Academic literature on the topic 'Mercer County Fair'

Two separate school districts—a city one and a county one—operated independently in Durham, North Carolina, until the early 1990s. The two districts merged relatively late compared to other North Carolina cities, such as Raleigh and Charlotte. In Durham, residents in both the county and city systems vehemently opposed the merger until the county commissioners ultimately bypassed a popular vote. African American advocates in the city school district, in particular, faced an impossible trade-off: city schools increasingly struggled financially because of an inequitable funding structure, but a merger would significantly threaten fair racial representation on the consolidated school board. This article explores this core tension in historical context by looking at several failed merger attempts from 1958 to 1988, as well as the 1991 merger implementation, against the backdrop of desegregation, economic transition, profound metropolitan changes, and protracted political battles in Durham.

Introduction. The problem of monopolization of the electric and technical market in Russia becomes the most important one during the economic modernization at the edge of XIX–XX centuries when the branches of foreign electric and technical companies are converted into Russian joint stock companies. “Electric illumination company of 1886” becomes the largest company on this market at the beginning of the XX century. Materials and Methods. The article is devoted to the research of the policy of “Electric illumination company of 1886” aimed at the acquisition of the “Shuvalov electric illumination company in Petersburg region” of the largest electro technical company – Joint stock company “Shuvalov electro technical illumination in Petersburg region” established for the purpose of illumination of country-house plots and houses in the suburb of St. Petersburg (Shuvalovo, Ozerki and Pargolovo) at the beginning of the XX century, which is based on the analysis of the archive materials contained in the Russian State Historical Archive (RSHA) and Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg (CSHA SPb.). Results of the Research. Using the example of the activity of such electro technical companies the author reveals the mechanism of “merger and acquisition” of minor joint stock companies by large monopolists who used different methods of pressure on the shareholders and management of the companies. Discussion and Conclusion. In this competitor environment, minor joint stock companies did not have a chance to remain independent even in the case of a fair court decision. The situation of “merger and acquisition” was actually profitable mostly for the companies’ management and for the leading shareholders who, in this case, received regular dividends, but the common customers had to pay according to the prices set forth by monopolies.

Purpose Drawing attention to the significant number of unsuccessful (abandoned) cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions in recent years, the purpose of this paper is to analyze three litigated cross-border inbound acquisitions that associated with an emerging economy – India, such as Vodafone-Hutchison and Bharti Airtel-MTN deals in the telecommunications industry, and Vedanta-Cairn India deal in the oil and gas exploration industry. The study intends to explore how do institutional and political environments in the host country affect the completion likelihood of cross-border acquisition negotiations. Design/methodology/approach Nested within the interdisciplinary framework, the study adopts a legitimate method in qualitative research, that is, case study method, and performs a unit of analysis and cross-case analysis of sample cases. Findings The critical analysis suggests that government officials’ erratic nature and ruling political party intervention have detrimental effects on the success of Indian-hosted cross-border deals with higher bid value, listed target firm, cash payment, and stronger government control in the target industry. The findings emerge from the cross-case analysis of sample cases contribute to the Lucas paradox – why does not capital flow from rich to poor countries and interdisciplinary M&A literature on the completion likelihood of international takeovers. Practical implications The findings have several implications for multinational managers who typically involve in cross-border negotiations. The causes and consequences of sample cases would help develop economy firms who intend to invest in emerging economies. The study also offers some implications of M&A for telecommunications and extractive industries. Originality/value Although a huge amount of extant research investigates why M&A fail to create value to the shareholders during the public announcement and post-merger stages, there is a significant dearth of research on the causes and consequences of delayed or abandoned national and international deals. The paper fills this knowledge gap by discussing an in-depth cross-case analysis of Indian-hosted cross-border acquisitions.

