#bill stumpf

[normally0]

Cradles of Design: Exploring Symbolism in the Cantilever Chair and Aeron Chair

The cantilever chair, originating as a sketch by Mart Stam in 1926 and further developed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, represents a pinnacle of Bauhaus furniture design. In architectural discourse, the cantilever chair symbolizes innovation and defiance of traditional structural norms. By suspending the seat without traditional rear legs, it challenges conventional notions of support and stability.

The Aeron Chair, designed by Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick in 1994, offers a stark contrast to the cantilever chair in both form and function. Embracing ergonomic principles, the Aeron Chair prioritizes comfort and support through its innovative mesh design and adjustable features. Unlike the cantilever chair's bold defiance, the Aeron Chair embodies adaptability and responsiveness to the needs of the sitter.

In the context of religious symbolism, the Aeron Chair can be likened to the nurturing embrace of the Madonna, offering ergonomic support and comfort akin to maternal care. Its design reflects a modern interpretation of the Madonna and child motif, emphasizing care and well-being in the built environment.

The juxtaposition of the cantilever chair and the Aeron Chair underscores the complexity of architectural and religious symbolism within design. While the cantilever chair represents daring innovation and defiance, the Aeron Chair embodies adaptability and care, mirroring the dualities inherent in architectural creation and the eternal quest for the acme of design excellence.

#CantileverChair #AeronChair #DesignHistory #BauhausFurniture #ArchitectureSymbolism #MadonnaAndChild #DesignEvolution #ArchitecturalInnovation #IconicChairs #creativeauthorship #architecture #berlin #area #london #acme #chicago #puzzle #edwin lutyens #massimoscolari #oma

[talltalestogo]

THE RICH NEVER HAVE ENOUGH

By Chris Hedges

The rich never have enough. The more they get, the more they want. It is a disease. CEOs demand and receive pay that is 200 times what their workers earn. And even when corporate executives commit massive fraud, such as the billing of hundreds of thousands of Wells Fargo customers for accounts they never opened, they elude punishment and personally profit. Disgraced CEO John Stumpf left Wells Fargo with a pay package that averages nearly $15 million a year. Richard Fuld received nearly half a billion dollars from 1993 to 2007, a time in which he was bankrupting Lehman Brothers.

[jeanjane]

The History of Office Chairs: From Wooden Stools to High-Tech Chairs

Office chairs have come a long way since their inception in the 19th century. Today, we have ergonomic chairs that are designed to provide maximum comfort and support for people who sit at their desks for long hours. But the evolution of office chairs was a gradual process, and it is fascinating to see how we arrived at the modern office chair that we know today.

Early Office Chairs

The earliest form of office chair was a simple wooden stool. In the 17th century, people used wooden stools with three or four legs to sit on while working at a desk. These stools were uncomfortable and did not provide any back support, but they were the only option available at the time.

In the 18th century, the Windsor chair became popular. This chair had a rounded back that provided some support for the lower back. The Windsor chair was an improvement over the wooden stool, but it was still not designed for long periods of sitting.

The History of Office Chairs

The Birth of the Modern Office Chair

The modern office chair as we know it today was first introduced in the mid-19th century. The first office chairs were designed by Thomas E. Warren in the United States. He created a chair with a swivel seat and casters that allowed the user to move around the office without having to stand up. This was a significant innovation, as it made it easier for people to work more efficiently.

The first office chairs were made of wood and had leather or fabric upholstery. They were expensive and were only used by high-ranking officials and executives. However, as the demand for office chairs increased, manufacturers began to produce chairs that were more affordable and accessible to the average worker.

Early 20th Century Office Chairs

In the early 20th century, office chairs became more common in workplaces. They were designed to be functional and comfortable. The chair was made with a wooden frame, and the seat and back were padded with foam and covered in leather or fabric.

In the 1930s, the steel office chair was introduced. These chairs were made with a metal frame and had a seat and back that were made of metal mesh. This design allowed for better ventilation and reduced the buildup of heat and sweat, which was a common problem with upholstered chairs.

Mid-20th Century Office Chairs

In the mid-20th century, office chairs became even more functional and ergonomic. The Aeron chair, introduced in 1994, was one of the most significant innovations in office chair design. The chair was designed by Don Chadwick and Bill Stumpf and was made of lightweight materials that were both durable and comfortable. The Aeron chair featured a mesh backrest that provided excellent ventilation and support for the lower back.

Another significant development in office chair design was the introduction of the ergonomic chair. These chairs were designed to provide maximum comfort and support for people who sit for long periods of time. They were made with adjustable seat height, backrest angle, and armrest height, which allowed the user to customize the chair to their body.

Modern Office Chairs

Today, office chairs come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and materials. The most popular materials for office chairs are mesh, leather, and fabric. They are designed to be ergonomic and comfortable, with adjustable features that allow the user to customize the chair to their body type and work style. Modern office chairs are also designed to be aesthetically pleasing, with sleek designs and color options that fit into any office decor.

One of the latest innovations in office chair design is the use of smart technology. Some chairs now come with sensors that keep an eye on the user's posture and offer advice on how to correct it. Other chairs have built-in massage features that help to reduce tension and promote relaxation.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the history of office chairs has evolved significantly from wooden stools to high-tech chairs, reflecting the changing needs of office workstations and the demands of modern office culture. As businesses have evolved, so has the design of office chairs, and today's chairs prioritize comfort, ergonomics, and functionality. Office Furniture Dubai and Office Furniture Sharjah are a vital part of office design, there is a wide range of office chairs available to meet every need and budget, from basic task chairs to sophisticated executive models. Whether you are outfitting a new workspace or upgrading an existing one, the right office chair can make all the difference in promoting productivity, health, and employee satisfaction.

#office workstations #Office Furniture Dubai #Office Furniture Sharjah #Office chairs

[searchfactory]

Don Chadwick + Bill Stumpf / Herman Miller / Aeron / Chair / 1994

#Don Chadwick #Bill Stumpf #Herman Miller #Aeron #Chair #1994 #Product

[rockerpalm-blog]

By the middle of the 20th century, the name Herman Miller had become synonymous with “modern” furniture. Working with legendary designers George Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames, the company produced pieces that would become classics of industrial design. Since then, they collaborated with some of the most outstanding designers in the world, including Alexander Girard, Isamu Noguchi, Robert Propst, Bill Stumpf, Don Chadwick, Ayse Birsel, Studio 7.5, Yves Béhar, Doug Ball, and many talented others. Herman Miller is a recognized innovator in contemporary interior furnishings 

Herman Miller design  is now available on Rockerpalm   https://www.rockerpalm.com/running-campaigns/herman-miller.html    

#hermanmiller #design #homeliving #buy #in #crypto #luxury #luxuries #chair #furniture #home & lifestyle #goodlife #rockerpalm #best #designer #alexander girard #isamu noguchi #robert propst #bill stumpf #and #follow for more #fashion #cryptocurrency #millionaire #billionaire #joinus

[sceno-narratives]

Julia’s Kitchen  + a glimpse of Julie’s kitchen

"The subject of cooking and eating is so intimately bound up in the physical, practical, social, psychological, aesthetic, creative, spiritual and romantic needs of mortal creatures in the earthly here and now that any attempt to reduce it to rules and formulas is doomed to failure." - Bill Stumpf

Julia Child was an American chef who introduced French cuisine to her fellow Americans (and to the world) with an easier, more accessible approach through her TV show and her cookbook, which was a collaboration with two of her French friends. She started taking cooking classes at Le Cordon Bleu while her husband, Paul Child worked at the American Embassy in France. After six years of living in France, the two returned to America, Cambridge, Massachusetts, bought a house and hired architect Robert Woods Kennedy to redesign the kitchen. However, they ended up decorating their kitchen mostly by themselves.

Julia expressed her and Paul’s attitude towards designing their kitchen in an article in Architectural Design (July/August, 1976), where she explained how they see the kitchen as a place not only for cooking, but also for living and communicating: “The kitchen proper was our major concern because, to us, it is the beating heart and social center of the household. Although this was our ninth kitchen, we never before had the luxury of a well-proportioned room. We intended to make it both practical and beautiful, a working laboratory as well as a living and dining room.”

In this post, Initially I will make an effort to paint a picture of Julia and Paul’s kitchen’s interrelationships. I then will take a look at Julie Powell’s kitchen, from the movie Julie & Julia, a considerably smaller kitchen which has to provide for the making of all Julia Child’s recipes from the cookbook that brought Julia fame.

Julia’s kitchen consists of four rooms: pantry, pastry, storage and the largest room for dining, cooking, cutting and mixing which is 24x18 feet. These rooms are all connected through frame-like openings on the walls that separate them.

^ Julia Child’s kitchen plan indicating the four main rooms and different zones

The house has two entrances, the southern main entrance and the northern backdoor that opens to the courtyard. However, the backdoor was mostly used. Guests, friends and students entered the house via this door and were immediately ushered into the kitchen. The front door seems as ornamental and unused as those on every farm house in America. This kitchen, like the classic farm kitchen, is friendly, open and is the core of the Child’s household. 

Guests walk about, then sit at the table, and we have aperitifs and talk while I am finishing the dinner. It is easy and pleasant, and I am one of the party the way I like to be. Food is better, too, infinitely better because the cook is in the kitchen, the way a chef is in his restaurant. No fresh green beans sit to warm up, losing their texture while I am in a dining room; no sauce will boil away nor custard curdle. Furthermore, nobody minds a bit of public stirring, tossing and tasting; in fact, most seem to enjoy being witness to the affair. (Julia Child, New York Times Magazine, May 16, 1976.)

In addition to being functional, Julia’s kitchen is artless, meaning that it’s not a monument, but a place that reveals process and personal involvement, failure and success. The kitchen is easily perceived, the information is ready-made and can be easily observed and described. It’s also small scale because it evolved through personal initiative, unblemished by commercial commitments, or by the American reverence for technology and over-consumption. Her kitchen expresses result as well as process and for that, it’s very productive. One doesn’t buy a collection of cooking tools and then hope to cook with them. One learns slowly, adding tools to suit new recipes and processes. Only by knowing how to cook can a cook truly evaluate the worth of a tool.. particularly a new tool.

