Jon Timowski has been described as a social media "troll."

In internet slang, a troll is a person who stirs the pot by purposely starting arguments, angering social media users, or posting inflammatory comments solely to provoke an emotional reaction from others.

"How do I respond to being called a troll? I really don't," said Timowski, 40, of Lowell. "It is and has been very typical, and telling, for the left to lash out to name calling."

Though he disregards such disparaging labels from his critics, Timowski views our polarized country as left versus right, liberals versus conservatives, Democrats versus Republicans. In his personal world, "snowflakes" have nothing to do with winter storms and everything to do with political storms.

In internet slang, the word snowflake is used by conservatives or Republicans to mock liberals or describe Democrats who feel they're unique when they're anything but unique. Another insulting connotation refers to snowflakes easily melting when confronted by opposing views. It's an overused insult, I say, even pass at this point.

Like most social media users, Timowski is convinced about his political and ideological convictions, which have become heightened since President Trump has been on the scene. Timowksi also is prolific with his hundreds of unrelenting comments on many people's Facebook pages, including on my public page.

For several months, Timowski has been commenting on my social media posts regarding political topics, typically with a bluster that rankles other readers. Only once did I have to tell Timowski to ease back with his name-calling or I'd have to ask him to avoid commenting on my posts. (I've told this to quite a few readers through the years.)

Timowski understood, which is more than I can say about a few other online readers.

Though Timowski and I disagree on most everything political, or so it seems, I enjoy reading his comments and sharing his impassioned voice with my online readers. I think it offers an attempt at a balance between clashing viewpoints, especially with my own viewpoints.

"My purpose for comments, especially to (readers) on the left, at first was to educate them why the right, or conservatives, look at them the way they do," Timowski told me. "It was to point out the flaws in thought and, more importantly, actions that were waking the sleeping and forgotten conservatives."

A Hammond native, Timowski is married with a son. He works in the field of safety and security with disaster planning, which restricts him from sharing his photo for this column, he said. He's been using social media since the days of MySpace which, in the fast-paced evolution of social media, certainly dates him.

On one of his recent Facebook posts on his own page, Timowski wrote, "I love how many people are against the government except on the 1st of the month."

Would you describe his post as inflammatory or informational? Purposeful or confrontational? Is it the work of a social media troll or a "conversation starter," as I've been called by some readers?

"I believe social media can be a way to debate and discuss everything under the sun," Timowski told me. "Unfortunately, it often brings out the worst in people."

This is the absolute truth, as any user has found out. This also is why I wanted to profile Timowski and others like him who have been labeled as a troll by others. I'm guessing that Timowski is not the person you may first think they are, according to his posts and comments. The same can be said for many other social media users, I believe.

It's become too easy to judge others based on only one thin slice of their life. In this case, their social media rhetoric or comments, which can be redundant to the point of exhaustion or aggravation.

For instance, I had Timowski pegged as a lifelong conservative, voting Republican in every election regardless of race or candidate. I was wrong.

"I have been a lifelong Democrat, only voting for two Republicans in a local election in my lifetime," said Timowski, who said he voted for Trump in November. "Every other race locally, state and federal have been for Democrats. I guess that means I don't affiliate, but I have leaned left throughout my lifetime thus far."

So why the change in political parties and viewpoints?

"As a lifelong Democrat, I was awakened at what area officials had let happen to my home city and others around it while the conservative areas prospered and made better financial decisions," he replied.

In the past, Timowski was, "active on liberal-leaning webpages, trying to shed light that the country was growing tired of poor behavior, violence, laziness and entitlement," he said. "I truly wanted to help the left that I had voted for my whole life to get away from these things."

"The constant corruption and indictments did not help," he added. "I began to see through, what I was told my whole life, that the rich and business leaders were the devil. After learning to let go of hatred for others' success, I decided I wanted the best business decision-makers running my tax dollars."

"While I disagree with conservative ideology on many subjects, I realize government is in fact a business and my personal life choices are to be done on a personal level away from government," Timowski said.

He also cites the "violence and ignorance" that America has witnessed this past year through so many protests and demonstrations.

"While the right, and namely Trump supporters, have shown ignorance and even some isolated cases of violence, the left has far outreached these cases with the masses," he said. "It's like much of the same results we see with Democratic stronghold areas when it comes to violent crimes. Much like my childhood city (Hammond) and northern Lake County."

Timowski and I agree on one thing.

