Research shows link between socioeconomic status and cancer life expectancy News-Medical.Net
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Author: Eric Mawuli DJIRACKOR
Billy Ng Named Vice President, Industry & Government Affairs for the California Walnut Board and Commission – PerishableNews
Folsom, CA – The California Walnut Board (CWB) and California Walnut Commission (CWC) are pleased to announce the selection of Billy Ng as its new vice president, industry and government affairs. In this newly created role, Billy will lead activities related to issues management, research and regulatory issues to ensure the industry’s ability to compete globally in the marketing of walnuts. The CWB and CWC represent more than 4,600 California walnut growers and 73 handlers that produced more than 1.64 billion pounds of walnuts in 2023 that shipped to more than 50 countries around the world.
Billy has extensive experience in engaging with government agencies, regulatory bodies, and industry coalitions to overcome technical trade barriers and advocate food policy changes. His strong understanding of regulatory procedural policies, FDA & USDA food programs, and global trade dynamics affecting agriculture will help CWB and CWC fulfill its mission of cultivating industry prosperity by increasing worldwide demand for California walnuts, providing critical market information, and providing leadership for the walnut industry on regulatory concerns. Combined with his experience in Food Safety and Quality Assurance and an understanding of the supply chain from grower to final product, Billy has a strong foundation to help implement our strategic objectives in Quality Assurance, Global Market Access, Innovation, Sustainability, Production & Post-Harvest Research and more.
“Billy’s activities will be an integral part of our efforts to proactively monitor and protect the industry’s ability to produce, trade and mitigate risks at state, federal and international levels.” said Robert Verloop, executive director and chief executive officer for the CWB and CWC. “His expertise in regulatory issues will be essential in providing leadership and solutions on key issues and challenges facing the CA walnut industry.”
Prior to joining CWB and CWC, Billy worked for 16 years at Blue Diamond Growers (BDG) in Sacramento, CA, where most recently he was the senior manager, global regulatory affairs. Earlier in his career at Blue Diamond, he served as the manager, R&D regulatory and assistant manager, technical services. He also worked for a large tomato and canned fruit producer where he led the Quality Assurance department.
Billy holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Corporate Leadership from California State University, Sacramento, a Master of Jurisprudence in Global Food Law from Michigan State University, and a Bachelor of Science in Food Science & Technology from University of California, Davis. He was co-chair of the USA Export Group regulatory committee and vice-chair of the Global Technical and Regulatory Affairs committee for the Almond Board of California.
“I am excited for the opportunity to support California walnut growers and their ability to produce, sell and distribute this nutrient dense food to markets around the world, “said Ng. “Walnuts have the potential to grow in global consumption and I look forward to taking part in these new opportunities.”
About the California Walnut Board and Commission
The California Walnut Board (CWB) and California Walnut Commission (CWC) represent more than 4,600 California walnut growers and 73 handlers, grown in multi-generational farmers’ family orchards. California walnuts, known for their excellent nutritional value and quality, are shipped around the world all year long, with more than 99% of the walnuts grown in the United States being from California. The CWB, established in 1948, promotes usage of walnuts in the United States through publicity and educational programs. The CWB also provides funding for walnut production, food safety and post-harvest research. The CWC, established in 1987, is involved in health research with consuming walnuts as well as domestic and export market development activities.
To explore recipes and learn more about California walnut growers, industry information and health research, visit walnuts.org.
High-Impact Omnichannel Shopper Insights: SymphonyAI Research Reveals How AI Boosts Grocery E-commerce Revenue by 8%
Ahold Delhaize USA has announced that Meg Ham, president of Food Lion, plans to retire on May 2, 2025, after more than 35 years with the organization. She has been at the helm of Food Lion for more than a decade and has been part of the brand’s unprecedented growth, grounded in Food Lion’s heritage of customer service and convenient locations. A successor for Ham will be announced before year-end. …
With over two decades of experience in accounting, finance, and business management, Brandi brings a wealth of expertise in supporting complex agricultural organizations and driving financial insights that fuel business growth and innovation. …
Patrick Criteser, former president and CEO of Tillamook County Creamery Association, will guide Nature Fresh Farms as it expands its team, products and distribution to meet the fast-growing demand for its fresh, Greenhouse Clean™ fruit and vegetables. …
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New Military Benefits Browser Available on CAF and Ombud websites – Canadian Military Family Magazine
General Jennie Carignan, the Chief of the Defence Staff and Robyn Hynes, Interim Ombud, recently announced a new collaboration between the Office of the DND/CAF Ombudsman and the Canadian Armed Forces.
According to a news release, they’re introducing the newly expanded Military Benefits Browser, which now incorporates CAF Offer, an interactive tool for CAF members and their families.
CAF Offer and Military Benefits Browse provides 24/7, comprehensive access to information for CAF personnel and their families regarding benefits and services available throughout their careers, from recruitment to release, and their transition into civilian life.
Noted as a comprehensive resource, the CAF Offer features details regarding compensation, benefits, and support available to CAF members and their families throughout their military careers.
“It provides tailored information on various aspects,” including:
“The CAF Offer serves as an open-source platform, empowering members and their families to understand and access the full range of entitlements and support available to them throughout their military journey.
For more detailed and personalized information, CAF members and their families are encouraged to explore the CAF Offer online.
“We are pleased to announce that this partnership has resulted in the creation of an innovative, user-friendly online tool designed to better support CAF members, their families, and those who are considering a career in the CAF,” announced Gen. Carignan, CDS. “This tool will provide a tailored list of programs that’s available to users depending on their career status, service type, medical status and more. It is convenient and informative to our members who are serving, retired, or supporting.”
Launched in 2018, the expanded Military Benefits Browser is available on both the CAF Offer and Ombud’s websites.
