HomeTourismMultimillion naira cultural-tourism Art Gallery emerges in Osogbo

Wale-Ojo Lanre Tourism

Culturaltourism activities which seem to be at the lowest ebb in Osun State will soon aim skywards going by the reflection of opinions of artists who converged on Osogbo in preparation for the inauguration of the fondest Art Gallery in the South West of the country.

The seven cultural artists who met on Saturday in Osogbo under the leadership of Yinka Fabayo, Curator-In-Chef, Genesis Art Gallery revealed We are committed to the resuscitation and rejuvenation of the pristine Osogbo Art culture which lured the spirit of Ulli Bier and late Susan Wenger and others to the town and state. We are propelled by that inner conviction that what led to the Mbari Mbayo Club are still here only crying for proper direction and packaging.

Mr Fabayo said we have set our hands on the plough of reactivation of the cultural aura of Osogbo, we are going to institute a chain of cultural-tourism activities planted on the fundamentals of the various forms of arts works and perception . Those authentic, natural, inspirational and grassroots arts which once made Osogbo the second tourists destination in Nigeria.

He revealed the first step in this direction will be the opening of the multimillion naira Genesis Art Gallery which is a multi-disciplinary complex of threestorey solely constructed for the expression of the Art.

Mr Fabayo disclosed the inauguration ceremony will not be business as usual, but an inauguration which will accentuate and stoke the real motive of the Art excercise, Osogbo Cultural Art Risorgimento.

Nigeria should tap cultural festivals for tourism economy Gani Adams

Saving LAUTECH from collapse

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Multimillion naira cultural-tourism Art Gallery emerges in Osogbo - NIGERIAN TRIBUNE (press release) (blog)

When your heart is alternately breaking and expanding with equal beats in a rhythm of truth you are fully alive, bearing witness to the events of our days. You are in each present moment awaiting the exercise of love.

Beyond all of the judgments and fear and hatred and blind loyalty and hopes that someone will save us is our inner powerful still small voice that knows what we need to look at in our lives, what actions need to be taken, what world comes into being with all that happens that there are the commitments we make to show up for someone.

This is a choice.

A privilege.

A way of being in a very human world.

There are actions we know we need to make for ourselves and those actions lead to the person we are, that remains unchanged, that stands in the vulnerable light of humanity and knows the care and consideration of being held and seen and supported and free from oppression and fear and joy and love and wildness and all that appears in these spaces. On the surface it may be a time of truly devastating tragedies and deep ungrounded indulgence bringing up all our worst fears, numbing us into inaction because what was will not be what is. Tempting us to fall asleep. On a deeper level we are being called and encouraged to move into the adult conversation, to open up wide to the great resourcefulness and incredible displays of true inner spirit we are longing to reclaim. TO STAY AWAKE OR TO AWAKEN WITH GRACE into the eternal now where we remember our power and beauty and love.

Like Mark Antony urging mourners into action over the body of Julius Caesar If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. It most certainly wont be the last. But, remember these are adult tears. Propelling loving action. Finding solutions. Standing up for what is right. Being the one who makes love a way of being.

Love, Mel

#FlightoftheSoul #AllSystemsLove

May love surround you and work through you.May you offer your heart to the service of love.May you find peace today and everyday. May blessings and peace flourish in your presence.

To join the Mels Love Land team, become a lover, and contribute to Mels Love Land #MiniMag or learn more aboutbecoming anAmbassador of Love please emailinfo@alwaysalice.com Download the PDF of the latest Mels Love Land #MiniMagMELS LOVE LAND ISSUE 10 | LOVE EVERYONE heremore information on Mels Love Land here.

