By Douglas Anele

For example, over seventy percent of his SMC and the General Officers Commanding (GOCs) were northerners. Buharis military dictatorship was so blatantly pro-caliphate that, shortly after the coup, it kept Alhaji Shagari under house arrest at a federal government facility in Ikoyi whereas his deputy, Dr. Ekwueme was thrown into Kirikiri prison.

After less than two years in office Buhari was overthrown and Maj. Gen Ibrahim Babangida (who, like Yakubu Gowon and Murtala Mohammed, promoted himself to General) assumed power. Babangida tried to create the image of a detribalised leader who came to heal the wounds inflicted on Nigerians by Buharis draconian rule.

Nevertheless, he was squarely in the gravitational field of caliphate colonialism. In addition to what had been achieved by his northern predecessors and Obasanjo (a southern agent of the caliphate) in that direction, Babangida took several steps that strengthened the stranglehold on political power by the northern ruling cabal or what Prof. Ben Nwabueze called the invisible government within government. In 1986, he aggravated religious tensions between christians and muslims by attempting to register Nigeria as a bona fide member of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC).

Caliphate colonialists were jolted from their hubristic complacency in April 1990 when Major Gideon Orkar announced in a radio broadcast the end of caliphate domination of Nigeria by excising Bauchi, Borno, Kano, Katsina and Sokoto from the federation. Orkars coup was a misguided but understandable response to the lopsided federation which favoured the north to the detriment of the south, the economic oxygen of Nigeria.

Had the coup succeeded, it could have triggered another civil war whose outcome might be totally different from what happened in the Biafran war. Kingpins and theoreticians of caliphate colonialism learnt nothing from the Orkar coup, because they continued to insist on, and justify with specious arguments, the unjust system that has crippled Nigeria since 1966. One of them, Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule, in 1992 proclaimed, among other things, that Northerners are endowed by God with leadership qualities.

The Yoruba man knows how to earn a living and has diplomatic qualities. The Igbo is gifted in commerce, trade and technological innovation. God so created us individually for a purpose and with different gifts. Maitama Sules bizarre argument fits very well with the fatalistic interpretation of individual and communal destiny embodied in the Koran. Little wonder, then, that several members of the northern establishment oftentimes use koranic verses to justify domination of the highest political office by northern muslims and their agentsfrom the south who are willing to serve the interests of the caliphate.

Having survived the Orkar coup, the most far-reaching action by Gen. Babangida to demonstrate his allegiance to the northern military-civilian hegemonists while hiding under the smokescreen of a nationalist was the acrobatic transition programme that eventually ended in a very disappointing and distressing note. In his enthralling account of the annulment of the June 12 presidential election entitled The Tale of June 12, Prof. Omo Omoruyi, former director-general Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS), analysed in details measures taken by several prominent members of the domineering northern establishment to scuttle Babangidas half-hearted attempt to transfer power to a civilian government. The two presidential candidates in the election, despite being muslims, were unacceptable to the caliphate for different reasons. Chief M.K.O Abiola, flagbearer of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), was too rich, too connected and very popular nationwide to be anybodys stooge as President, whereas his opponent, Alhaji Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC)was an obscure businessman from Kano who had no influence on the inner sanctum of caliphate power base. Before the election proper, it was obvious that Abiola would defeat Tofa unless something extraordinary happens (for instance, government- engineered massive electoral fraud). Despite Abiolas contri butions to the growth of Islam in Nigeria, the Sultan of Sokoto at that time, Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki, Alhaji Aliyu Mohammed, and Gen. Sani Abacha did not want him to be President.

The anti-Abiola coalition also included non-muslims like Lt. Gen. Joshua NimyelDogonyaro and Brig-Gen. David Mark, an indication that agents of caliphate colonialism are not necessarily muslims.To be fair, at the initial stage Babangida was serious about the transition programme notwithstanding the false starts and unforced errors that hampered the process. When some highly-placed elements in the north realised this, they initiated the removal of Chief Olu Falae as Secretary to the Federal Military Government; a Fulani, Alhaji Aliyu Mohammed, was appointed in his stead. From March 1993, Ibrahim Dasuki and Aliyu Mohammed mobilised anti-democratic forces to truncate Babangidas transition programme without considering the efforts and financial resources expended on it already or the repercussions on the polity.

Gen. Babangida himself was afraid for his life:Abacha, Dogonyaro, Mark and other Babangida boys who seem implacably averse to Abiola becoming President might take extreme measures against him if he went ahead and allowed the results of the election to stand that is, if the National Electoral Commission (NEC) announced Abiola as the President-Elect. Moreover, Babangida did not want to offend his friend, Abacha who stood by him in trying times. According to Prof. Omoruyi, Babangida argued that Sani, you know, risked his life to get me into office in 1983 and 1985; if he says that he does not want Chief Abiola, I will not force Chief Abiola on him.

Babangida also quoted David Mark as saying Id shoot Chief Abiola the day NEC pronounces him the elected President. From all this, one can infer that, for the dominant section of caliphate hegemonists, no independent so utherner (independent in the sense of unwillingness to be a puppet to the caliphate) should become President to avoid reversing the British design for continuous northern domination of political power in Nigeria.