The Military Benefits Browser is designed to:
“This initiative reflects our shared commitment to enhancing the well-being and success of the Defence Community,” stated Robyn Hynes, Interim Ombud. “More information on how to access and use the portal will follow in the coming weeks.”
Together, the Military Browser and CAF Offer allow CAF members and aspiring members to now “tailor a search for the most current information on military pay, allowances, leave, family support, healthcare, career options, education support, professional development, relocation, transition, pensions, and other benefits, specific to their personal situations and needs,” the website noted.
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Gustin Law Firm Honored for #1 Drunk Driver Settlement in Harris County – Morningstar
Gustin Law Firm Honored for #1 Drunk Driver Settlement in Harris County – Business Wire
Attorney Charlie Gustin Aims to Make Houston Roads Safer for Families During the Holidays
Gustin Law Firm Honored for #1 Drunk Driver Settlement in Harris County (Graphic: Business Wire)
Gustin Law Firm Honored for #1 Drunk Driver Settlement in Harris County (Graphic: Business Wire)
HOUSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Gustin Law Firm has been recognized by TopVerdict.com for securing last year’s #1 settlement against a drunk or impaired driver in Harris County, Texas. The case involved a college student severely injured by a drunk driver whose Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) was over twice the legal limit. The impaired driver caused at least three wrecks on the same night, and Gustin Law Firm’s client was the unfortunate victim of the final crash. The drunk driver served jail time for his crimes.
“Drunk drivers put us all at risk of serious injury or death. Although intoxicated drivers usually face criminal penalties, their injured victims must rely on the civil justice system to recover their past and future medical bills, lost earnings, physical impairment and mental anguish,” said Charlie Gustin, managing partner of Gustin Law Firm. “When our clients are hurt by drunk drivers, we advise them to accept nothing less than every dollar of the insurance money available.”
TopVerdict.com recognizes law firms and attorneys who have obtained one of the highest jury verdicts, settlements or bench awards in a particular jurisdiction. Gustin Law Firm was also recognized for securing a Top 100 Texas Injury Settlement in 2023. The full list of honorees can be found here: https://topverdict.com/lists/2023/texas/number-1-settlements-counties
About Gustin Law Firm: We are an experienced civil litigation law firm with a demonstrated history of success in personal injury and first-party property insurance disputes. Our skills in litigation, motion practice, case strategy and settlement negotiation ensure our clients receive top-notch legal representation and client service. To learn more, visit: www.gustin.law.
Charlie Gustin
Phone: (713) 491-4792
charlie@gustin.law
Gustin Law Firm Honored for #1 Drunk Driver Personal Injury Settlement in Harris County, Texas
Charlie Gustin
Phone: (713) 491-4792
charlie@gustin.law
‘Whispering to Dostoevsky’ a love story comes to the Players’ Ring Theatre – Foster's Daily Democrat
PORTSMOUTH – The extraordinary love story of Fyodor Dostoevsky and the woman who became “the architect of his life,” will be on stage at the Players’ Ring Theatre from Jan. 3 through Jan. 19, written and directed by Richard McElvain.
When his unscrupulous publisher had a gun to his head to complete a book in a month, Fyodor Dostoevsky reached out to a school that taught a new science called stenography. The woman he hired, Anna, would soon become his indispensable collaborator, his lover, his wife and eventually his publisher.
Together they survived his bouts with epilepsy, gambling addiction, dreadful debt, and the death of two children. Throughout it all, they remained hopelessly in love as Dostoevsky climbed to become one of the greatest novelists of all time.
McElvain was in Saint Petersburg performing his one-person-play “The Chess Player,” at The Bolshoi Drama Theatre, a high point in his theatre career. One day after the show was up, and he had some time, he visited Dostoevsky’s home with his partner Lynda Robinson.
“His place has been turned into a museum, and I am a fan of his works,” McElvain said. “It was a thrill walking up the stairs he walked up every day and seeing the desk where he worked. There were cards you could read in each room and in the dining room the card read ‘In this room Dostoevsky dictated his novels to his second wife Anna’”.
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McElvain said he “was shocked.”
“I never knew he dictated his works,” he recounted. “I later found out that he was an amateur actor. He would do spellbinding readings of his works and Tolstoy’s. So, I suddenly got this image of him ‘acting out’ his work as Anna took it down. With a little more research, I found that she became his collaborator in the process – and that they were hopelessly in love. So, it was easy to imagine this as a crackling two hander play.”
McElvain said everyone loves a good love story.
“Isn’t it a little astonishing that the story of Fyodor and Anna is one of the great love stories?” he asked. “The appeal to fans of his work is obvious. If you don’t know his work it is a very audience friendly journey into the life of one of the greatest writers who ever put pen to page.
McElvain said the story is action packed and often very funny. The couple fought great battles with his epilepsy, gambling addiction, bullying publishers and crushing debt. She enters his life as his scribe and the audience has his brilliant works today because of Anna and their indefatigable love.
The style of the production is very theatrical, often daffy, lots of delightfully shocking devices. Jocelyn Duford and Tomer Oz are the two superb actors who took on the challenge of playing about 20 roles, including allegorical characters like his Epilepsy and his Gambling Addiction. Expect fabulous masks and costumes, puppets and a dramatic soundscape that underscores the whole show.
Set, lighting, and projections are designed by Billie Butler; costume design by Jennifer Greeke;
sound design by Larry Buckley and Noah Kammer; prop design by Annie Stone; and dance
choreography by Leslie Gallagher and Adele Jones. The production’s stage manager is Emily Andrews. This is a Players’ Ring Production in collaboration with Theatre Omnibus.
“The Players’ Ring feels like a good place to give my wacky play a first full production. Whenever I read the play with my partner, it overwhelms us emotionally. It’s a ‘big play’. At the readings audiences gave it standing ovations with tears in their eyes. I’m very curious to see if that will be the case with a full production,” McElvain said.
