thing. – Olga Korbut • That many if not most people…who want fresh leafy greens in January buy them at the supermarket after they’ve been bleached and plastic-bag shipped from California or beyond is not a tribute to modern technology; it’s an unprecedented abdication of personal responsibility and a ubiquitous benchmark of abnormality. – Joel Salatin • The actual writing time is a lot shorter than the thinking time. I don’t do too many notes. I keep it mostly in my head. I usually start writing a new book around January, and it’s due October 1. – Harlan Coben • The answer is hard work. What are you doing on Christmas Eve? Are you riding your bike? January 1st – are you riding your bike? – Lance Armstrong • The answer is hard work. What are you doing on Christmas Eve? Are you riding your bike? January 1st – are you riding your bike? – Lance Armstrong • The band set up in January and just started rehearsing. If there was a song, we’d just rehearse it as a band, and it would get arranged as a band, and it got changed around a lot. – James Iha • The biggest roadblock to middle-class economic advancement is that governments confiscate more than a third of all family income. Each year the average American taxpayer works 127 days – from January 1 until May 7 – just to pay taxes. – Thomas DiLorenzo • The Emancipation Proclamation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, was put into effect on January 1, 1863, but news of the Proclamation and enforcement did not reach Texas until after the end of the Civil War almost two years later. – Corrine Brown • The faster we grew, the more stores we had open, the more money we made. Employees move quickly up the ranks of a company that’s growing fast. Shareholders made a lot of money. If you invested $25,000 from January 1987 to January 1994, you’d have more than a million dollars. I get a lot of personal satisfaction from that. – Wayne Huizenga • The first thing [Donald Trump] does on January 20th is take an oath to defend and adhere to the Constitution of the United States. – Chuck Todd • The first thing [Donald Trump] does on January 20th is take an oath to defend and adhere to the Constitution of the United States. – Chuck Todd • The idea of negotiating with the President of the United States runs contrary to everything that the Republicans have done since January 20, 2009. – Keith Olbermann • The intelligent minority of this world will mark 1 January 2001 as the real beginning of the 21st century and the Third Millennium. – Arthur C. Clarke • The leaves hop, scraping on the ground. It is deep January. The sky is hard. The stalks are firmly rooted in ice. It is in this solitude, a syllable, Out of these gawky flitterings, Intones its single emptiness, The savagest hollow of winter-sound. – Wallace Stevens • The left keeps talking about impeachment. I mean, they were talking about impeachment before Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017. And, you know, I think impeaching Obama in January probably would have been a mistake. – Ted Cruz • The left keeps talking about impeachment. I mean, they were talking about impeachment before Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017. And, you know, I think impeaching Obama in January probably would have been a mistake. – Ted Cruz • The Lord IS my shepherd. Not was, not may be, nor will be. . . is my shepherd on Sunday, is on Monday, and is through every day of the week; is in January, is in December, and every month of the year, is at home, and is in China; is in peace, and is in war; in abundance, and in penury. – Hudson Taylor • The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. I call on Congress today to act immediately, to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every school – and to do it now, to make sure that blanket of safety is in place when our children return to school in January. – Wayne LaPierre • The result was, when Congress convened in January 1971, everyone was now an environmentalist. They had seen a new force, college students, who favored the environment. – Pete McCloskey • The shortest day has passed, and whatever nastiness of weather we may look forward to in January and February, at least we notice that the days are getting longer. Minute by minute they lengthen out. It takes some weeks before we become aware of the change. It is imperceptible even as the growth of a child, as you watch it day by day, until the moment comes when with a start of delighted surprise we realize that we can stay out of doors in a twilight lasting for another quarter of a precious hour. – Vita Sackville-West • The thousands small birds of January in their smooth soaring cloud finding the trees. – Naomi Shihab Nye • There are a lot of car bombs and roadside bombs, house bombs, even, in this city planted by ISIS. So – but it’s going to be a tough fight ahead, and the Iraqi generals expect to take the city back, the city of Ramadi, by mid-January. – Tom Bowman • There are two seasonal diversions that can ease the bite