Clearly, the sudden emergence close to the June 12 electionof pro-military groups lobbying for the continuation of the military in office, such as the Association for a Better Nigeria and the Third Eye, was a carefully planned strategy Babangida and his cohorts to impugn the integrity of the election as an excuse to annul it.

That was exactly what happened. Gen. Babangida and his officials tried to justify the annulment with spurious reasons, including the ludicrous judgement Arthur Nzeribe obtained from an Abuja high court cancelling the election and debts the federal government owed to Abiola. But the truth is that prominent members of the northern power block did not want a southerner they cannot manipulate to become President, and since they thought that Abiola might be unmanageable it was better for the election to be cancelled. Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki and some Islamic leaders in the north pleaded with Chief Abiola to allow Allahs will to prevail; that if Allah wanted him to be the President of Nigeria, no mortal could stop him. Dasuki and the persuaders failed to realise that their argument can be used to justify anything, no matter how unjust, evil or atrocious it might be.

Gen. Babangida handed over to an Interim National Government (ING) headed by Chief Ernest Shonekan, after retiring the entire military high command, but for strategic reasons retained Gen. Abacha as minister of defence and chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. With Abacha still around, Shonekan lacked real power to govern. On November 17, 1993, the caliphate struck: Abacha forced Shonekan out of office and became head of state. Interestingly, some human rights activists, including Chief Gani Fawehinmi and Ken Saro-Wiwa, welcomed the move, based on Abachas promise that he would rule for a short period before restoring Abiolas inco nclusive mandate.

Of course, Abacha had other plans: it is really amusing that intelligent people like Fawehinmi and Saro-Wiwa even Abiola himself believed for one second that Abacha would keep his word, for there was no way the power-hungry bespectac led general who had earlier opposed Abiolas emergence as President would execute a palace coup and hand over to Abiola. It is therefore not surprising that when Chief Abiola, goaded on by some of his Yoruba kinsmen and overzealous pro-democracy groups, declared himself President at Epetedo in 1994, Abacha jailed him. Gen. Abacha was paranoid about power. He imprisoned anyone he thought might be a threat to his authority: he even deposed and jailed the sultan of Sokoto, Ibrahim Dasuki. In spite of that, Abacha was a hard core caliphate colonialist: he strengthened the lopsided political structure in favour of the north by creating more states and local government areas in the north than in the south.

It is distressing that military dictators and unapologetic agents of caliphate colonialism use prominent southerners, more disappointingly the Igbo, to do their dirty work. We have already noted that Justice Akinola Aguda was used to move the capital away from Lagos to Abuja. Karl Maier, in This House has Fallen, wryly noted the spectacle of two former Biafran wartime propagandists, Comrade Uche Chukwumerije and Walter Ofonagoro, plying their trade on behalf of the Babangida and Abacha dictatorshipsand the young pro-military campaigner, Daniel Kanus comical YEAA, for Youths Earnestly Ask for Abacha . To be continued.

Original post:
The anatomy of Caliphate colonialism (7) - Vanguard

Shortly after midnight last Friday, Ann Nolan, deputy head of the Department of Finance, and two officials working on AIBs flotation hailed a taxi from the Dawson Street base of stockbrokers Davy in Dublin to the home of Paschal Donohoe.

The Finance Minister of just one week had been on standby in Phibsborough all evening, as department officials, investment bankers from Deutsche Bank, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Davy, divvied out AIB shares to more than 230 international fund managers and 6,500 small investors who had sought access to Europes largest initial public offering (IPO) so far this year.

The Minister made us a cup of tea and we spent an hour with him, said Des Carville, head of the Department of Finances banking unit and official in charge of the flotation, who shared the taxi ride. He had plenty of questions and we walked him through where we were with the deal and the final list of investors.

Armed with Mr Donohoes approval and signature on various documents, the trio headed back to the deals nerve centre in Davy, to finalise paperwork, paving the way for AIB to return that morning to the main stock markets in Dublin and London after a 7-year absence.

It was after 2am before all assembled, including AIB chief executive Bernard Byrne and his chief financial officer Mark Bourke, who had flown in from London that evening, headed home. They wouldnt get much sleep.

Project Viking, two years in the planning, culminated at 7am that morning when the Government confirmed it had sold an initial 25 per cent stake in the most expensive surviving Irish bank to bail out during the crisis, raising 3 billion. As the shares rose by as much as 7.7 per cent in early trading in Dublin, the investment banks underwriting the deal exercised an option to buy a further 3.8 per cent stake from the State and placed it on the market, raising a further 400 million for the exchequer.

The bank that floated was a very different animal to the one that was seized by the State two days before Christmas in 2010 to avert its collapse under the weight of mounting bad debts.

To limit its taxpayer bailout to 20.8 billion between 2009 and 2011, AIB was forced to sell billions of euros of assets including its profitable Polish unit, Bank Zachodni WBK, and 24 per cent stake in US lender M&T Bank and inflict 5 billion of losses on holders of its riskiest, subordinated bonds.

As a ward of the State, the company slashed thousands of jobs and put as many as 2,000 staff into a loan-restructuring unit to work through and restructure a mountain of soured loans, which topped 29 billion in 2013, over a third of its entire loan book at the time.