McElvain has been working professionally as an actor, director, playwright and teacher for 45 years, mostly in the Boston area. He has won the Elliot Norton Award and the IRNE award for his performance in “Saint Nicholas,” a monodrama by Conor McPherson. For the last several years he has been touring “The Chess Player” internationally, mostly in Europe and the Middle East.
“Whispering to Dostoevsky” – written and directed by Richard McElvain will be shown at the Players’ Ring Theatre, 105 Marcy St., Portsmouth, Jan. 3-19: Thursdays at 7 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. General Admission: $29; Students / Seniors (65+): $26; Military / First Responders: $26. This show is included in our subscription packages. Information on how to purchase and redeem these can be found at www.playersring.org.
Emotional and spiritual intelligence: The Utah Review’s Top Ten Moments of the Utah Enlightenment in 2024 – The Utah Review
But I grew up in a landscape large enough to hold what I felt when the world of people pushed me away. There, where badgers roamed, where herons speared small fish in shallow pools, I found my place. I took my sketch pad and tackle box to the banks of that small creek and washed myself in the rivulets of sound—of beaver tail slapping against the water, the screech of redtail hawks, the snap of branches from deer, the coyote’s call. That was—is—my home, where I drew the landscapes I loved—and draw upon them still—to make the world as it could be. — Taylor Brorby, excerpt from text for A Boy Like Me (2024) for voice and chamber orchestra, composed by Chris Myers.
This year’s selections in The Utah Review for the top ten moments of the Utah Enlightenment in 2024, the tenth annual edition, stood out for their spiritual and emotional impacts. In Utah, there are creative producers in the arts who are genuinely elevating the contemporary experience – with the sum of its tensions, problems, conflicts, disappointments and crises – to an enthralling sensation of healing, revelation, atonement and empowerment. They also represent new directions which always are worth the efforts in taking risks. Unquestionably, the call to spiritual intelligence will be greater and more urgent in 2025, if we are to rise above the disturbing and disheartening dynamics of our current sociopolitical landscape.
THE UTAH REVIEW’S TOP MOMENT OF THE UTAH ENLIGHTENMENT IN 2024
Many film festivals augment their programming with non-film events and activities but few can claim the distinction that this year’s Utah Queer Film Festival (UQFF), presented by the Utah Film Center, achieved with a concert featuring four world premieres by Utah-based composers. It was a bold programming stroke but one that festival director Russell Roots and its programming committee, led by Cat Palmer, believed fit tightly into the ideal of a film festival as a safe, comfortable home space for the community.
Recognized as the top moment of the Utah Enlightenment in 2024, the brainchild of Chris Myers, Life After Laramie: A Matthew Shepard Memorial Concert, comprised an exceptional quartet of short works contemplating the themes about where queer people find home and how place defines their community. Each composer put their unique imprint on the themes — Myers, Miranda Livengood, Garrett Medlock and Jared Oaks — drawing from a palette of styles, forms, moods, emotions, instrumentation and source materials as diverse and expansive in representation as the community itself. Performers included musicians from the Ballet West Orchestra, NOVA Chamber Music Series, Utopia Early Music and the Utah Symphony.
Medlock was the vocal soloist for his composition, If You Use Your Senses: Meditations, a startling but effective take on a form riffing off the Christian church’s Stations of the Cross. Scored for bassoon (performed by Medlock’s husband, Dylan Neff) and piano (Nicholas Maughan), Medlock sang the text he composed for the cycle — Sound, Sight, Smell, Stabat, Taste, Touch, Senseless, Sleep — that transported listeners to the fateful location in Laramie where Shepard was tortured. Each scene profoundly makes palpable the psychological, emotional and spiritual suffering that Shepard endured before his death. The instrumental parts rounded out the text, marking the natural characteristics of the landscape, even Shepard’s mother who lapses into grief and, in the case of the piano, serving as the omniscient narrator.
Bleeding, which Oaks (musical director for Ballet West) composed in memory of a beloved friend (Steve Finau) was a perfect companion piece to Medlock’s meditation. With finely woven textures taken from styles set apart by centuries, Oaks fused an Elizabethan Era madrigal (Weep, Weep, Mine Eyes by John Wilbye) with a deft command of serialism, in a work featuring a poetic text by May Swenson (1913-1989), a Utah literary figure. Its premiere featured vocalist Yvette Gilgen and Lisa Chaufty on recorder.
Using texts by C.E. Janecek, Miranda Livengood’s Catching Venus comprised a triptych of songs — Satellite Dogs, Constellation Lovers and Voyager — with the composer on guitar, Janecek on percussion and Polly Redd as singer. The songs, rich in cosmological sentiments, served as a bridge to holding onto hope and optimism even amidst current events that emphasize affirmation and acceptance have yet to be permanently guaranteed.
It was Myers’ A Boy Like Me, the stirring composition that concluded the concert, which brought the audience to its feet. Sweeping in its natural synergy of musical and literary language, the piece featured a superb text by author Taylor Brorby (Boys and Oil), which was sung by Medlock, who was dressed in a plaid flannel shirt just like what Shepard would have worn. Myers embedded the community’s hardscrabble experiences and its immense sacrifices in a majestic reflection of what connects every sector and quarter of the queer community and the overarching belief in social justice so that everybody can safely and comfortably find the place they surely can call home. An ambitious undertaking as large as its creative thematic expression, this premiere of A Boy Like Me epitomized the breadth and depth of a supportive community of musicians, which included the three other composers from the concert as well as performers from the aforementioned groups.
THE REMAINING LIST OF TOP 10 MOMENTS FOR 2024
Presented in no particular order, the following nine moments round out the list of Top 10 moments of the Utah Enlightenment in 2024:
This was an epic year in dance, which continues its reign as empress of the performing arts in Utah. There were many high points but several reached toward the heavens. In the final moments of its Gamut production to close out the 58th season last spring, Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT) achieved one of the most spine-tingling sensations in the world premiere of the Solfège, which was Yusha-Marie Sorzano’s first commission for the company.