"We all have a trillion thoughts, and speak a trillion words, but we will be judged on only a few opinions if people don't bother to learn about each other," he said.

jdavich@post-trib.com

Twitter@jdavich

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Anatomy of a social media 'troll' - Chicago Tribune

The Chiostro Del Bramante, a cloister-turned-gallery in the heart of Rome, is currently presenting Jean-Michel Basquiat: New York City a generous selection of work spanning the short, but immensely prolific, career of this extraordinary artist. The extensive exhibition includes nearly one hundred significant works on loan from the Mugrabi Collection, which includes acrylics and oils, as well as drawings, silkscreen prints, and ceramics completed between the years of 1981 and 1987.

Born in Brooklyn, New York to a Haitian father and Puerto Rican mother, Basquiats stunning and breathtakingly rapid ascent to fame and stardom was paralleled by few, if any, other artists in the twentieth century. At Sothebys recently, Basquiats painting of a skull, Untitled (1982) sold for $110.5 million a record price for an American painter, placing him in the art history pantheon alongside Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon. We can be pleased that Yusaku Maezawa, the Japanese billionaire who bought the painting, intends to share his taste for art with the public. However, if we are to truly approach these works at all, it is necessary to get beyond the din of the market the screeching vultures as the late John Berger puts it and give our attention to the sophistication and wit of this painter, the sincerity and exuberance of his canvases.

Untitled, 1982 (Source: Sothebys New York via artnet News)

From the first early portraits in the exhibit, we see Basquiats confident and energetic line, which he used to tremendous expressive effect throughout his career. We also find Basquiats characteristic use of haloes; and most recognizably, the three-pronged gold crown, which he would use to establish the dignity and worth of something or someone, or simply as an assertion of the artists power.

The crown features prominently in Loin (1982), a painting of a horned bull alongside a bloody knife. On the one hand, we seem to have a sacrificial offering: loin as in a cut of beef, a tenderloin. On the other hand, a symbol of sacred strength and power (the bull was in fact one of Zeus divine manifestations, a form he took when he seduced and abducted Europa). In this case, the loin is the creative, generative potency of the artist himself, in what amounts to a kind of self-portrait. Similarly, Pablo Picasso, who influenced Basquiat greatly, depicted himself as a quadruped in his etching Minotauromachy (1935) and included an image of a bull in Guernica (1937), a painting which Basquiat credited as being among one of his all-time favorites.

Loin, 1982(Source: David Bird / Pinterest)

There is no escaping violence in Basquiat, and while it is sometimes presented upfront with the intention to arrest and confront the viewer there is often an indeterminate sense of menace. In Side View of an Oxens Jaw (1982) Basquiat may be invoking the story of Samson a Biblical figure who slew the masses of Philistines armed with only the jawbone of an ass. Basquiat would explicitly revisit Samson in one of his most successful paintings, Obnoxious Liberals (1982) identifying himself with the black hero/martyr that reappears in so much of his work.

Hand Anatomy (1982) brings our attention to one of the fundamental themes of the show and Basquiats work throughout his career. Basquiats knowledge of art history was apparently encyclopedic: he painted in dialogue with many of the masters who preceded him and his works are full of such references. Leonardo da Vinci looms large in this sense, not only as a painter (Basquiat seems to have regarded Da Vinci as among his favorite artists), but as a student of human anatomy and physiology. Da Vinci is known to have secretly dissected human cadavers (a practice widely condemned at the time) to understand more fully the inner workings and processes of the human body. Basquiat may have been attracted to this readiness to go underground, as it were; and like da Vinci, he had to escape and outmaneuver the conventions of ordinary social morality to bring to light something that we are almost afraid to see; something that by its very nature interrogates our tendency to conform to established modes of understanding and discourse.

The exhibition includes several works that Basquiat and Andy Warhol painted together. The two had a highly-publicized friendship which led to an exhibition of their collaborative works at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in Soho in 1985. Warhol and Basquiat: Paintings was panned by the critics, a reception which contributed to the dissolution of their personal and professional relationship. In Thin Lips (c. 1984-1985) (which is to say, false promises) the two artists satirize Reaganomics. Basquiats work was political throughout, and sometimes his works are most-effectively political when the content is not explicitly so.

Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat (Source: WideWalls)

At his best, Basquiat can be viewed as an American shaman: an artist who brought meaning to a fragmented society by acting as a conduit to another realm of consciousness. In his appropriation of so-called primitive art and renaissance iconography especially the halo (which sometimes becomes a crown of thorns) he created a unique vocabulary that he developed as a way of exploring a broken world. Much like the writer William Burroughs, who was a profound influence on the painter, Basquiat is charting a kind of guide to the underworld employing Ancient Egyptian glyphs and petroglyphs, as well as hobo signs, in his mapping of the in-visible.

