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thisbluespirit · 4 years ago

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James Maxwell TV/Film List

More of a guide than a recs list, because old tv/film depends so much on availability. It’s also hard as there’s nothing surviving that’s really like SotT for him (his voice is always slightly different, too & rarely the grand one from SotT) - I found it hard to find where to start back in the day, so I hope this makes it easier. However, I have starred my favourites (rated for JM content only).

I’ve divided things into categories and @jurijurijurious (or anyone) can make up their own mind as to what to go for. (Also @jurijurijurious I have NO idea what old telly you’ve already seen, so forgive me if I’m telling you things you already know.)

Where to find it: Luckily in the UK, it’s not too bad! Network Distributing are the DVD supplier to keep an eye on (they do great online sales), you can find secondhand things cheap on Amazon Marketplace & eBay, and several Freeview channels show old TV & film, especially Talking Pictures. I’ll note if things are on YT or Daily Motion, but they come and go all the time, so it’s always worth searching.

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Film serials (ITC mainly)

British TV made on film in the US mode with transatlantic cash, so generally pretty light, episodic (continuity is almost unheard of) etc. Some turn up on ITV3 & 4 on a regular basis (colour eps).

*** Dangerman “A Date With Doris” (ITC 1964) James Maxwell is a British spy friend of Drake’s (Patrick MacGoohan) called Peter who gets framed for murder. Drake goes to Fake Cuba to rescue him by which time JM is dying from an infected wound and faints off every available surface, including the roof. It’s great. On YT. (The boxset is v pricey if you just want 2 eps.)

“Fair Exchange” (ITC 1964) JM is a German spy friend of Drake’s called Pieter who helps him out on a case. Not as gloriously hurt/comfort-y as the other, but it does have some excellent undercover dusting. (Why Patrick MacGoohan has JM clones all called variations on Peter dotted around the globeis a mystery.) On YT.

The Saint “The Inescapable Word” (ITC 1965) This is pretty terrible, but entertaining and James Maxwell plays the world’s most hopeless former-cop-turned-security guard. With bonus collapsing. On YT.

“The Art Collectors” (1967). JM is the villain of the week. It does include a v funny bit, though, where the Saint (Roger Moore) goes for JM’s fake hair (and who can blame him? How often I have felt the same!) This one’s in colour so should pop up on ITV3 or 4.

The Champions “The Silent Enemy” (ITC 1968). Surprisingly good JM content as the villain of the week who drugs sailors and steals their clothes before realising that maybe he should have worked out if he could operate a sub before he stole it.

The Protectors “The Bridge” (ITC 1974, 30 mins.) Not worth seeking out on its own, but ITV4 seems fond of it and James Maxwell gets to do some angsting and wears purple, so it’s worth snagging if you can, but too slight otherwise.

*** Thriller “Good Salary, Prospects, Free Coffin” (ITC 1975; 1hr 10mins, I think). James Maxwell moves in with Julian Glover and runs an overcomplicated murdery spy ring where they bicker a lot in between killing girls by advertisement and burying them in the back garden. What could possibly go wrong?? Anyway, it’s solid gold cheese, has bonus Julian Glover and a lot of natty knitwear. What more does an old telly fan want? (tw: Keith Barron being inexplicably the very meanest Thriller boyfriend.) On YT but tends to get taken down fast.

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Films

Design for Loving (1962; comedy). Can be rented from the BFI online for £3.50. Isn’t that great or that bad (or that funny either), but does have JM as a dim layabout beatnik, which is atypical.

***The Traitors (1962). This is a low-key little 1hr long spy B-movie, but it’s also thoughtful and ambiguous with a nice 60s soundtrack and location work (it’s a bit New Wave-ish) and the central duo of JM and Patrick Allen are sweet and it all winds up with James Maxwell going in the swimming pool. One of the things where JM is actually American. (Talking Pictures show this occasionally & it is out on DVD as an extra on The Wind of Change.) The quality of the surviving film is not great, though.

***Girl on Approval (1962). A Rachel Roberts kitchen sink drama about a couple fostering a difficult teenager. It’s dated, but it’s also really interesting for a 1950s/60s slice of life (and very female-centric) & probably the only time on this list JM played an ordinary person.

***Otley (1969). Comedy that’s generally dated surprisingly well & is good fun, starring Tom Courtenay +cameos from what seems like the whole of British TV. JM is an incompetent red herring & there are more cardies and glasses as well as a random barometer.

Old Vic/Royal Exchange group productions

(Surviving works made by the group that JM was involved in from drama school to his death, made by Michael Elliott or Casper Wrede. I like them a lot mostly, but they are all slow and weird and earnest & not everybody’s cup of tea.)

Brand (BBC 1959). The BBC recording of the 59 Company’s (the name they were then using) landmark production, starring Patrick MacGoohan. This was a big deal in British theatre & launched the careers of everybody involved. It’s very relentless and weird but interesting & I’m glad they decided it was important enough to save. First fake beard alert of this post. It won’t be the last. On YT & there is a DVD, which is sometimes affordable and sometimes £500, depending on the time of day.

***Private Potter (1962). The original TV play is lost and this film has an extraneous storyline, but otherwise has most of the TV cast & gives a pretty good idea of why as a claustrophobic talky TV piece it made such an impact. Tom Courtenay is Private Potter, a soldier who claims to have had a vision of God during a mission & James Maxwell his CO who needs to decide what to do about this strange excuse for disobeying orders. Tw: fake eyebrows (!) and moustaches. Only available on YT.

[???]One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch (1970). Again, no DVD release (no idea why), but it is on YT. I haven’t seen this yet, but it’s another Casper Wrede effort starring Tom Courtenay and apparently JM is especially good in it. (I’m just not good at watching long things on YT and keep hoping for a DVD or TV showing.)

Ransom (1974). A more commercial effort starring Sean Connery & Ian McShane; it gets slated as not being a good action movie, but is clearly meant to be more thinky and political with the edge of a thriller. JM’s part isn’t large but Casper Wrede shoots his friend beautifully, & it’s a pretty decent film with nice cinematography, shot in Norway, as was One Day. I liked it.

[I think this post might be the longest in the world, whoops. Sorry!]

Cardboard TV (the best bit, obv)

One-off plays etc./mini-series

Out of the Unknown “The Dead Planet” Adaptation of an Asimov short story; this is very good for JM, but hard to get hold of unless you want the boxset. I think someone has some of the eps on Daily Motion. (His other OotU ep is sadly burninated.)

The Portrait of a Lady (BBC 1968). Adaptation of the novel; JM is Gilbert Osmond, so it is great for JM in quantity and his performance, but depends how you feel about him being skeevy in truly appalling facial hair. Do the bow ties and hand-holding make up for it? but he’s in 5 whole episodes, and Suzanne Neve, faced with Richard Chamberlain, Edward Fox, and Ed Bishop as suitors, chooses instead to marry the worst possible James Maxwell. Relatable. XD

***Dracula (ITV 1968, part of Mystery & Imagination). JM is Dr Seward, fainty snowflake of vampire hunters, who falls over, sobs and can’t cope for most of the 1 hr 20 mins. More facial hair, but not as offensive as last time. Suzanne Neve is back again, although now JM is nice, she’s married Corin Redgrave, who’s more into Denholm Elliott. Anyway, I love this so much because it turned out that I love Dracula as well as shaky old TV with people I like in getting to fight vampires and all be shippy. Good news - TP keep showing M&I, the DVD is out, and there are two versions of it up on YT.

The Prison (Armchair Cinema 1974). This is the one with Lincoln in it, but it’s not that great & JM isn’t in it that much, so depends how curious you are for the modern AU! (But my Euston films allergy is worse than my ITC allergy, and I watched this when very unwell, so I may have been unfair.)

Crown Court “Fitton vs. Pusey” (1973) - part of the Crown Court series, set in a town full of clones who all keep returning to court. JM is on trial for his behaviour in (the Korean war? I forget?) although he ought to be on trial for his terrible moustache. It’s not that great, but it is nice JM content. He probably did it, but for reasons, and he wibbles & panics whenever his wife leaves the courtroom. Also on YT.

*** Raffles “The Amateur Cracksman” (ITV 1975) - He is Inspector Mckenzie in the Raffles pilot & is a lot of fun. At one point when there was a Raffles fandom someone in it claimed he was too gay for Raffles, which I’m still laughing about, because Raffles. Anyway, watch out if you try to get the DVD because it is NOT included in S1, whatever lies Amazon tells. It is up somewhere online, though, I think.

Bognor “Unbecoming Habits” (1981). Some down marks for possibly the worst 80s theme & incidiental music ever, but fun & has been shown on Talking Pictures lately. JM is an Abbot running a honey-making friary that is actually a hotbed of spies, murder, gay sex and squash playing. This is the point at which he chooses to strip off on screen for the first time, because strong squash-playing abbots do that kind of thing apparently.