It is dance theater par excellence and Sorzano is a choreographer with an extraordinary intuitive grasp of the music she selected. In this case, it is Tan Dun’s 2011 Symphonic Poem of Three Notes. While the score certainly stands on its own merit for listening, Sorzano extends its emotional capacity, precisely in line with choreographed movement. Solfège telegraphs our fascination with the cycles of the natural world, which are intertwined with sirens and otherworldly figures, which are reminiscent of the characters in Guillermo del Toro’s film Pan’s Labyrinth. The company also performed Sorzano’s work during its East Coast tour this past fall, which included the Whitney Museum of American Art, in conjunction with the museum’s Edges of Ailey installation.
The dancers gave Sorzano’s choreography its full cinematic effect, performing in a natural-fantasy world, starting from its primordial roots and building to its greatest burst of drama and cacophony of industry and finally returning to its primordial home. And, then there was the final moment: soloist Jon Kim, who left the company after five years to pursue new artistic ventures (including UNA, a San Francisco-based dance company). Kim returned us to the primordial roots which opened Solfège. Even without the unique circumstances that this was Kim’s final performance on the RDT stage, it was a stunning moment. This was as fine a dramatic ending as anyone could have imagined: Kim, standing as the lights darken; his presence reminding us of the selfless dedication along with the compassion and conscientious sensitivity he has shared with his peers and with the dance community during his tenure. Its significance resonated with the absorbing narrative Sorzano crafted.
Not to be outdone, Ballet West is at the heights of its artistic powers. In 2017, when Ballet West launched its choreographic festival, Adam Sklute, artistic director, told Dance Magazine, “We want this festival for choreography to do what the Sundance Film Festival does for film—create a hub for creativity in dance.” From June of this year, judging by the exceptionally enthusiastic response from the opening night audience, Choreographic Festival VI: Asian Voices clinched the gold standard for artistic innovation, with marvelous works by four internationally known choreographers performed by Ballet West and the Columbus, Ohio-based BalletMet.
Exhilarating and inventive at every turn, Asian Voices was multidimensional in exploring choreographic storytelling through uplifting themes of nostalgia, the liberating energy of youth, migration, universal journeys of love and relationships and the certainty of historical and natural time cycles. Two world premieres by Asian female choreographers and two Utah premieres by Asian male choreographers electrified the stage at the Jeanné Wagner Theatre in the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts.
Capping an outstanding 60th anniversary season for Ballet West, the stupendous Asian Voices production sizzled with the precise cinematic-like emotional energy that makes such festivals a must-attend destination for dedicated arts audiences of all intellectual and demographic stripes. In each work, as noted in a preview published at The Utah Review, Asian artists effectively drew on techniques that have been practiced for centuries while they also incorporated their own interconnected sense of identity, to forge their creative futures that are ingenious and resonate with the foundations of their own heritage. The works featured were: Caili Quan’s Play on Impulse (world premiere), Phil Chan’s Amber Waves (Utah premiere), Zhong-Jing Fang’s Somewhere in Time (world premiere), and Edwaard Liang’s Seasons (Utah premiere).
Likewise, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company has been a dynamo of impressive creative powers. Last winter, in the middle of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company’s 60th anniversary season, Traverse was a perfect Homecoming production, highlighting six new works and a company premiere, which exemplified the tremendous artistic culture that has defined the company.
With works by two alumni company members and the six current dancers, the creative principles which the founders Shirley Ririe and the late Joan Woodbury set forth resonated and echoed throughout the evening. There were works of astute sociocultural significance, pieces reflecting the ardor and rise and fall of emotions expended in the creative process, intimate choreographic statements about individual personalities and audience-pleasing displays of play and whimsy. The production, which featured guest performers including students from The University of Utah School of Dance, was dedicated to Woodbury, who died in 2024 at the age of 96.
One of the best examples befitting Traverse’s creative brief, the closing piece was a hoot for the audience — a rollicking glimpse at how a sports novice can find sassy fabulousness even in a plain old game of pickleball. Inspired by never having played any sports, Alexander Pham (a former Ririe-Woodbury dancer who is now in his first season with RDT) decided to set Perfect Match as “a whimsical reimagining of that missed experience.” The work, which was performed by Pham with Severin Sargent-Catterton, hit on every cylinder. As entertaining and witty as it was, Perfect Match was also an artistically demanding and challenging piece of choreography. It pulled in movement from several dance languages and vocabulary, including ballet, contemporary dance and pop moves. The collage explored in the three movements matched up beautifully with musical selections including Bohoman’s Elevator Music and bad guy, performed by Billie Eilish and written and produced by Finneas O’Connell.
NOVA Chamber Music Series’ Dance in the Desert concert (March 10) was perhaps the season’s most challenging for the musicians but the set of five magnificently performed works, which included a world premiere, also was among the most easily accessible for the audience.
For the concert finale, the world premiere of Laura Kaminsky’s Desert Portal was a delightful celebration. As a multimedia piece of dance theater, every component fit perfectly and clearly marked the natural transitions during a day in the desert — from the six musicians to the visual projections of work by internationally renowned artist Rebecca Allan and to the quartet of dancers.
As noted in the preview at The Utah Review, Kaminsky composed the piece for the planned 2020 inaugural of Arizona State University’s desert humanities initiative but it was scrapped when the pandemic shut down all in-person events. The work was set to be performed as a procession with desert rocks being carried by audience members, which would be signaled and led by a drummer. Dancers and musicians would walk in rhythm to their places, and would encircle the audience members, while projections of art images by Allen would provide the visual entertainment before the event began.