^ Six sequences of Julia working in different zones of the kitchen from the cooking zone to the pantry (Pardon mon mauvais dessin de personnages.)

The pantry is a place for wine storage, it contains of a small sink and cupboards full of various kinds of dishes. The butler’s pantry is also used for mixing aperitifs and other drinks. This room has a window which conveys the southern light into the room and two entry openings, one on the left leading to another part of the house, perhaps the living room, and the other connecting it to the pastry room.

The preparation of drinks is an obvious interference with meal preparation and therefore, it makes sense to set this function aside if space permits. -Paul Child

The pastry room has its own oven, a large horizontal marble surface on a cupboard for the process of making pastry and bread, a mini fridge under it for storing fruits, vegetables, stocks, ice creams, sweets and meat and also a high surface that goes around the area of the room for putting extra dishes and pots. The walls are covered with other pans, measures, pastry molds and so on.

^ Sections cutting the cutting, mixing, cooking and dining area (left) and the pastry room (right)

The storage room to the west of the dining room, seems to be an extra storage space for wines (red or white) and it contains a small TV that Julia can watch while sitting at the dining table in the other room, while cutting and mixing ingredients.

^ Watching TV from the dining table

The kitchen dining, cutting and mixing area is approached through the kitchen entrance that is placed to the right of the backdoor. The three large windows of this area convey northern light to the room, which is the best light for the kitchen area since it’s not direct and doesn’t warm up the kitchen too much. This zone is connected to the TV room and the pastry room. The main kitchen appliances such as the refrigerator, the stove (the big black monster as Julia called it), the oven and the Kitchen Aid mixer are here and there are pans, pots and cutlery hanging on the walls wherever there’s a free surface. There’s a small book case containing often used reference books and cookbooks next the the fridge and also a mini fridge under the horizontal surface on the north half of the kitchen. The table has the dual function of extra work surface for cooking, discussions and teaching.

^ Section from the cooking, cutting, mixing, dining area and the TV room

The advantage of entertaining in the kitchen is, of course, that everything does not have to be ready... The capital point about kitchen dining, I think is not to make a “thing” about anything. Keep the place neat and professional looking, be informal and unhurried and above all, be firm in requesting your guests to remain seated throughout the meal. You do not want people leaping up to help you, since it disturbs the conversation flow which you, the cook, are participating in while performing your chefly functions. (Julia Child, New York Times Magazine, May 16, 1976.)

One of the special features of Julia’s kitchen is the utensils hanging on the walls. This was Paul’s plan for which he laid all the utensils on the floor and made various trial arrangements before permanently mounting and storing the objects.

^ An isometric indicating the walls that are covered with kitchen utensils, the kitchen’s main entrance and sunlight direction

The kitchen’s plan was not determined purely by ideas of convenience: it was planned around the prevailing constraints of the architecture and several activity areas. These activity areas are interlinked by putting down space or counter tops.

I want as much working and putting down space as possible; there can never be enough for me.

The principle “out of sight, out of mind” is fundamental to the access of Julia’s kitchen. 

The harder the utensils are to see, the less you will use them. 

Many objects remain on display that are not used often, as she feels they are beautiful and it’s fun to have them around; but the majority are in serious readiness. Each object has a rightful place to be and to be seen, so much so that Pail has outlined the silhouettes of key tools to insure their safe return after use.

^ Pan outlines on the kitchen Paul, drawn by Paul

^ Paul outlining the silhouette of the utensils while Julia unpacks them (from the movie Julie and Julia, Stanley Tucci plays the role of Paul Child and Meryl Streep plays the role of Julia Child).

^ Pastry tools hanging on the pastry room wall

Julia’s view is that cooking and the kitchen should be of equal importance to the other daily functions, like leisure, working or sleeping and that the kitchen requires an expansive expression. 

Can a conventional small house or apartment be converted into a studio house? Julia believes it can, if the desire is there to live creatively.

Living in an apartment with a small cramped kitchen is no excuse for not cooking good food. It’s possible to cook a good meal on a hot plate.

This brings us to Julie Powell’s kitchen, a tiny space with its two entries that make it seem like more of a corridor.

Julie is a telephone answerer at Lower Manhattan Development Corporation by day, and a home cook by night. Her kitchen is the place where she finds joy after a long work day of dealing with her soul killing job. A sort of jealousy towards one of her pretentious friends in her friend group, who recently started blogging about her daily life, encourages her to start a blog by herself for whose content she challenges herself to cook 524 recipes from Julia Child’s cookbook, whom Julia adores, during one year, 365 days. The movie, Julie & Julia is based on her book with the same title.

^ Julie and Eric’s apartment building (from Julie & Julia)

She lives in a small, cramped apartment, on top of a pizza place, with her husband, Eric. Their flat consists of just a large hall and two rooms, one the kitchen and the other the bathroom. The couple have dedicated a corner of this hall to their bed, dividing the zone from the living area by a transparent shelf.

^ Julie blogging on her laptop early in the morning (from Julie & Julia)

Unlike Child’s exclusive research and writing office, Julie does her routine blogging on her laptop, while sitting behind a small desk facing one of the three windows on the south half of the flat.

^ Julie and Eric’s flat plan

The kitchen is a small area, the same size as the dining area in the center of the flat, and it is the first thing in view while climbing up the entrance staircase. The kitchen contains of very small work surface on two cupboards, one beside the stove and one in front of it. There’s little in Julie’s kitchen that resembles Julia’s, except for her pans and utensils hanging on the wall that’s technically outside the kitchen zone, between the kitchen’s southern wall and the last step of the entrance staircase.

^ Julie’s kitchen view from the entrance staircase, The pans and pots are hanged on the left wall (from Julie & Julia)

Julie’s kitchen consists of a fridge with a microwave put on top of it, a tiny wine shelf, a four flame stove, a sink and a couple of small cupboards with a basket for onions and potatoes and such. Although there’s so little wall surface that’s not covered with kitchen appliances and cupboards, the remaining space is covered with art and picture frames.

^ Julie cooking (from Julie & Julia)

^ Julie’s kitchen isometric view

Truly there’s so little similarity between Julie’s kitchen and Julia’s spacious and efficient one. However, it provides for the 524 recipes from Julia Child’s cookbook (including three lobsters) and many more, and it is the place Julie can finally free her mind and get to be creative and courageous, and in that concept, these two kitchens aren’t actually that different.

^ Julie making lobster for her birthday party (from Julie & Julia)

Sources:

Stumpf, Bill; Polites, Nicholas, 1977. Julia’s Kitchen - A Design Anatomy, Design Quarterly 104, Minneapolis, Minnesota: Walker Art Center

Sherer, Jim, 2016. Inside Julia Child’s *Actual* Home Kitchen (the photos) - bon appétit website

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dothezonk/6718372539/in/photostream/

Filmography:

Julie & Julia, Nora Ephron, 2009.

#kitchen #Julie & Julia #Julia Child #Julie Powell #Julia Child's kitchen #interiors #interior architecture #production design #set design

[wealthiesthub]

What do billionaires eat in a day?

To watch Video Click here, Mentor Hub

Most of the billionaires of today are successful entrepreneurs, and we all are quite aware that they earn what they do today because of their strategic business decision-making, but does this apply to their personal health choices? How much do they spend on private nutrition when they can afford pricey personal chefs and high-quality foods? Well, it seems that most billionaires have quite strange eating habits. Some of them eat way too much McDonalds, while others are quite careful. In this video, we picked out nine popular billionaires we always hear about and share what exactly they consume regularly.

Elon Musk

Number One. Elon Musk. CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, Elon Musk, mentioned several times that at times, he doesn't even have the time to eat breakfast, so he leaves it. However, even when he does manage to have some time, he just drinks coffee. At lunch, and sometimes at dinner, he eats chocolate chip-flavored Kido protein bars, simply because he loves them. He even knows when they go up for a discount! He devours whatever is offered to him during lunch, and puts more emphasis on his dinner plans, that too if he's not working. The worst part? He doesn’t exercise!

Donald Trump

Number Two. Donald Trump. Ex-president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, has put his love for fast food on all his social media accounts. His followers know all about his eating habits and his likes and dislikes. It comes as no surprise to them to hear that he is addicted to fast food. He is known to frequently eat at McDonald’s, and he regularly enjoys their Filet O Fish sandwich. The former President and business mogul earn an expected $2 billion, yet he doesn't appear to have the range or inclinations for any kind of smart dieting choices. In fact, Style magazine reports that he frequently; "praises McDonald’s for its cleanliness."

Mukesh Ambani

Number Three. Mukesh Ambani. One of India’s richest businessmen, Mukesh Ambani, is not fussy about food. He prefers exploring different avenues regarding a wide range of food varieties from the elegant cafés to the side of the road bistros. His number one food places are Mysore Café in Matunga and Swati Snacks. Ambani is so in love with Swati Snacks that in case somebody is going to the spot, he generally requests a bundle for himself. Ambani likewise appreciates chaat at Chandni Chowk. His children love Thai food so, with them, he himself has also started to enjoy them! Likewise, he adores thali cooking, particularly when they are going outside India. As per Ambani, he wouldn't fret about having anything as long as it is vegan. That’s right, he is a vegetarian! Ambani is also fond of Idli sambar which is prepared at home every Sunday for breakfast. He loves it so much that he doesn’t even mind having it from the small canteens at the airports. He also likes dosa and knows a special person at Gwalia Tank who makes it best. A real foodie at heart!

Mark Cuban

Number Four. Mark Cuban. Mark Cuban is continually terminating on all chambers and keeps on rounding up the benefits from his responsibility for the professional basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks. This financial backer and billionaire business entrepreneur is worth a cool $4.5 billion and picks to spend part of it by putting resources into the organization that makes his favorite biscuits. He starts each morning off with two sweet biscuits from Alyssa's Cookies and a cup of coffee. The biscuits are said to be high in protein and fiber and Cuban swears by them. In fact, he loved them so much that he's now a part-owner of the company that makes them.