Guest of the week in ongoing series/serials

Since even series with a lot of continuity tended to write episodes as self-contained plays (like SotT), these are usually accessible on their own.

Manhunt “Death Wish” (1970). This is one of the most serialised shows here, but this episode is still fairly contained. WWII drama about three Resistance agents on the run across France. JM is... a Nazi agent & former academic trying to break an old friend (one of the series’ three leads, Peter Barkworth) with kindness, possibly?? (Manhunt is very angry and psychological & dark and obv. comes with major WWII warnings (& more if you want to try the whole thing), but it’s also v good.) Up on YT, I think.

Doomwatch “The Iron Doctor” (BBC S2 1971). “Doomwatch�� is the nickname of a gov’t dept led by Dr Spencer Quist that investigates new scientific projects for abuse/corruption/things that might cause fish to make men infertile etc. etc. JM is a surgeon who comes to their attention because he’s a bit too in love with his computer for the comfort of one of his more junior colleagues. (I think it’s perfectly comprehensible & a nice guest turn, but it is hard to get hold of outside of the series DVD. Which, being a cult TV person, I loved a lot anyway, but YMMV!)

***Hadleigh “The Caper” (S3 1973). Hadleigh is a very middle of the road show, but watchable enough (lead is Gerald Harper, who’s always entertaining) and this is pretty self-contained as it centres around an old con-man friend (JM) of Hadleigh’s manservant causing trouble by pretending to be Gerald Harper, for reasons. JM seems to be having a ball.

Justice 2 episodes, S3 1974. He guests twice as an opposing barrister & gets to be part of some nice showdown court scenes. Again, a middle of the road drama, but stars Margaret Lockwood, who was still just as awesome in the 1970s as she was in the 1930s & 40s. On YT.

Father Brown “The Curse of the Golden Cross” (1974). JM is an American archaeologist getting death threats; stars Kenneth More as Father Brown. Just a note, though, that 1970s TV adaptations tended to be really really faithful and this is one of the stories where Chesterton comes out with an anti-semitic moment... (JM was unconscious for that bit and, frankly, I envied him.) But otherwise lots of angsting in yet another fake moustache about someone trying to kill him.

The Hanged Man “The Bridge Maker” (1975). Confession time, I have v little idea what this one was about apart from Ray Smith being an unlikely Eastern European dictator, as this whole series went over my head and was not really my thing. (Ask @mariocki they’re cleverer than me and liked it & can probably explain the plot!) I don’t know if it’s available anywhere off the DVD but on a JM scale it was v good/different as he was a coldly villainous head of security & it wouldn’t be too bad to watch alone, but there was an overarching plot going on somewhere.

Doctor Who “Underworld” (1978). This is famously one of the worst serials in the whole of classic Who, but largely because of behind-the-scenes circumstances, not the guest cast. There is some nice stuff, though, esp in Ep1 (JM is a near-immortal alien who’d like to lay down and die but still the Quest is the Quest as they say... a lot) & it’s bound to pop up on YT or Daily Motion. The DVD has extras that include v v brief bits of JM speaking in his actual real accent (which he otherwise does in NONE of these) & making jokes in character. Honestly, though, this is the only DW where the behind-the-scenes doc is genuinely the most exciting bit as they desperately invented whole new technologies & methods of working to bring us this serial, and then everybody wished they hadn’t.

*** Enemy at the Door “Treason” (LWT 1978). This is a weird episode but I love it lots - from a (v v good) series about the occupation of the Channel Islands. (So obv warnings for WWII & Nazis.) JM is a visiting German Generalmajor, but he’s come for a very unusual reason - to ask for help from his brother-in-law, a blackballed British army officer (Joss Ackland). It’s all weird and low key and JM is doomed and nevertheless probably my favourite thing of his that isn’t SotT.

* The Racing Game 2 eps (1979). Adaptation of Dick Francis’s first Sid Halley novel Odds Against (ep1) + 5 original stories for the series. This is an interesting one - JM plays Sid’s father-in-law & they have a lovely relationship that’s central to the book BUT Dick Francis loved this adaptation and Mike Gwilym who played Sid and was inspired to write a sequel Whip Hand, which he tied in with TV canon - and adopted at least three of the cast, including JM. Which means that all the Sid & Charles fanfic is also JM fic by default and it’s quite impressive. (There’s not much but it’s GOOD.) On YT.

Bergerac “Treasure Hunt” (1981). Not a major role, but pretty nice & it’s one a Christmas ep of the detective show (also set on the Channel Islands) that involved Liza Goddard’s cat burglar, which was always the best bit of Bergerac.

His guest spots in Rumpole of the Bailey (1991) “Rumpole a la Carte” and Dr Finlay (1994) are both really just cameos, but both series come round on Freeview; the Rumpole one is funny and the Dr Finlay one his last screen appearance before his death the following year.

Not worth getting just for JM: Subway in the Sky; Bill Brand and Oppenheimer.

These films only have cameos but some quite fun ones and they come around on terrestrial TV: The Damned (1962), The Evil of Frankenstein (1964) & (more briefly) Far From the Madding Crowd (1967). (I think his cameo in Connecting Doors must be at least recognisable as someone spotted him in it just based off my gifs, but it’s not come my way yet.) I’ve never been able to get hold of any of his radio performances, not even the 1990s one.

ETA: I forgot The Power Game! This is the one surviving series where he occurs as a semi-regular (at least until halfway through S1 when he went off to the BBC to be in the now-burninated Hunchback of Notre Dame). This isn’t standalone, but it’s a good series and it is on YT. See how you go with crackly old TV before you brave it but it’s the snarkiest thing ever made about people making concrete and stabbing each other in the back. JM is a civil servant who tries to run the National Export Board and is plagued by Patrick Wymark and Clifford Evans as warring businessmen.

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[... Well, now I just feel scary. 0_o In my defence, I have been stuck home bored & ill for years, and often unable to watch modern TV while trying to cheer myself up with James Maxwell, so I didn’t watch all of this at once. It just... happened eventually after SotT. /waves hand

But if anyone feels the need to unfriend my quietly at this point, I understand. /o\]

#james maxwell #masterlist #rec list #well sort of #1950s #1960s #1970s #1980s #there are some things i haven't seen #and some things i know to be extant but unreleased #everything else is burninated or status unknown

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engmjr419 · 4 years ago

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There is Joy in Simplicity: 19th century Optical Toys

A late 19th century advertisement for the Stereoscope. It advertises the ability to be “Around the World in 60 minutes” reflecting the educational quality people believed the Stereoscope to have. Source.

I have become engrossed in the world of Yo-Yos lately. This little hunk of plastic with the name Duncan painted on the side, flying through the air on a string. By itself it seems so perfectly simple, however the world of Yo-Yos is deeper than one would think. For instance, there’s several different types of Yo-Yos with their own advantages and disadvantages based on their material and shape. While a Yo-Yo may seem like a simple toy, they also demonstrate a humans ability to learn reflexes. At first, I could barely get the Yo-Yo to come back up but after weeks of continued use I can shoot a dog across the wooden floor of my mother’s kitchen. Toys in a society are truly significant, because they represent what that society wants the young to learn or what they themselves want to play with. They are a form of experimentation.

Just as the yo-yo represents a learning of reflexes, the toys of 19th century America reflect the societal obsession with illusion and vision. Granted, people of the 19th century already had stuff like dolls (which I would argue is still related to vision of the human form), wooden tops and yoyos, dominos, balls, and all other means of play, but the late 19th century sees a boom of vision-based toys. We see the kleidoskope, the thaumatrope, the phenakistoscope, the stereoscope, the zoetrope, and the praxinoscope emerge as these fun little practices in vision. The early hints of film, the basics of animation, the play of illusion all appear in this era.

These toys exist as echoes of the 19th century American societal interest in deception, vision, and representation of self. In the early 19th century, the American faced challenges of identity, the crowd, later on they faced the mass societal grief and crisis of war, the camera as a view of reality, and the concept of the showman like P.T. Barnum, going into the late years of the era we see the early hints of film come out and the concepts of reality. Throughout the 19th century we see visions-based gadgets appear as supplements to the already ongoing discussions of view. Toys like the kaleidoscope, the thaumatrope, the phenakistoscope, the stereoscope, and the zoetrope and praxinoscope all represent a growing societal interest in vision and experimentation throughout the 19th century.

An 1818 illustration titled “Human Nonsense”, the man in the top hat is so entranced by the kaleidoscope, he doesn’t notice he’s walking directly in front of a bike. The Victorians had what Is now called a “craze” over kaleidoscopes as they allowed exploration of vision. Source.

The first optical toy to be invented in the Victorian age was the Kaleidoscope in 1816, by David Brewster, who we will see appear again. Jason Farman of Atlas Obscura describes the 19th century kaleidoscope design as, “made from a range of materials, such as tubes made of brass with embellishments of wood or leather or those cheaply made of tin. The base of the tube was typically filled with broken pieces of glass, ribbons, or other small trinkets.” When viewed from one side, the other would appear as a range of fantastical colors, patterns, and shapes. It almost immediately gained massive popularity, amongst both children and adults, scientists, artists, and industry professionals. Scientists “found it useful as a tool to visualize massive numbers” while artists and industrials used it “for patterns on china, paper, carpets, floor-cloths, and other fabrics” (Farman).