of any winter. One is the January thaw. The other is the seed catalogues. – Hal Borland • There have been nine Super Bowls in New Orleans, and not all of them have brought the best of luck to NFL Films. We got robbed twice there, got food poisoning, and my hotel room was broken into on the day the Bears played the Patriots in January 1986. – Steve Sabol • There is a shortage of teachers but the January 2001 schools census showed that teacher numbers were at their highest level than at any time since 1984 – and 11,000 higher than 1997. – Estelle Morris, Baroness Morris of Yardley • There is this expectation that as January 1st dawns, we’re going to do it differently. Moreover, there’s this kind of pressure, that even if I’ve been trying to be different for a while, January 1st, from here on in – I have to be different. There’s a cultural expectation, there’s a personal expectation. I think it’s worth just taking pause for a minute and talking about that. – Rod Stryker • There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud. – Edward Kennedy • There’s one Baldessari work I genuinely love and would like to own, maybe because of my Midwestern roots and love of driving alone. ‘The backs of all the trucks passed while driving from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, California, Sunday, 20 January 1963′ consists of a grid of 32 small color photographs depicting just what the title says. – Jerry Saltz • There’s something I love about how stark the contrast is between January and June in Sweden. In a way, I feel that time doesn’t exist in LA. Sometimes I don’t know if it’s February or April or October, because you’re always sitting outside on the same patio, and it’s 70 degrees. – Alexander Skarsgard • This because it is never really very cold in England. It is drizzly, and the wind will blow; hail happens, and there is a breed of Tuesday in January in which time creeps and no light comes and the air is full of water and nobody really loves anybody, but still a decent jumper and a waxen jacket lined with wool is sufficient for every weather England’s got to give. – Zadie Smith • This is a terrible hour, but it is often that darkest point which precedes the rise of day; that turn of the year when the icy January wind carries over the waste at once the dirge of departing winter, and the prophecy of coming spring. – Charlotte Bronte • This is the first time a newly inaugurated president has had any impact on a current budget.” What that means is that normally when a president’s inaugurated in January, the budget for the first calendar year of his term or the first nine months is already done. So from January 21st all the way ’til October when the new budget’s done, the president has to deal with the previous Congress’ budget and has nothing to say about it. What they’re saying is that Donald Trump has had a record-breaking, never-before-seen thing by having an impact on the budget in his first year. – Rush Limbaugh • This January, Kevin Costner will be honored by the Palm Springs International Film Festival for his contribution to film. This gives Costner just two months to make a contribution to film. – Tina Fey • Though he found that if you are stupid enough to bury a camera underground you won’t be taking many pictures with it afterwards. Thus the story has no picture book for the period May 10, 1991 – January 7, 1992. But this is not important. It is the experiences, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found. God it’s great to be alive! Thank you. Thank you. – Jon Krakauer • Through the chill of December the early winter moans… but it’s that January wind that rattles old bones. – John Facenda • To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June – Jean-Paul Sartre • Today is one of those excellent January partly cloudies in which light chooses an unexpected part of the landscape to trick out in gilt, and then the shadow sweeps it away. You know you’re alive. You take huge steps, trying to feel the planet’s roundness arc between your feet. – Annie Dillard • Under current law, on January 1, 2013, there’s going to be a massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases. – Ben Bernanke • Up until the time Turner Broadcasting bought Hanna-Barbera, it was essentially an independent studio whose planning cycle had to be nine months. You got a pickup in January, and you put it on the air in September. That’s been the cycle. – Fred Seibert • Vladimir Lenin died in January, 1924; three months later [Joseph] Stalin expounded in writing Lenin’s conception of the proletarian revolution. – Leon Trotsky • We also need the provisions in the tax bill that will permit working mothers to increase the deduction from income tax liability for costs incurred in providing care for their children while the mothers are working. In October the Commission on the Status of Women will report to me. This problem should have a high priority, and I think that whatever we leave undone this year we must move on this in January. – John