The fruits of the efforts were apparent in early March, when the group reported its impaired loans had fallen to 9 billion, pre-tax profits came to 1.7 billion for 2016 and that it had sufficient capital in reserve to give regulators comfort for AIB to pay a 250 million dividend.

The market reaction to the full-year 2016 results were very important we assessed it very closely, said Mr Carville. The icing on the cake was getting the dividend. That was very material in terms of AIBs valuation and also [potential investors in] the bank. Suddenly the guys who really like to have income in their investments were very interested in this as well.

While the then minister for finance, Michael Noonan, stuck to a script that he saw two windows to float AIB this year in May/June or in the autumn officials working on the deal were emboldened enough by the London reception and general market conditions to start working towards a deal in early May.

British prime minister Theresa Mays move on April 18th to call a snap election on June 8th put paid to such plans. An announcement on a deal was notionally put back until the end of the month, meaning it would price towards the end of June, leaving investors plenty of time to digest the UK vote.

But no one had counted on a second UK surprise, when it became clear in the early hours of June 9th that Theresa May had failed to return an expected landslide victory and now found herself short of a parliamentary majority 10 days before crucial Brexit talks were due to start.

As markets absorbed the shock outcome, AIBs chief executive, Mark Bourke popped out of his office at the banks headquarters in Ballsbridge in Dublin at 8am to meet Des Carville in a nearby coffee shop. Matters were out of their control at this stage, so they decided to keep a watching a brief on European markets.

At mid-morning, bankers from Deutsche Bank, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Davy, who were leading the 3 billion share sale, as well as the Department of Finances independent advisers, Rothschild, gathered in Dublin for a pre-scheduled meeting on how the deal was going down.

While feedback from the nine firms working on the deal, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Goodbody, JP Morgan, UBS and Investec and whose analysts had carried out 1,500 meetings with potential investors in less than two weeks, was upbeat, the UK result had thrown a spanner in the works.

By the time the markets had closed on Monday, advisers on the deal felt that issuance of the price range and prospectus could actually be brought forward. Michael Noonan made the call that evening to proceed immediately, setting an initial price range for the shares being sold at between 3.90 and 4.90 each. It would be his last major decision as finance minister, capping six years in office.

At AIB Bankcentre in Ballsbridge, a team in a fourth-floor room in the investor relations department where a wall carried four clocks displaying times in Dublin, Los Angeles, New York and Hong Kong kicked into action, mobilising three teams to market the bank globally.

Robert Mulhall, head of AIBs Irish retail and commercial banking division, was already on the west coast of the US, having attended a Google executive conference in Silicon Valley that weekend, according to sources. Group director of finance and investor relations Myles OGrady flew out to meet him on the Tuesday and begin that leg of the roadshow.

In Dublin, Bernard Byrne, Mark Bourke and investor relations managers Niamh Hore and Rose ODonovan kicked off in Dublin meeting fund managers before heading to London, where they were joined by group chief operating officer Tomas OMidheach.

Meanwhile, group treasurer Donal Galvin, chief economist Oliver Mangan and Janet McConkey of investor relations flew to Singapore to begin the courting of Asian investors before returning to Europe, where they met up with Colin Hunt, head of wholesale and institutional banking.

Within 24 hours of the initial pricing range being set, the investment banks decided to prod potential investors by putting out a notification that they had received enough orders to cover all the shares being sold.

On June 21st, Paschal Donohoe signed off on a narrowing of the price range to between 4.30 and 4.50, and the following morning he allowed managers of the transaction to send out a warning an hour before the order books closed at noon that any bids below 4.40 risked being cut out of the deal.

With the price of the transaction set at 4.40, the three main firms managing the process assembled at Davy at 5pm on June 22nd with Department of Finance officials, including Scott Rankin, Joseph Cummins, Ronan Heavey, Gary Hynds and Elaine McNamara and AIBs Bernard Byrne to go through the allocation of shares to investors.

Some 6,500 small investors would receive 10 per cent of the shares on offer. About 30 per cent of the institutional investors who sought to get on board were refused any shares as they hadnt met analysts or management during the process.

Wed never heard of them. The majority of them, if not all of them, were just momentum traders, who would sell immediately if the stock went up, said Mr Carville. It would have been close to midnight before the allocations were completed.

US investors snapped up a quarter of the shares being sold, with UK-based institutions accounting for a third, with the remainder handed out to investors across Europe and the rest of the world.

The reception in continental Europe wasnt quite as good as elsewhere, said an investment banking source close to the deal. There still is a bit of scepticism in Europe about Irish banks and, indeed, the banking sector in general.

While non-performing loans have come down sharply across Irish banks over the past four years, as the economy rebounded from the crash and lenders restructured problem loans at pace, almost 16 per cent of loans across the sector remain impaired, according to Government figures. Thats three times the European average.

Still, AIB shares jumped 4.5 per cent on the opening of trade in Dublin at 8am last Friday, to 4.60, before rising as much as 7.7 per cent.