The recent restructuring of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) has generated immense interest in the economic world and the various stakeholders which include investors, depositors, borrowers, the staff working in these banks and the top management of the merging entities. Whereas the depositors look for safety of their monies, the borrowers of merging entities look for new loan products at cheaper rates and faster delivery. The investors will look for resumption of dividend payouts at higher rates and capital appreciation of their investments and the staff looks for better working conditions. The top management will expect more freedom to operate and manage their respective banks more efficiently to grow and earn higher profits. The merger of strong banks was recommended by the first Narasimham Committee in 1991. It has taken almost 28 long years for the Government of India to act on this very critical suggestion of the committee. It is widely believed that this belated step has been initiated due to huge pile of Non Performing Assets (NPAs) with Public Sector Banks and the resultant need for their frequent recapitalization. It is a moral hazard and bad economics for any government to regularly recapitalise PSBs being the major stake holder and having total administrative control of their boards and the top management. To enable PSBs meet the regulatory capital as per international norms and the provisioning requirements enforced by Reserve Bank of India, use of tax payer’s money (collected for economic development of the country) is questionable. However it is made clear by the government that the merger is intended to make PSBs bigger and internationally competitive and to build up their capacity to access capital markets for raising resources. A perspective of growth of NPAs and the resultant impact on the financial deterioration of PSBs over a time horizon can give answers to the need for restructuring of Public Sector Banks as repeat of such actions by the government may again be necessitated in future. The improvement in financial performance parameters of PSBs over next few years will answer if act of restructuring by the Government of India results in internationally strong ‘too big to fail banks’ .