Basquiats art is inseparable from language that is, from the power and sometimes the impotency of names, lists and phrases: and even among his earliest pieces we find him charting words and letters in semi-incantatory ways. He saw the disintegration and brutality of everyday life in America: for Basquiat, the world is in tatters, and because of this, his work tends to lack a center as well as a privileged point of reference. If we could talk about the metaphysics of Basquiats world, then it was one of violent explosiveness he taps into the dehiscence of being to create something altogether unsettling, evocative, and distinct.

Basquiat does not abandon, but transforms, the project of high modernism inasmuch as his paintings are indeed an autobiographical search for wholeness. There is, we might say, a therapeutic intention underlying his work: he seemed to want (at least at times) to heal the self to repel ghosts (as one of his late works states).

Some of the later paintings seem to suggest that he saw the end was near: for example, the extraordinary painting Riding with Death (1988), or the final piece included in this show Gravestone (1987), a work which consists of three doors joined together and the word perishable partially blotted out at the top center. This was, on the one hand, a tribute to Andy Warhol (who died that year), and it evokes the painted panel altars of medieval and renaissance art. Like so much of his work, it represents Basquiats pattern of salvaging and resurrecting the rejected and discarded. But one must wonder if this piece could also be seen as a requiem for the artist himself, as he was coming to terms with his own self-destruction (he died in 1988 from a heroin overdose).

Gravestone, 1987 (Source:Cie Cefeg / Pinterest)

Much of this exhibition concerns, we might say, the anatomy of suffering, and at the same time the strength, resilience and protest that comes from the stripping down, the peeling away of the outer layers to reveal the blood vessels, the muscles and tendons, and the skeleton itself. In Rusting Red Car in Kuau (1984) with its engine (that is, its anatomy) visible, we are witness to another form of Basquiats self-portraiture.

Basquiats work remains immensely provocative, often disconcerting, barbed and defiant scathing in his critique of the racism, greed and moral apathy of American society. He takes a wrecking ball not only to false barriers between conceptualism and expressionism, painting and writing, improvisation, and composition; but to the various social, political, and artistic edifices we have built atop lies. As Berger observed, if Basquiat is an artist whose work is about seeing through lies, then we cannot deny his timeliness and the claim his work ultimately makes on us.

Sam Ben-Meir, PhD is an adjunct professor at Mercy College. His current research focuses on environmental ethics and animal studies.[emailprotected] Web: http://www.alonben-meir.com

Featured image: basquiat.com

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Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Anatomy of Suffering - Center for Research on Globalization

Get ready to see some new faces in Seattle! The planned "Grey's Anatomy" spinoff revolving around firefighters is going to feature all-new characters.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, none of the current regulars on "Grey's Anatomy" are likely to move over to the spinoff. Fans had speculated that Jason George, who plays resident Ben Warren, might star in the spinoff, since he worked closely with firefighters in the season finale. But it seems Shonda Rhimes is opting to focus on new faces.

While the news of the spinoff came as a surprise during ABC's upfronts presentation to advertisers, it's been in the works for some time.

"he discussions have been going on for a while earlier than this season. It was up to Shonda to tell us when she had inspiration for something that made sense, which was pretty recent," ABC Studios president Patrick Moran told THR.

"We talked about the elements of 'Grey's Anatomy' that seem to resonate with the audience emotional storytelling, deep human connection, a high-stakes environment and strong and empowered women and those elements will carry over to the spinoff."

The firefighters project is the second spinoff of "Grey's Anatomy," after "Private Practice." And Rhimes has had other spinoff ideas, like one about Owen Hunt (Kevin McKidd) and his history in the military.

Excerpt from:
'Grey's Anatomy' Firefighters Spinoff Probably Won't Feature Original Cast Members - Moviefone

Sports Medicine Tips to Keep You in the Game Sports Check Up is a podcast with former New England Patriots Tight End and two-time Super Bowl Champion, Christian Fauria, and one of Bostons premier sports medicine doctors, and orthopedic surgeon to the pros, Dr. Thomas Gill of Steward Health Care...

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Bradfo Sho, Ep. 34: Anatomy of clubhouse confrontations - WEEI.com

What the hell just happened? The Guardians Richard Adams attempts to make sense of the shock UK election outcome.

The UK election result is the biggest upset of conventional wisdom since, well, last November. After Trump, the Brexit referendum, Leicester City winning the premier league and the 2015 UK general election result youd think wed be getting used to this. But no.