Mark Zuckerberg

Number Five. Mark Zuckerberg. The $104 billion men, and founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is probably the most extravagant man on the planet. While numerous others in this situation of outrageous abundance would draw in the best cooks to make the most amazing cooking available anywhere, Mark has picked a vastly different way with regards to the food he eats, and it's not for the weak on a fundamental level. He went through a stage in 2011 during which time he would just eat the meat of creatures he had killed for himself. He would take care of that meat for his companions and visitors, too. It was uncovered that he had eaten with the CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, who later announced the goat he was offered was served cold, so he chose to say “no thanks” to that and stuck with salad!

Jack Ma

Number Six. Jack Ma. Co-founder of Alibaba Group, Jack Ma, was seen to be having Maggi Mee instant noodles for lunch on the third anniversary of Alibaba’s IPO in 2017. One of his staff claimed that he had been having lunches like this for the past 18 years! After all, however, Ma is known for his humble management philosophy. A man worth so much (around 44.5 billion US dollars) could easily acquire a few instant noodle manufacturers with just his monthly pay and still be left with some change.

Jeff Bezos

Number Seven. Jeff Bezos. Founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is an interesting case. He claims he avoids early-morning meetings so that he has time to eat a healthy breakfast “leisurely”, keeping away from “fatty convenience foods”. It seems his eccentricity isn’t limited to just his personality; his eating choices can be somewhat bizarre too. During a meeting with another company, Bezos was reportedly seen ordering a breakfast of Mediterranean octopus with potatoes, bacon, green garlic yogurt, and a poached egg. He later used his breakfast as a metaphor for Amazon’s business strategy, saying, “You’re the octopus that I’m having for breakfast. When I look at the menu, you’re the thing I don’t understand, the thing I’ve never had. I must have the breakfast octopus”. Amazon ended up acquiring the company. Bezos’ bizarre taste does not end at octopus either! At the 2018 Explorers Club annual meeting, Bezos ate exotic animals and even insects, which include crickets, python, tarantulas, cockroaches, grubs, and yes, an iguana.

Bill Gates

Number Eight. Bill Gates. The co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates, seems to be addicted to Diet Coke. He drinks about three to four cans a day and mentioned how “all those cans also add up to something like 35 pounds of aluminum a year”. His eating habits aren’t that great either. His wife, Melinda, claims he skips breakfast, and his managing director, Joe Cerrell, says that “no matter who you are”, you should expect to have cheeseburgers when having lunch with Gates. He also mentioned to the Telegraph in 2016, “someone will always be sent to get bags of McDonald’s. I don’t think Melinda lets him have them at home”.

Warren Buffett

Number Nine. Warren Buffet. CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet, has a similar, but far unhealthier diet than Gates. He enjoys McDonald’s chicken nuggets three times a week. He drinks five Coca-Cola cans a day, and especially loves Dairy Queen ice cream and See’s Candies. He also reportedly uses an excessive amount of salt. Former CEO of Wells Fargo, John Stumpf, said, “it’s a snowstorm” every time Buffett uses a saltshaker. Astonishingly, he does all this at 90 years old and has no plans of quitting work! Buffett told Financial Times in 2019, “I’m not bothered by the thought of my death”.

So, what do you guys think? Which billionaire is living his life to the fullest? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

#What billionaires eats #billionaire lifestyle #celebrities #diet #nutrition #elon musk #mark zukerburg #Youtube

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 6, Number 13

Trees

It’s four in the afternoon and already getting dark, a foot of snow on the way. One year is nearly over — and yes, we’ve got some essays on that coming up after the holiday break — and another one is taking shape in our inboxes, mail chutes and hard drives. But for right now, let’s take another look at 2020, doubling back on the records that caught our ears without exactly fitting our schedules, the ones that almost got away. Here are the usual free improvisations and long drones, hip hop upstarts and cowpunk also-rans, a harpist, a cellist, a tabletop guitarist and at least one stellar punk record that has us hoping for sweaty live music again in 2021. Contributors this time included Bill Meyer, Bryon Hayes, Andrew Forrell, Patrick Masterson, Jennifer Kelly, Jonathan Shaw, Arthur Krumins, Ian Mathers and Ray Garraty, heck let’s call it a quorum, and see you again in the New Year.

Mac Blackout — Love Profess (Trouble In Mind)

Love Profess by Mac Blackout

Mac Blackout owes his surname to his membership in the Functional Blackouts. That’s a garage combo that was once the subject of an article about how they’d been banned from various venues on account of the destructive chaos of their live performances. But you can’t do that forever, and nowadays Mac’s a painter and solo recording artist. His latest sounds are unlikely to make anyone want to put a chair into the mirror behind the bar, but they might send you flipping through your record collection, looking for the sounds that you and he have in common. Love Profess opens with a burst of piano-pounding, sax-overblowing free jazz, but that lasts for about nine seconds before it gets swallowed by some John Bender-worthy synth throb. Give “Wandering Spheres” a couple more minutes, and Mr. Blackout goes full La Dusseldorf on us. By turns spacy, spooky and seriously compelled to vent nocturnal loneliness, this half-hour long LP is both as familiar and as unknown as a well-shuffled deck of cards.

Bill Meyer

 Ross Birdwise — Perfect Failures (Never Anything)

Perfect Failures by Ross Birdwise

Vancouver-based electronic improviser Ross Birdwise rails against spatio-temporal norms. The concepts of tempo and rhythm are malleable in his universe. Architecturally, Birdwise is Antoni Gaudí, working in fluid lines to build incomprehensible structures. With Perfect Failures, he leaps even further away from the orthogonal grid of musical construction, dissolving beats into grains of sound. The warped rhythms found on Frame Drag are divested in favor of an approach that more resembles electroacoustic composition. As a matter of fact, the title track comes on like a digital recreation of a piece of classic musique concrète. Birdwise avoids venturing into purely ambient territory yet borrows some signifiers from the genre: keyboard melodies, elongated tones, washes of sound. He overlays these seemingly innocuous elements with crashes of noise, oblique jump cuts and hyperkinetic sequences, constantly forcing us to shift focus to make sense of his soundscapes. The febrile nature of the music is what intoxicates, but the discordant melodies are what enthrall.

Bryon Hayes

 C_G — C_G (edelfaul recordings)

C_G by C_G

Belgium-based French electronic artist Eduardo Ribuyo (C_C) and Israeli drummer Ilia Gorovitz (Stumpf) join forces on C_G, a one-take collaboration of molecular machine noise and improvised percussion. It opens as a slow creep, Gorovitz playing minimal rhythms that sound like someone walking through the pre-dawn streets of an awakening city. Ribuyo accretes whirrs, cracks and electrical pops to evoke the dread of a night not over. On “Normalising Cruelty,” for instance, the discomfort builds, the drums tumble in flight, the noise intensifies. The relative conventionality of the percussion tracks seems intentional and serves to focus attention on the granular details Ribuyo conjures from his machines. Think the experiments of similarly minded Mille Plateaux and Raster Norton artists. When played through headphones at volume, its full queasy Room 101 buzz and grind squirms most effectively into the brain. Easy listening this is not, but if and when home gatherings resume this would be an ideal way to clear the house.

Andrew Forell

  Che Noir — After 12 EP (TCF Music Group)

If you’ve been paying attention to hip-hop in the last few years, Buffalo’s Griselda camp has dominated the “old heads” conversation away from whatever the kids are vibing to on TikTok. But there’s life away from an Eminem partnership, and not just in the form of Benny the Butcher: Witness Che Noir, who has been on fire throughout 2020. After starting off the year with the 38 Spesh-produced Juno and following it up with the Apollo Brown-produced As God Intended, Che’s closing things out with this self-produced seven-song EP that covers a wide range of territory without dipping into tales of street hustling, just the age old struggle to get some respect. “Hunger Games” is an early highlight that shows her chemistry with Ransom and 38 Spesh, while she completely takes over in speaking to the times on “Moment in the Sun,” which is the clear emotional highlight of the EP. Amber Simone’s pleading chorus on closer “Grace” is another stylistic turn and closes things on a high note. The last words you hear are Simone’s as she sings, “Imma go get it”; the lingering effect is that you know Che Noir is already showing you as much. Miss this one at your own risk.

Patrick Masterson 

 Cong Josie — “Leather Whip” b/w “Maxine” (It Records)

Leather Whip / Maxine (AA single) by Cong Josie

Frankie Teardrop rides again in this smoking synth punk single from Australia’s Cong Josie. “Leather Whip” is about as menacing and minimal as synthesizer music gets, braced by the hard slap of gate-reverbed drums and a claw-picked bass sound (maybe electronic?) and Cong Josie’s whispery insinuations. “Maxine” is just as stripped, with blotchy bass sound and swishing drum machine rhythms framing a haunted rockabilly love song. It’s very Suicide, but isn’t that a good thing?

Jennifer Kelly

   Divine Horsemen — Live 1985-1987 (Feeding Tube)

Divine Horsemen “Live”1985-1987 by Divine Horsemen

With Divine Horsemen, Chris D of the Flesh Eaters had a brief but memorable run in vivid, gothic, country-tinged punk. This disc commemorates two red-hot live outings from 1985 and 1987, the first at Safari Sam’s in Huntington Beach, California, the second at Boston’s The Rat. A sharply realized recording shows how this band’s sound fit into the cowpunk parameters set by X, with strident guitar clangor and hard knocking rock rhythms (the ax-heavy line-up featured in this recording included Wayne James, Marshall Rohner and Peter Andrus on guitars, the Flesh Eater’s Robyn Jameson on bass). The secret weapon, though, was the ongoing and volatile vocal duel between the front man and his then-wife Julie Christensen, a classically trained soprano with an unholy vibrato-laced belt. You can hear how she transformed his art by comparing the Flesh Eater’s version of “Poison Arrow” with the one here. It’s as aggressive as ever, musically, and Chris D. is in full florid, echoey, goth-punk mode. Christensen, however, is molten fire, letting loose cascades and flurries of wild vibrating song. There’s a scorching, stomping romp through the vamping “Hell’s Belle,” and a lurid rendering of mad, howling “Frankie Silver,” and, towards the end, a muscular take on the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.” Christensen later made a mark as one of Leonard Cohen’s favorite backup singers, and Chris D is still knocking around with a reunited, all-star Flesh Eaters, though there’s some talk of getting this band back together as well. I’d go.