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Bare Witness and Excercise the Love of an aching Heart - Beliefnet

Summary: Fitness, however, should be for all, says avid runner and fitness enthusiast Babita Xavier. Fitness clubs around the city are leaving no stone unturned in encouraging people to get into shape. She runs a fitness centre in the city and loves to indulge in the excercise regime even on weekends, by way of giving back to the society, especially to women. We jog or walk almost three kilometres, do the stretches, and sitting exercises, using proper techniques.The best part about this group, she says, is they may wear saris or salwars, but they understand the importance of fitness. I was so pleasantly surprised with the concept and even more surprised to know that it was all free of cost!

Fitness clubs around the city are leaving no stone unturned in encouraging people to get into shape. Fitness, however, should be for all, says avid runner and fitness enthusiast Babita Xavier. She runs a fitness centre in the city and loves to indulge in the excercise regime even on weekends, by way of giving back to the society, especially to women. Quoting the bible, Babita says, A man may be the head of the house, but it is a woman who is the neck and if the neck is not strong enough, it affects the head as well as the family. Which is why she has started a fitness group solely for ladies, who meet at the Sanjeeviah park, every Saturday morning. The group now comprises about 80 people, and every weekend, a minimum of 20 ladies are in attendance, with almost 90 per cent being housewives. Elaborating on how it all started, she says, The seed for the idea was sown two years ago when I won a few medals in the Athletics South Asian Championship.

Women would say to me, I wish I was like you! And, I would say, why not? You can be! I began the group last year in June, with just two others. We would go to the park and would run and exercise. Gradually, I started sharing our pictures and spreading the message on social media and, through word of mouth, several people joined.

Source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/lifestyle/health-and-wellbeing/230517/fitness-for-all.html

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Fitness for all | Hyderabad NYOOOZ - NYOOOZ

New York Daily News

Chris Cornell reportedly used exercise band to commit suicide New York Daily News Chris Cornell reportedly used an exercise band and a clip device to take his own life. The famous rocker allegedly obtained a red elastic excercise band and attached it to a carabiner a clip device commonly used by mountain climbers, according to TMZ. and more »

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Chris Cornell reportedly used exercise band to commit suicide - New York Daily News

Josie Gibson got really graphic about her surgery (Picture: Getty/ Instagram)

Josie Gibson displayed the results of her recent surgery with a really graphic Instagram photo.

Josie recently underwent abdominoplasty to remove excess skin after the reality TV star lost weight.

To show the results of the surgery, Josie showed her fans a picture of herself in excercise gear, clearly happy with her figure.

But she went one further and included an image of the skin and fat that was removed from her stomach in the procedure resting on scales.

The picture is seriously ickyso make sure youre not eating if youre going to take a look.

The former Big Brother star said: So happy with the results of my abdominal plasty in September. Scar is amazing and healing nicely. Elain Sassoon was my surgeon and she is an incredible woman. Thank you botch up bodies.

Speaking about the abdominoplasty in November, Josie revealed she had 6lbs of skin removed.

Last year she appeared on Loose Women after losing six stone to convince people she had not undergone surgery to lose the weight.

Showing the excess skin she had been left with, she explained: I cant do anything about it and I worked so hard. The only thing I can do with it is cut it away.

Part of me thinks, Josie, be happy with what youve got but the other part thinks, well you only live once you might as well have the body you want to have.

This isnt the first time Josie has shared pictures of her, erm, excess bits. After undergoing a dermaplane facial, a physical exfoliation procedure that shaves the skins surface to remove dead skin and peach fuzz, she posted an Instagram picture of herself alongside a handful of the peach fuzz hair that was taken away.

MORE: Big Brother lovebirds Josie Gibson and John James Parton had a really awkward reunion

MORE: Josie Gibson shows off her excess skin after six-stone weight loss

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Josie Gibson shares graphic image of excess skin after tummy tuck - Metro

Silicon Valley is Mike Judge and Alec Bergs biting comedy about the American tech industry, now in its fourth season. Every week, well be taking one idea, scene, or joke and explain how it ties to the real Silicon Valley and speaks to an issue at the heart of the industry and its ever-lasting goal to change the world and make boatloads of money in the process.