For its Salt Lake City premiere, Desert Portal, which was conducted by Gabriel Gordon, took on a new form that can easily be replicated in future performances. The one suggested note is that much of the opening professional ‘vamp’ can be cut. The seven musicians processed and were spread across the stage, with the two percussionists flanking them at each end. This arrangement worked beautifully, as the dancers processed into the performing space and then moved, slithered, twirled and crawled on stage. The three dancers (Sarah Lorraine, Fiona Gitlin and Tawna Waters), along with Myriad Dance Company’s Kendall Fischer, who also performed and led the collaborative choreographic efforts, did a fabulous job on capturing every transition throughout the day, from predawn to a brief storm and to midday heat and the brightest sun and finally to twilight and nightfall.
Likewise, the musicians (which included Lisa Byrnes and Mercedes Smith, flute; Katie Porter, clarinet; Sam Elliott, trombone and Walter Haman, cello) were equally cohesive, cogent and explicit in transmitting the imagery of Kaminsky’s music and Allan’s art through sound. And, kudos to the smart, infectious vamps from both percussionists (Keith Carrick, and Eric Hopkins) at the beginning. Every component gelled with the theatrics in this compact piece, including the lighting design by Logan Bingham that enhanced Desert Portal’s easy accessibility for audience members.
Plan-B Theatre continues to be the paragon of a performing arts organization that fulfills the objective of the task surrounding ‘representation matters’ and how that is accomplished through quality work that is timely, elucidating and timeless. At the opening of Full Color, Plan-B Theatre’s 34th season opener, the setting was pleasant and inviting: eight people enjoying each other’s company and feeling comfortable at home, outside a tent in nature. As each person shared a story, the production’s epiphany expanded organically, one narrative at a time. While the audience was welcomed to listen, the expectations for us in this ingeniously curated theatrical experience meant resisting the comfort of being passive or colorblind and acknowledging contemporary realities of systemic biases, discrimination and racism. In plain words, “One cannot fight what one does not see.”
Full Color popped with heart, wit, poetry, intellectual depth and soul-bearing emotion. It was the third in the company’s Color Series Productions featuring work by members of Plan-B’s Theatre Artists of Color Writing Workshop. As noted in The Utah Review preview, the production comprised short first-person monologues by eight BIPOC playwrights who reflect on their experiences in Utah. However, instead of the playwrights performing the monologues they have written, the performances were entrusted to their own doppelgänger — actors who relate, identify and can sincerely testify to the gist of the experiences and the stories the playwrights put into their script. The short monologues were written by: Dee-Dee Darby-Duffin (Fried Chicken), Courtney Dilmore (Here), Tito Livas (Let’s Not), Tatiana Christian (I Still Have To Live Here), Darryl Stamp (American Survival Story), Iris Salazar (Life Is Color), Chris Curlett (Fox and the Mormons) and Bijan J. Hosseini (At Least One).
The actors excelled in their creative task, who compelled us to realize that if we do not see color in its fullness, we also fail to see how racism and discrimination continue in our neighborhoods, our schools and in our own lives. Each story stood on its own merit for its narrative impact but what made Full Color especially good were the finely woven threads that tied the entire package of eight amonologues together. This was not just a compilation of eight anecdotes but a comprehensive, multilayered testimony to how widespread and far reaching the experiences of BIPOC Utahns occur in virtually every domain. The order of performance sharpened the connections among the eight monologues, particularly in the latter half of offerings that reinforced the point that such experiences are not anomalous or singular by any measure.
Westminster University’s concert series has become well known for bringing performers and programs that increasingly reflect the expanding ethnic diversity of Utah’s rapidly growing population. Last March, Alam Khan, the internationally distinguished master of the sarod, a 25-string instrument with no frets which comprises strings for performing melodies as well as sympathetic strings to create resonating drone-like sounds, came to Salt Lake City for a residency which included the India Cultural Center of Utah, in partnership with the Mundi Project, and which culminated in a concert as part of the Westminster Concert Series (WCS). For the Westminster concert, Khan was joined by Indranil Mallick, who performed on tabla, in a brilliant display of North Indian classical (hindustani sangit) raga, which highlighted the intense emotional capacities in the music. The spectrum encompassed slow, meditative and introspective unfolding of the raga that segued into virtuosic elements propelled along by melodic phrasing and rhythmic sentences, including Khan cross picking the resonating and Chikari strings of the sarod. The evening’s music grew originally, moving from broad improvisations to well-defined interacting sections between melody and rhythm and ultimately back to a spell-binding improvised conversation between the two musicians. Overall, it belongs on the prime list of the year’s most edifying musical experiences in the Salt Lake City performing arts scene.
Recent exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) have not only been spectacular but also significant in encouraging viewers to examine art history in a new perspective. Last spring, the Utah Museum of Fine Art (UMFA)’s Pictures of Belonging: Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi, and Miné Okubo was a brilliant masterpiece on its merits, impressively commanding visitors to think anew about American modernism in the 20th century. With more than 100 works, including many that had never been publicly displayed before, the exhibition highlighted these artists, who were among the most active and visible female artists of Japanese descent, born in the generations before World War II. A separate smaller exhibition but just as powerful in its representation, Chiura Obata: Layer by Layer documented the creation and conservation of the artist’s Horses screen (1932), one of the greatest 20th century works celebrating an iconic image of the American West.
Collectively, Hayakawa, Hibi and Okubo, each prolific in their respective regard, represented more than 80 years of active creation. Their lives encompassed a time of anti-immigration laws when Asian American immigrants were prevented from becoming naturalized citizens as well as the events of World War II that disrupted their lives and led to American citizens and immigrants of Japanese descent being interned in camps, including in Utah. Incidentally, Hibi and Okubo were imprisoned in Topaz, Utah, from 1942 until near the end of the war, as was Obata. Along with the concurrent Obata room show, Pictures of Belonging was yet another milestone for UMFA, which has played a major role in recent years emphasizing how these four Japanese American artists, along with their colleagues, carved a prominent presence as among the greatest figures of American modernism in the 20th century.