The Conservative partys decision to call a snap election has backfired: rather than winning the comfortable-to-huge majority predicted, the Tories have instead gone backwards. The party has held enough seats to govern in coalition with Northern Irelands Democratic Unionist party but it was a miserable effort in almost every other respect.

Nervous and ill-advised, Theresa May achieved the unthinkable: winning more than 42% of the popular vote but losing a swathe of seats in England. (In 2005 Tony Blair won 35% of the vote but a solid majority of MPs.) Labour under Jeremy Corbyn got around 40% and gained more than 30 seats. The Tories piled up wasted votes in safe seats and failed to go beyond their comfort zone to win votes in London and the east of England. And that in a nutshell is why May lost as she did.

Why did the Tories do so badly in its England heartland? Brexit the referendum to leave the European Union hung over this election like an embarrassing smell. The UK Independent Party (UKIP) collapsed as predicted, having won the EU exit it sought, but its voters didnt obediently file back to the Tories as the pundits expected. Enough perhaps 40% returned to Labour to make a difference.

And then there was the 18-30 youth vote. Largely pro-Labour but with a poor record of actually voting, this time the youth turned out in higher proportions, with the exact amount as yet unconfirmed. This is a major reason why so many polls got it so wrong: they assumed that voting behaviour wouldnt change much. But young people appeared more exercised by Brexit and Labours policies including the scrapping of student tuition fees that currently stand at 9000 a year.

The pollsters performance brings to mind the football pundit Alan Hansen, who once rubbished Manchester Uniteds chances of winning the English league: You cant win anything with kids. One of those kids was David Beckham, and we know what happened next.

But Labour under Jeremy Corbyn also did better than expected with older voters, thanks in part to returning UKIP voters and perhaps as a result of Theresa Mays overconfident campaign that offered its key base of supporters a dementia tax and downgraded pension protection.

The Conservative campaign overall was nightmarish, revolving around Mays strong and stable leadership backed by lurid excesses by the Daily Mail, Telegraph and Sun. As tactics go thats fine but May herself couldnt carry its weight. She refused to debate with Corbyn, was generally lacklustre and failed to offer any detail about how the Tories planned to negotiate Brexit. The single biggest political issue on the table and May ignored it to concentrate on domestic policies. This played into Labours hands, disastrously, by moving debate to Labours strengths: spending on health, education and social services.

Then the campaign was twice derailed by two terrorist attacks. The attack in Manchester came just as almost every newspaper was printing front pages deriding Mays dementia tax U-turn. They all changed overnight to describe the Manchester carnage.

But the later London Bridge attack may have eroded Mays image of competence. As Home Secretary for five years she had been responsible for policing and domestic security. After London a string of complaints appeared about how the attackers had been allowed to enter and remain in the UK, along with steep cuts in police numbers that also happened on Mays watch.

Although election campaigns rarely have a major effect on final results, the closeness of the UK result suggests too many voters were unimpressed by May and her team. Perhaps convinced by those polls predicting huge Conservative majorities, the Tory strategists played it safe. No hostages to fortune on Brexit, giving themselves plenty of room of taxes, and a readoption of some ancient Tory policies like bringing back fox hunting and grammar schools, when the result indicates that UKIP and potential Labour voters dont give a damn about either.

The other caveat about election campaigns is that they do help the profile of under-exposed leaders. In that sense the snap election was a relief for Jeremy Corbyn: it halted Labours infighting and allowed him to approach the public directly. He was helped, it seems, by the growth of left-wing activism on the web a Buzzfeed survey of Facebook found that aggressively pro-Corbyn and Labour news was shared far more widely than similar efforts for the Conservatives.

By avoiding Brexit discussion during the campaign, May gave Corbyn an opening that he rushed to fill with populist policies. The Conservatives offered nothing in response apart from slogans about stability and Brexit meaning Brexit. In her one major speech May even claimed that Brexit required a return to grammar schools (that is, schools reserved for the most able children as selected by an exam sat by 11-year-olds). It was, incredibly, perhaps her most concrete policy statement of the election.

Outside of England and Wales where Labour continued to dominate despite the nations huge pro-Brexit vote the Conservatives did much better. In Scotland the independence issue rivalled Brexit as a vote driver. In 2015 the pro-independence vote flocked to the SNP. This time it seems that the pro-Unionist vote coaleased in response around the Tories, hence their success. The SNPs meltdown will be one of the elections major political aftermaths.