Spoilers ahead for the fourth episode of season 4, Teambuilding Exercise.

In the fictional tech industry of HBOs Silicon Valley, the soul-crushing mundanity of grunt work is often treated as a punchline. Like many sitcoms about careerism and the slog of American professional life, its considered an insult to have to do boring, seemingly meaningless tasks just because some higher power demands it. But on last nights episode, Silicon Valley highlighted a rather pernicious aspect of the tech industry thats currently serving as the foundation of modern artificial intelligence, shining a spotlight on a type of human labor often overlooked when we discuss the marvels of automation.

In Teambuilding Excercise, we have Erlich scrambling to transform his Shazam for food idea into a workable app, in order to keep the venture capital money flowing. He has Jian-Yang cook up a working prototype of SeeFood, as its so appropriately called, but the test app is capable only of identifying whether a certain food is or is not a hot dog. As is the case with most Silicon Valley gags, theres an elaborate dick joke here. (In a clever twist, HBO commissioned a developer to turn the prototype into a real mobile app you can download right now, if you live in the US.)

AI relies on humans making sense of data

Running out of time and in need of some massive data crunching to expand SeeFood beyond hot dogs, Erlich convinces newly minted Stanford guest lecturer Big Head to let him assign an introductory computer science class with the task of categorizing pictures of food off the internet. It ultimately backfires on Erlich, as the students decide to launch a SeeFood rival of their own. But the task he assigned the class is a very real and illustrative type of tech industry labor, not unlike the work of the Mumbai clickfarm Jared employed last season to boost Pied Pipers user metrics.

Because many modern AI advancements are thanks to neural networks, and because those networks must be trained with countless examples so they improve over time, companies often need human beings to help the software make sense of the data. Thats especially true of computer vision, where computers are digesting images as a series of 1s and 0s and must be trained to understand what its actually looking at. But its also quite common in the realm of chatbots, where text exchanges are reviewed after the fact and then cataloged based on how well the software answered a question or performed a task.

You could call the workers that perform these tasks AI trainers or data annotators, but those roles tend to inflate the importance of the work and downplay its grueling nature. Ultimately, what it comes down to is human beings stepping in when a chatbot or AI program needs assistance, or tirelessly reviewing an algorithms decision-making and cataloging its mistakes to ensure it improves over time. Think of it like a specific extension of Amazons Mechanical Turk marketplace, where human beings are regularly tasked with performing feats computers are not yet capable of doing for tiny fees.

A number of AI startups have popped up over the last few years, as the field has become one of the most sought-after technologies in the industry. Nearly every single one relies on human labor, often secured through short-term contract agreements, to make the reality of the service or software match both the lofty expectations of its creator and the confused expectations of users.

Startups like Magic rely on cheap labor from the Philippines

Take, for example, the startup Magic, which debuted in 2015 as an on-demand concierge service that let you make virtually any request via SMS, so long as its legal. Magic launched its service, which once cost $100 per hour and now costs $35, by employing scores of contractors in the Philippines, where human labor is far cheaper than in the US. The companys long-term goal is to build AI that can automate away some of the more rote behaviors and routine demands, while humans would increasingly be used only for tasks the software could never perform on its own, like calling Amazon customer service. Yet for now that means having a team of around 150 people, dubbed magicians, who are essentially treated like virtual robot butlers by a clientele of mostly wealthy Bay Area types.

Other startups arent quite as dependent on human labor just to operate, but rely on it nonetheless to make sure the data coming in is instructive. X.ai, which developed an email assistant that helps schedule and manage appointment in your inbox, uses human trainers to review and correct exchanges the bot has with strangers. That way, it sounds less robotic and more natural over time.