F. Kennedy • We are all of us, in this world, more or less like St. January, whom the inhabitants of Naples worship one day, and pelt with baked apples the next. – Sophie Swetchine • We are the last remaining country to allow ourselves two breaks in the season. You just have to look at England, Italy and Spain, they play right through the season. We on the other hand take six weeks off in the winter until the end of January, and that is a luxury. – Franz Beckenbauer • We get to see it! January 1st, 2000! We get to see… all those fundamentalist preachers having to do their backpedaling when the Armageddon doesn’t occur. – David Cross • We had a $10 billion budget deficit when we got here in January of 2003. We cut that budget deficit; we did not raise taxes; we came back in ’05, and we had an $8 billion surplus. That’s how fast it can happen. – Rick Perry • We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives…not looking for flaws, but for potential. – Ellen Goodman • We spotted Beyoncé, January Jones, Rihanna and Carey Mulligan wearing the label [Karen Walker]. I was ecstatic, but I’m just as thrilled to see interesting girls wearing our product everywhere. It’s quite a buzz. – Karen Walker • Well, first of all, we’ve got to get away from being offended by the truth. We’ve seen a 41 percent increase in food stamp recipients across the United States of America since President Obama was sworn in in January 2009. That has nothing to do with black, white, Hispanic or whatever. It’s a fact, and we need to, you know, deal with that. – Allen West • We’re [with Donald Trump] working from Day 1, which will be [Monday, January 23 2017], the first full business day of the administration, to begin to roll back the unconstitutional executive orders and an avalanche of regulations that have been stifling growth and jobs in Indiana and across the economy. – Mike Pence • We’re [with Donald Trump] working from Day 1, which will be [Monday, January 23 2017], the first full business day of the administration, to begin to roll back the unconstitutional executive orders and an avalanche of regulations that have been stifling growth and jobs in Indiana and across the economy. – Mike Pence • We’ve got to look toward two years from now [January 2017] to at least provide some balance in congress. – Al Sharpton • We’ve got to look toward two years from now [January 2017] to at least provide some balance in congress. – Al Sharpton • When I got my statement in January, I was worth $2.2 billion. Then I got another statement in August that said I was worth $3.2 billion. So I figure it’s only nine months’ earnings, who cares? – Ted Turner • When I leave the office on January 20th, I will leave even more idealistic than I was the day I took the oath of office. – William J. Clinton • When I was 14 -years-old, I made this PowerPoint presentation, and I invited my parents into my room and gave them popcorn. It was called ‘Project Hollywood 2004′ and it worked. I moved to L.A. in January of 2004. – Emma Stone • When people tell me that I became President on January 20th, 1981, I feel I have to correct them. You don’t become President of the United States. You are given temporary custody of an institution called the Presidency, which belongs to our people. – Ronald Reagan • When the snow is still blowing against the window-pane in January and February and the wild winds are howling without, what pleasure it is to plan for summer that is to be. – Celia Thaxter • Without Valentine’s Day, February would be… well, January. – Jim Gaffigan • You look at the inner cities and you see bad education, no jobs, no safety. You walk to the grocery store with your child and you get shot. You walk outside to look and see what’s happening, and you get shot. In Chicago 3,000 people have been shot since January 1st. I am not going to let that happen. – Donald Trump • You look at the inner cities and you see bad education, no jobs, no safety. You walk to the grocery store with your child and you get shot. You walk outside to look and see what’s happening, and you get shot. In Chicago 3,000 people have been shot since January 1st. I am not going to let that happen. – Donald Trump • You sweat out the free agent thing in November, then you make the trades in December. Then you struggle to sign the guys left in January, and in February I get down to sewing all the new numbers on the uniforms. – Whitey Herzog • You’d be so lean, that blast of January Would blow you through and through. Now, my fair’st friend, I would I had some flowers o’ the spring that might Become your time of day. – William Shakespeare • Your hair is winter fire January embers My heart burns there, too. – Stephen King • You’ve got to be happy if they get your facts right. Since January I don’t think I’ve recognized a damned thing that I’ve filed. I just pour everything out of the boot. Otherwise you get a phone call at three in the morning asking why you left out that the candidate had his teeth drilled that morning. – John Lindsay