But what happens next? Conventional wisdom would go like this: the Tories form a coalition with the DUP of Northern Ireland; May eventually steps down as PM to be replaced by Boris Johnson; the Tories present a populist Budget with tax cuts and NHS funding galore which gets voted down, followed by another snap election in, lets see, November? February?

But who knows? New Zealanders will recognise that governments can be sustained with slim majorities. The UK did just have five years of coalition government so its not so unlikely. Well all be finding out a lot more about the DUP, its policies and the foibles of Belfast and Ulster politics. Foxes are probably safe for the time being.

Meanwhile the clock ticks towards Brexit whatever Brexit means now.

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Anatomy of a clusterfuck: How 'strong and stable' Theresa May messed up so entirely - The Spinoff

By the time you read this, this will be old news and the nation will most likely have already moved on to the next outrageous thing. However, as Im writing this, Kathy Griffin is making headlines. Who is Kathy Griffin (and why should you care)? Shes a 56-year-old comedian and self-identified D-list celebrity known for being abrasive, brash, crude and sarcastic. Most recently she made the national news when she posed for a photo, holding up the fake, but realistic, bloody decapitated head of President Donald Trump. Immediately, she experienced widespread backlash, and even lost a number of jobs, including a longstanding gig on CNN as their New Years Eve in Times Square co-host. Within hours, and with two lawyers at her side, she gave a tearful press conference apologizing for her artistic statement, as she called it. Although no one but God really knows a persons heart, its not a stretch to say her apology may not have been heartfelt. She quickly went from, I went too far...I sincerely apologize, to, It is Trump who should apologize...for being the most woman-hating and tyrannical president in history, among other accusations. In other words: Im sorry, but.... Whenever someone says, Im sorry, but... you can bet that theyre not sorry. They may be sorry they got caught and sorry their actions caused them to suffer consequences, but the but is the real message. Im sorry, but you deserved it. Im sorry, but you made me do it. Im sorry, but youve done worse. Im sorry, but Id do it again. Im sorry, but youll be even more sorry when Im done with you. Chan-ces are youve heard that from someone -- or thought it about or said it to someone else. Im sorry, but.... In the book, The Five Languages of Apology, authors Gary Chapman and Jennifer Thomas describe five languages or ways people deliver and/or accept apologies: expressing regret (Im sorry), accepting responsibility (I was wrong), making restitution (What can I do to make it right?), genuinely repenting (Ill try not to do that again) and asking for forgiveness. Chapman and Thomas write that not every person who has been wronged needs to hear all five from the person who has hurt them, but that can be true. It depends on the nature of the wrong, the damage it has caused and the individual emotional needs to the wronged person. As an aside, the book includes a quiz to determine your language. Mine came out equally as expressing regret and accepting responsibility. So, if you wrong me in the future, I need you to own what you did and express true regret. A gift card to Ulta or Panera is also acceptable. The authors said the one universal aspect of an apology is that it cant contain a but. A person needs to take full responsibility, blame only him- or herself. In a perfect world, there would be no need for apologies, Chapman and Thomas write. But because the world is imperfect, we cannot survive without them...Something within us cries out for reconciliation when wrongdoing has fractured a relationship. The desire for reconciliation is often more potent than the desire for justice, and the more intimate the relationship, the deeper the desire for reconciliation. They go on to write, The need for apologies permeates all human relationships, and that without apologies, anger builds.... In the 1970 movie Love Story, after Oliver tells Jenny, Im sorry, Jenny replies, Love means never having to say youre sorry. However, thats not only impossible for flawed humans, but its also not true. In fact, the opposite is true: Real love is humble enough to admit ones wrongs. Real love apologizes -- without a but -- and real love offers forgiveness in return. Jesus told his followers: If you are about to place your gift on the altar and remember that someone is angry with you, leave your gift there....Make peace with that person, then come back and offer your gift to God (Matthew 5:23-24). Is there someone you need to apologize to? Ill pray for you, that God will give you the courage and the grace, the right timing and the best words to do it. Even though doing the right thing is often difficult, its always good for the soul -- no if, ands or buts about it.

Nancy Kennedy is the author of Move Over, Victoria - I Know the Real Secret, Girl on a Swing, and her latest book, Lipstick Grace. She can be reached at352-564-2927 or via email atnkennedy@chronicleonline.com.

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Anatomy of an apology - The Trimble Banner

In the first 10 months of the outgoing financial year (FY 2017), a $19.93 billion trade deficit was registered on account of exports worth $17.91 billion and imports that amount to $37.84 billion. Trade deficit during the same period of the preceding financial year was $14.61 billion, with exports worth $18.14 billion and imports amounting to $32.75 billion. As a result, during FY 2017 (July 2016 till April 2017), trade deficit has increased by 36.41 percent compared with the previous year.