It was experimentation in the role of the eye in light, and shape, along with the illusions of beauty, or reality, when viewed close with a magnifier. Truthfully, some people felt betrayed when they found out what was inside of a kaleidoscope, R.S. Dement, a playwright, writes he was “deceived (as a child) into believing that what he saw was at least the shadow of something real and beautiful, when in truth it was only a delusion” (Farman). However, this only further intrigued some of the Victorian viewers:

These new visual tricksters fed into the fascination in the deficits of the human eye and how it could be misled. As people began understanding human vision differently because of these objects, people also began seeing the world through machines like trains, moving walkways, and steamships (Farman).

While the kaleidoscope is simplistic, it is not to be denied it is important as a starting point for the 19th century conversation on vision. A tube that presents to the viewer an illusionary range of symmetrical colors and patterns, created by broken glass, ribbons, and random scraps.

Vignette by George Cruikshank from Philosophy in Sport, 1827. Source.

The next optical toy to appear was the thaumatrope, appearing in the mid-1820s (when it was first published) by John Aryton Paris. The history of the thaumatrope is a mixed and complex mess of early 19th century scientific figures making a bet, including John Herschel (A popular astronomer), Charles Babbage (A mathematician who made the calculating engine), and David Brewster, however it stands clear as a true foundation of visual interest (Herbert). As much as I talk it up, the toy is extremely simple. It consists of a piece of cardboard with two strings on each end, with a picture on both sides (the classic example is bird on one side and a cage on the other) and when the user twists the strings fast enough the two images appear to become one (The bird appears inside of the cage). The same effect had been created by spinning a coin previously, however the thaumatrope was the first to give “the phenonium a scientific explanation and a device produced to be sold as a popular entertainment” (Gunning 499).

Bird-in-Cage Thaumatrope, the classic example and believed to be the first thaumatrope image created as an example, by Dr. Fitton. This depiction pictures the expected result of twisting the strings. Source.

While it is basic, its an extremely effective toy for teaching a core concept of the 19th century. There is flaw in the human vision, or moreso, the human vision has depths and conditions. From 1827’s Philosophy in Sport by Paris, “I will now show you that the eye also has its source of fallacy” says “Mr. Seymour” as he operates the device (501). Its simplicity allows there to be no questions about interference from the toy’s design, there is no mirror, or screen, or other window the viewer is looking at the toy at through.

“We can operate it and understand its process. But the image it produces is not fixed in space, embodied in pigment or canvas; it occurs in our perception. Yet while it may be defined as a subjective image, taking place through our individual processes of perception, it is not a fantasy or, in a psychological sense, a hallucination” (513).

There is simply vision, and the effect of the lasting image (called an afterimage) the human eye creates with the reality the user is the sole reason the illusion continues. Tom Gunning captures perfectly what the Thaumatrope meant as a foundational toy, “This device introduces to the Victorian era a new class of images simultaneously technological, optical, and perceptual” (500). It is the perfect device to start the 19th century with a magical simplicity that allows the user to experience illusion in their own hands through natural processes of the eye.

An illustration depicting a person using the phenakistoscope. Of course, it’s impossible to depict the movement accurately in a drawing. Source.

Later, in 1832, the phenakistoscope was “simultaneously invented…by Joseph Plateau in Brussels and by Simon von Stampfer in Berlin” though other concepts were in the works at the same time (“Phenakistoscopes (1833)”). The so called “parlour toy” is a cardboard disc on a handheld stick with an outer circle of images and an inner circle of slits which the viewer would look through. The “trick” of the toy is to spin it while looking through the slits into a mirror, where the images on the outer circle jump to life in animation through the distortion and the flicker of light as the disc moves. “The scanning of the slits across the reflected images kept them from simply blurring together, so that the user would see a rapid succession of images that appeared to be a single moving picture” (“A Short History of the Phenakistoscope”). Its one of the earliest forms of animation, completely using human sight as its method.

A Phenakistoscope featuring zebras and monkeys in a jungle setting, the zebras would run, and the monkeys would swing when viewed through a mirror. This particular phenakistoscope is from a competing product of the original production, “Mclean’s Optical Illusions or Magic Panorama” from 1833. This is a simplistic image, but phenakistoscopes became more complex as years went on. Source.

Like how the thaumatrope represents a flaw in human vision, the phenakistoscope fully represents the conditionality of vision. The human eye is susceptible to condition, to light, to distortion of light, to illusion. The illusion is only possible through a window, the mirror, showing the young the new concepts of the human eye as an unreliable “narrator” by itself. However, at the same time it shows it through an exciting illusion of movement. The Phenakistoscope saw mass popularity, being published under names like Fantoscope and “Magic Wheel”, leading to further visual toys being produced which would eventually overtake the simple phenakistoscope and thaumatrope. However, before we get into them let us take a quick sideroad into the world of photography.

A 1908 advertisement for a stereoscope viewer in the Pittsburgh Daily Post. It presents the stereoscope as a tool, and as entertainment. Source.

In 1838, Charles Wheatstone published a paper reporting an odd illusion he had discovered where two drawings of the same object, at slightly different perspectives, were placed next to each other the two would be fused together by the eye into a three-dimensional view of it. It is realized this is exactly how the eye functions, each eye taking its own perspective and the two images fusing together for a full three-dimensional view (Thompson). From Oliver Wendell Holme’s 1859 essay on the Stereoscope (After it gained mass popularity):

The two eyes see different pictures of the same thing, for the obvious reason that they look from points two or three inches apart. By means of these two different views of an object, the mind, as it were, feels round it and gets an idea of its solidity. We clasp an object with our eyes, as with our arms, or with our hands (Jacobi).

Wheatstone created a table-top device to demonstrate this effect more easily and clearly, thus the world’s first stereoscope was created, a product of the 19th century’s scientific endeavors.

However, the mass market version of the stereoscope would not be refined and produced until a decade later, by Davis Brewster (who you may remember as the inventor of the kaleidoscope and involved with the thaumatrope) who crafted it into a handheld model in 1849, enabling a scene to appear anywhere.

The refinement of the stereoscope just so happened to align with the release of the first photographs (the specific type called daguerreotypes) as well, enabling the device to show its true potential. “Once Brewster’s design hit the market, the stereoscope exploded in popularity” writes Clive Thompson of the Smithsonian, “The London Stereoscopic Company sold affordable devices; its photographers fanned out across Europe to snap stereoscopic images. In 1856, the firm offered 10,000 views in its catalog, and within six years they’d grown to one million.” The stereoscope, at least its phenomenon, is possibly one of the most long-lasting of these optical toys, considering 3D magic books are on the shelves that use stereoscope technology and some virtual reality headsets rely on the same visual illusion to function.

A stereograph of Indian people gathered outside of a building, created between 1860 and 1930. Stereographs were viewed as tools for exploring the world without literally traveling, however it also led to people objectifying different cultures as they were not people but depictions of people that lacked relation. Source.

The stereoscope equipped with the stereograph became a scientific tool, a toy, and an educational object. Astronomers used it to peer closer at celestial objects. “Astronomers realized that if they took two pictures of the moon—shot months apart from each other—then it would be like viewing the moon using a face that was the size of a city: “Availing ourselves of the giant eyes of science,” as one observer wrote. (The technique indeed revealed new lunar features)” (Thompson). It also became a tool of education, as a way for the child to view far off locations and immerse in a select scene, which the Victorian believed sharpened the child’s attention as their mind was “chaotic and unfocused”. The mass popularity of the stereoscope enabled mass collections of stereographs to develop, which further allowed people to see far off regions, of India, of Asia, of Africa, and the landmarks of Europe, South America, and their own America. However, overall, it remains a toy, a device for entertainment, a way to immerse oneself in another world, another plane, another region.

The stereoscope reflects the society’s interest in vision, the world, and the depths of the human eye. The lighting illusionary discovery reveals the eye to be more than seen, a thing to be further explored. The use of the stereograph reveals the human eye to have complex mechanisms of sight, what you see if not simplistic it is made up of two images. People collected hundreds of stereographs that depicted America, landmarks, animals, people, and any other thing you could imagine into countless to indulge in. However, it is important for the Victorian, and us, to remember however, a person inside of a photograph is not a person, it is the depiction of a person.

A 19th century advertisement for the Zoetrope from T.H. McAllister, describing the Zoetrope as “an instructive Scientific Toy, illustrating in an attractive manner the persistence of an image on the retina of the eye.” The nickname “Wheel of Life” comes from the way the images appear to “jump to life”. Source.