In recent years, Utah’s arts community has created work inspired by the focus on rehabilitating and saving the Great Salt Lake. Last spring, the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA) presented As The Lake Fades, an outstanding exhibition exemplifying cross-disciplinary approaches uniting science and the humanities.
In one social media post, Darren Parry, a local Shoshone Tribe leader, wrote, “Saving the Great Salt Lake is not a science problem, but a values problem.” This sentiment was evident, as the 15 artists in the exhibition As the Lake Fades collectively built a compelling platform for sparking substantive cross-disciplinary conversations we should be having that connect scientists with their counterparts working in the humanities. The artwork girded the descriptive theme of the Great Salt Lake as our “nonhuman kinfolk,” which Parry recalled how his grandmother referred to it. While the exhibition was large in scope and presentation, its understated manner fed a constructive, welcoming atmosphere that could help transcend partisan stubbornness, political identity and, hopefully, a good chunk of the recalcitrance we use in balking at our responsibilities as stewards of nature.
The exhibition was part of certainly the largest in breadth and depth exploration of Utah natural environmental issues of recent years, as it was complemented simultaneously by equally compelling exhibitions at UMOCA. Just as prominent in its cross-disciplinary approach as the artists engaged with As The Lake Fades, photographer Diane Tuft’s Entropy was stunning for its vivid colors but also alarming for its documentation of the climate-related stresses on the Great Salt Lake. The artwork documented the impacts through saturated colors, visible cracks, and clear textures. The photographs were taken in 2022 and images were magnified in their significance when viewed along with the video installations in the As The Lake Fades exhibition. Entropy reinforced the consensus that both scientists and their creative counterparts in arts and humanities have cultivated about the dire state of the Great Salt Lake. Yet another outstanding example of cross-disciplinary expression exhibited in UMOCA at the same time was The Biocrust Project by Jorge Rojas and Dr. Sasha Reed. As the inaugural Canyonlands Research Center’s Artist in Residency project, courtesy of The Nature Conservancy, Rojas and Reed offered an immersive audiovisual installation and a centerpiece — a beautifully constructed scene of the biocrust, commonly referred to as the desert’s skin.
Rojas, a Utah multidisciplinary artist whose work is internationally recognized, wss the center’s first artist in residence. He connected to Reed, a U.S. Geological Survey researcher, who has been studying the biological significance of the biocrust and has been augmenting her work with contributions from Indigenous knowledge. The CRC program, based at the Dugout Ranch near Moab (which The Nature Conservancy owns), is dedicated to cross-disciplinary perspectives joining artists and scientists. In a 2023 interview with the Moab Sun News, Rojas explained, “When people think about sustainability, people usually think about the Amazon, or glaciers.” He added, “But [biocrust] is the living skin of the Earth.” As for collaborating with Rojas, “Art and science are two sides of the same coin,” Reed told the Moab Sun News. “Both are about communicating things about the world to each other.”
Finally, when it comes to the founding of Utah’s tremendous art movement, its own “this is the place” moment occurred not in Salt Lake City nor Provo, Spanish Fork or Payson but instead in Springville, just about the same time as the town was being established in the 1850s.
As Vern Swanson, retired director of the Springville Museum of Art, noted in a written history, “The first intimations of an Art Movement came in 1848, two years before Springville was founded. While still in Winter Quarters, Nebraska, pioneer artist Philo Dibble (1806-1895), an early Springville settler, envisioned ‘the creation of a fine arts museum or gallery to be established for the benefit of the Mormon people.’” Dibble moved to Springville in 1858. “Through his panoramic painting of religious and historical subjects, his exhibitions of art and death masks of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, as well as magic-lantern slide presentations of famous paintings,” Swanson explained, “Dibble created a climate of interest for the visual fine arts in Springville within eight years of the founding of the City.” Swanson related a story from one of Dibble’s relatives: “According to a grand-niece, once during his rounds through town, Dibble plunged his sacred ‘Cane of the Martyrdom’ into the ground at the corner of First East and Fourth South and said, ‘The school gallery shall be here.’”
In the opening of the splendid short documentary film, Spirit of the Art City, produced by The Plains studio, Swanson mentioned Dibble as the spark that led eventually to the occasion of this year’s historical undertaking. The Springville Museum of Art marks the milestone with a major exhibition, Salon 100: A Retrospective of 100 Spring Salons and the Students that Built Art City.
The show opened simultaneously in late April, along with this past spring’s 100th annual salon, and the Salon 100 exhibition will continue through June 2025. The show comprehensively lays out the 100 years of the history of the salon in an organized and lucid fashion, especially in showing how the artworks selected for the salon have evolved in medium technique, style, aesthetics, subject treatment and other elements through every decade.
As Utah’s first art museum, Springville’s initial collection grew as local high school students purchased paintings and sculpture through an ‘Art Queen’ festival. Each student paid a penny to vote and the student with the most votes was named queen, with the funds used to purchase art for the museum. High school students led efforts to put on a Parisian-style salon exhibition, beginning in 1922 and which has continued annually each spring (with the exception of two years during World War II). As noted in the documentary short film, which is directed by Jared Jakins and H.B. Phillips, the museum now has “2,646 works of art and counting.”
Running a bit under 17 minutes, the film is fascinating in celebrating perhaps the Utah Enlightenment’s longest running enterprise of artistic excellence, which also put the state at the forefront as an art education pioneer, ahead of virtually every other state in the U.S. by similar measure. For example, the Springville museum has been instrumental in organizing the Utah All-State High School Art Show annually since 1971, which is coordinated in conjunction with the Utah Division of Arts and Museums. It is among the nation’s largest and longest-running student art shows of its kind.