Jennifer Kelly

 Dezron Douglas & Brandee Younger — Force Majeure (International Anthem)

Force Majeure by Dezron Douglas & Brandee Younger

Harlem harpist Brandee Younger and bassist Dezron Douglas faced down New York’s early months of quarantine with a series of live broadcasts recorded in their apartment on a single microphone. This document of intimate resilience collects highlights of the Friday ritual. Younger and Douglas perform covers of spiritual Jazz, soul and pop songs as well as the delightfully titled original “Toilet Paper Romance.” The music is so close you feel the fingers on the strings and frets. Younger’s harp playing is a revelation, pianistic on John Coltrane’s “Equinox”, pointillist yet robust on his “Wise One” which they dedicate to Ahmaud Arbery. Douglas provides vigorous and sympathetic accompaniment and his solo rendition of Sting’s “Inshallah” is a tender tough exploration of his instrument. Along the way there are lovely versions of pieces by, amongst others, Alice Coltrane, Kate Bush and Clifton Davis. Douglas closes with the words “Black music cannot be recreated it can only be expressed” and Force Majeure demonstrates that the same goes for humanity and creativity.

Andrew Forell

Avalon Emerson — 040 12” (AD 93)

040 by Avalon Emerson

It’s been a big year for Avalon Emerson, who started 2020 prepping a move from Berlin to East Los Angeles and ends it back home stateside with an almost universally acclaimed DJ-Kicks entry to her credit. This three-song 12” for the label fka Whities is a nice way to close out a triumphant year, illustrating her penchant for bright melodies and percussive detail. “One Long Day Till I See You Again” is a welcoming slice of beatless percolation to close; “Winter and Water” leans heavily on rhythmic tricks in the middle. That makes A1 “Rotting Hills” the ideal lead as a balance between them. There may not be so obvious a gimmick as a Magnetic Fields cover, but that makes it no less valuable for showing what Emerson can do. Call it one more fluorescent rush.

Patrick Masterson

 End Forest — Proroctwo (Self-released)

Proroctwo (The Prophecy) by End Forest

For some of us, the fusion of folk music forms with crust and metal mostly issues in obscenities like Finntroll (yep, a Finnish band that makes folk metal songs about…trolls) or in politically toxic, Völkisch nationalist fantasias. But some bands get it right; see Botanist’s remarkable work, and see also End Forest, an act just emerging from Poland’s punk underground. Singer Paula Pieczonka employs a traditional Slavic vocal technique that roughly translates to “white singing” — but before you get creeped out by any potential fascist vibes, please know that the “whiteness” at stake in the phrase is purely an aesthetic value. And her voice is really great, open and soaring. “Proroctwo (The Prophecy)” has the sweep and drama of a lot of contemporary crust, and all of the genre’s interest in symbolic violence. The lyrics envision a future wrought and wracked by social conflict, a coming conflagration of torn bodies and of piles of dislodged teeth housed in some horrific archive of viciousness (that’s quite an image). It’s harrowing stuff, big guitar chords accented by sitar and flute. The track is available on Bandcamp, along with several inventive remixes by Polish musicians and DJs, like Tomek Jedynak and Dawid Chrapla. End Forest indicates that a full record is forthcoming sometime in spring. Looking forward to it, y’all.

Jonathan Shaw

 Lori Goldson — On a Moonlit Hill in Slovenia (Eiderdown Records)

On A Moonlit Hill In Slovenia by Lori Goldston

Goldson creates movement and tension in an arresting way with a rough-hewn approach to the cello. This could be a good entry point to her solo work, which is varied and bridges the gap between DIY attitude and elevated levels of musicianship and considered approach. The flow of her playing here evokes the almost brutal scrape of the strings, which gives a welcome texture to the melodic squiggles.

Arthur Krumins

Hot Chip — LateNightTales (LateNightTales)

The LateNightTales series of artist-curated mixes has seen a fair bit of variation over the years since Fila Brazilia first took up the torch in 2001, which makes a certain amount of sense; how we spend our late nights can differ wildly, of course. Hot Chip’s instalment in the series hits some of the expected notes (at least one cover, in this case a deeply moving one of the Velvet Underground’s “Candy Says” they’ve been playing since Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard were in high school together; a closing story track, in this case Taylor’s father reading a bit from Finnegan’s Wake) and otherwise depicts the kind of late night Dusted readers might be more familiar with than most; one where a clearly voracious and eclectic listener is keeping their own private party going just for another hour or so, but always keeping things just quiet and subtle enough to not wake up anyone upstairs. The three other, non-cover new Hot Chip tracks all make for standouts here but there’s plenty of room for accolades, whether it’s for the smoothly groovy (Pale Blue, Mike Saita, Beatrice Dillon), the more avant garde (Christina Vantzou, About Group, Nils Frahm) to just plain off-kilter pop (Fever Ray, PlanningToRock, Hot Chip themselves). The result works as both a wonderful playlist and a survey of the band’s sonic world; and it does work best when everyone else is in bed.  

Ian Mathers

Annette Krebs Jean-Luc Guionnet — Pointe Sèche (Inexhaustible Editions)

pointe sèche by Jean-Luc Guionnet, Annette Krebs

Annette Krebs and Jean-Luc Guionnet recorded the three long, numbered tracks on Pointe Sèche (translation: Dry Point) over the course of three days at St. Peter’s Parish church in Bistrica ob Sotli, Slovenia. Location matters because this music couldn’t happen just anywhere; Guionnet plays church organ. Krebs was once part of the post-Keith Rowe generation of tabletop guitarists, but since 2014 she has abandoned strings and fretboards in favor of a series of hybrid instruments called konstruktions. Konstruktion #4, which appears on this record, includes suspended pieces of metal, a handful of toy animals, a wooden sounding board, vocal and contact microphones and a couple touch screens that manage computer programs. While both musicians have extensive backgrounds in improvisation, this recording sounds more like an audio transcription of a multi-media collage. Guionnet plays his large instrument quite softly, extracting machine-like hums, brief burps and dopplering tones that flicker around the periphery of Krebs’ fragments of speech, distant clangs and unidentifiable events. The resulting sounds resolutely defy decoding, which is its own reward in a time when so much music can be reduced to easily identifiable antecedents.

Bill Meyer

 KMRU — ftpim (The Substation)

ftpim by KMRU

If you happened to catch Peel, Joseph Kamaru’s wonderful release on Editions Mego in late July, but haven’t paid attention before or since, early December’s half-hour two-tracker ftpim done for (and mastered by) Room40 leader Lawrence English is a Janus-faced example of the Nairobi-based ambient artist’s power. As Ian Forsythe put it in his BOGO review of both Peel and Opaquer, “Something that can define an effective ambient record is an ability to disintegrate the perimeter of the record itself and the outside world,” a line I think about every time I listen to KMRU now. “Figures Emerge” feels more immediately accessible to me as a relatable environment where the gentle, pulsing drone is occasionally greeted by sounds outside the studio, while “From the People I Met” is more difficult terrain, a distorted fog of post-shoegaze harmonic decay — no less interesting, but perhaps more metaphorical in its take on the outside world. (Or not, given how 2020 has gone.)

Patrick Masterson

  Paul Lovens / Florian Stoffner—Tetratne (Ezz-thetics)

Enough years separate drummer Paul Lovens and guitarist Florian Stoffner that they could be father and son, and Lovens membership in the Schlippenbach Trio, and Lovens role as drummer in the legendarily long-running Schlippenbach Trio establishes him as an august elder of free improvisation. But the partnership they exhibit on this CD is one of equals committed to making music that is of one mind. Whether matching sparse string-tugging to purposefully collapsing batterie or burrowing sprung-spring wobbles to an immense cymbal wash, the duo plays without regard for showing us one guy or the other’s stuff. The point, it seems, is to how they imagine as one, and their combined craniums generate plenty of imagination. They operate in a realm close to that occupied by Derek Bailey and John Stevens, or Roger Smith and Louis Moholo-Moholo, but their patch of turf is entirely their own.

Bill Meyer

  Mr. Teenage — Automatic Love (Self-Release)

Automatic Love by Mr. Teenage

Melbourne, Australia’s fertile garage punk scene has squeeze out another good one in Mr. Teenage, a Buzzcockian foursome prone to short, sharp riffs and sing-along choruses. A four-song EP starts with the title track, whose arch talk-sung verse erupts into rabid, rip-sawing guitar, like Devo meeting the Wipers. “Waste of Time” piles palm muted urgency with explosive release, with a good bit of the Clash in the crashing, clangor. “KIDS” struts and swaggers in a rough-edged way that’s close to the violence of early Reigning Sound or Texas’ Bad Sports. “Oh, the kids these days,” to borrow a phrase, they’re pretty good.

Jennifer Kelly

 Nekra — Royal Disruptor (La Vida Es Un Mus)

Royal Disruptor by Nekra

Remember punk shows? Remember half-lit, dusty basements and fully lit, dirty kids? Remember your sneaker soles sticking to scuffed, gummy linoleum? Remember greasy denim battle jackets and hand-drawn Sharpie slogans? Remember warm beer (watery domestic suds in cans and cups) and cold stares (angsty bravado and bad attitude for its own sake)? Remember anarchists arguing with nihilists, and riot grrrls arguing with rocker boys? Remember people laughing and people smoking and people shouting and people spitting, all without masks? Remember the anticipation that crisps the air when the amps switch on? Feedback from the cheap-ass mic stabbing your ears? Beefy dudes elbowing through the press of flesh? That volatile, stomachy mix of happiness and truculence? Those warm-up thumps of the bass drum and the initial strums of crackling guitar? Remember all that? For the time being, in the United States of Dysfunction, here’s the closest thing you’ll get: an EP of feral, fast punk songs that sound like they’re happening live, right in front of your face. Thanks, Nekra — I really needed that.