Facebook also engages in this blend of software and human input with its M bot. Launched in beta in fall 2015, M acted like a fully automated personal assistant, but it requires a team of human contractors down in Menlo Park to take control of the bot when, say, someone asks it to call Amazon customer service. Because this model is near impossible to scale to Facebooks gargantuan user base, M wont likely exit its experimental testing stage anytime soon. Instead, the company has taken the learnings from M and turned them into features for the broader Messenger user base, starting with suggestions for M to perform tasks calling an Uber for you or picking out a sticker to reply with.

While Teambuilding Exercise paints Erlichs request as the whims of a ludicrous con man, categorizing images of food on the internet not so different than annotating an email exchange or observing a stranger conversing with a Facebook chatbot about ordering a burrito. The work is arduous, boring, and in the case of content moderators who scan social networks for violent or disturbing content sometimes psychologically torturing. In the real Silicon Valley, you dont have to make college students do all this dirty work for school credit. You just need to hire someone as a contractor, with few strings attached, and task them with making the AI of the future smarter and better. Hopefully one day, our phones just might be capable of recognizing more than hot dogs.

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HBO's Silicon Valley addresses the dark underbelly of artificial intelligence - The Verge

When you are deciding in favour of post bariatric surgery, it is evident that you are frustrated with the excessive fat that has been barring you from doing day to day jobs properly.

You are fed up of the loose skin that make your skin surface uneven and you have not been able to get rid of it with the yoga and the other excercises that you were prescribed. This surgery can be quite effective in these cases, and you will know why. Read on.

How We Burn Fat

We know that we cannot possibly create or destroy matter but we can choose to change their forms that suits us so that we can remove the excess fat and convert them in some kind of energy. We know that the food that we intake is converted to glucose which is then utilized by our body. But often the starch remain stored in our body in forms that cannot be broken down into glucose and the signals from the brain cannot send signals to have them broken down to be sent to various parts of our body so that we can utilize it. This surgery does this work, and helps in burning down the fat from places on which yoga or excercise cannot work effectively. If you have taken a decision in favour of this surgery, congratulate yourself. Though it will cause a bit of pain, it will give you a healthy lifestyle that is priceless.

Why the Extra Skin?

As we have discussed earlier, the problem is regarding the skin that hangs loose from the surface, thus giving it an uneven look and making us feel uncomfortable. Extra skin can be attributed to different stages of a persons life, ranging from puberty to pregnancy. The collagen fibres of our body stretches, and they have a limit upto which they can strtch. Sometimes they overstretch, which gives rise to stretch marks and is quite ungainly to the sight. These can cause other problems too, such as back pain, and so, getting rid of this extra skin is more important than it seems at first.

Post-Bariatric Surgery and Treatment Options

Age is an important factor that decides how much loose skin one might have after the surgery is done. The younger the person is, the less loose skin he will have. Also, the more weight the patient loses, the more loose skin he will have, naturally. For example, someone who will lose 200lbs would have more loose skin than a person who will lose 80lbs. So, keeping this in mind, you should decide positively for the surgery, and thus you must prepare yourself mentally for it. For people who are planning to lose more than 80lbs, you should know that you are actually going to get rid of those extra pockets of fat that had been troubling you, and this surgery would help you a lot, if you can bear with the pain for a while.

Exercise:

This is very important, post surgery. Walking and excercise is very important, and you must carry these out, even if you have to skip on some occasions, but make it a regular habit. This movement of the body will make your body adjust to the new structure of the body, which is very important.

For more information click here: http://www.gastricballoonaustralia.com.au/

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Post bariatric surgery: feasability of the process | MilTech - MilTech

In order for seniors to stay in their homes longer, we need to address four big health issues: social isolation, physical exercise, nutrition and access to information; or, put simply, getting out, moving those creaky bones, eating at least one good meal a day and finding resources. Isolation can lead to depression and possibly dementia. Lack of exercise can lead to falls and hospitalization. Not eating properly can lead to malnutrition.

Personally, Im fine on three out of four, and a bit too good on the nutrition part, but I fail on moving these old bones. I sit too much in front of a computer and this is starting to take its toll. The brain may be holding up, but the body rebels.