Im absolutely satisfied that the 4.40 price was right, said Des Carville, a former corporate financier with Davy, who was hired by the department in 2013 to head the management of the States stakes in bailed-out banks. We lost quite a number of investors at that price, as it was just too expensive for them. Thats the acid test. But, importantly, we also kept equally high-quality investors at that level. But once you went above 4.40, the quality fell off a cliff. Mr Carvilles first congratulatory text of the day came within minutes of trading getting under way, from Richie Boucher, the outgoing chief executive of Bank of Ireland, in which taxpayers continue to own a 14 per cent stake.

He was followed shortly by Jeremy Masding, chief executive of Permanent TSB, which is 75 per cent State owned.

After that, it was around to Doheny & Nesbitts on Baggot Street for 18 members of the departments banking team for a quick celebratory breakfast.

Mr Byrne sent a short video message by email to AIBs 10,400 staff less than half the banks workforce before the crash shortly after 7am.

This marks a really satisfactory conclusion to what has been a long, difficult and complicated process, he said. Everyone should be very proud of what this investment means.

Now we are in a position where the bank that weve been building, the bank that weve asked everyone to believe in is clearly one that investors believe they can invest in.

Before the IPO, AIB had repaid only 3.3 billion of capital pumped into the bank. However, the State had also recouped an additional 3.5 billion in cash from AIB, the most costly bank rescue behind Anglo Irish Bank, by way of interest payments on bailout bonds and guarantee fees.

Mr Donohoe told journalists last week that he was confident the State would recover all of the money injected into the bank, over time. Still, by Michael Noonans previous admission, it could take up to a decade before taxpayers are fully rid of AIB shares.

Meanwhile, Nolan, a key figure on the States bailout and restructuring of the banking sector during the crisis, signalled yesterday she plans to retire at the end of next month

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Inside Project Viking: Anatomy of deal to float AIB - Irish Times

The Seattle Sounders stole a dramatic road point against the Portland Timbers last Sunday in what was their arguably their best effort of the season. Down a man and a goal for the entire second half, substitute Clint Dempsey headed home an equalizer in the 94th minute to stun Providence Park.

The entire sequence, though Roman Torres pinpoint cross to Dempsey, Dempseys towering header and the unlikeliest of goals did not matriculate from nothing. What led to the Sounders game-tying tally was a seemingly inconspicuousdefensive play by Cristian Roldan on Dairon Asprilla.

Nearing the end of the 93rd minute, the Timbers cleared the ball from their own 18-yard-box and found Asprilla in open space on the left side of the pitch. Desperate for an equalizer, the Sounders had thrown almost everyone forward, which in turnleft Asprilla and Fanendo Adi in a 2-on-2 situation with Nouhou and a retreating Roldan.

Rather than sprinting back aimlessly, Roldan defended with purpose, coming in goalside on an angle behind Asprilla.

When Asprilla finally receivedthe ball, his options were limited because of Roldans positioning. Asprilla turnedand facedbackward, attempting to hold up the ball in search of a teammate. He never gets the chance to find one.

Hanging on Asprillas right shoulder, Roldan reached his left leg around Asprilla and poked the ball away. Roldan then quickly led the Sounders back in the ascendancy and left an off-balanced Asprilla on the Providence Park turf.

What Roldans stalwart defending did was not only unbalance Asprilla, but the entire Portland team that had just begun pushing forward to clear its own end in anticipation ofan attack. Roldan recognizedthis and pickedout Osvaldo Alonso wide open in the center of the park.

The Timbers were scrambling at this point, but they were not totally undone until Dempsey set up his own attempt on goal with a simple off-the-ball run that very few players would have had the wherewithal to make.

Alonso hadthe ball and was looking for Dempsey to his right, but he was being trailed by Diego Chara with Ben Zemanski blocking Alonsos passing lane.

Rather than stay put or check back to Alonso, Dempsey saw a pocket of space behind Zemanski and to Zemanskisright. Dempsey ran toward it and by doing so, pulledChara out of position and forcedZemanski to lean in that direction, opening a giant passing lane for Alonso to find the late run ofTorres.

Another reason why Dempsey was able to able to rise and meet Torres cross without much resistance was becausehis run into the box was unimpeded. When the ball swungwide to Torres, Chara shifted his attentionand left Dempsey free to roam.

This left the two Timbers center backs with very little time to communicate on whose responsibility it was to guard Dempsey. By the time they figured it out, Dempsey was jumping over Amobi Okugo and redirecting Torres cross past a helpless Jake Gleeson in goal.

Dempseys finish was a fantastic one and is another example of why hes on the brink of becoming the United States all-time leading goalscorer, but it would not have happened without his subtle off-the-ball movement and a little help from the Swiss army knife that is Cristian Roldan. Goals dont happen in a vacuum. Singular moments of brilliance are always preceded by several small but vital plays, and the Sounders proved that yet again on Sunday.