The direct improvement of the phenakistoscope was the cylindrical Zoetrope, first invented by William George Horner in 1834 (only a year or two after the phenakistoscope) who originally named it the Daedalum (the “Wheel of the Devil”) but only marketed in 1887 under the new name of Zoetrope (A combination of the Greek words for life and turn). It improves on the phenakistoscope in two aspects, the user did not need a mirror to observe the effect, and the device could be enjoyed by more than one person at a time. The Zoetrope works in a similar method, along with also being constructed of cardboard, to the phenakistoscope:

Photo included with the article, showing the construction of the zoetrope. Source.

The zoetrope is a mechanical device that produces the effect of motion through a rapid succession of static images, seen through the slits in a rotating cylinder. The sequenced drawings or photographs lie beneath the slits on the inner surface of the cylinder, and as the cylinder spins the viewer looks through the slits at the opposite side of the interior. This scanning action prevents the images from blurring together, and the viewer is treated to a repeating motion picture (Kumar).

The device is considered an early work of animation, along with the flipbook, and acts as a supplement to the evolving concept of human vision, deception, and illusion in the 19th century. From the time of its creation to its market appearance, P.T. Barnum rose to worldwide fame, the Civil war ended, the concept of photographs and spirit photography had arrived, and the societal concept of children had evolved. It is only just then, that the Zoetrope is succeeded by yet another evolution of vision, the Praxinoscope.

An advertisement for the Praxinoscope theatre at the 1878 Exposition Universal in Paris, highlighting its winning of a bronze medal. Source.

The Praxinoscope was created in 1877 by Emile Reynaud, a Frenchman. It is similar in design to the Zoetrope, however it has one innovation that makes it superior, it replaces the slits used to create the effect with narrow vertical mirrors placed in the center of the drum (Greenslade). This enabled even further wider audiences, along with cleaner, brighter animation which was vital in an era before the lightbulb. The praxinoscope garnered massive popularity, being used in homes, and presented as theatres like the one above.

The zoetrope and the praxinoscope both represent the later ends of the 19th century in terms of the view of vision, as this concept that exists to be explored, a thing that can view through windows into other realities, that of film, of moving pictures, of the modern cinema experience. They stand as foundational objects to the modern film industry, with film coming quickly after their creation in the late 1800s and early 1900s. While these toys are simplistic to the modern viewer, they stand as important milestones of concepts of human vision, of looking askance, and of the eye.

Lithograph by Alfred Mahlau from “Spielzeug, eine Bunte Fibel”, a german book from 1938 by Hans-Friedrich von Geist. The lithograph shows a Kaleidoscope, A Stereoscope, a Zoetrope, along with later film mediums. Source.

The 19th century was an era of vision, the exploration of it, the evolution of it, and the play of it. Within the century we see the concepts of vision evolve, from the simple exploration of tricks of the eye to the questioning of the credibility of it, alongside it we see these optical toys appearing as exploration of the concepts. The kaleidoscope appears in the early 19th century as an exploration of the interaction of the eye and light. The thaumatrope flips as a exploration of an illusionary sticking image of the eye. The phenakistoscope spins to look at how the interaction of the eye and light can create illusions of movement. The stereoscope appears as another exploration of an illusion the eye creates, being used to explore other regions and concepts. Finally, the Zoetrope and the Praxinoscope make their way in, becoming early concepts of animation by building off the concepts of the phenakistoscope, and enhancing the effect with more slits and mirrors.

While these toys may seem laughably simplistic to us, there is a reason things like yoyos, balls, and dolls are still so amazingly popular along with these very optical toys being recreated and sold. There is a joy in simplicity, there is joy exploring the human eye.

Farman, Jason. “The Forgotten Kaleidoscope Craze in Victorian England”. Atlas Obscura, November 9th, 2015. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-forgotten-kaleidoscope-craze-in-victorian-england

Greenslade, Thomas B. “Praxinoscopes”. Instruments for Natural Philosophy, Keyton College. http://physics.kenyon.edu/EarlyApparatus/Optical_Recreations/Praxinoscopes/Praxinoscopes.html

Gunning, Tom. “Hand and Eye: Excavating a New Technology of the Image in the Victorian Era” Victorian Studies, Vol. 54, No. 3, Indiana University Press, Spring 2012. Pgs. 499-501, 513.

Herbert, Stephen. “The Thaumatrope Revisited; or: "a round about way to turn'm green". The Wheel of Life, https://www.stephenherbert.co.uk/thaumatropeTEXT1.htm

Jacob, Carol. “Tate Painting and the Art of Stereoscopic Photography”. ‘Poor man’s picture gallery’: Victorian Art and Stereoscopic”. Tate, https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/display/bp-spotlight-poor-mans-picture-gallery-victorian-art-and-stereoscopic/essay

Kamar, Julie. “The Wheel Of The Devil - The History Of The Zoetrope From Ancient China To Pixar”. June 1st, 2012. Thalo, https://www.thalo.com/articles/view/343/the_wheel_of_the_devil_the_history_of_the

Thompson, Clive. “Stereographs Were the Original Virtual Reality”. Smithsonian Magazine, October 2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/sterographs-original-virtual-reality-180964771/

“A Short History of the Phenakistoscope” June 28, 2014. Juxtapoz: Art & Culture, https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/news/short-history-of-the-phenakistoscope/

“Phenakistoscopes (1833)”. The Public Domain Review, https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/phenakistoscopes-1833

#Optical Toys #19th century vision

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shinjihi · 4 years ago

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At the Highest Levels – Part 2 of 3 January 6, 2021 by Neon Revolt Part two of three. Read the first part here. …If, according to our whistleblower, Joseph Rosati was the one responsible for orchestrating the attack on Seth Rich, and potentially “cleaning up” the two MS-13 agents after the shakedown went south… who put him up to it? What you are about to read is parsed from several hours of leaked testimony I listened through today, via a whistleblower – testimony which is currently under seal in the District Court of Maryland. This is the court case: And yes, this is the same case Lin Wood referenced on Twitter earlier: https://twitter.com/LLinWood/status/1346325897306120192 What follows is a summary of the multi-hour-long testimony of alias Ryan White, delivered and recorded over several months, wherein White claims he was arrested by the very same man who was involved in the murder of Seth Rich, and the subsequent cover-up – Joseph Rosati. White, working as a private investigator himself, had routine contact with several men working inside government agencies, including one Secret Service agent, Shaun Bridges, and another DEA agent, Carl Mark Force. In his testimony, White would say that Bridges and Force would eventually be arrested on trumped up charges related to bitcoin theft and laundering on the Silk Road darkmarket. A disgraced former Secret Service agent already serving time for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of digital currency from the federal government has been sentenced to spend an additional two years in prison for a separate heist. Shaun Bridges, 35, was sentenced Tuesday in connection with stealing from a digital wallet belonging to the government currently valued at about $11.3 million. Bridges had been a member of the federal task force that investigated Silk Road, an online marketplace responsible for facilitating hundreds of millions of dollars worth of illegal drug deals prior to being dismantled by U.S. authorities in late 2013. He later admitted stealing approximately 20,000 Bitcoin from its users during the government’s probe and was sentenced in December 2015 to 71 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to related counts of money laundering and obstruction of justice. The former DEA agent, based in Baltimore, Maryland, had been a member of the Silk Road Task Force, a sprawling multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional law enforcement effort that eventually netted Ross Ulbricht, also known as the Dread Pirate Roberts. In February 2015, Ulbricht was convicted on all counts after a jury trial in New York. He is currently serving a life sentence. No mention of Carl Mark Force IV made it into Ulbricht’s trial. Neither did any mention of Shaun Bridges, the former Secret Service agent charged alongside him. The spree of crimes they committed as Silk Road investigators was under the seal of grand jury secrecy at the time. Bridges used the credentials of a Silk Road moderator-turned-informant to rob Dread Pirate Roberts, administrator of Silk Road. Force posed as a hitman and took money from DPR to kill the informant. Force and Bridges then faked the brutal murder of the informant. In actuality, according to White, the men were thrown under the bus by Rosenstein, because Rosenstein was actively selling classified intelligence to foreign governments on the side, including Russia – a treasonous act, in and of itself, but doubly damning for someone who was supposed to uphold the law at the Department of Justice. However, as the Trump administration came in, the tenor of DC changed, and Rosenstein became increasingly spooked and nervous. According to White, Rosenstein wanted to stop selling info to foreign governments, but the memo didn’t quite make it all the way over to Bridges, who kept accepting foreign money on Rosenstein’s behalf. This outraged Rosenstein, who then used his position and connections to lock the men away on charges related to the Silk Road. In other words, Rosenstein went after his own guys who had previously worked with him on various nefarious dealings – Bridges was, in fact, a forensic computer expert known for his ability to run circles around all kinds of electronics, and even, according to White, able to plant evidence on machines – for doing something which displeased Rosenstein, and which would have potentially exposed Rosenstein to legal scrutiny. And it was from this betrayal by Rosenstein that Bridges started talking to White. White says Bridges spilled to him all the details about the murder of Seth Rich; revelations which shocked, but didn’t surprise White. I should add here that due to the threats against his life, and the nature of his particular case, both White and his wife are currently in witness protection. Despite these threats, White has chosen to speak out and go on the record in order to shed light on this miscarriage of justice, and potentially help save the Republic. Much of this and more would be outlined in a letter provided not only to the House Intelligence committee in 2018 (as part of a larger 920 page document containing reams of investigation into the Rich murder) but which was also provided to Tom Fitton, of Judicial Watch. Neither anyone on the House Intelligence Committee, nor Mr. Fitton, would seem to do anything with the documents they received. Did you catch that on page 2? This information indicated that Rod Rosenstein solicited the help of two trusted agents (Rosati & Boroshok) with whom he had worked closely with in the past to organize the operation to retrieve a thumb drive with classified emails always carried by Mr. Rich. The emails had been removed from the DNC server by Mr. Rich and later sold to Wikileaks. I repeat – not a single member of the House Intelligence Committee, nor Tom Fitton, to my knowledge, ever did anything with this information. Not a single investigation has come about as a result of this information. Not a single prosecution. Not a single arrest. No one in the entire government or media did a single thing with the information presented above. Not even supposed “allies” of President Trump. So the important question to now ask is this: Why? Why did nothing come about from any of this? Could it be that they were all afraid? But of whom? Rosenstein? Rosenstein certainly had a degree of pull within his circle, but that wasn’t of whom they were truly afraid. No, to answer that question, we have to go much higher up the ladder of power in DC. Right to the very… Well, you’ll need to read Part Three to find out. https://www.neonrevolt.com/2021/01/06/at-the-highest-levels-part-2-of-3/