Jonathan Shaw

 Neuringer / Dulberger / Masri — Dromedaries II (Relative Pitch)

Dromedaries II by Keir Neuringer, Shayna Dulberger, Julius Masri

Yes, Dromedaries II is a sequel. It follows by three years a debut cassette which was sold in the sort of microquantities that 21st century cassettes are sold. So, it’s more likely that you have heard another of the bands that the trio’s alto saxophonist, Keir Neuringer, plays in — Irreversible Entanglements. While the two combos don’t sound that similar, they share a commitment to improvising propulsive, cohesive music that will put a boot up your butt if you get in the way. While IE focuses on supplying music that frames and exemplifies the stern proclamations of vocalist Camae Ayewa, the trio plays instrumental free jazz that balances individual expression with collective support. Neuringer, double bassist Shayna Dulberger and drummer Julius Masri play like their eyes are on the horizon, but each musician’s ears are tuned into what the other two are doing. The result is music that seems to move in concerted fashion, but usually has someone doing something that pulls against the prevailing thrust in ways that heighten tension, but never force the music off track.

Bill Meyer

Kelly Lee Owens — Inner Song (Smalltown Supersound)

One of the distinctive things about Kelly Lee Owens’ marvellous debut LP a few years ago, as noted here, is that it felt so confident and distinct that it could have easily been the work of a much more seasoned producer. That impression, of a deftly skilled hand at the controls and a keen artistic sensibility and taste shaping it all, certainly doesn’t recede on Inner Song, whether it finds Owens homaging the grandmother who provided support and inspiration (“Jeanette”), gently but firmly rejecting unhealthy relationships (the utterly gorgeous “L.I.N.E.”) or teaming up with John Cale to make some bilingual, deep Welsh ambient dub (“Corner of My Sky”). And that’s one pretty randomly chosen three-song run! Owens continues to excel at both crafting gorgeous, lived-in productions and maybe especially with her handling of voices (her own and others), and she’s comfortable enough in her own skin that if she wants to open up the album with an instrumental Radiohead version (“Arpeggi”) she will, and she’ll make it feel natural, too.  

Ian Mathers

San Kazakgascar — Emotional Crevasse (Lather Records)

Emotional Crevasse by San Kazakgascar

You won’t find San Kazakgascar on any map, but give a listen and you’ll know where this combo is coming from. Geographically, they hail from Sacramento CA, where they share personnel with Swimming In Bengal. But sonically, they are the product of a journey through music libraries that likely started out in a Savage Republic and sweated in the shadow of Sun City Girls. They likely spent time in the teetering stacks of music collections compiled in a time when the problematic aspects of the term world music were outweighed by the lure of sounds you hadn’t heard before. More important than where they’ve been, though, is the impulse to go someplace other than where they’re currently standing. To accomplish this, twangy guitars, rhythms that straighten your spine whilst swiveling your hips, bottom-dredging saxophone and a cameo appearance by a throat singer who understands that part of a shaman’s job is to scare you each take their turn stepping up and pointing your mind elsewhere. Where it goes after that is up to you.

Bill Meyer

     John Sharkey III — “I Found Everyone This Way” (12XU)

Has Sharkey mellowed? This early peek at the upcoming solo album from the Clockcleaner legend and Dark Blue proprietor suggests a pensive mood, with liquid jangle and surprisingly subdued and lyrical delivery (albeit in the man’s inimitable hollowed out and wounded snarl). But give the artist a power ballad if that’s what he wants. The song has a graceful arc to it, a doomed romanticism and not an ounce of cloying sentiment.

Jennifer Kelly

 Sky Furrows — Sky Furrows (Tape Drift Records/Skell Records/Philthy Rex Records)

Sky Furrows by Sky Furrows

Sky Furrows don’t take long to match sound and message. As Karen Schoemer drops references to SST Records and Raymond Pettibone, bassist Eric Hardiman and drummer Philip Donnelly whip up a tense groove that could easily have been played by Mike Watt and George Hurley. Mike Griffin’s spidery, treble-rich guitar picking is a little less specifically referential, but does sound like it was fed through a signal chain of gear that would have been affordable back in the first Bush administration. The next track looks back a bit further; Schoemer’s voice aside, it sounds like Joy Division might have done if Tom Herman had turned up, pushed Martin Hannet out of the control room before he could ladle on the effects and instead laid down some space blues licks. Schoemer recites rather than sings in a cadence that recalls Lee Ranaldo’s; pre-internet underground rock is in this band’s DNA. The sounds themselves are persistently cool, but one drawback of having a poet instead of a singer up front is an apparent reluctance to vary the structure; it would not have hurt to break things up with some contrasting passages here or there.

Bill Meyer

  Soft on Crime — “You’ve Already Made Up Your Mind” b/w “Rubyanne” (EatsIt)

7'' by Soft on Crime

These Dublin fuzz-punks kick up a guitar-chiming clangor in A-Side, “You’ve Already Made Up Your Mind,” which might have you reaching for your old Sugar records. Sharp but sweet, the cut is an unruly gem buoyed by melody but bristling with attitude. “Rubyanne” is slower, softer and more ingratiating, embellished with baroque pop elements like flute, saxophone and choral counterpoints. “Little 8 Track” fills out this brief disc, with crunching, buzz-hopped bass and a bit of guitar jangle under whisper-y romantic vocals. It’s a bit hard to get a handle on the band, based on such disparate samples, but intriguing enough to make you want to settle the matter whenever more material becomes available.

Jennifer Kelly

Theoxinia — See the Lapith King Burn (Bandcamp)

See the Lapith King Burn by Theoxenia

Students of Greek mythology will grasp it right away, but in the internet age, it doesn’t take anyone long to figure out that when you name your record See the Lapith King Burn, you’re casting your lot for better or worse with the party animals. The Lapiths were one side of a lineage that also involved the considerably less sober-sided Centaurs, and the two sides of the family had a bloody showdown at a wedding that has been taken to symbolize the war between civilization and wildness. Theoxinia is Dave Shuford (No-Neck Blues Band, Rhyton, D. Charles Speer & the Helix) and his small circle of stringed instruments and low-cost repeating devices. If you were to dig through his past discography, it most closely resembles the LP Arghiledes (Thrill Jockey) in its explicitly Hellenic-psychedelic vibe. But, like so many folks in recent times, Shuford has decided to bypass the expanse and aggravation of physical publication in favor of marketing this LP-sized recording on Bandcamp. If that fact really bugs you, I guess you could start a label and make the man an offer. But if fuzz-tone bouzouki, sped-up loops and unerringly traced dance steps that will look most convincing when executed with a knife between your teeth and the sheriff’s wallet poking mockingly out of the top of your breast pocket sounds like your jam, See the Lapith King Burn awaits you in the realm of digital insubstantiality.

Bill Meyer

 Trees — 50th Anniversary Edition (Earth Recordings)

Trees (50th Anniversary Edition) by Trees

This boxed set presents the two original Trees albums from the early 1970s, The Garden of Jane Delawney and On the Shore, with the addition of demos and sundry recordings from the era. Here the band took the UK folk rock sound emergent at the time and drew it out into its jammy and somewhat arena rock guitar soloing conclusion. It’s good to have all of this in one place to document the myriad ways that Trees wrapped traditional material into new forms and with a bracing, druggy feel.

Arthur Krumins 

 Uncivilized — Garden (UNCIV MUSIC)

Garden by Uncivilized

Guitarist Tom Csatari presides over NYC-based large jazz ensemble known as Uncivilized, whose fusion-y discography stretches back a couple of years and prominently incorporates a cover of the Angelo Badalamenti theme from Twin Peaks. This 27-track album was recorded live at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works space in 2018 with a nine-piece band, who navigate drones and dances and the multi-part Meltedy Candy STOMP, a sinuous exploration of space age keyboards and surging big band instruments. Jaimie Branch, who lives next door to Csatari and was invited on a whim at the last minute, joins in for the second half including a smoldering rendition of the Lynch theme. It’s damn fine (though not coffee). Later on, Stevie Wonder gets the Uncivilized treatment in a pensive cover of “Evil,” led by warm guitar, blowsy sax and a little bit of jazz flute.

Jennifer Kelly

 Unwed Sailor — Look Alive (Old Bear Records)

Look Alive by Unwed Sailor

Johnathon Ford, who plays bass for Pedro the Lion, has been at the center of Unwed Sailor for two decades, gathering a changing cohort of players to realize his lucid instrumental compositions. Here, as on last year’s Heavy Age, Eric Swatzell adds guitars and Matthew Putnam drums to Ford’s essential bass and keyboard sounds. Yet while Heavy Age brooded, Look Alive grooves with bright clarity, riding insistent basslines through highly colored landscapes of synths and drums. The title track bounds with optimism, with big swirls of synth sound enveloping a rigorous cadence of bass and drums. “Camino Reel” is more guitar-centric but just as uplifting, opening out into squalling shoe-gaze-y walls of amplified sound. Ford, who usually leans on post-punk influences like New Order and the Cure, indulges an affinity for dance, here, especially audible on the trance-y “Gone Jungle” remix by GJ.

Jennifer Kelly

 Your Old Droog — Dump YOD Krutoy Edition (Self-released)

Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition by YOD

American rapper Your Old Droog has been releasing solid music for years. He never had ups for the same reason he never had downs: he never left his comfort zone. Dump YOD Krutoy Edition (where “krutoy” stands for “rude boy” or “badass”) may be his breakthrough album. He always kept his Soviet origins in check, and here for the first time he draws his imagery from three different sources: New York urban present, Ukrainian folk and Soviet and post-Soviet past (even Boris Yeltsin makes an appearance). In this boiling pot, a new Your Old Droog is rising, among balalaikas and mean streets of NYC, matryoshkas and producers with boring beats, babushkas and graffiti writers.