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equitiesstocks · 5 years ago

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January Quotes

Official Website: January Quotes

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cooldavidkentposts · 5 years ago

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New technology at water treatment plant improves THM control

The Yarraman water scheme has always struggled with trihalomethane (THM) failures in its reticulation network. In 2014 a THM event continued for over 12 months with the standard response of lowering treated water turbidity, optimising processes, reticulation controls, and PAC addition not being able to effectively reduce the THM results below ADWG limits.

This event was eventually closed off after a second raw water source came online and an aeration system was installed in Reservoir 1.

With the expectation of ‘Health Based Targets’ tightening treated water turbidity limits and with THM exceedances continuing to come and go since 2014, a concerted effort has been made to understand what can be done to control THM production and determine a parameter that can be used to predict that THM production will not exceed the ADWG limits.

Total Organic Carbon (TOC) levels in the treated water are being used for that parameter. By monitoring TOC levels, operators can identify the effectiveness of coagulant adjustments, process changes, or raw water source selections and can be confident THM limits throughout the Yarraman reticulation network will be maintained.

Overview

Yarraman has a population of around 1300 people and an average day’s usage of 275 kl. Two main areas were identified as opportunities to improve the Yarraman treated water quality and potential of the treated water to form THMs.

The main one was the performance of the WTP itself. The Yarraman WTP consists of an upflow sludge blanket clarifier and pressure filter. Sludge blanket clarifiers are notorious for being finicky to operate and rely on a functional well developed sludge blanket to perform best. Another problem is that Yarraman is approximately 100 km from the operations base. The Yarraman operator also maintains a biofilter WWTP during their day in Yarraman. Therefore, the time the operator can spend at the WTP making adjustments and determining their effectiveness is extremely limited.

The second area of opportunity was that the first time that operators were made aware that THMs had exceeded the ADWG limit was when lab results were received — which could be three weeks after samples were collected. They therefore only knew if operational changes were effective three weeks after they were made. This would result in any THM incident extending for considerable time periods. The operators needed a reliable and early indication that THM limits may be getting close to limits.

It was found that turbidity can be used as the guide but does not provide the operator with confidence that THM production is under control — even when turbidity in the treated water is consistently below 0.3 NTU, THM levels in the reticulation can still exceed ADWG limits.

In the past the operational changes made to combat THM production were to lower treated water turbidity as much as possible, lower reservoir levels as much as possible to reduce contact time in the reticulation with chlorine, and also to lower chlorine levels as much as possible. These options come with their own risks and are not ideal or effective as long term controls.

Discussion

Yarraman WTP, processes, and reticulation network

Built in 1980, the Yarraman WTP consists of an upflow sludge blanket clarifier followed by a pressure filter. It is designed to treat a maximum of 14 l/s. Sludge concentrations and levels in the clarifier were controlled by timers opening and closing a sludge drain valve to draw sludge from the sludge cone.

The treatment plant has two raw water sources. The original source, Ted Pukallus Weir, and the second from Boondooma Dam that came on line in 2014.

The treatment includes coagulation and powdered activated carbon (PAC), and uses sodium hypochlorite for pre- and post-disinfection. Pre-chlorination added before the filter is utilised for iron and manganese removal in the filter via the DMI-65 media. There is no ability for pH correction.

The Yarraman reticulation network has two pressure zones. Reservoir 1 at 680 kl (which also fulfils the clear water tank role) supplies the ‘low zone’ and a second reservoir of 820 kl supplies the ‘high zone’. Detention time of water in the network can be as high as six days.