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Anatomy of a Goal: How Cristian Roldan's defense, Clint Dempsey's movement led to equalizer against Portland - SoundersFC.com

Left, Gabriella Boyds Very inadequately dressed I am making my way from a ground floor flat up the stairs to a higher floor 2015; and, right, Untitled (Woman with Black Line) by Jo Ann Callis. Composite: Courtesy: the artists and Folio Society/Freud's Interpreting Dreams/White Cube; Rose Gallery

The word surrealism was coined by the poet Apollinaire a century ago, and refers above all to an art of juxtaposition, the concatenation of shockingly disparate elements, shorn of context, with the slippery, succinct logic of a bad dream. Little wonder it was Merriam-Websters word of 2016, owing to above average online searches.

Early surrealists sought to plunder unconscious forces; inevitably, sex was the main energy supplier. What this meant in practice was a prevalence of womens bodies, appropriated and dismembered. Voiceless, limbless, headless, the surrealist woman reaches her apogee in Magrittes The Rape, in which a face is formed from a torso, with breasts for eyes and a pubic grin.

This isnt to say that female artists havent found surrealism a productive field to plough, as the dizzyingly beautiful Dreamers Awake makes clear. A sublime survey of more than 50 female artists, from Dorothea Tanning and Louise Bourgeois to Hannah Wilke and Tracey Emin, the exhibition riffs artfully around what it means to live inside rather than gaze upon a female form.

A body is disgusting as well as desirable, meat incarnate, an animated corpse. Its hateful to be reduced to flesh, but there may be compensatory pleasures in the butchers shop. In Rachel Kneebones extraordinary sculptures, human and floral forms entwine and interbreed, the cool austerity of porcelain at odds with the frenzy displayed. Its like peering into a primordial soup full of synchronised swimmers. Is that a side of beef, a stamen, a penis, a hydrangea, a human thigh?

Bodies undergo translations, and they also leak and shed. Hair is everywhere: a sleek blonde ponytail worn as a fetishistic tie; a cheery tuft of pubic hair abandoned on a garden chair. Like dreamers, surrealists love visual puns. Best is Helen Chadwicks witty I Thee Wed: a set of five tumescent vegetables sea cucumbers? cacti? cast in bronze, each bound at the root with a ginger fur cuff, a lascivious ring. Sarah Lucas is likewise killer at the lewd eye-gag. In The Kiss, one chair penetrates another, cartoonishly embellished with tits and cock made from neatly bent and glued Camel cigarettes, ready-made for the post-coital puff.

You can laugh at the absurdity of human figures and the ways we think about them, but that doesnt erase their capacity to horrify. One of the oldest works here is a bleak little photograph by Lee Miller. It shows a stomach-churning place-setting photographed in Paris in 1921: checked cloth, knife and fork, and a human breast on a plate, the bloody remnant of a mastectomy. As a model and muse for Man Ray, Miller had been subject to all the customary visual dismemberments of the surreal gaze; now she shows what slicing into flesh actually looks like.

Not everyone born as a woman wants to stay there. The trans photographer Claude Cahuns subversive self-portraits show her in multiple disguises, slipping the knot of gender, refusing to participate. Cahun died in 1954, but its not hard to see why she has resurfaced this year, appearing in Queer British Art at Tate Britain, a show at the National Portrait Gallery with Gillian Wearing and in a new biography, Exist Otherwise (Reaktion).

The US conceptual artist Hannah Wilke is likewise deft at finding ambiguities in even the crudest physical depictions. Her Five Androgynous and Vaginal Sculptures are much more subtle than the title suggests. Humble as Etruscan jars, they delight in the abstract possibilities of human anatomy.

Hybridisation was always a surrealist strategy, visible in some of the earliest as well as more contemporary exponents here. The one-time debutante Leonora Carrington deployed surrealism as a means of escape, a launch pad to a liberatory landscape populated by monsters and beasts. In 1980, the year before her suicide, Francesca Woodman took an eerie, beguiling photograph of her upraised arms in birch-bark gauntlets: an Angela Carter figure at loose in the New Hampshire woods, girl metamorphosing into tree.

The best surrealist work possesses this uncanny dream logic, the feeling of a revelation barely glimpsed in the dark. One of the more compelling dream manifestations here is Kelly Akashis Well(-)Hung. A rope dangles from the ceiling, hung at intervals with bronze casts of hands. Are they ascending or trapped, the macabre relics of some medieval punishment? A few clutch small clammy objects, like sea anemones or jellies.

This enigmatic tone continues in Gabriella Boyds lovely indefinite paintings, made to illustrate the Folio Society edition of Freuds Interpreting Dreams. Nothing quite makes sense; there is a delicious sense of anticipation, of luminosity. Grass grows beneath running water, a pair of legs are stippled with black dots. The caption explains that this depicts a girls dream of her brother, slathered in caviar. Deliciously mortal, the body is ground for dreaming still.

At White Cube Bermondsey, London, until 17 September. Details: 020-7930 5373.

See the rest here:
Dreamers Awake review a sublime anatomy of female surrealism - The Guardian

Dear Abby: I recently had to spend a night in the hospital following minor surgery. One of the female techs taking care of me leaned over me to straighten out the bedding and I could see everything when the top of her scrubs fell open. Im not sure if it was on purpose or by accident. I say this because after the first time, it happened several more times. I only looked the first time out of shock. The other times, I looked away. Other than saying, Hey, lady, I can see your boobies when you bend over, whats the polite way to say, Oops wardrobe malfunction?