Ray Garraty

#Dusted magazine #dust #mac blackout #bill meyer #ross birdwise #bryon hayes #c_g #andrew forell #che noir #patrick masterson #cong josie #jennifer kelly #divine horsemen #dezron douglas #brandee younger #avalon emerson #end forest #jonathan shaw #lori goldston #arthur krumins #annette krebs #jean-luc guionnet #paul lovens #florian stoffner #mr. teenage #nekra #keir neuringer #shayna dulberger #julius masri #San Kazakgascar

[aktionfsa-blog-blog]

Digitalisierung ohne Systemveränderung sinnlos

Marx und Digitalisierung?

📷Alle rufen nach "mehr Digitalisierung". Alle? Auf jeden Fall ist die FDP die einzige Partei, die sich allein aus einem "mehr an Digitaliserung" automatisch Fortschritt und Wohlstand erhofft. Für die anderen Parteien ist es mehr oder weniger ein Mittel zur Realisierung des jeweiligen Parteiprogramms. Bei der CDU fördert Digitalisierung die Wirtschaft, bei SPD und Linken soll Digitalisierung die demokratische Teilhabe verbessern und bei den Grünen den ökologischen Umbau.

Die Politiker sollten alle das Interview von Claudia Wangerin auf Telepolis mit der Soziologin Sabine Pfeiffer über ihr Buch "Digitalisierung als Distributivkraft: Über das Neue am digitalen Kapitalismus" lesen. Digitalisierung darf und kann kein Selbstzweck sein!

Die Autorin verweist gleich zu Beginn in ihrem Buch: "Wer meiner Argumentation folgen will, kommt nicht um Karl Marx herum". Auch 200 Jahre nach seinen Analysen der gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse helfen sie auch beim Verständnis der Vorgänge heute. Sie stellt fest:

Marx hat wohl wie kaum ein anderer Ökonom die Rolle der Technik ernst genommen und vor allem das Wechselspiel zwischen Gesellschaft, den Fähigkeiten der Menschen, den wirtschaftlichen Dynamiken und der technischen Entwicklung in den Blick genommen. Eine solch komplexe Analyse kann uns auch heute helfen. Denn das meiste, was im Netz gerade passiert - sei es die Plattformökonomie oder eben, dass unser Nutzungsverhalten zur Ware wird - ist zwar technisch ermöglicht, aber vor allem folgt es ökonomischen Interessen. ...

Mich interessiert aber weniger, warum Alphabet/Google es zum Beispiel im ersten Quartal 2021 schaffte, pro Stunde acht Millionen Dollar Reingewinn einzufahren. Spannender finde ich, warum es so viele Unternehmen gibt, die bereit sind, so exorbitant für Werbung bei und über Google zu bezahlen - denn einen Großteil dieses Gewinns generiert Google weiterhin über Werbung. Dazu - und übrigens auch zur ökonomischen Bedeutung von Kommunikationsnetzen und Infrastruktur - findet sich dann bei Marx eben doch erstaunlich viel Brauchbares.

Es geht schlussendlich bei der Digitaliserung nicht (vorrangig) um Technik sondern um Macht und Einfluss. Die Digitaliserung dynamisiert Werbung und Konsum in ungeahntem Ausmaß. Der Kapitalismus wird weiter enorm entfesselt. Es werden Unmengen mehr an Waren umgesetzt - egal ob wir sie wirklich benötigen oder nicht.

Selbst in Corona-Zeiten können wir nicht von einem ökologischen Plus der Digitaliserung sprechen, selbst wenn durch Videokonferenzen die eine oder andere Dienstreise wegfällt. Der CO2 Verbrauch des Internets ist enorm - 10% aller elektrischen Energie wird dafür verbraucht. Dazu kommen die Folgekosten, die das Konsumieren über das Netz erzeugen.

... beim Online-Shopping [ist] ja nicht der Server auf dem die Shop-Software läuft, das eigentliche ökologische Problem. Sondern dass der Transport eines kleinen und günstigen Konsumguts - zum Beispiel eine Packung von sechs Eierlöffeln aus Plastik für 1,99 Euro - von China nach Deutschland kaum Mehrkosten produziert. Nicht die paar Bits für meinen Warenkorb sind das Entscheidende, hinzu kommen ökologische Kosten für die Bezahltransaktionen und vor allem für den Transport um den halben Globus. Dass das eigentlich produzierte Gut so günstig ist, weil vor Ort schlimmste Arbeitsbedingungen, minimalste Löhne und oft desaströse Umweltauflagen herrschen, kommt dazu.

Und selbst in diesem trivialen Beispiel finden sich die fast 200 Jahre alten Analysen von Karl Marx wieder.

Unmengen von Plastikeierlöffeln werden von unzähligen Anbietern produziert. Ein Großteil dieser Löffel wird nie verkauft werden. Das ist für die Anbieter mit weniger Erfolg auf dem Eierlöffelmarkt ein ökonomisches Problem. Es ist für uns alle aber ein ökologisches Problem. Weil mit diesem Berg von nicht benötigten Eierlöffeln massenhaft Ressourcen unwiederbringlich vernutzt wurden. Es geht doch nicht nur um CO2. Die Vielfalt der ökologischen Desaster, die wir mit dieser Art des Wirtschaftens seit Generationen produzieren, ist leider ja viel vielfältiger.

Ebenso lässt sich aus den Analysen von Marx erkennen, dass der Kapitalismus zur Anhäufung der Wirtschaftsmacht und des Reichtums bei immer weniger Menschen führt. Einige davon lassen sich heute namentlich benennen: Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, ... Ihre Macht ist größer als die vieler Staaten, gegen ihre "Ideen" sind demokratische Entscheidungen von Regierungen oft ein stumpfes Schwert.

Mehr dazu bei https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Im-Moment-macht-mir-eher-die-Misswirtschaft-des-Kapitalismus-Sorgen-6046831.html und in Sabine Pfeiffers lesenswertem Buch https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-5422-6/digitalisierung-als-distributivkraft/?c=311000132&number=978-3-7328-5422-6 Link zu dieser Seite: https://www.aktion-freiheitstattangst.org/de/articles/7645-20210518-digitalisierung-ohne-systemveraenderung-sinnlos.htm

#Marx #Digitalisierung #Kapiatalismus #System #Demokratie #Mitbestimmung #Konsum #Verhaltensänderung #Ökologie #Energieverbrauch #Internet

[aestheticgrips]

Top Lawyers In Usa

So, who are they?  Here is a quick look in the   wealthiest lawyers in the entire world, ranked from the lowest net value to the greatest. Please be aware that the individuals on this list are all practicing lawyers or judges.  There are loads of other "attorneys " with a considerably higher net value, but they simply possess a law degree and no more use it.

Joe Jamail: $1.7 billion

Although he passed away at the age of 90 at December 2015, Joe Jamail makes this record because he had been the wealthiest practicing attorney in the United States in the time of his passing.  Frequently referred to as the "King of Torts," he represented Pennzoil at a 1985 lawsuit against rival Texaco.  His contingency fee was $335 following the courts decided in Pennzoil's favor.  The 1953 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law was a former marine who had a longstanding reputation in the courtroom to be abrasive, rude, and vulgar.  However, outside of the courtroom, he was famous for his generous philanthropy.

Judge Joe Brown: $30 million

Best known for his day court show which ran for 15 years, Judge Joe Brown received his law degree from UCLA.  After serving as the first African American prosecutor at Memphis, TN, he started his own clinic before serving as a criminal court judge in Shelby County, TN.  While presiding over James Earl Ray's allure for its assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., he caught the eye of TV producers.  The majority of his wealth had been obtained through the show.  In 2014, he ran for district attorney general in Shelby County, but lost to the incumbent.

Roy Black: $100 million

Still another criminal and civil defense attorney, Roy Black, a graduate from the University of Miami, is the senior partner at Black, Srebnick, Kornspan, & Stumpf.  For more than 40 decades, he's represented high profile clients, including William Kennedy Smith (acquitted on rape charges), Albertson's, Inc., and Helio Castroneves.   Known by many in the industry for having "the best national standing in Florida," he also acts as a legal advisor on "The Now Show" and "Good Morning America" and teaches advanced criminal evidence at the University of Miami.

Alan Dershowitz: $25 million

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1962, Alan Dershowitz went to work.  By 1964, he had become a part of the Harvard Law School faculty and in 1967he was made a full professor.  (He murdered in 2013.)  While teaching classes, he was making a name for himself in the criminal law area.  Thanks to his standing as the "top lawyer of last resort," he's a bevy of high-profile customers, including Mike Tyson, Jim Baker, Leona Helmsley, O.J. Simpson, and Jeffrey Epstein.  In addition, he has composed over a dozen books.  Everything together helped him amass his fortune

Bill Neukom: $850 million

Currently serving as the creator and CEO of the World Justice Project, which is devoted to promoting the rule of law all around the world, Bill Neukom is a corporate lawyer who is famous because of his philanthropy.  After graduating from Stanford Law School in 1967, he worked in a small firm until he had been asked to perform work for Microsoft, that was in its beginning stages.  Finally , he became Microsoft's legal counsel, a position he held for 25 years.  Formerly, he had been an investor at the San Francisco Giants.

Lynn Toler: $15 million

Better known as the judge from TV's Divorce Court as 2007, Lynn Toler formerly served as the only municipal court judge in Cleveland Heights, OH for more than 8 decades.  After receiving her law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1984, she focused on civil law before becoming municipal court judge.  In this function, she was known for enforcing nontraditional sentences, like writing essays.  Besides presiding over divorce court, Lynn is the author of three books.

[deniscollins]

The Price of Wells Fargo’s Fake Account Scandal Grows by $3 Billion

What would you do if you were a newly hired Wells Fargo manager and realized that for several years employees used fraud to meet impossible sales goals by opening millions of accounts in customers’ names without their knowledge, signed unwitting account holders up for credit cards and bill payment programs, created fake personal identification numbers, forged signatures and even secretly transferred customers’ money: (1) continue with this practice, (2) refuse to do so, (3) inform authorities, (4) something else, if so, what? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

Wells Fargo has agreed to pay $3 billion to settle criminal charges and a civil action stemming from its widespread mistreatment of customers in its community bank over a 14-year period, the Justice Department announced on Friday.