Trade deficit, along with fiscal deficit, has been a perennial feature of Pakistans economy as in the case of most other net petroleum-importing developing countries. The reasons for this stem from both economic and cultural factors. These economies need to import a great deal of capital equipment and industrial raw materials to maintain or accelerate the growth momentum.

Culturally, the people living in such societies are strongly inclined towards imitating a lifestyle that is prevalent in rich countries even though they lack the corresponding productive capacity which encourages the import of luxury goods. On the other hand, owing to severe supply-side constraints, coupled with a relatively large population, exports cant keep pace with imports.

It may be useful to compare Pakistans foreign trade performance with that of two other countries in the region over last three years. In FY 2014, Pakistans trade deficit was $16.59 billion (exports amounting to $25.07 billion and imports worth $41.66 billion), which went up to $17.20 billion in FY 2015 (exports worth $24.08 billion exports and imports amounting to $41.28 billion). The deficit further increased to $18.48 billion in FY 2016. The exports worth $21.97 billion while imports stood at $40.45 billion.

India registered a trade deficit worth $141.82 billion in 2014, with export amounting to $317.54 billion and imports worth $459.36 billion. The deficit came down to $126.36 billion ($264.38 billion for exports and $390.74 billion for imports) in 2015 and fell further to $96.37 billion in 2016 (exports worth $260.32 billion and imports amounting to $356.70 billion). Likewise, in the case of Sri Lanka, trade deficit stood at $7.94 billion (exports amounting to $11.29 billion and imports worth $19.24 billion) in 2014. It went up to $8.52 billion (with exports worth $10.43 billion and imports at $18.96 billion) in 2015 and rose further to $8.95 billion (exports amounting to $10.54 billion and imports worth $19.50 billion) in 2016.

It is evident that all the three countries are running an adverse trade balance and its scale is understandably relative to the size of the economy the biggest for India and the smallest for Sri Lanka. Trade deficit has gone up for both Pakistan (11.4 percent) and Sri Lanka (12.7 percent) over last three years. But in the case of India, it has come down. Imports have come down for both Pakistan (marginally by 2.9 percent) and India (largely by 22.3 percent), with a small increase for Sri Lanka. Exports have come down for each of the three countries: 12.4 percent for Pakistan, 18 percent for India and 6.6 percent for Sri Lanka. These figures reflect a reduction in global trade from $18.9 trillion in 2014 to $15.86 trillion in 2016.

The increase in trade deficit during FY 2017 (between July 2016 and April 2017) over the corresponding period of the preceding year may be explained by looking at both imports and exports. Total imports have gone up from $32.75 billion to $37.84 billion by 15.5 percent. Category-wise, the largest increase occurred in the transport sector by 39.2 percent, followed by the petroleum group (15.5 percent), food items (18.9 percent), machinery and capital equipment (16.1 percent), textiles (7.7 percent), chemicals (4.3 percent) and metals (1.7 percent).

Likewise, the total exports have gone down slightly from $18.14 billion to $17.91 billion by 1.3 percent. Exports fell in almost all important categories: textiles (3.2 percent), food items (4.5 percent), other manufactures, such as leather, sports and surgical goods (5.8 percent), petroleum (7.6 percent) and engineering goods (17.3 percent). However, the export of chemical and pharmaceutical products went up by 4.3 percent.

It follows that the fundamental cause of the substantial growth of trade deficit is the increase in imports rather than the decrease in exports. At the same time, it is exceedingly difficult for the government to check the growth in imports for one reason or another. The import basket can be divided into three categories: essential items, such as food and petroleum products; capital equipment and raw materials necessary for economic growth; and luxury goods.

Restricting the import of the first two categories is not desirable for obvious reasons. The government can restrict the import of luxury goods by raising the customs duties. Like other developing countries, Pakistan has a considerable gap between its bound (WTO) and applied import tariffs. However, the problem is that the demand for the luxury goods comes either from the government itself or the politically powerful affluent class. As a result, restricting their imports is a difficult proposition in a political sense.

Increasing exports is the right way to narrow the trade deficit. Obstacles to export promotion are of three types: market access, the high cost of doing business and structural constraints. The focus of the government and the private sector has been on overcoming the first and second obstacles. Over the last decade, Pakistan has been on a spree to conclude preferential trading arrangements (PTAs). However, most of the PTAs have caused imports to grow at a faster pace than exports. This has driven up trade deficits with PTA partners.