A gentleman by the name of Greg Edwards wrote to me about Winskill staff putting a kibosh on seniors exercise sessions. He wrote letters to the municipality and theDelta Optimist, and sent copies to our politicians. He is upset that two out of three weekly Fit & Functional class sessions, which use chairs for frail individuals, were cancelled due to fluctuating attendance.

Edwards lamented the cancellations, saying it was a class meant to serve the needs of our most frail who have a hard time standing, they cant walk far, they suffer from poor balance, arthritis, osteoporosis.

Hes right. These are the very folks we need to help to get out and to move. These sessions should not be based on attendance stats which can vary from one to 12 depending on weather, driving assistance and various ailments that might prevent someone from attending. If the instructor is only working with one individual on any day, that should be okay. There may be 12 next time. Edwards rightfully suggests that those transporting the senior could also be counted.

Our seniors centres fall under Delta Parks and Recreation, which does a pretty good job overall, at least for those who are relatively spry. There are six recreation centres in Delta, plus three seniors centres (counting Kin Village). The latter also serve hot lunches. A gap is occurring in the frail seniors programming. These residents need a reliable drop-in, chair-based, movement program which does not depend on numbers registered.

Delta might consider North Burnabys SAIL program (Seniors Active in Living). It offers advocacy, socializing, exercise and nutrition for $2 or by donation. They have a coordinator co-sponsored by Burnaby and a private retirement centre.

Every week the members 55+ drop-in to hear a wellness speaker, participate in gentle chair exercises, maybe have a massage (shoulders, hands or feet) then convene for a reasonably priced hot lunch. Volunteers run the various massage and therapeutic touch stations. A nurse from Fraser Health does blood pressure checks and once-a-month a podiatrist runs a foot clinic for an extra fee. The centre staff also get to know the folks who may need more help.

The clientele are regulars and rely on this program to maintain their health, which results in them being able to stay longer in their homes. The SAIL program addresses all four concerns of advocacy, exercise, nutrition and social engagement. Its a win-win for the senior and the system.

ML Burke retired from the health sector to work on issues such as affordable housing. She sits on the Delta Seniors Planning Team and the BC Seniors Advocates Council of Advisors.

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COLUMN: Excercise key to seniors' quality of life - North Delta Reporter

He madehe made a recommendation, Donald Trump said yesterday of his Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein in an interview with NBC News. Hes highly respected, very good guy, very smart guy. The Democrats like him; the Republicans like him. He made a recommendation, but regardless of the recommendation, I was going to fire Comey.

There it is, directly from the presidential mouth: Trump happily traded the reputation of Rosenstein, who began the week as a well-respected career prosecutor, for barely 24 hours of laughably transparent talking points in the news cycle. The White House sent out person after personincluding the Vice Presidentto insist that Rosensteins memo constituted the basis for the Presidents action against the FBI director. The White House described a bottoms-up dissatisfaction with Comeys leadership, which Rosensteins memo encapsulated and to which the President acceded. And then, just as casually as Trump and his people set Rosenstein up as the bad guy for what was obviously a presidential decision into whose service Rosenstein had been enlisted, Trump revealed that Rosenstein was, after all, nothing more than a set piece.

Heres the entire exchange between Trump and NBC:

LESTER HOLT: Monday you met with the deputy attorney general, Rod RosenRosenstein

DONALD TRUMP: Right.

LESTER HOLT: Did you ask for a recommendation?

DONALD TRUMP: Uh what I did is I was going to fire Comeymy decision, it was not [OVER TALK]

LESTER HOLT: You had made the decision before they came in the room?

DONALD TRUMP: II was going to fire Comey. Uh Ithere's no good time to do it by the way. Uh theythey were [OVER TALK]

LESTER HOLT: Because you letter you said II, I accepted their recommendation, so you had already made the decision.