Andre Cronje’s Sonic Labs Announces L1 Launch, Incentivizing Users With Token Airdrop – Unchained
The newly rolled-out blockchain has a fee monetization feature that rewards developers up to 90% of network fees generated from their application.
Sonic Labs announced on Wednesday the mainnet launch of its new L1 blockchain that is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine and has a fee monetization feature for application developers.
While Sonic Labs is a rebrand of the Fantom Foundation, previously tasked with developing the Opera blockchain, which has FTM as its native token, the freshly rolled-out network implements a number of upgrades such as a faster transaction finality and a new token.
“Sonic represents the culmination of over two and a half years of hard work by the technical team, who optimised the entire execution stack of the Opera Chain, as well as many other improvements such as to the database/storage. This makes operating nodes far easier and cheaper,” wrote Sonic Labs CEO Michael Kong on X early Wednesday.
On a 1:1 basis, FTM holders can exchange their tokens for S, Sonic’s native cryptocurrency which has several roles within the network, namely paying for transaction fees, running validators, and participating in governance, Wednesday’s announcement stated.
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Sonic Already Draws Interest
Sonic was created to succeed Opera, because “the technological advancements we achieved with our Sonic technology could not be fully integrated into Opera through a simple soft-fork upgrade. Therefore, we decided to launch an entirely new network with a new token,” according to a Sept. 2024 blog post.
The Sonic blockchain, which aims to be the fastest settlement layer for digital assets, has executed nearly 304,000 total transactions and boasts roughly 24,000 unique wallet addresses at presstime.
For those developing applications, Sonic has a fee monetization feature that rewards developers up to 90% of network fees generated from the application. “This allows you [developers] to focus on scaling your app and growing your user base without the constant pressure of fundraising or securing additional financing,” per Sonic’s mainnet announcement.
Max Good, an investment research analyst at venture firm Decentral Park Capital, told Unchained, “I think Sonic’s fee monetization approach could be a very interesting way to incentivize and onboard developers, and it already supports [programming languages] Solidity and Vyper, which means it will be a familiar environment for most smart contract devs.”
Aave Chan Initiative, a service provider for the largest lending protocol, posted early Wednesday to the platform’s governance forum a temperature check on whether to deploy Aave V3 on Sonic, citing the new blockchain’s fee monetization feature for applications as a potential and additional source of income for Aave.
Read More: Polygon Community to Reject Proposal for Yield on Bridged Assets, but Beef With Aave Escalates
Good also speculated about potential new decentralized finance primitives from Sonic Labs’ chief technology officer Andre Cronje, who is an influential figure in the DeFi space known for helping build yield aggregation protocol Yearn and introducing a widely used tokenomics design named ve(3,3).
As a means to attract crypto users, developers, and liquidity providers, Sonic Labs has implemented a points system as part of the network’s airdrop of roughly 190.5 million S tokens.
Since the FTM token is currently trading hands at $1.22 and FTM holders can swap for S tokens on a 1:1 basis, the total amount allotted to Sonic’s airdrop is worth roughly $232 million.
“Designed to reward meaningful user engagement within the Sonic ecosystem, these points incentivize a wide range of activities, such as early adoption, long-term loyalty, asset ownership, and active participation with apps across the platform,” Sonic’s governance documentation states.
Earned by bridging assets onto the Sonic blockchain, maintaining liquidity within the ecosystem, and deploying cryptocurrencies on whitelisted applications, Sonic’s points are distributed across multiple seasons with the first one ending around June 2025.
While some are looking to stress test the network, others are excited to start transacting on Sonic because of the airdrop.
The L1 ecosystem is a competitive space, populated by several blockchains that already launched their mainnet such as Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, Aptos, Sui, and Ton. The number of L1 blockchains stands at over 240, market data from CoinGecko shows.
Meanwhile, Hyperliquid, an L1 dedicated to trading perpetual derivatives, recently conducted its token generation event, while other L1s are expected to roll out their mainnet in 2025, namely Glue, Monad, and Berachain.
“The big question is who can build the next [generation] ecosystem of sticky [decentralized applications] to gravitate users,” added Decentral Park Capital’s Good.
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Kathleen Hanna, Tegan and Sara, More Back Internet Archive in $621 Million Copyright Fight – Rolling Stone
By Jon Blistein
Kathleen Hanna, Tegan and Sara, and Amanda Palmer are among the 300-plus musicians who have signed an open letter supporting the Internet Archive as it faces a $621 million copyright infringement lawsuit over its efforts to preserve 78 rpm records.
The letter, spearheaded by the digital advocacy group Fight for the Future, states that the signatories “wholeheartedly oppose” the lawsuit, which they suggest benefits “shareholder profits” more than actual artists. It continues: “We don’t believe that the Internet Archive should be destroyed in our name. The biggest players of our industry clearly need better ideas for supporting us, the artists, and in this letter we are offering them.”
Palmer, in a statement shared with Rolling Stone, says, “It’s an ironic gut punch to musicians and audiences alike to see that the Internet Archive could be destroyed in the name of protecting musicians. For decades, the Internet Archive has had the backs of creators of all kinds when no one else was there to protect us, making sure that old recordings, live shows, websites like MTV News, and diverse information and culture from all over the world had a place where they’d never, ever be erased, carving out a haven where all that creativity and storytelling was recognized as a critically valuable contribution to an important historic archive.”
Other artists who signed the letter include Deerhoof, Cloud Nothings, Open Mike Eagle, Diiv, Franz Nicolay of the Hold Steady, Eve 6, Mary Lattimore, Real Estate, Julia Holter, Kimya Dawson, Caroline Rose, Merrill Garbus (Tune-Yards), the Old 97’s Rhett Miller, Real Estate, Speedy Ortiz, Sarah Tudzin (Illuminati Hotties), Spencer Tweedy, Ted Leo, Brian Aubert of Silvers Pickups, Michael Travis of the String Cheese Incident, and Anjimilie. (The full letter, and a list of signatories, is here.)