Bringing down the cost of doing business includes seeking exemptions from internal and border taxes, duty drawbacks, reducing interest rates, providing electricity at subsidised rates and keeping wages from increasing. From time to time, the government declares zero-ratings for the key export-oriented sectors and thereby exempts them completely from the GST. Earlier this year, a hefty export package, in the form of duty and tax remissions, was announced by the prime minister.

Lowering the cost of doing business and securing preferential access in foreign markets is important. But without addressing the structural constraints, an appreciable increase in exports is not possible. Unfortunately, the latter has been short-shrifted by both the government and the businesses.

Pakistan has a narrow export base. It is essentially an exporter of either primary products such as rice and fruits or of semi-manufactured goods such as textiles, garments and leather products. Not only are exports deficient in value addition, but they are also sold to the low-end of the market. The export basket being agro-based is subject to the vagaries of weather. A bad cotton crop as was witnessed during the current year can impact export receipts. The export profile reflects the dismal state of industrial development.

Another major structural problem is low labour productivity, mostly because human resource development has traditionally been a neglected area in Pakistan. The corporate sector works under the misconception that low wages are the key to competitiveness. Instead, what really matters is high labour productivity.

The corporate culture is markedly deficient in entrepreneurship one of the principal drivers of economic growth and export promotion. Most of the businesses are family-owned. They believe in playing it safe and making quick profits. These businesses are averse to innovation and venturing into new areas and have little commitment to improving quality. There is a culture of quality, which must be embedded into all the key processes of an enterprise: procuring supplies, putting together the factors of production, manufacturing products, marketing and sales. Making improvement in quality must be a continuous process.

Not surprisingly, Pakistan deficient as it is in both entrepreneurship and culture of quality continues to be an exporter of a narrow mix of low quality, low priced products.

The writer is a freelance countributor.

Email: [emailprotected]

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The anatomy of trade deficits - The News International

By now, were familiar with the Greys Anatomy casts victories at the Emmys, the Golden Globes, and the Peoples Choice Awards. (The people, in particular, love them some Greys.)

But those high-profile award shows aside, the actors have also earned their own unique honors, and those are the ones were celebrating in this photo gallery!

Greys Anatomy returns for Season 14 this fall on ABC.

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The Grey of Greys Anatomy has won three Peoples Choice Awards over the years, but she also won the Special Achievement in Entertaining honor from the National Italian American Foundation in 2007. Ciao bella!

For his work in Season 10, when Alex reconnected with his drug-addict father, Justin received the 2014 PRISM Award for Performance in a Drama Series Multi-Episode Storyline.

The awards show recognizes the accurate depiction of drug, alcohol, and tobacco use and addiction in film, television, interactive, music, DVD, and comic book entertainment.

Chandra won a PRISM Award the same year as Justin and she also has three Image Awards, two BET Awards, and a SAG Award under her belt.

But this actress also won a Theatre World Award way back in 1991 for her performance in the Off-Broadway play The Good Times Are Killing Me.

James won Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series at the Image Awards in 2012, and hed been nominated in that category for seven consecutive years by that point.

In 1998, a decade before setting foot in the hospital then known as Seattle Grace, Kevin won the International Fantasy Film Award for Best Actor for his role as a cuckolded husband in the film The Acid House.

Jesse was honored with the 2016 BET Humanitarian Award, and his impassioned speech captivated the audience and had America talking (and cheering) for days afterward.

In case you werent aware, Camilla is the latest voice of Lara Croft, and her work on Rise of the Tomb Raider won her a Behind the Voice Actors Award in 2016 in the Best Female Lead Vocal Performance in a Video Game category.

Caterina won a PRISM Award, too accepting the award in 2012, back when she was starring on Greys spin-off Private Practice and plumbing the depths of Amelia Shepherds addiction.

The Alliance for Women in Media Foundation bestowed Debbie with the Lifetime Achievement Award at their Gracie Awards on June 6 and even better, real-life daughter Vivian Nixon and TV son Jesse Williams presented the honor.

[Women] have a real purpose and a real point of view thats very different, she told Variety at the event. By nature, we are the ones that nurture, stand up, and fight.

By now, were familiar with the Greys Anatomy casts victories at the Emmys, the Golden Globes, and the Peoples Choice Awards. (The people, in particular, love them some Greys.)

But those high-profile award shows aside, the actors have also earned their own unique honors, and those are the ones were celebrating in this photo gallery!

Greys Anatomy returns for Season 14 this fall on ABC.