https://www.neonrevolt.com/2021/01/06/at-the-highest-levels-part-2-of-3/

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45oldschool-blog · 6 years ago

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Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said that over one million illegal immigrants cast votes for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

During a speech hosted by The Remembrance Project, Fitton said:

"The amnesty problem is not about Hispanic votes, it's about illegal alien votes. President Trump is right, generally, about the outrage of illegal aliens votes here in the United States. ... Aliens vote in large numbers, and in large enough numbers to change elections. By my estimation, we had about one and a half million illegal alien votes in the last election, 1.4 million by my guess."

Of that 1.4 million, he estimated that 80 per cent voted for Clinton.

"1.1 million by that calculation voted for Hillary Clinton….so we really face a crisis in this regard. It’s one thing to lose your country because you have no borders, it’s another thing to lose your country because you have no vote

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creepingsharia · 12 years ago

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FBI, DOJ Sued for Info on Mueller’s Secret Meeting with Radical Islamic Organizations

Reposting from July 31, 2012 for the record

via FBI, DOJ Sued for Info on Mueller’s Secret Meeting with Radical Islamic Organizations.

Political correctness puts our national security at risk. Case in point: The FBI’s persistent kowtowing to radical Muslims in its approach to terrorism investigations.

I’ve written previously about the FBI’s Muslim sensitivity training programs. WorldNetDaily has done some outstanding reporting on workshops run by the FBI that “educate” agents about Muslim customs and beliefs in an attempt to help them to “break down barriers” and foster “mutual understanding.”

Well, now it appears the FBI has taken another giant step down a very dangerous path with FBI Director Robert Mueller’s secret meeting with radical Islamic organizations and allowing them effectively to “edit” the FBI’s training manuals.

Last week we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seeking access to records detailing a February 8, 2012, meeting between FBI Director Robert Mueller and Muslim organizations. Judicial Watch is also investigating the FBI’s subsequent controversial decision to purge the agency’s training curricula of material deemed “offensive” to Muslims.

On March 7, 2012, Judicial Watch submitted FOIA requests to the FBI and the DOJ seeking access to records regarding the meeting. We’re after “any and all records setting criteria or guidelines for FBI curricula on Islam or records identifying potentially offensive material within the FBI curricula on Islam,” and any directives to withdraw FBI presentations and curricula on Islam.

We’ve also asked for records of communications between the Office of the Attorney General and several entities, including the Obama White House, the Executive Office of the President, and Muslim organizations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Society of North America, and the Council for American-Islamic Relations regarding the FBI’s curricula on Islam.

The FBI acknowledged receipt of our FOIA request on March 20, 2012, and was required to respond by May 1, 2012. The DOJ acknowledged receiving Judicial Watch’s FOIA request on March 14, 2012, and was required to respond by April 11, 2012. But so far, after months, we’ve received nothing from either agency.

According to the press, Mueller reportedly met secretly on February 8, 2012, at FBI headquarters with a coalition of Islamist organizations, some with radical ties to terrorist organizations.

For example, per The Washington Examiner, one group that reportedly met with Mueller – the Islamic Society of North America – “was tied to the terror groups Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood in federal court documents.” The government named the Islamic Society of North America as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist financing lawsuit, along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the North American Islamic Trust.

During the February 8 meeting, Mueller reportedly assured the Islamic groups in attendance that the agency had ordered the removal of presentations and curricula that were deemed “offensive” from FBI offices around the country. As reported by NPR, overall, “The FBI has completed a review of offensive training material and has purged 876 pages and 392 presentations, according to a briefing provided to lawmakers.”

The material purge was allegedly initiated in response to a letter of complaint sent by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). However, other members of Congress, including Rep. Allen West (R-FL), object to allowing radical Muslim organizations the opportunity to dictate U.S. counterterrorism policy and want the material to be reinserted into the documents: “Now you have an environment of political correctness which precludes these agents from doing their proper job and due diligence to go after the perceived threat,” Congressman West said.

I couldn’t agree more. There is no question that the country is less safe when we allow radical Muslim organizations to tell the FBI how to train its agents and do its job. The Obama administration owes the American people a full accounting of how and why this terrible decision was made.

Tom Fitton is president of Judicial Watch and author of The Corruption Chronicles, on sale now.

Flashback 2009: Islamist Groups Keep ‘Punking’ the FBI

Mueller also spent his time the FBI doling out awards to Muslims. Click to read.

#Legal #FBI #Sharia #Jihad #News

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doctorwhonews · 6 years ago

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Doctor Who 20th Anniversary On Audio

Latest from the news site: Big Finish is to celebrate 20 years of creating Doctor Who stories on audio with The Legacy of Time – the biggest audio crossover event ever. Six hour-long stories see characters from the entire history of Doctor Who crossing paths – some for the very first time – Classic and New Series Doctor Who will collide. Professor River Song (Alex Kingston) meets her predecessor, a time-traveling archaeologist, Professor Bernice Summerfield (Lisa Bowerman). Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) travels back in time to classic UNIT and meets the Third Doctor (voiced by Tim Treloar) and Jo Grant (Katy Manning). As 2019 is also the 30th anniversary year of their first appearance in Remembrance of the Daleks, the Counter-Measures team will be reunited with the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and Ace (Sophie Aldred). And the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) and his companion Charlotte Pollard (India Fisher) once again meet Detective Inspector Patricia Menzies (Anna Hope) in a police procedural like no other! Plus a visit to Gallifrey, and elsewhere the Time War. Doctors will meet, and there will be Easter Eggs aplenty. Time is collapsing. Incidents of temporal chaos and devastation are appearing throughout the many lives of the Doctor and his friends – falllout from one terrible disaster. The Doctor must save history itself – and he will need all the help he can get. * Lies in Ruins by James Goss * The Split Infinitive by John Dorney * The Sacrifice of Jo Grant by Guy Adams * Episode four by Matt Fitton (to be confirmed) * The Avenues of Possibility by Jonny Morris * Collision Course by Guy Adams The truth is revealed, and it will take more than one Doctor to save the day! The cast of The Legacy of Time includes: Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Paul McGann, Sylvester McCoy, Alex Kingston, Lisa Bowerman, Sophie Aldred, Simon Williams, Pamela Salem, Karen Gledhill, Hugh Ross, Tim Treloar, Katy Manning, Jemma Redgrave, Ingrid Oliver, India Fisher, Anna Hope, Lalla Ward and Louise Jameson… Executive Producer and one of the founding members of Big Finish, Nicholas Briggs told us about this exciting new release The Legacy of Time will probably go down in Big Finish history as our biggest, most exciting production, ever! Celebrating 20 years of Doctor Who at Big Finish, it expertly pulls together all the strands from our many and varied Doctor Who ranges. This is down to the brilliance of script editor Matt Fitton and producer David Richardson. They epitomise the creative strength, organisational expertise and leadership of the company. Quite simply, this is going to blow people’s minds! It’s got everything!The producer assigned this epic task is David Richardson. How do you celebrate something that has meant so much to all of us who work here – the friendships, the freedom to be creative, the glory that is Doctor Who itself? That was the challenge facing myself and Matt Fitton, but once I’d had an idea for what this six-hour epic would be about (spoilers!) it was then relatively easy to start assembling the huge team of characters and actors who would take us on the journey. The Legacy of Time is quite possibly the biggest Doctor Who story we have ever told at Big Finish. It’s been so hugely satisfying to make – I hope everyone finds it just as satisfying to listen to!Chairman and Executive producer of Big Finish, Jason Haigh-Ellery said. In July 1999 we released The Sirens of Time. In July 2019 we're releasing The Legacy of Time. Those two decades have been so fulfilling for us at Big Finish - a chance to work with so many great and talented actors, writers, productions crews and all of our friends at the BBC. This is a celebration of it all, with lots of surprise returns and references. Think of it as one massive Doctor Who party - and everyone is invited…Doctor Who: The Legacy of Time will be available from bigfinish.com on download and, as one of the last audio producers and distributors still making CDs, released in an eight-disc CD set with a limited edition of just 4,000. Doctor Who: The Legacy of Time will be released in July 2019 to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Big Finish’s first Doctor Who release, The Sirens of Time. Doctor Who News http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2018/08/doctor-who-20th-anniversary-on-audio.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