DONALD TRUMP: Oh I was gonna fire regardless of recommendation.

LESTER HOLT: So there was [OVER TALK]

DONALD TRUMP: He madehe made a recommendation, he's highly respected, very good guy, very smart guy, uh the Democrats like him, the Republicans like him, uh he made a recommendation but regardless of recommendation I was going to fire Comey knowing, there was no good time to do it. And in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.

Note that Trump did not merely reveal Rosenstein as a set piece here; he revealed him as a set piece in Trump's own effort to frustrate the Russia investigation. The story as told by the president to NBC now is that Trump decided to fire Comey in connection with saying to himself that the Russia investigation was a made up story, and that it was in that context that he got Rosenstein to write a pretextual memo.

Rosenstein appears to know he has been used. The Washington Post reports that he threatened to resign, as the Post puts it, after the narrative emerging from the White House on Tuesday evening cast him as a prime mover of the decision to fire Comey and that the president acted only on his recommendation. Rosenstein yesterday denied that he had threatened to resign, and the Wall Street Journal offers a slightly more modest version, in which Rosenstein pressed White House counsel Don McGahn to correct what he felt was an inaccurate White House depiction of the events surrounding Comeys firing. He left the impression he couldnt work in an environment where facts werent accurately portrayed.

And Rosenstein got what he wanted: The White House, and Trump himself, have come clean.The firing of Comey had nothing to do with Rosensteins memo. As the White House has now made clear, in a timeline released Wednesday, there were other reasons. As the Journal reports:

The timeline didnt mention Mr. Rosensteins letter until the fourth bullet point, and said Mr Trump had been strongly inclined to remove Mr. Comey after watching his testimony in front of a Senate panel last week.

Subsequently, administration officials said Mr. Trump had been growing increasingly frustrated by the former directors demonstrative performance in a series of congressional hearings, combined with his refusal to clear Mr. Trumps campaign of any wrongdoing, put the president over the edge.

The trouble is that while Rosenstein got what he wanted, Trumps idea of correcting the record was to say publicly exactly the thing about a law enforcement officer that makes his continued service in office impossible: That Trump had used his deputy attorney general as window dressing on a pre-cooked political decision to shut down an investigation involving himself, a decision for which he needed the patina of a high-minded rationale.

Once the President has said this about youa law enforcement officer who works for him and who promised the Senate in confirmation hearings you would show independenceyou have nothing left. These are the costs of working for Trump, and it took Rosenstein only two weeks to pay them.

The only decent course now is to name a special prosecutor and then resign.

I say this with not a trace of joy. Comeys firing has shaken me very deeply, and no aspect of it has shaken me more than the apparent corruption of Rosenstein, on whom I was counting to be a support base for the career men and women of the Justice Department in their efforts to continue honorable service in difficult times.

When Trump nominated Rosenstein as deputy attorney general, I was delighted. I have known Rosenstein for a long time. I have always thought well of him. I've admired his ability to serve at senior levels in administrations of both parties and impress both sides with apolitical service. I considered it a positive sign that Trump had installed a career professional as deputy attorney general under Jeff Sessions, who is a polarizing figure to many. And I quietly told many people anxious about Sessions that I was not worried that anything too terrible would happen at the department with Rosenstein and Rachel Brandwho has not yet been confirmed as associate attorney general and of whom I think extremely highlyin the deputy's and associate's offices respectively.

I was profoundly wrong about Rosenstein.

Rosenstein's memo in support of Comeys firing is a shocking document. The more I think about it, the worse it gets. I have tried six ways from Sunday to put an honorable construction on it. But in the end, I just cannot find one. The memo is a press release to justify an unsavory use of presidential power. It is also a profoundly unfair document. And it's gutless too. Because at the end of the day, the memo greases the wheels for Comey's removal without ever explicitly urging itthus allowing its author to claim that he did something less than recommend the firing, while in fact providing the fig leaf for it.