Got an Eyeful in Illinois

Dear Got an Eyeful: Since, with luck, you wont have to make another visit to the hospital, I think your question may be moot. However, the discreet way to deal with something like that would be to mention what happened to the head nurse or supervisor and say that it made you uncomfortable.

Photo: EMPPhotography, Getty Images

A hospital patient experienced more than they wanted during a recent stay.

A hospital patient experienced more than they wanted during a recent stay.

Dear Abby: Hospital patient receives surprise anatomy lesson

Dear Abby: Im in my early 30s and recently met a very attractive woman my age. We are planning to get married. She wants us to be married as soon as possiblebecause she has been divorced for the last seven years. My problem is, shes extremely secretive about her past, especially the period between her divorce and our meeting. I have been open with her about my past, but when I ask about hers, she refuses to discuss it and says it has nothing to do with our relationship. I have a feeling there may be something nasty shes hiding. Im afraid Im heading into a trap, but my love for her makes it tough to consider breaking up. Am I being too demanding?

Concerned Guy in the South

Dear Concerned Guy: If your intuition is screaming that your girlfriends desire for a hasty marriage could spell trouble in the future, you should pay close attention to it. It is not too demanding to want to know what ones fiancee has been doing for the past seven years. Under no circumstances should you marry this woman without first talking to a lawyer, who I am sure will suggest doing a background check and/or drafting an ironclad prenuptial agreement.

Dear Abby: I recently attended a bridal shower for my nephews fiancee. My sister-in-law (the future mother-in-law of the bride) also attended the shower. She did not choose any gifts from the brides registry, but decided instead to give the bride lingerie, including thong underwear. Frankly, I was shocked. I didnt think it was appropriate for either the mother or the future mother-in-law to give such intimate gifts. Am I wrong?

Flummoxed in Florida

Dear Flummoxed: Shower guests are not restricted to items based solely upon the couples registry. They can give whatever gift they wish to the bride and groom. Your sister-in-law chose something she thought the bride and groom would enjoy. Please try to be less judgmental and hope she was right.

Link:
Dear Abby: Hospital patient receives surprise anatomy lesson ... - SFGate

noun anatomy -na-t-m

noun anatomy -na-t-m

1 : a science that has to do with the structure of living things

2 : the structural makeup especially of a person or animal the anatomy of the cat

noun anatomy -nat--m

1: a branch of morphology that deals with the structure of organismscompare physiology 1

2: a treatise on anatomic science or art

3: the art of separating the parts of an organism in order to ascertain their position, relations, structure, and function : dissection

4: structural makeup especially of an organism or any of its parts

Excerpt from:
Anatomy | Definition of Anatomy by Merriam-Webster

Dear Abby: I recently had to spend a night in the hospital following minor surgery. One of the female techs taking care of me leaned over me to straighten out the bedding and I could see "everything" when the top of her scrubs fell open.

I'm not sure if it was on purpose or by accident. I say this because after the first time, it happened several more times. I only looked the first time out of shock. The other times, I looked away.

Other than saying, "Hey, lady, I can see your boobies when you bend over," what's the polite way to say, "Oops wardrobe malfunction"? GOT AN EYEFUL IN ILLINOIS

Dear Got An Eyeful: Since, with luck, you won't have to make another visit to the hospital, I think your question may be moot. However, the discreet way to deal with something like that would be to mention what happened to the head nurse or supervisor and say that it made you uncomfortable.

Dear Abby: I'm in my early 30s and recently met a very attractive woman my age. We are planning to get married. She wants us to be married as soon as possible because she has been divorced for the last seven years.

My problem is, she's extremely secretive about her past, especially the period between her divorce and our meeting. I have been open with her about my past, but when I ask about hers, she refuses to discuss it and says it has nothing to do with our relationship.

I have a feeling there may be something nasty she's hiding. I'm afraid I'm heading into a trap, but my love for her makes it tough to consider breaking up. Am I being too demanding? CONCERNED GUY IN THE SOUTH

Dear Concerned Guy: If your intuition is screaming that your girlfriend's desire for a hasty marriage could spell trouble in the future, you should pay close attention to it. It is not "too demanding" to want to know what one's fiancee has been doing for the last seven years. Under no circumstances should you marry this woman without first talking to a lawyer, who I am sure will suggest doing a background check and/or drafting an ironclad prenuptial agreement.

Dear Abby: I recently attended a bridal shower for my nephew's fiancee. My sister-in-law (the future mother-in-law of the bride) also attended the shower. She did not choose any gifts from the bride's registry, but decided instead to give the bride lingerie, including thong underwear. Frankly, I was shocked. I didn't think it was appropriate for either the mother or the future mother-in-law to give such intimate gifts. Am I wrong? FLUMMOXED IN FLORIDA

Dear Flummoxed: Shower guests are not restricted to items based solely upon the couple's registry. They can give whatever gift they wish to the bride and groom. Your sister-in-law chose something she thought the bride and groom would enjoy. Please try to be less judgmental and hope she was right.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at http://www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

Original post:
Dear Abby: Hospital patient receives surprise anatomy lesson - Bloomington Pantagraph (blog)

Photo: Earl Gardner. All screenshots taken from MLSsoccer.com

Six secondsis all it takes to undo 90 minutes of good work.