#Big Finish

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goodtobegeeking · 3 years ago

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Doctor Who: The Fifth Doctor Adventures Forty. Volume 1 by Matt Fitton and Sarah Grochala (CD review)

Hard to believe but ‘Doctor Who: The Fifth Doctor Adventures Forty: Volume 1’ has been brought out to celebrate that it’s 40 years since the Fifth Doctor made his debut in the TV Series. Way to feel old thank you very much. A fresh-faced boy then, Peter Davison proved to be a marked contrast to the Fourth and he had his work cut out to get people to move on from Tom Baker. That sounds familiar.…

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go-redgirl · 6 years ago

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Watchdog says Maxine Waters inciting 'mob violence,' presses ethics complaint Fox News ^ | July 5, 2018 | Adam Shaw

The head of a conservative watchdog group said Thursday that Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters is inciting "mob violence" with her call for protesters to confront Trump officials in public, as he urged a formal ethics investigation on Capitol Hill.

"When you’re out there ... inciting mob violence against sitting Trump Cabinet members, that doesn’t obviously reflect credibly on the House," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told "Fox & Friends." "And the House has to decide whether they’re going to allow its members to use the House as a platform and its power and position to attack and incite violence."

Judicial Watch earlier sent a letter to the House Office of Congressional Ethics calling for an investigation into whether the California Democrat violated ethics rules with remarks she made in Los Angeles telling supporters to “push back” on Trump officials seen in public.

“If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them! And you tell them that they are not welcome, anymore, anywhere,” Waters said last month.

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com

TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections KEYWORDS: 115th; ethics; incitingviolence; judicialwatch; maxinewaters; oce; tomfitton; ushouse; waters

INDEPENDENT COMMENTS:

To: jazusamo

Judicial Watch does a lot of heavy lifting for our side. Please take note and give them your support.

5 posted on 7/5/2018, 11:00:50 AM by mbarker12474

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To: jazusamo

Democrats can never have ethics violations because they would need to have ethics in order to violate them. The interesting thing about Mad Maxine is that when she assumes room temp her IQ will increase by a massive amount. She is a totally and completely a repulsive and stupid human being.

6 posted on 7/5/2018, 11:02:31 AM by Da Coyote

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To: jazusamo

Why are the members of comgress not coming at maxine with a bulldozer? why have they not attacked her and put a stop to her foolishness and dangerous divisive behavior... except for the few, congress is full of empty suits ... the left are ugly as sin and the right as inept as can be... except for a few...

If the GOP worked as hard and effeciently as Trump does, we’d see things smooth out for our country.. but gov wheels move ever so slowly, if at all.. vacations interfere with work in Washington

Judicial Watch has been doing the job congress was elected for.

9 posted on 7/5/2018, 11:03:23 AM by frnewsjunkie

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To: jazusamo

California can lay claim to having some of the most profoundly stupid politicians in history. Barbara Boxer and Maxine Waters come immediately to mind.

15 posted on 7/5/2018, 11:20:29 AM by ought-six (Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)

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To: jazusamo

It’s the ‘create a crowd’ thing that turns common rudeness into thugish mob violence. How much worse would these situations have been if the thugs had ‘created a crowd’ first?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_JGUPSJcNc Texas Teen Attacked in Restaurant for Wearing ‘MAGA’ Hat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACvknqH1tfU Student wearing Trump hat attacked on school bus, suspended

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyHB0COkw3s WEARING A TRUMP HAT IN HOLLYWOOD (Attacked On Camera)

20 posted on 7/5/2018, 11:28:46 AM by GOPJ ( BEST REASON TO STOP immigration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-s1_nfs7f4)

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multipleservicelisting · 4 years ago

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A China-based firm scored a $1B N95 mask contract with California. A document trove shows how.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom held back details from the public and lawmakers about a $990 million state N95 mask contract with a China-based firm scrutinized by Congress.

But now, a trove of 848 pages of documents is available to the public, obtained by government watchdog group Judicial Watch. The documents provide details on how the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services selected BYD to make 300 million face masks for protection against COVID-19, a virus that originated in Wuhan.

Earlier this year, state legislators tried to press Newsom to provide details about the deal, as one senior Democratic lawmakers called the deal “murky.”

The documents—mostly emails—show the role of lobbyists in arranging the deal and that California deviated from normal procedures in awarding the contract.

NEWSOM WON’T SHARE DETAILS ON $1B MASK DEAL WITH CHINA

“It would surprise Americans to see how a major Chinese company can so easily access government officials,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told Fox News. “I would think the California legislature would be interested in how this happened.”

Newsom signed a second deal with BYD in July, this time for 400 million masks with a $316 million price tag.

BYD, short for Build Your Dreams, was founded in 1995 and is listed on the Hong Kong and Shenzhen stock exchanges. The company usually makes electric vehicles, widely sold for fleets throughout the United States. In 2008, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway purchased a near quarter stake in the China-based firm. The company has 30 industrial plants across the globe, including in Los Angeles, and specializes in green-energy electronics, automobiles and rail transit. The masks were made in China.

The company secured other government contracts 2020 to supply electric-powered vehicles to Florida, Maryland, Missouri and New Jersey. Also, in 2020, BYD filed defamation lawsuits against Vice Media for a critical story the outlet published in April and a separate lawsuit against the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

The 2019 National Defense Authorization Act included a provision to ban the use of federal funds to purchase public transportation vehicles from China- affiliated firms. This affects BYD but would not apply to masks. The provision takes effect at the end of 2021.

NEWSOM’S OFFICE REFUSES RECORDS REQUEST ON ‘MURKY’ $1B MASK DEAL WITH CHINESE COMPANY

The privately owned and publicly traded firm is neither state-owned nor associated with the Chinese Communist Party, BYD spokesman Frank Girardot said, insisting the real story behind the 2019 NDAA restriction is a lobbying effort by competitors.

“It’s an effort by our competitors to keep us out of the market,” Girardot said. “Quite frankly, they don’t make the same quality of product that we do.”

The masks for California were made in China because there was already a BYD plant there making masks and “there was no time to act” to build a new factory in the U.S., Girardot said. The industrial park in Shenzhen, China, is the “world’s largest mass-produced face mask plant,” according to the BYD press release in March.

In March 2020, the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee held a hearing on China-sponsored companies, including BYD. That same month, records show, California lobbyist Mark Weideman contacted Newsom’s chief of staff, Ann O’Leary, on March 21, 2020, providing a copy of a Business Insider article about BYD titled, “A Chinese Electric Car Maker Backed by Warren Buffett Re-Tooled to Make Face Masks When Covid-19 Hit – Now It Says It’s the World’s Largest Mask Factory.”

Weideman said BYD would donate 50,000 masks to California, along with hand sanitizer, and asked if someone could “notify GGN” (possibly referring to Gov. Gavin Newsom) to “hopefully execute on BYD’s offer to help California, a place they and their unionized workforce call home for their North American operations.” Abby Browning of the Office of Emergency Services responded to Weideman.

More advocacy came on March 28, 2020, when San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System board member Brian Stansbury introduced Grady Joseph, the Office of Emergency Services’ assistant director of recovery operations, and Paul Teng of Himalaya Capital through an email, the records show. Teng followed up with a message to Joseph, writing, “We have a deep relationship with BYD which is now the largest mask maker in the world,” noting he facilitated one order and added, “Happy to make the same connection as well. My number is below if you need to reach me.”

A provision of the California-BYD contract guarantees that no material will be made in sweatshops, which BYD has faced criticism for.

Before the contract was finalized, Office of Emergency Services Assistant Chief Counsel Jennifer Bollinger asked BYD counsel John Zhuang in an April 3 email why BYD used “Global Healthcare Product Solutions, LLC.,” saying, “I understood this to be a contract directly with BYD North America.” Zhuang responded, “BYD’s contract manufacturing division started Global Healthcare Product Solutions earlier this year to sell healthcare products in the US.”