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All the Awesome Awards the 'Grey's Anatomy' Stars Have Won - Wetpaint

For better and for worst,Grey's Anatomy Season 13 has been one of the most talked about seasons of the series.

After 13 seasons, that's quite the accomplishment. There were some ups, many unfortunate downs, and so much fighting.

There were some great guest -stars, some interesting love triangles, and many character-centricepisodes that slowed things down and honed in on a select few.

Season 13 also saw the directorial debut of Ellen Pompeo, herself, as well as Kevin McKidd, Debbie Allen, and Chandra Wilson.

One thing is for sure, a lot of feelings were invoked throughout this season. Now, whether they were good, bad, or downright ugly is an entirely different observation to make. You can sound off about that below, but first, check out our TV Fanatic Report Card of Grey's Anatomy'sthirteenth season.

Want to relive every deliciouslysoapy moment? You can watch Grey's Anatomy online right here via TV Fanatic!

Meredith has had her fair share of questionable moments (that entire situation with Maggie, threatening DeLuca etc.,), but for the most part, she's greatly improved this season. She's been a competent, capable doctor. She has stood by her beliefs, challenged Bailey, and been a supportive friend to both Alex and Nathan. We also saw her grow as a woman and a sister. It's been amazing watching the 180 she's done when it comes to supporting and protecting her family, and accepting family she never would have accepted years ago. It was also nice to see her be willing to move on from Derek without feeling guilty about it. Meredith has matured as a character, and she's all the better for it.

Eliza Minnick will go down in the books as one of the most polarizing characters in Grey's Anatomy history. You either loved her or loathed her, with very few who fell in between. Eliza and her infamous Minnick Method clashed with nearly everyone. The only one who seemed to truly enjoy her was Arizona. Her days at Grey Sloan were tumultuous at best, but she finally pushed people too far when she didn't alert authorities about an endangered resident, and since the residents were her job, well, she ended up losing hers. So long, Minnick.

Honestly, how many times has Alex been put into a slot like this? We've lost count. Season 13 was SUPPOSED to be the season of Originals. While that failed on multiple levels, the worst of it was how underutilized Alex was. It's true that he dealt with the trial at the beginning of the season, but he virtually disappeared for the rest of it. The show went multiple episodes without even seeing or mentioning him. The back half of the season he abruptly tracked down Jo's husband in the most erroneous storyline in a season chocked full of them, but nothing came from it. He barely had a line in the season finale. Hopefully, he will not find himself in this category again next season.

Nathan has gone from the arrogant outcast to a great doctor, yes, but a supportive friend. His persistent pursuit of Meredith was offputting at times, but he made up for it in his softer, serious moments. He was supportive of Meredith processing her grief, but also, he has proven to be a great, supportive friend to Maggie despite the love triangle issue, and he's been on better terms with Owen as well. We got to peel back the layers of Nathan Riggs, and now that Megan has returned, we expect to see even more. Looking forward to it!

The Arizona we're most familiar with checked out earlier in the season, sometime after comforting DeLuca upon his return to the hospital. We haven't seen much of the woman that we love since. She was inconsistent and flaky all season. Not to mention the majority of her relationship with Eliza had her inexplicably coming across like a total horn-dog. She was amazing in season 12. What happened to the Arizona who stuck by her set of morals and was protective of her friends? We're not used to Arizona appearing so one-dimensional.

Through the good, bad, and annoying, there was one character that consistently shined every single time. That character was Ben Warren. He became a bit of an audience surrogate saying exactly what we were probably yelling at the screen and reacting the same way we were reacting. Whether it was being brutally honest with his colleagues, calling his wife out on her mistakes, rocking his surgeries with virtually no help, or running into a burning building to save his friend, Ben Warren was a rockstar all season long. Somebody had to be the mature one around there.

The rest is here:
Grey's Anatomy Season 13: Best Relationship, Worst Episode & More! - TV Fanatic

'The bear away'

Both teams are now having to make what is known as a 'bear away' in order to cross the start line within the designated boundaries. Because you can't sail a boat directly into the wind, you have to tack or gybe, essentially zig-zagging your way from A to B. As you execute each turn you must bear away from the direction that the wind is coming from, but this can be destabilising if you try to make too sharp or too hasty a turn.

As you can make out from the second freeze-frame, New Zealand have been forced a little wider and are closer to the start line when they begin to bear away. That means the angle on their turn is significantly more acute.

The rest is here:
The anatomy of a capsize: how did a multi-million dollar America's Cup boat end up in the drink? - Telegraph.co.uk