WTP performance: turbidity of treated water

Turbidity removal reliability was an issue, with limited opportunity for operators to be onsite at the WTP to make process changes and monitor their effectiveness.

On line analysers are installed and report directly to the SCADA system to assist with remote monitoring of the process. Full computer control was finalised in 2014 which allowed remote control of all dosing pumps, backwashing, sludge drain, and reservoir operating levels.

Filter turbidity breakthrough was a problem. This was mostly due to flocculent carry-over in the clarifier with the sludge blanket performing poorly and being hard to create and maintain with low raw water turbidity.

Different coagulants were trialled with importance given to a coagulant that produced good solid flocculent as quickly as possible. This is to create strong flocculent as low as possible in the clarifier so a sludge blanket can be formed with as much density as possible.

However even with the treated water turbidity averaging 0.16 NTU between January and March 2018, THM exceedances were still occurring.

Monitoring the sludge blanket remotely

An effective sludge blanket is seen as the most important part of a sludge blanket upflow clarifier. The time an operator has at the WTP meant visual inspection of the blanket performance and flocculent carry-over was limited. Also TRC rotate operators at the WTP and one operator’s perception of a blanket and flocculent carry-over can be very different from that of another operator.

Monitoring of flocculent carry-over and sludge blanket levels determined how the operator set the sludge drain timers. If the sludge drain is set too low, flocculent carry-over can be excessive or the sludge blanket can rise too high in the clarifier, break up and carry over into the filter — which results in poor filter performance. If the sludge drain is set too high, any sludge blanket developed can be drawn off, which reduces its performance and can result in flocculent carry-over and also result in poor filter performance.

Poor filter performance with turbidity breaking through the filter is a large contributor to the formation of THM in the reticulation. Sludge blanket carry-over can block the filter very quickly and getting the filter washed and back into operation can result in poor filter performance for an extended period.

A sludge monitor was installed in March 2018. The sludge monitor periodically drops a sensor into the clarifier. The sensor will return information on sludge density and sludge depth. The sludge monitor produces a graph (Figure 1). From this graph the “fluff” layer or lighter flocculent (100 mg/l) can be seen. This indicates the extent of any flocculent carry-over. The graph also shows the sludge blanket or denser sludge (>1050 mg/l). The sludge drain control is now automated by the sludge monitor. If the fluff of the sludge blanket level is higher than the sludge cone the sludge drain is opened for a set time.

By utilising the trended graph, the performance of the clarifier can be monitored remotely and over the complete operational cycle of the WTP. Any change in coagulant, or PAC dose, can be monitored for its effectiveness and has resulted in no filter turbidity breakthroughs at the time of writing this paper, since its installation.

Figure 1: Sludge monitor trend graph. For a larger image click here.

Enhanced coagulation

Enhanced coagulation is a term heard only recently in the industry. A quick Google search states “Enhanced Coagulation is the term used to define the process of obtaining improved removal of disinfection by products precursors by conventional treatment”. Often it involves lowering the pH considerably between 5–6 to achieve desired results.

Other factors in the treatment process seem to impact on the turbidity and TOC removal efficiency to further enhance the coagulation process effectiveness.

That TOC removal efficiency can be increased by increasing the coagulant. However, this high dose of coagulant does result in large amounts of flocculent creation and carry-over — and therefore requires frequent backwashing to maintain filter performance.

The addition of PAC has a large effect on the TOC removed and the same removal efficiency can be achieved with a lower coagulant dose after the addition of PAC.

Acid dosing was trialled in October–November of 2017, but results did not show it was effective in increasing TOC removal. The pH level in the treatment process was however only dropped to slightly below pH 7.0 because no ability for pH correction exists at the WTP. The TOC removal efficiency as a percentage has been seen as high as 40% dosing coagulant at 20 mg/l and PAC at 5 mg/l. Dosing PAC at 5 mg/l would indicate it increases TOC removal efficiencies by between 5–10% over whatever TOC removal occurs from coagulant alone.