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BYD had to refund $247 million of California’s $495 million down payment in an amendment to the agreement, apparently because BYD wasn’t able to meet the deadline of getting approval from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to make the N95 masks. California extended the deadline from April 30 to May 31, 2020.

BYD announced on May 13 that it was working with NIOSH on a “Corrective Action Plan” and would resubmit its application for approval. The press release said the federal agency found “no issues with the quality of the masks” but said the delay in approval was “related to documentation control paperwork.”

California Office of Emergency Services spokesman Brian Ferguson acknowledged the inquiry on Friday and said he was unsure the agency would have a comment, “But will keep you posted if we have anything on this.” Ferguson and others in the communications department did not respond to follow-up inquiries.

Another provision in the contract showed what appeared to be an exemption from liability if there was a problem with masks, saying, “in no event shall Seller be liable for any consequential, special, incidental, indirect or punitive damages” and that BYD “makes no warranties or representations.” BYD spokesman Girardot said the company is responsible for any mask problems and called the language “boilerplate” for contracts.

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#multiple #service #listing #news #local #business #ads #near #me

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misterbombswildride · 7 years ago

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“You had Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party try to hide the fact that they gave money to GPS Fusion to create a Dossier which was used by their allies in the Obama Administration to convince a Court misleadingly, by all accounts, to spy on the Trump Team.” Tom Fitton, JW

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politicalbombshow · 4 years ago

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Fitton: Impeachment Star Witness Was Aware of Burisma Corruption

December 22, 2020 | Judicial Watch From Tom Fitton’s article for Breitbart: Turns out that one of the Democrats’ star witnesses in their sham impeachment of President Trump – former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch – seemed to have been shading the truth. Are you at all surprised? We just received 210 pages of records from the State Department showing that Yovanovitch had…

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trumptweettrack · 7 years ago

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Our Analysis

A morning message from our Commander-in-Chief! There is a 98% chance that Donald Trump wrote this tweet himself.

Word probabilities: 99/0 (Trump/Staff) Time probabilities: 97/2 (Trump/Staff) Posted at: Fri Feb 2 06:49:14 2018 EST [Link] Tweet Source: Twitter for iPhone

The most informative terms in this tweet were: hillary (Trump, 1.5:1), clinton (Other, 1.4:1), democratic (Trump, 2.5:1), party (Trump, 2.4:1), try (Trump, 2.3:1), fact (Trump, 3.8:1), gave (Trump, 2.0:1), money (Trump, 6.5:1), obama (Trump, 2.0:1), administration (Other, 1.2:1), trump (Other, 1.2:1), team (Other, 1.8:1)

A computer sees the following emotions in this tweet (NRC): {'anger': 2, 'trust': 4, 'anticipation': 3, 'surprise': 2, 'fear': 2, 'positive': 4, 'joy': 2}

-President Donald J. Trump

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ascendingmatrix · 7 years ago

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“THE COVER-UP BEGINS TO END”: JUDICIAL WATCH HINTS AT EXPLOSIVE NEW CLINTON-LYNCH TARMAC DOCS

Back on June 29, 2016, Obama’s Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, tried to convince us that the following ‘impromptu’ meeting between herself and Bill Clinton at the Phoenix airport, a private meeting which lasted 30 minutes on Lynch’s private plane, was mostly a “social meeting” in which Bill talked about his grandchildren and golf game. It was not, under any circumstances, related to the statement that former FBI Director James Comey made just 6 days later clearing Hillary Clinton of any alleged crimes related to his agency’s investigation.

Not surprisingly, following the above media clip several concerned watchdog groups filed FOIA requests seeking any and all DOJ and/or FBI documents related to what was either (i) a really poorly timed meeting, in the best case, or (ii) a clear attempt by a former President of the United States to apply leverage over the current Attorney General to obstruct justice and get his wife elected President, in the worst case.

After originally being told by the FBI there were no documents to produce in response to their July 2016 FOIA request, Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton was subsequently told in October 2017 that the FBI had simply overlooked 30 pages worth of relevant docs…30 pages which Fitton now says will mark the “beginning of the end” of the DOJ’s “cover-up” when they’re released this Thursday.

TWEET:

FBI Hid Clinton/Lynch Tarmac Meeting Records. But the cover-up begins to end — thanks to @JudicialWatch — the day after tomorrow. @RealDonaldTrump needs to clean house at FBI/DOJ.

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Of course, Fitton expressed his frustration with the botched FOIA response back in October after describing the FBI as “out of control” and saying it’s “stunning that the FBI ‘found’ these Clinton-Lynch tarmac records only after we caught the agency hiding them in another lawsuit.” Per Judicial Watch:

“The FBI is out of control. It is stunning that the FBI ‘found’ these Clinton-Lynch tarmac records only after we caught the agency hiding them in another lawsuit,” stated Judicial Watch Tom Fitton. “Judicial Watch will continue to press for answers about the FBI’s document games in court. In the meantime, the FBI should stop the stonewall and release these new records immediately.”

This case has also forced the FBI to release to the public the FBI’s Clinton investigative file, although more than half of the records remain withheld. The FBI has also told Judicial Watch that it anticipates completing the processing of these materials by July 2018.

There is significant controversy about whether the FBI and Obama Justice Department investigation gave Clinton and other witnesses and potential targets preferential treatment.

So what say you? Will Judicial Watch finally manage to release documents that expose collusion between a former U.S. President, the FBI and the sitting Attorney General to cover-up a massive Clinton scandal or will they simply release more heavily redacted documents that tell us precisely nothing. We’ll let you know on Thursday.

#Posted by stevew | Nov 29 2017 | 2017 Conspiracy Cabal and Government Daily Blog

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shanedakotamuir · 5 years ago

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The 4 main conservative defenses for Trump against impeachment, explained

President Trump attends a “Keep America Great” rally in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on October 10, 2019. | Brendan Smialowski /AFP/Getty Images

Only one of them makes sense.

President Donald Trump withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid from the Ukrainian government, seemingly to push lawmakers to announce an investigation into the son of a potential political opponent and his work with a Ukrainian energy company. That much, at least, is clear. As is the fact that Trump has an 89 percent approval rating with Republican voters.

That’s why most Republican lawmakers aren’t going to change their minds on the impeachment of President Trump. While some in Congress might privately think that Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukrainian officials to “do him a favor” and investigate former Vice President Joe Biden was a bad idea, they won’t say so in public.

Because, quite simply, Trump is the president. He’s giving them what they want politically, the economy appears strong and, most critically, he is far more popular and powerful than they are.

But House Republicans and many Trump-supportive conservative and right-leaning writers and pundits have largely attempted to avoid saying as much.

Rather, together with constantly shifting responses to specific testimony, they appear to have developed three basic defenses for Trump as House impeachment hearings continued: He was “too inept” to have intended to do what he is being accused of doing; what he did was actually good; and his actions were bad, but not impeachable.

But some congressional Republicans and conservatives have begun saying another, perhaps most accurate, defense of Trump out loud: Whatever he did, it doesn’t matter — not to “normal people” and not to the Republican Party.

1) “Impeachment for incompetence would disqualify most of the government”

The first basic defense of Trump regarding Ukraine is the simplest: Trump lacked the intent and the basic competence to get a quid pro quo deal with Ukraine done. And without intent (legally defined as a conscious decision to commit an illegal act), some argue that what Trump did may have been bad and dumb, but not criminal — and thus, not a “high crime or misdemeanor.”

As elucidated by the Wall Street Journal editorial board in October:

... it may turn out that while Mr. Trump wanted a quid-pro-quo policy ultimatum toward Ukraine, he was too inept to execute it. Impeachment for incompetence would disqualify most of the government, and most Presidents at some point or another in office.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham seemingly agreed, telling CBS News earlier this month that the administration appeared “incapable” of forming a quid pro quo, thus rendering the entire impeachment discussion null and void.

"It was incoherent," Sen @LindseyGrahamSC says of Trump's Ukraine policy. "They seem to be *incapable* of forming a quid pro quo." pic.twitter.com/rdZxyIazNj

— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) November 6, 2019

Conservative pundit Ben Shapiro made similar arguments on his podcast, saying on October 7 that Trump would make a fantastic client for a defense attorney because “Trump doesn’t have requisite intent for anything. The man has the attention span of a gnat ... if you are his defense lawyer, his best defense to ‘he had a plan in Ukraine to go after Joe Biden’ is ‘dude doesn’t have plans.’” And on November 11, Shapiro argued, “I don’t think he’s had the level of intent necessary to eat a hamburger.” I reached out to Shapiro, but he was unable to comment on Wednesday.

And after all, military aid to Ukraine was eventually restored. So according to this argument, the actions for which Trump is facing impeachment (withholding aid for selfish reasons) never actually happened. Per National Review’s Rich Lowry, “The best defense Republicans can muster is that nothing came of it. An ally was discomfited and yanked around for a couple of months before, ultimately, getting its defense funding.”