In other words, Rosensteins actual role was even less honorable than the one he reportedly objected to the White House's tagging him with. If the original story that Rosensteins recommendation drove the train had been true, after all, that at least would involve his giving his independent judgment. But the truth that Trump told is far worse than the lie Rosenstein insisted the White House correct. Rosenstein was taskedto provide a pretext, and he did just that.

Lets give Rosenstein the benefit of the doubt and assume he believes every word of the memo he wroteand I do assume as much. A lot of people, including a lot of people with institutionalist Justice Department views, share the belief that Comey screwed up, as the President would say, big league. Even I, who have defended the good faith of Comeys actions and believe he was in an impossible situation, do not agree with every one of his decisions during the 2016 election period. So Im perfectly willing to believe that Rosenstein felt able to take on the assignment to write this memo because he, in fact, believes the things he said in it.

Lets go a step further and assume that everything Rosenstein says in the memo about Comeys conduct is actually truein other words, not merely that Rosenstein believes it all, but that hes right. (This I do not believe, but I dont want to relitigate the question of Comeys handling of the Clinton emails matters.)

For that matter, let's set aside the fact that the memo criticizes Comey for actions taken many months ago that the current president never criticized and that the previous administration did not think amounted to a firing offense.

Even with these assumptions, the memo is indefensible. Paul Rosenzweig has ably detailed its deficiencies; Bob Bauer has described how the document, which was produced in the less-than-two-weeks that Rosenstein has been in office, does not indicate whom Rosenstein consulted with and on what factual record his conclusions depended. Daphna Renan and David Pozen make a similar point, arguing that the process by which Comey was fired appears to raise a version of the same professional concerns that the firing supposedly responds to: a breach of Justice Department norms developed to protect integrity and independence.

I wont rehash their many points in detail here but I wish to add a few, all around one general theme: Rosensteins memo wasnt honorable, and it debasesthe office of the deputy attorney general for the occupant of that office to issue such a memo.

First off, the document, even if a recitation of Rosensteins actual views, wasas Trumps comments yesterday made so very clearnot a good faith exercise in advising the attorney general or the President. Trump, after all, had already made his decision, and Rosenstein clearly knew that. He met with the President on Monday, after all, along with Sessions. What happened at that meeting? The president asked that they put their concerns and recommendations in writing, which is the letter that you all had received, said White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders a little too candidly,the Washington Post reports. So Rosenstein was simply memorializing his concerns about Comeys handling of months-old matters in a document he knew would be used for political ends. In this context, the deployment of the obviously pretextual rationale that Democrats had previously embraced is not the conduct of a deputy attorney general but, well, something you might expect from Sarah Huckabee Sanders or Sean Spicer. Did Rosenstein think he would fool anyone? How does a person of honor write such a weak document at the Presidents request in support of a decision already made?

Second, Rosensteins memo wasnt decent. If youre going to recommend that someone be fired, you should have the decency to pick up the phone and give him a chance to address the substantive matters that form the basis of your recommendation. You should particularly do that if you know that the document youve written is likely to become public. And you should even more particularly do it if youre making your recommendation knowing that youre short-circuiting an inspector general investigation of the subjects handling of precisely the matters that form the basis of your memo. (So you dont think Im being hypocritical here, I emailed Rosenstein before publishing this article, offering to share to the draft with him and to discuss the matters at issue.)

The memo was also cowardly. Rosenstein doesn't even take responsibility for the recommendation he was plainly making. He has, quite bizarrely in my view, gotten credit for this in some quarters, with some observers suggesting that perhaps he stopped short of explicitly recommending the firing because he, in fact, had no intention of precipitating that event when he wrote the memo.

Please.

Rosenstein has been around the block in this town too many time not to know exactly what he was doing when he wrote this.