A fraction of a second can undo six seconds.

Philadelphia Unions Andre Blake got it all right with his fantastic late save Saturday to secure Philadelphia Unions 1-0 win over D.C. United.

Here is video of the save with two alternate angles.

When a goalkeeper makes an amazing save, there was usually a defensive breakdown somewhere along the line that led to it.

Here, Gaddis and Bedoya have a miscommunication, allowing an uncontested cross. Jack Elliott is marking nobody. Medunjanin is upright and behind the play, taking himself out of the play. Thats four of the seven defenders here.

Sapong defends the late runner, tracking all the way back. Wijnaldum fights for position with the back man. Onyewu gets in the ready position between the ball and the target men.

Andre Blake leans to the near post, defending it from a surprise shot and getting in good position to smother a low/close cross before it reaches the target men.

With the cross in the air, there are now three defenders against three attackers.

This leaves two men free for the header against Blake.

Blake recognizes that the out-swinger is floating too far outside the box for him to get to and immediately starts to sink back to the goal line, keeping his eyes on the play in front of him and maintaining ready position as he retreats.

Blake does two very difficult things here.

At the time the shot is struck, Blakes heels are just about on the goal line. Most importantly for Blake, his weight is on his left foot and he is on his toes. He is anticipating a shot to his right, and by putting his weight on his left foot, he is ready to dive hard and fast to his right.

This is why it is so key for Blake to read the players rather than the ball. Blake was able to cut out half of the net by keying on the head movement. Heading an out-swinger to the far side of the net would have required a head whip that Blake never saw. Unlike the penalty save, which required a guess, Blake was not guessing on this shot. He read the player and was able to identify where the shot could go.

The alternate angle shows just how free the header was and just how out of position the Union defenders were. Its also a little easier to see Blake already leaning hard to his right. Thats as free as a header gets, and from about 7.5 yards out.

These saves are practically impossible. Lamar Neagle knows that if he puts the shot on frame with power, it is going in unless he strikes it directly into Blake. Even a foot or two away from where his body already is and theres no time to react.

Lamar Neagle does his job perfectly. He heads it on frame, with power, high and to the side of Blake. Easy goal.

Enter Superman.

Words cant describe just how insanely hard this save is. If this were the Olympics, Blake would get a 10 for degree of difficulty alone. Keepers just dont save power headers from that range. This save may have been Blakes best ever, and that is not hyperbole. It shows off the full range of Blakes tools: his height and length, his athletic ability, his instincts, his reaction speed, and his hand strength.

Blake prepared properly. He got to the right spot and got in the ready position leaning the correct direction. As the ball is struck, he uncoils and contorts his body and gets his hand way up above his head in about a quarter of a second.

Despite the ball going to his right, Blake reaches to it with his left because of his ready position. He was ready to dive right, which puts his left hand high, so he used momentum to get his hand there in time. He arches his body to get his feet on the line but his body in front of it. This means that the core of his body is providing almost no strength to his arm here. His hand finds the ball perfectly and he is strong enough to power it up over the bar from no more than a foot or two in front of it. This is Andre Blakesweak hand getting to the ball and staying strong enough to knock it almost straight up. Truly unbelievable.

Brick Wall Blake, indeed.

Read more from the original source:
The anatomy of an amazing save - The Philly Soccer Page

Rob Savidge just didn't think it would be much of a problem.

A project manager for the Anne Arundel County Department of Public Works, he gave the go-ahead to make repairs on storm drain inlets on Forest Drive at Bay Ridge Avenue in Annapolis starting at 8 a.m. April 4.

The result came as a surprise for Savidge, but perhaps even more for thousands of motorists stuck in gridlock memorable even in a part of the city known for traffic jams. On a bright sunny morning they found themselves stuck for more than an hour at the confluence of Hillsmere Drive, Bay Ridge Road, Bay Ridge Avenue and Forest Drive because someone didn't realize the impact of shutting down lanes in rush hour.

"That's the most frustrating part of all of this," said Savidge, now a candidate for City Council in the ward next to the intersection. "At the time, I was following the procedures that I was aware of.

"Just, unfortunately, a lot of things came together."

Documents released to The Capital under a series of Maryland Public Information Act requests show city and county officials searched for hours on the morning of April 4 to explain what seemed like an inexplicable traffic jam.

Now, Department of Public Works spokesman Matt Diehl said, they've come up with a solution to prevent a reoccurrence. Every construction project affecting county roads and supervised by the department must now be reviewed by the Traffic Engineering Division before work begins.

It's a follow-up to a promise made by county Public Works Director Christopher Phipps, who wrote shortly after the traffic jam that the backup "was the result of a failure to coordinate ...."

"Impacting traffic on a main road during the morning or afternoon commute for anything other than an emergency should not happen," he wrote in a letter to The Capital. "However, you have my commitment that steps are now in place to appropriately coordinate any such work along this corridor and avoid situations like this in the future."

Emails obtained by The Capital show that no one seemed to know exactly what was going on that morning.