And his magazine’s editorial board argued earlier this month, “It has to matter that, at the end of the day, the harm of this episode was minimal or nonexistent. The Ukrainians got their defense aid without making any statement committing themselves to the investigations.”

It’s true that intent matters — in criminal proceedings. I spoke with Ken White, a criminal defense attorney and former US attorney, who told me, “Intent is very important in court, and for many of these crimes, from witness intimidation to bribery, prosecutors must prove corrupt intent. If we were in federal court, litigating criminal charges against the president, I think the “Trump is just Trump” defense would be colorable and tricky to overcome.

“With normal humans, when they act like Trump you can infer corrupt intent; the defense is that you can’t make that inference with Trump because he acts that way all the time, reflexively.”

But White added two caveats. “First, that’s a matter of proof. A jury could still reject it and see corrupt intent. Second, this ain’t federal court.” Impeachment, after all, is a political process, not a legal one.

And as to the argument that funding to Ukraine was indeed restored, the Cato Institute’s Gene Healy pointed out in October that an unsuccessful or “incompetent” attempt to commit an impeachable act doesn’t make it less impeachable:

The Nixon crew botched most of the schemes it undertook, from the Watergate caper to the attempt to audit the president’s political enemies. That didn’t save Richard Nixon from being driven from office via the impeachment process.

2) “Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani deserve praise”

Some of Trump’s defenders are taking an entirely different approach and stating that Donald Trump’s actions were not only defensible, but good. In the words of Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) (who criticized Lt. Col. Vindman for having “opinions counter” to the president), “it’s perfectly within the purview of the president’s authority” to base military aid on the assurance of an investigation into corruption (or more accurately, the announcement of an investigation).

They argue that the government of Ukraine was corrupt and Trump was elected to fight corruption — ergo, of course he would resist sending aid to Ukraine. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) put it this way: “Corruption is not just prevalent in Ukraine. It’s the system. Our president said time out, time out, let’s check out this new guy.”

.@RealDonaldTrump and @RudyGiuliani deserve praise for pushing for accountability because these officials seem to have zero concern about Ukraine's collusion w/Obama admin targeting America's election in 2016 -- and the Biden cover-up...

— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) November 20, 2019

As Washington Examiner writer Byron York wrote in a piece entitled “What if Trump was right about Ukraine?”, supporters of this line of logic argue that while perhaps Trump’s actions weren’t the best, he had real and genuine concerns about Ukraine’s government and its alleged efforts to collude with the Clinton campaign and influence the 2016 election.

Those efforts are based on allegations that Ukrainian officials, concerned about former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s work for a pro-Russian political party, attempted to assist the Clinton campaign and harm the Trump campaign. Right-leaning media outlets have focused serious attention on those allegations since 2017.

For example, the Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway argued on Fox News in October of this year, “You have people who have already admitted that people affiliated with the Ukrainian government worked with the Democratic National Committee’s contractors to help Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign,” arguing that Ukraine and the DNC took part in actual collusion, unlike Russia and Trump’s campaign.

York writes that if the allegations were true, Trump’s actions make sense. “If [those concerns] were even mostly legitimate, then Trump defenders could say: “Look, he had a point. Even if one thinks he handled the issue inappropriately, the fact is, what was going on in Ukraine was worrisome enough for a United States president to take notice.” Quoting former US Special Representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker, York concluded, “The president said Ukraine ‘tried to take me down.’ He wasn’t wrong.” (It’s worth noting that other conservatives disagree.)

This was the argument that Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a writer at National Review who published “The Case for Trump” earlier this year, made to me, saying that it made sense for Trump to be suspicious of Ukraine. He asked that I quote him in full.

“Trump is a businessman and he does not want to give much military aid in general, and naturally not to corrupt governments who have in the past, according to Politico, tried to interfere in the 2016 election.”

“Trump naturally takes the past Ukrainian efforts, again according to the 2017 Politico report, to harm his election effort, as a personal affront given they reportedly sought to stop Trump from becoming president and yet wanted him to reverse the Obama policy of no military aid once he was elected (which he did).”

“Once more, we are left with a supposed thought crime of considering delaying aid in exchange for Ukrainian promises of investigating 2016 interference in an American election—which never happened, but was actually reified by earlier suspension of actual Ukrainian investigations in 2016 (and possibly of Hunter Biden) and refusal to arm the Ukrainians.”

But this argument has problems of its own. Fiona Hill and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, both of whom served on Trump’s National Security Council, testified earlier this month that they had seen no evidence that the government of Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. Hill added in testimony Thursday, “I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a US adversary, and that Ukraine — not Russia — attacked us in 2016.”

The Politico piece to which Dr. Hanson referred during our conversation notes that while some Ukrainian officials supported Clinton, their efforts were “far less concerted or centrally directed than Russia’s alleged hacking and dissemination of Democratic emails,” which was a “top-down” effort. And according to documents obtained by BuzzFeed News via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, one of the main sources for allegations that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election — including allegations that they, not Russia, hacked the DNC — was Manafort himself.

3) “Impeaching a president is the most extreme and anti-democratic remedy”

But other conservatives have argued that Trump’s actions, even if tied to an “understandable and justifiable” desire to investigate allegations of Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election, were improper, inappropriate, or just plain bad.

As Townhall.com and Fox News commentator Guy Benson told me, those involved in the alleged quid pro quo “were up to something that stunk.” “They misused and abused their power,” he said. “It’s serious and it should be taken seriously.

But in his view, impeachment is a step too far. “My case against impeachment and removal is that it rises to a thermonuclear option that has never been detonated before. Doing so based on this, so close to an election, in a president’s first term, would do enormous damage.”

Rather, he favors censure, a “very rare tool” last used against President Andrew Jackson in 1834 that would, as he wrote in October, “represent a severe and formal condemnation from the people’s branch, and would constitute a stain on the president’s term in office.”

Daily Caller founders Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel have also argued that impeachment is too harsh a punishment for Trump. In an op-ed in October where they stipulated that “Donald Trump should not have been on the phone with a foreign head of state encouraging another country to investigate his political opponent,” they then wrote, “Impeaching a president is the most extreme and anti-democratic remedy we have in our system of government.”

And they added:

The facts are out there for the American people to weigh as they make their decision. How about we let them sort all this out? There’s no need to come up with thin excuses for a purely partisan impeachment process when we have an election right around the corner.

I spoke to Patel, who told me, “Nancy Pelosi was right for all those months when she repeatedly said that to undo that election without bipartisan support based on clear criminal behavior would tear the country apart. We are on the eve of a new election where the American people can once again vote on Trump and this time they can weigh for themselves Trump’s behavior in this Ukraine affair. That’s a much better solution.”

Thoughts after day one: Trump’s mention of Biden on his 7/25 call was inappropriate. I’ve said that all along. However, nothing I heard today leads me to change my mind : impeachment goes too far. Let the voters settle this. One party, partisan impeachment is not the answer.

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) November 13, 2019

4) “No one cares”

But an even simpler defense of the president is one being made by Carlson on his Fox News show and by others within the conservative movement, and it actually doesn’t require defending the president at all.

Instead, Republicans are arguing that the entire process is a “distraction.” Moreover, they’re arguing that it doesn’t matter what Trump did or didn’t do because the Senate won’t vote to impeach the president and the average American doesn’t care.

As Townhall.com writer Kurt Schlichter wrote earlier this week, “We’re too busy working, too focused on our 401(k)s going through the roof and on [Trump] flipping circuit courts like a boss, to care about the latest outrage to end all outrages.” I reached out to Schlichter and will update if and when I hear back.

On the November 15 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson argued, “normal people” — “someone with kids and a job and a marriage you care about” — aren’t thinking about impeachment and would rather “the buffoons on TV would stop yapping about Trump 24/7 and talk about something relevant.”

It’s an argument being made by Republicans both inside and outside of the administration. For example, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham tweeted that instead of impeachment (which was “boring” and a “waste of time”), “Congress should be working on passing USMCA, funding our govt & military, working on reduced drug pricing & so much more.”

With record low unemployment and record high wage growth, Democrats know they can't beat President Trump in 2020. Democrats need to #StopTheMadness and get back to work for the American people.

— PA GOP (@PAGOP) November 20, 2019

This argument seems somewhat self-refuting — after all, tweeting or writing or saying on national television that no one cares about impeachment would imply that someone, somewhere, decidedly does.

But for the GOP, it is perhaps the most revealing. Not of the sentiment of the average American — 70 percent of whom believe Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine were “wrong” — but of the Republicans. Because they are well aware that within a slimmed-down Republican Party that has largely excised his enemies and detractors through retirements and election losses, Trump is the only available lodestar.

And so for them, it doesn’t actually matter what Trump did with regard to Ukrainian military aid: whether he intended to hurt Joe Biden’s presidential hopes, whether he was genuinely concerned about corruption, or whether he did something that constitutes an impeachable offense. Trump is all they’ve got.

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