From 2002 to 2016, employees used fraud to meet impossible sales goals. They opened millions of accounts in customers’ names without their knowledge, signed unwitting account holders up for credit cards and bill payment programs, created fake personal identification numbers, forged signatures and even secretly transferred customers’ money.

In court papers, prosecutors described a pressure-cooker environment at the bank, where low-level employees were squeezed tighter and tighter each year by sales goals that senior executives methodically raised, ignoring signs that they were unrealistic. The few employees and managers who did meet sales goals — by any means — were held up as examples for the rest of the work force to follow.

“This case illustrates a complete failure of leadership at multiple levels within the bank,” Nick Hanna, U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement. “Wells Fargo traded its hard-earned reputation for short-term profits, and harmed untold numbers of customers along the way.”

Now the bank is grappling with the lingering consequences. Part of Friday’s deal, which includes a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is a deferred prosecution agreement, a pact that could expose the bank to charges if it engages in new criminal activity.

“We are committing all necessary resources to ensure that nothing like this happens again,” Wells Fargo’s chief executive, Charles W. Scharf, said in a statement on Friday.

As part of its agreement with the S.E.C., the bank will set up a $500 million fund to compensate investors who suffered when Wells Fargo failed to inform them that its community banking business was not as strong as the fake accounts made it seem. The money is included in the $3 billion settlement total.

During the final five years of abuse, the bank quietly fired thousands of employees for falsifying records in response to customer complaints, according to court filings, and disciplined tens of thousands more.

In the filings, prosecutors described how, even after some Wells Fargo executives tried to curb the sales abuses, the bank hid the problem from investors by changing its public descriptions of its sales practices over several years. The intent was to be clearer about the limitations of the bank’s strategy, known as “cross-selling,” without tipping investors off to the problems that senior executives had uncovered, the filings said.

The practices covered by the settlement — which includes an admission by Wells Fargo that it falsified banking records and harmed customers’ credit ratings — are not the only misbehavior the bank has revealed since 2016. Since the allegations came to light in a settlement with California authorities and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the bank has also admitted it charged mortgage customers unnecessary fees and forced auto loan borrowers to buy insurance they did not need.

The mortgage and auto loan claims are not part of Friday’s deal, and Justice Department officials declined to comment on whether they intended to take more action against the bank. They said the settlement also did not include similar conduct that fell outside the 14-year period.

Wells Fargo is still under investigation by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for abruptly closing customers’ accounts, and has said in regulatory filings that the authorities are looking into improper fees it charged wealth management customers.

Friday’s deal is also unrelated to a continuing criminal investigation of former Wells Fargo executives’ individual roles in the sales practices scandal. On Jan. 23, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency fined former top executives millions of dollars each for overseeing the bank while it abused customers. A former Wells Fargo chief executive, John G. Stumpf, agreed to pay $17.5 million. Carrie L. Tolstedt, Wells Fargo’s former head of retail banking, is contesting a $25 million fine.

Ms. Tolstedt was described by title, but not by name, in the court papers filed by the Justice Department as part of Friday’s settlement. She appeared as “Executive A,” who the filings said was the “senior executive vice president in charge of the community bank” from 2007 to 2016, a position Ms. Tolstedt held during that time.

According to the papers, Executive A ignored concerns that other executives raised about cross-selling, lied to regulators and Wells Fargo’s board, and tightly controlled the bank’s public disclosures.

In 2015, the bank developed a new way to calculate the volume of accounts it was opening for customers, noting whether the accounts were used or simply sat dormant. But it never released the figures produced by this new method, “in part because of concerns raised by Executive A and others that its release would cause investors to ask questions about Wells Fargo’s historical sales practices.”

“Ms. Tolstedt acted appropriately and in good faith at all times, and the effort to scapegoat her is both unfair and unfounded,” her lawyer Enu Mainigi said in an email to The New York Times.

Friday’s $3 billion penalty, while large, is not record breaking. In 2015, a judge ordered BNP Paribas to pay nearly $9 billion for sanctions violations. Friday’s fine is not even the largest against Wells Fargo. In 2012, when the country’s five largest banks paid a total of $26 billion to state and federal authorities to settle investigations into their mortgage lending practices in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, Wells Fargo’s portion was $5.35 billion. Including Friday’s penalty, the bank has paid more than $18 billion in fines for misconduct since the financial crisis.

Senior Justice Department officials told journalists in a briefing on Friday that the bank’s payments to other authorities, including $1 billion in fines to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2018, were a mitigating factor in determining how much it would owe in the current settlement.

Wells Fargo’s profits last year totaled nearly $20 billion.

In early 2018, the Federal Reserve imposed growth restrictions on Wells Fargo that will be lifted only after the bank has shown its regulators that it has made significant changes to prevent bad behavior like the fake account scandal. Since taking over in October, Mr. Scharf has not offered any hints about when that goal might be accomplished.

#Wells Fargo #Fraud

[reichenbachses]

Top Ten Richest Lawyers In America

So, who are they?  Here is a quick look in the   richest lawyers in the entire world, ranked from the lowest net worth to the greatest. Please be aware that the individuals on this list are practicing lawyers or judges.  There are plenty of other "attorneys " using a substantially higher net worth, but they simply possess a law degree and no longer use it, go to https://gklaw.ca/.

Robert Shapiro: $50 million

Currently a senior partner at Glaser, Weil, Fink, Jacobs, Howard, Avchen, and Shapiro, LLP, Robert Shapiro graduated from Loyola Law School in 1968 and started a career as a criminal lawyer.  After serving on O.J. Simpson's legal team (and representing several other celebrities), he chose to move into civil litigation.  In addition to his law career, he has written a kids 's book and can be a co-founder of LegalZoom and Shoedazzle.com.

Jane Wanjiru Michuki: $60 million

Educated at the Kenya School of Law and Warwick University, Jane Wanjiru Michuki is a managing partner at Kimani & Michuki Advocate, a corporate law firm in Nairobi, Kenya that represents several of the biggest corporations in Kenya, for example Equity Group Holdings Limited.  In addition to her law career, she's the biggest female stockholder on the Nairobi Stock Exchange, which is where a good piece of her net worth stems from.

Bill Neukom: $850 million

Currently serving as the creator and CEO of the World Justice Project, which is dedicated to promoting the rule of law all over the planet, Bill Neukom is a corporate lawyer who is famous for his philanthropy.  After graduating from Stanford Law School in 1967, he worked at a small business until he had been asked to perform work for Microsoft, that had been in its beginning phases.  Finally he became Microsoft's legal counsel, a position he held for 25 years.  Previously, he had been an investor in the San Francisco Giants, more ideas to https://immigrationlegalcanada.com/.

Roy Black: $100 million

Still another criminal and civil defense attorney, Roy Black, a graduate of the University of Miami, is the senior partner at Black, Srebnick, Kornspan, & Stumpf.  For more than 40 decades, he's represented high profile customers, including William Kennedy Smith (acquitted on rape charges), Albertson's, Inc., and Helio Castroneves.   Known by most in the industry for having "the best national standing in Florida," he acts as a legal advisor on "The Now Show" and "Good Morning America" and teaches advanced criminal signs at the University of Miami.

Joe Jamail: $1.7 billion

Though he passed away at the age of 90 at December 2015, Joe Jamail makes this record because he was the wealthiest practicing attorney in the USA at the time of his death.  Frequently known as the "King of Torts," he represented Pennzoil in a 1985 lawsuit against rival Texaco. His contingency fee was $335 after the courts chose in Pennzoil's favor.  The 1953 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law was a former marine who had a longstanding reputation in the courtroom for being abrasive, rude, and vulgar.  But outside the court, he was famous for his generous philanthropy, click to https://canadianimmigrationexperts.ca/.

[talltalestogo]

THE RICH NEVER HAVE ENOUGH

By Chris Hedges

The rich never have enough. The more they get, the more they want. It is a disease. CEOs demand and receive pay that is 200 times what their workers earn. And even when corporate executives commit massive fraud, such as the billing of hundreds of thousands of Wells Fargo customers for accounts they never opened, they elude punishment and personally profit. Disgraced CEO John Stumpf left Wells Fargo with a pay package that averages nearly $15 million a year. Richard Fuld received nearly half a billion dollars from 1993 to 2007, a time in which he was bankrupting Lehman Brothers.

[bountyofbeads]

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/07/12/us/jeffery-epstein-witness-intimidation/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Famp.cnn.com%2Fcnn%2F2019%2F07%2F12%2Fus%2Fjeffery-epstein-witness-intimidation%2Findex.html%3F__twitter_impression%3Dtrue

.@KaraScannell and @brynnCNN⁩ report on alleged intimidation tactics Epstein’s accusers and witnesses told police they faced after Florida authorities opened their first investigation:

Jeffrey Epstein allegedly hired private investigators and engaged in a campaign of intimidation against accusers in Florida

By Kara Scannell and Brynn Gingras |

Updated 8:12 AM EDT, Fri July 12, 2019|

CNN | Posted July 12, 2019 |

(CNN)Not long after a 14-year-old girl reported Jeffery Epstein to authorities in 2005, she says she received a warning from someone who claimed to be in contact with the well-connected financier.

The girl would be paid cash if she agreed not to cooperate with law enforcement, the person told the accuser, adding that "those who help him will be compensated and those who hurt him will be dealt with," according to a Palm Beach, Florida, police report reflecting the accuser's statement.

The threat was one of many intimidation and bare-knuckle tactics that accusers and witnesses told police they faced after Florida authorities opened their first investigation into Epstein.

Epstein was charged Monday by the US Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York with sex trafficking of minors. He pleaded not guilty and faces as much as 45 years in prison if convicted. But the first investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against him began over a decade ago.

During that probe, at least three private investigators who police believed were working on Epstein's behalf tracked down accusers and possible witnesses to the alleged attacks, according to the police reports. They sat in black SUVs outside the homes of accusers, questioned their current and former boyfriends, and chased one parent's car off the road, according to police reports and a lawyer for three accusers. Epstein's current attorney Reid Weingarten denied in a court filing Thursday any knowledge of the alleged car chase and said if it happened, it was not authorized by Epstein.