The lawsuit was brought last year by several major music rights holders, led by Universal Music Group and Sony Music. They claimed the Internet Archive’s Great 78 Project — an unprecedented effort to digitize hundreds of thousands of obsolete shellac discs produced between the 1890s and early 1950s — constituted the “wholesale theft of generations of music,” with “preservation and research” used as a “smokescreen.” (The Archive has denied the claims.)
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While more than 400,000 recordings have been digitized and made available to listen to on the Great 78 Project, the lawsuit focuses on about 4,000, most by recognizable legacy acts like Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Ella Fitzgerald. With the maximum penalty for statutory damages at $150,000 per infringing incident, the lawsuit has a potential price tag of over $621 million. A broad enough judgement could end the Internet Archive.
Supporters of the suit — including the estates of many of the legacy artists whose recordings are involved — claim the Archive is doing nothing more than reproducing and distributing copyrighted works, making it a clear-cut case of infringement. The Archive, meanwhile, has always billed itself as a research library (albeit a digital one), and its supporters see the suit (as well as a similar one brought by book publishers) as an attack on preservation efforts, as well as public access to the cultural record.
Lia Holland, Fight for the Future’s Campaigns and Communications Director, said the new letter arose out of a belief that major labels “are using the money they should be paying to musicians to attack the concept of preserving art and culture for future generations.” Holland called the suit the “latest in a long stream of bullying and greed that show the incentives of the music industry are fundamentally misaligned with the interests of musicians, and it’s time for real, positive change. Musicians, archivists, digital librarians, and music fans all deserve better than betrayal.”
To that end, the letter focuses on the tension between the potential $621 million damages, the massive profits being raked in by the music industry, and the fact that many working musicians are struggling to make a living. “The music industry is not struggling anymore,” the letter states. “Only musicians are. We demand a course-correction now, focused on the legacies and futures of working musicians.“
Singer-songwriter Carsie Blanton, who signed the Fight for the Future letter, tells Rolling Stone, “Musicians are struggling, but libraries like the Internet Archive are not our problem! Corporations like Spotify, Apple, Live Nation and Ticketmaster are our problem. If labels really wanted to help musicians, they would be working to raise streaming rates. This lawsuit is just another profit-grab.”
Tommy Cappel, who co-founded the group Beats Antique, says the Archive is “hugely valued in the music community” for its preservation of everything from rare recordings to live sets. “This is important work that deserves to continue for generations to come, and we don’t want to see everything they’ve already done for musicians and our legacy erased,” he added. “Major labels could see all musicians, past and present, as partners — instead of being the bad guy in this dynamic. They should drop their suit. Archives keep us alive.”
Rather than suing the Archive, Fight for the Future’s letter calls on labels, streaming services, ticketing outlets, and venues to align on different goals. At the top of the list is boosting preservation efforts by partnering with “valuable cultural stewards like the Internet Archive.” They also call for greater investment in working musicians through more transparency in in ticketing practices, an end to venue merch cuts, and fair streaming compensation.
Sadie Dupuis of Speedy Ortiz says she’s been a longtime user of the Archive, claling it a “vital resource that keeps songs, articles, and images alive — treasures that would otherwise disappear into the digital void.” Dupuis says the Archive has allowed her to re-discover “fragments” of her own creative past (“Some yikes, some cool, all worth preserving,” she quips), as well as early works by other artists.
“The Archive has been essential to my creative life, and to musicians’ collective history, especially those of us outside the mainstream,” she says. “In a year already marked by injustice towards working artists, a lawsuit that targets this critical resource does zilch to us. There are legal interventions musicians need; this lawsuit is the furthest thing from them. I stand with the Internet Archive and the legacy it helps preserve, not the corporate forces trying to erase it.”
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The impact of human-like AI on assigning blame in moral situations – Tech Explorist
In a new study, participants tended to assign greater blame to artificial intelligences (AIs) involved in real-world moral transgressions when they perceived the AIs as having more human-like minds. Minjoo Joo of Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul, Korea, presents these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on December 18, 2024.
Prior research has revealed a tendency of people to blame AI for various moral transgressions, such as in cases of an autonomous vehicle hitting a pedestrian or decisions that caused medical or military harm.
Additional research suggests that people tend to assign more blame to AIs perceived to be capable of awareness, thinking, and planning. People may be more likely to attribute such capacities to AIs they perceive as having human-like minds that can experience conscious feelings.
On the basis of that earlier research, Joo hypothesized that AIs perceived as having human-like minds may receive a greater share of blame for a given moral transgression.
To test this idea, Joo conducted several experiments in which participants were presented with various real-world instances of moral transgressions involving AIs—such as racist auto-tagging of photos—and were asked questions to evaluate their mind perception of the AI involved, as well as the extent to which they assigned blame to the AI, its programmer, the company behind it, or the government. In some cases, AI mind perception was manipulated by describing a name, age, height, and hobby for the AI.
Across the experiments, participants tended to assign considerably more blame to an AI when they perceived it as having a more human-like mind. In these cases, when participants were asked to distribute relative blame, they tended to assign less blame to the involved company. But when asked to rate the level of blame independently for each agent, there was no reduction in blame assigned to the company.
These findings suggest that AI mind perception is a critical factor contributing to blame attribution for transgressions involving AI. Additionally, Joo raises concerns about the potentially harmful consequences of misusing AIs as scapegoats and calls for further research on AI blame attribution.
The author adds: “Can AIs be held accountable for moral transgressions? This research shows that perceiving AI as human-like increases blame toward AI while reducing blame on human stakeholders, raising concerns about using AI as a moral scapegoat.”
Journal Reference:
Bears forage for young bromeliad plants in Peru’s puna grasslands, but prefer to avoid cattle.
Black or multi-ethnic men who report poor health are at greater risk of victimization.
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