City spokeswoman Rhonda Wardlaw emailed Mayor Mike Pantelides explaining that neither Diehl nor "anyone at the higher levels" at Public Works was told about the project before work began.

That left city officials struggling to explain what was happening as they heard from angry constituents unable to get to work on time. Those complaints went to many officials, including County Executive Steve Schuh.

During an interview on the morning of April 4, Wardlaw said city officials learned of the backup through social media.

In an email to Pantelides, Wardlaw later wrote that there was confusion between Savidge and the Annapolis Police Department as it was trying to deal with traffic backing up for more than 2 miles on the Annapolis Neck Peninsula.

Wardlaw wrote that Savidge was identified as the project manager and he told police the work "was an expedited project that needed to be done in the next few days," which police officials interpreted as an "emergency" project. The department posted that information on its social media pages, which prompted Diehl to issue a correction.

A few hours after the work was called off and the traffic jam cleared, Pantelides was still pressing his staff to find out who was in charge of the ill-timed project.

"Who was the project manager responsible for the horrible traffic this morning? Was it an emergency or just routine maintenance poorly scheduled?" Pantelides wrote in a 12:30 p.m. email to his staff. "The county executive assured me it will not happen again."

Pantelides is familiar with Savidge, a former city planner who has been critical of city laws designed to protect forested land and how they are administered.

Phipps wrote to Pantelides that he planned to "(r)eiterate to staff the criticality of understanding the impact of any traffic disruption along major roads during rush hours."

Savidge said he faced no disciplinary action because of the traffic jam.

And Wardlaw said the city is confident the county has properly addressed the issue.

"We're just grateful that there was a problem and they have fixed it and justified it," she said. "I'm not concerned about 'Will this situation happen again?' I don't know if it will."

"It was one person making a decision, not the county making the decision."

See the rest here:
Anatomy of a traffic jam: How storm drain repairs locked up Annapolis - CapitalGazette.com

In early May, on the day our Legislature adjourned, one of the newspapers summarized our Legislatures work on the Honolulu transit surcharge extension as Epic Fail on Rail. With the Federal Highway Administration poised to pull out its $1.5 billion commitment if no funding solution is firmed up, our legislators need to get their collective act together if they want to help the project get back on track.

How did we get to be in this spot? This week well retrace Senate Bill 1183 and its tortuous history through our legislative labyrinth.

SB 1183, like its companion House Bill 1442, was a six-page bill to extend permanently the current rail surcharge on general excise tax. The bill also proposed to give an unspecified percentage of the surcharge proceeds to the state Department of Transportation. The other counties were given the option to adopt their own GET surcharge beginning in 2018.

The first committees to work on the bill, the Senate committees on Transportation and Energy and Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs, came up with a 78-page monster containing two parts, one that would extend the surcharge permanently and another that would extend it to the year 2032. (Yes, these conflict with each other.)

Other sections of the bill would establish a tax credit for low-income taxpayers, raise the base GET rate to 4.5 percent for everyone (the surcharge would be on top of that) and contained a pages-long laundry list of mandates to the city. At the time, the Senate transportation chair explained that she wanted to keep all options open.

The Senate Ways and Means Committee took a very different tack. Its 10-page version basically said, Well take away the states 10 percent skim off the surcharge, but no extension; youre on your own. That draft unanimously passed the full Senate and went over to the House.

There, the House Transportation Committee kept the bill alive by putting blanks in it its draft extended the tax to an unspecified date, reinstated the skim but replaced the percentage with a blank percent to recover the states costs and a blank percent that would go the DOT for state highway projects.

The House Finance Committee then filled in the blanks, extending the tax for two years, and dropping the skim to 1 percent, none of which would be earmarked for the DOT.

This version went to the Conference Committee, and then surprising things started happening. First, the Senate proposed a new draft, radically different from the version that passed the Senate, which extended the surcharge for 10 years and raised the skim to 20 percent. The House came back with a draft that left the GET surcharge untouched, dropped the skim to 1 percent, and raised the hotel room tax from 9.25 percent to a hefty 12 percent.

The latter proposal, though innovative, caught the hotel industry unaware, prompting vigorous objections. Then-Senate money chair Jill Tokuda agreed to that version with tweaks a few hours later, thereby making the Final Decking deadline.

After frantic meetings through the weekend, the money chairs, apparently with some members of the hotel industry, reached a compromise involving a shorter GET extension and a lower TAT hike. Amendments were introduced on the chamber floors to implement the agreement, although another version with only a GET extension and no TAT increase, which Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell supported, was circulating in the Senate. The House passed one version and jettisoned its speaker, while the Senate adopted the other version and deposed Tokuda as chair. With no agreement between the chambers, neither version can be enacted. That is where we are now.

We now seem to have a bunch of rudderless ships in the harbor banging into each other. Could the governor have brought both sides together? Was Senate President Ronald Kouchi capable of herding the 25 senators? And how about former Speaker Joe Souki, new Speaker Scott Saiki or House money chair Sylvia Luke? To what or whom should we be looking for leadership to get us out of this mess?

* Tom Yamachika is president of the Tax Foundation of Hawaii.

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Anatomy of epic fail on rail offered - Maui News