His omission actually cuts in the opposite direction. If he did not want Comey to be fired, he should have written a memo explaining how Comey had erred and why those errors did not in his view amount to a firing offense. Conversely, if he believed that Comey needed to go, he should have had the courage to make that view explicit. Except, of course, that as Trump has now told us, Rosenstein wasnt actually giving advice at all. He was filling in some blanks on a preprinted form. The decision had already been made. The recommendation, such as it was, was retroactive.

Nor is it quite true that Rosenstein did not recommend Comeys firing, except in the very limited sense that he did not write the words, I recommend that you fire Jim Comey. Heres what he did write: The FBI is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a Director who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges never to repeat them. Having refused to admit his errors, the Director cannot be expected to implement the necessary corrective actions. Stopping just short of explicitness in order to retain some marginally plausible deniability was not an honorable course. It was an excercise in Washington CYA, and it compounds the indecency of the episode.

In the end, Trump was able to make set piece out of Rosenstein, because Rosenstein let himself be used as a set piece. And theres an important lesson in that for the many honorable men and women with pending appointments and nominations to serve in senior levels of the Justice Departmentor who are considering accepting such appointments. It took Donald Trump only two weeks to put Rosenstein, a figure of sterling reputation, in the position of choosing between continued service and behaving honorablyand it took only two days after that for the President to announce that Rosensteins memo, after all, was nothing more than a Potemkin village designed as a facade on Trumps predecided outcome.

Do you really want this to be you? Do you really think Trump will not leave your reputation as so much roadkill on the highway after enlisting you in sliming someone else a week or two after you take office?

The lesson here is that these are not honorable people, and they will do their best to drag you down to their level. They will often succeed.

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Et Tu Rod? Why The Deputy Attorney General Must Resign - Lawfare (blog)

An early morning dance party created in New York, now in Austin provides an alternative to the nightlife scene.

Jay Wallis, KVUE 7:27 AM. CDT May 12, 2017

Americans have been considered to be some of the most overworked people in the entire world -- giving up certain relaxation time -- to get work done. However, there is a new outlet that just arrived in Austin that can help people kickstart their work day in a weird way.

Radha Magrawal lives in New York and started to get tired of the nightlife scene through time as well as the negative qualities that are associated with it.

"We were sort of overcome by how nightlife had gotten overrun by drugs and alcohol and everyone on their cell phones," Magrawal said. "We wanted to create something that was clean. Something that was community driven."

So Magrawal and a friend created Daybreaker in 2013. This is an early morning dance party that provides the same energy, music and dancing as a club -- but starting at 6 a.m.

"It's really pure fun," Magrawal said. "We've become so segmented, and our goal is to really bring back the intergenerational communities."

These dance parties are alcohol-free and also are supported by local artists and musicians from wherever Daybreaker takes its services. Eli Clark-Davis works for Daybreaker with Magrawal in New York City, and he said this also provides a safer atmosphere for those people who like to dance.

"People are really embracing it around the country," Clark-Davis said. "This all just came from the frustration of nightlife. There are a lot of people that don't feel confident going out there. There is going to be a lot of creepy things going on, as well as just unsafe. We've created a space where people can fully express themselves and get completey into it.

Clark-Davis also brings up the fact that Magrawal and her team looked into the science behind starting your day in a positive way. They call it the "Daybreaker Dose." They say your body releases your brain's natural "happy chemicals" through this early morning dancing, which consists of dopamine (getting up early), oxytocin (receiving hugs), serotonin (upbeat music) and endorphins (excercise from dancing).

"People end up dancing harder here than they do on a Saturday night," Clark-Davis said.

For Magrawal, as her company continues to expand well beyond New York City, she hopes to see the makeup of people at these parties continue to be diverse.

"Let's stop calling ourselves Millennials, Generation X, Generation Z or Generation Y," Magrawal said. "We are all the same thing here."

Magrawal plans to schedule a Daybreaker party once a month in Austin, as it debuted Wednesday, May 10. To learn more about the next Daybreaker event, you can visit daybreaker.com.

2017 KVUE-TV

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