"It was incredibly intimidating," Spencer Kuvin, an attorney for three accusers, told CNN. "You have to remember these girls were 14 and 15 (years old) when this was happening."

Prosecutors weighed filing charges of witness intimidation

The aggressive tactics didn't stop with witnesses or accusers, according to court filings, police reports, and attorneys, but also extended to the prosecutors.

Prosecutors with the US attorney's office for the Southern District of Florida, led by Alex Acosta at the time, considered charging Epstein with obstruction of justice or witness intimidation in 2008, according to court filings. Weingarten, in Thursday's filing, said it was a hypothetical idea prosecutors debated with Epstein's previous counsel and prosecutors "ultimately did not believe there was factual support for the allegations."

Acosta described a "year-long assault on the prosecution and prosecutors" in a 2011 letter that was cited in part in court filings and published in its entirety by the Daily Beast.

"I use the word assault intentionally, as the defense in this case was more aggressive than any which I, or the prosecutors in my office, had previously encountered," he wrote.

Epstein loaded his legal team with some of the biggest names in the defense bar. He hired Alan Dershowitz and Roy Black, the attorney who helped exonerate William Kennedy Smith in a rape trial, eventually switching to an all-star line-up including Jack Goldberger, Jay Lefkowitz and Ken Starr, the special prosecutor who investigated President Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

Epstein's multipronged response to the investigation included suing Bradley Edwards, a lawyer representing accusers, in 2009 alleging his representation of accusers was linked to a Ponzi scheme. According to the Miami Herald, this suit ended in a monetary settlement, and Epstein admitted that he had filed the lawsuit in an "unreasonable attempt to damage [Edwards'] business reputation. He also filed a complaint with the Florida bar association, which investigated and found no wrongdoing.

Acosta said in past court filings that not all of the accusers were willing to testify.

Kuvin, the attorney for three accusers, said of Acosta's office, "They folded under the pressure."

In the end, Acosta negotiated a controversial federal nonprosecution agreement for Epstein and four alleged co-conspirators. Epstein served time on two state charges of solicitation of prostitution. The alleged co-conspirators were not charged, and Epstein was not charged with obstruction or witness tampering.

Kuvin said one of his teenaged clients endured "a rigorous deposition where she was heavily cross-examined by Epstein's lawyers" and was prepared to testify at his trial.

Epstein's attorneys at the time alleged prosecutorial misconduct and overreaching and used their heft to appeal to the very top of the Justice Department in Washington, even after Epstein signed the nonprosecution agreement.

"He had this team of maybe six to eight lawyers all pressuring not only the state's attorney but the feds to drop all of this, saying that they were going to make these girls' lives miserable," recalled Kuvin.

The private investigators

The Florida investigation began in 2005 when the parent of one of the accusers, a 14-year-old girl later represented by Kuvin, reported Epstein to the local police.

A few months later, private investigators police believed were working with Epstein appeared. One private investigator contacted one of Epstein's former house managers looking to "meet with him to ascertain what he was going to tell the police," one police report said. Epstein's local attorney told authorities that "they" were under the direction of Black, the other attorney, according to the police report.

"Our firm, like most lawyers, engages private investigators who typically worked in law enforcement for many years, when appropriate to assist in gathering information in support of our clients' interests," Black, Srebnick, Kornspan & Stumpf said in a statement. "We have no knowledge of any improper conduct by any of the private investigators who assisted us."

The private investigator often made telephone contact with accusers either just before or after a police investigator spoke with them, according to the police report.

Several months later in February 2006, as the state grand jury was underway, Dershowitz provided the state prosecutor with information apparently intended to discredit the accusers. He provided postings from MySpace, the social media website, that appeared to show some of the accusers using drugs and alcohol, according to the police report and court documents.

"I had absolutely no role in investigating or arranging any investigation," Dershowitz wrote in an email to CNN. "I'm an appelate lawyer who did only legal research and negotiation. I don't own a computer and wouldn't even know how to access (MySpace)."

The next big question about Jeffrey Epstein

The father of one accuser later told authorities that a private investigator was "photographing his family and chasing visitors who come to the house," according to a police report. The police identified this investigator as the second one involved in the case and said the investigator was likely hired by a new attorney Epstein brought into the case. Black was no longer on the case at the time.

One week later, according to the police report, that accuser was approached by the person who claimed to be in touch with Epstein and given the warning about cooperating for compensation or facing consequences.

Kuvin, the lawyer, said Epstein's team also tried to obtain the medical records of his accusers.

By June 2006, the same month the state announced an indictment of Epstein on soliciting prostitution, one parent called the police multiple times alleging he was followed by someone; police later identified the vehicle as belonging to a third private investigator. It isn't clear which lawyer hired that investigator.

The father "stated that as he drove to and from work and running errands throughout the county, the same vehicle was behind him running other vehicles off the road in an attempt to not lose sight of (the father's) car," according to the police report.

The same car, which was linked to a private investigator, according to the report, later ran the mother of the same accuser off the road.

No charges for Epstein

By 2006, the FBI and the US attorney's office for the Southern District of Florida were investigating Epstein and had identified 36 potential accusers. In September 2007, Epstein's legal team had negotiated and signed a nonprosecution deal.

But his lawyers, led then by Leftkowitz and Starr, weren't satisfied and appealed to Acosta challenging the terms of the agreement. They alleged the prosecutors were overreaching by trying to make a federal case out of a state crime. They also said two of the prosecutors acted improperly when they recommended lawyers they knew to represent accusers, and a third with speaking with a reporter, according to more than half a dozen letters filed in court.

At one point, Florida prosecutors considered charging Epstein with obstruction or witness tampering for, among other things, allegedly having private investigators force the parent off of the road.

"There were discussions between prosecutors and the defendant's then-counsel about the possibility of the defendant pleading guilty to counts relating to 'obstruction,' as well as 'harassment,'" according to the letter filed Monday by the federal prosecutors in New York.

In a filing on Thursday in the New York matter, Epstein's legal team, now bolstered with Weingarten, said of the allegation that an investigator drove an accuser's parent off the road "the defense is without knowledge as to the basis for this allegation and the conduct, if it occurred, was not attributable to or authorized by Mr. Epstein."

No obstruction or witness tampering charges -- or any federal charges -- were brought by Acosta's prosecutors against Epstein. Epstein pleaded guilty to two state charges of solicitation of prostitution in 2008 and served 13 months in prison. During that time, he was allowed to leave for 12 hours a day, six days a week, to run his business.

#u.s. news #politics #politics and government #international news #us: news #must reads #legal issues #jeffrey epstein #sex trafficking #sex crimes #criminal justice

[mwgaybachelor]

THANK YOU ALL !!

First of all THANK YOU to everyone that agreed to submit a Sim for my little experiment.  And to those that offered to, I will maybe do this again, so save your sims!! 

Over the next few days and weeks, I will explain more about how my interactive story is going to work, (Or how I hope it is going to work)

Here are the list of characters and their creators (Besides Jake, Patrick and other fill in characters like cops, etc.)

1. Shaun Louden - @cillaben

2. Ken McKinney - @lizillasimming

3. James Barrett- @a-kind-red

4. Tushar Naveed- @crabbeychick

5. Bill Stumpf - @twistedsimblr

6. Jack Kennedy - @simserely

7. Paula Harris - @princessdejamars 

8. Lorne Goldbaum - (the dead friend) - @mwgaybachelorlivelaughlove 

I will be introducing the characters with their back story, starting next week, as I receive them.  I have some already and am working on their introductions.  So for those that are submitting your sims, please send them to me either via a PM with their tray files and CC, or post on the gallery with the hashtag #jakenash2, and contact me regarding their CC either by PM, or ask by Monday August 13th, please.

Also next week these posts will be from the actual Simblr the story will be posting from, over on my side blog 

LIVE LAUGH LOVE

The first official story post will be Saturday September 2.  I will have two  to three posts per day.  One post may be an opportunity for the community to interact into the game, which I will let you know before-hand that it is coming.

I am really excited about this, as I don’t think I have seen anything like this...if so share with me, as I may need some ideas!! LOL

And again, Thank you everyone that sent submissions or offered!!  This is really going to be fun (and a lot of work I am afraid on my part, but hey I have no real life, so it’s okay...)

#JNAODF #GettingReady #SomethingNew

[growingchrist]

Best Company Offering Home Loans Other Types of Refinance

Every person has a dream to buy a house and such dreams can only be possible with the help of a home loan. It is not easy to get a home loan. For getting a home loan, you should be qualified for getting it. Apart from that, there are two important things in a home loan that the banks or the lenders check. The first thing is your credit score, and the next thing is proof of a stable income. Most of the home loan applications that get rejected are because of the absence of these two important things. Therefore, it is very important to choose a good lender or a lending company that provides loans to all types of people.

 Choose a Good Company for Loan

 Some people belong from medium to low-income families who need urgent home loans. So, many lending companies offer loans to people who belong to such low or medium-income groups. Home loans in Metairie are also available. Apart from that, there is no requirement for a high credit score with these companies like Allianz. It’s just that there are a few criteria’s that you should fulfill. Like your application should be correct, you should have proof of stable income and your credit score should be at least 580. With some companies even if your credit score report is not that good, but you have proof of income, then also you qualify for a home loan.

 Qualifying for a Loan

 Such companies help laymen to fulfill their dreams of buying a home, also available home loan in Chalmette. If you are of legal age and citizen of US and have all other important documents like proof of address, utility bills copy, credit report (even if not that great), stable proof of income and ID proof, and have not been guilty of any crime or wrongdoing, then you can be eligible for a loan and can qualify for a home loan. So, you should always choose a good lender who can provide you with a home loan. Apart from that, Home loans in Northshore are also available.

 About Alliance Mortgage

 Here you can get all types of mortgage services, from lending to purchase, to refinance& construction lending, and much more. Here you can get the right kind of loan with the right term and interest rate that will not burn a hole in your pocket. There are many other services that they offer. To know more about them contact at – 

 Address: The Educator Building / Second Floor

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Terrytown, LA 70056

Phone (7 days a week)

[phone]

Alliance Mortgage 

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Email: [email protected]