The aeration system perhaps indicates it can reduce THM levels by 10–20%. However, the ideal situation would be not to create THM, rather than have to remove them after they have been created.

On-line TOC sensor

Operators had a similar problem with TOC results as they had with THM results. TOC results were usually seen 1–2 weeks after samples were collected and if both raw sources and treated water were sampled weekly they proved to be costly.

The availability of an in-line sensor was investigated, and in August 2018 an in-line TOC sensor was installed. The operators can see TOC results in real time. Results are graphed using the SCADA system and a rising trend or changes to TOC either in the raw or treated water can be identified.

Figure 2: The TOC sensor at Yarraman.

Monitoring TOC levels on-line quickly shows the removal efficiency. It also provides a quick and reliable indication of the effectiveness of any changes made to the process or chemical doses. Using TOC results allows the operators to be confident in the treated water quality and the performance of the treatment process. It also allows the operators to determine the extent of the TOC removal efficiency needed through the enhanced coagulation process to eliminate THM exceedances into the future.

TOC vs THM control

THM exceedances were still a problem even with low turbidity in the treated water. Average treated water turbidity in early 2018 after the filter media was replaced was 0.16 NTU and was usually below the 0.15 NTU range which puts it within the proposed ‘health limits’. However, THM exceedances still occurred. After the introduction of the sludge monitor, a change of coagulant, introduction of enhanced coagulation, and operators using TOC levels as their guide parameter from March, the average turbidity in the treated water had dropped to average 0.08 NTU and no THM failures occurred.

From October 2017 weekly THM results, TOC results, and %TOC removal efficiencies were recorded along with any operational changes or plant upgrades such as the sludge monitor installation and filter media replaced noted.

These results may not satisfy scientific scrutiny with samples collected weekly and when changes were made the next sample determining its effect. They did however provide a guide to what worked and what effect it had.

From these results it has been determined that TOC level in the treated water provides a guide to the potential of THM formation in the reticulation.

It could be argued that a lower average turbidity in the treated water has also been seen and could be used to determine the treated water potential for THM formation. However, the turbidity results are very similar and turbidity results that averaged 0.16 NTU earlier in 2016–2017 did not result in exceedances of THM limits in what are expected to have been lower TOC periods.

The percentage of TOC removal efficiency has showed the effectiveness of enhanced coagulation and also the impact of PAC on TOC removal.

Conclusion

The THM limits within ADWG have not been exceeded in the Yarraman network since March 2018.

The sludge monitor provides a visual reference of what is happening with sludge blanket and fluff layers in the clarifier. Using the sludge monitor to automate the sludge drain process has allowed flocculent carry-over to be minimised and controlled throughout every run cycle of the plant.

By monitoring TOC levels, easier determinations can be made on plant performance and the likelihood of THM to be formed in the reticulation. A TOC target can be set to provide that confidence. This same confidence cannot be provided when using turbidity levels alone.

The required TOC removal efficiency can be determined by using the treated water TOC target and if enhanced coagulation is required to meet this target its effectiveness can be monitored.

If a turbidity level of 0.08 NTU in the treated water is used as the target to control THM formation, overdosing of coagulant and PAC would occur to meet this NTU figure when it may not be required to ensure THM exceedances do not occur during low TOC periods.

Limited results and data has been recorded and analysed and further work will need to be done to be 100% sure of the results seen so far. However, performance of the treatment process has been more reliable and THM exceedances have been eliminated as of the time of writing.

Enhanced coagulation at low pH levels may significantly increase TOC removal, however the above results have occurred without acid dosing to lower pH. Average raw water pH levels between July 2017 and June 2018 were 7.5 pH raw and 7.7 pH treated.

source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/water/article/new-technology-at-water-treatment-plant-improves-thm-control-202747178

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