In Ireland today, we eat more pigmeat per capita, approximately 32.4 kilograms, than any other meat, yet you very seldom if ever see a pig (C.S.O.). Fat and flavour are two words that are synonymous with pig meat, yet scientists have spent the last thirty years cross breeding to produce leaner, low-fat pigs. Today’s pig professionals prefer to use the term “pig finishing” as opposed to the more traditional “pig fattening” (Tuite). The pig evokes many themes in relation to cuisine. Charles Lamb (1775-1834), in his essay Dissertation upon Roast Pig, cites Confucius in attributing the accidental discovery of the art of roasting to the humble pig. The pig has been singled out by many cultures as a food to be avoided or even abhorred, and Harris (1997) illustrates the environmental effect this avoidance can have by contrasting the landscape of Christian Albania with that of Muslim Albania.This paper will focus on the pig in Irish cuisine and culture from ancient times to the present day. The inspiration for this paper comes from a folklore tale about how Saint Martin created the pig from a piece of fat. The story is one of a number recorded by Seán Ó Conaill, the famous Kerry storyteller and goes as follows:From St Martin’s fat they were made. He was travelling around, and one night he came to a house and yard. At that time there were only cattle; there were no pigs or piglets. He asked the man of the house if there was anything to eat the chaff and the grain. The man replied there were only the cattle. St Martin said it was a great pity to have that much chaff going to waste. At night when they were going to bed, he handed a piece of fat to the servant-girl and told her to put it under a tub, and not to look at it at all until he would give her the word next day. The girl did so, but she kept a bit of the fat and put it under a keeler to find out what it would be.When St Martin rose next day he asked her to go and lift up the tub. She lifted it up, and there under it were a sow and twelve piglets. It was a great wonder to them, as they had never before seen pig or piglet.The girl then went to the keeler and lifted it, and it was full of mice and rats! As soon as the keeler was lifted, they went running about the house searching for any hole that they could go into. When St Martin saw them, he pulled off one of his mittens and threw it at them and made a cat with that throw. And that is why the cat ever since goes after mice and rats (Ó Conaill).The place of the pig has long been established in Irish literature, and longer still in Irish topography. The word torc, a boar, like the word muc, a pig, is a common element of placenames, from Kanturk (boar’s head) in West Cork to Ros Muc (headland of pigs) in West Galway. The Irish pig had its place in literature well established long before George Orwell’s English pig, Major, headed the dictatorship in Animal Farm. It was a wild boar that killed the hero Diarmaid in the Fenian tale The Pursuit of Diarmaid and Gráinne, on top of Ben Bulben in County Sligo (Mac Con Iomaire). In Ancient and Medieval Ireland, wild boars were hunted with great fervour, and the prime cuts were reserved for the warrior classes, and certain other individuals. At a feast, a leg of pork was traditionally reserved for a king, a haunch for a queen, and a boar’s head for a charioteer. The champion warrior was given the best portion of meat (Curath Mhir or Champions’ Share), and fights often took place to decide who should receive it. Gantz (1981) describes how in the ninth century tale The story of Mac Dathó’s Pig, Cet mac Matach, got supremacy over the men of Ireland: “Moreover he flaunted his valour on high above the valour of the host, and took a knife in his hand and sat down beside the pig. “Let someone be found now among the men of Ireland”, said he, “to endure battle with me, or leave the pig for me to divide!”It did not take long before the wild pigs were domesticated. Whereas cattle might be kept for milk and sheep for wool, the only reason for pig rearing was as a source of food. Until the late medieval period, the “domesticated” pigs were fattened on woodland mast, the fruit of the beech, oak, chestnut and whitethorn, giving their flesh a delicious flavour. So important was this resource that it is acknowledged by an entry in the Annals of Clonmacnoise for the year 1038: “There was such an abundance of ackornes this yeare that it fattened the pigges [runts] of pigges” (Sexton 45). In another mythological tale, two pig keepers, one called ‘friuch’ after the boars bristle (pig keeper to the king of Munster) and the other called ‘rucht’ after its grunt (pig keeper to the king of Connacht), were such good friends that the one from the north would bring his pigs south when there was a mast of oak and beech nuts in Munster. If the mast fell in Connacht, the pig-keeper from the south would travel northward. Competitive jealousy sparked by troublemakers led to the pig keepers casting spells on each other’s herds to the effect that no matter what mast they ate they would not grow fat. Both pig keepers were practised in the pagan arts and could form themselves into any shape, and having been dismissed by their kings for the leanness of their pig herds due to the spells, they eventually formed themselves into the two famous bulls that feature in the Irish Epic The Táin (Kinsella).In the witty and satirical twelfth century text, The Vision of Mac Conglinne (Aisling Mhic Conglinne), many references are made to the various types of pig meat. Bacon, hams, sausages and puddings are often mentioned, and the gate to the fortress in the visionary land of plenty is described thus: “there was a gate of tallow to it, whereon was a bolt of sausage” (Jackson).Although pigs were always popular in Ireland, the emergence of the potato resulted in an increase in both human and pig populations. The Irish were the first Europeans to seriously consider the potato as a staple food. By 1663 it was widely accepted in Ireland as an important food plant and by 1770 it was known as the Irish Potato (Mac Con Iomaire and Gallagher). The potato transformed Ireland from an under populated island of one million in the 1590s to 8.2 million in 1840, making it the most densely populated country in Europe. Two centuries of genetic evolution resulted in potato yields growing from two tons per acre in 1670 to ten tons per acre in 1800. A constant supply of potato, which was not seen as a commercial crop, ensured that even the smallest holding could keep a few pigs on a potato-rich diet. Pat Tuite, an expert on pigs with Teagasc, the Irish Agricultural and Food Development Authority, reminded me that the potatoes were cooked for the pigs and that they also enjoyed whey, the by product of both butter and cheese making (Tuite). The agronomist, Arthur Young, while travelling through Ireland, commented in 1770 that in the town of Mitchelstown in County Cork “there seemed to be more pigs than human beings”. So plentiful were pigs at this time that on the eve of the Great Famine in 1841 the pig population was calculated to be 1,412,813 (Sexton 46). Some of the pigs were kept for home consumption but the rest were a valuable source of income and were shown great respect as the gentleman who paid the rent. Until the early twentieth century most Irish rural households kept some pigs.Pork was popular and was the main meat eaten at all feasts in the main houses; indeed a feast was considered incomplete without a whole roasted pig. In the poorer holdings, fresh pork was highly prized, as it was only available when a pig of their own was killed. Most of the pig was salted, placed in the brine barrel for a period or placed up the chimney for smoking.Certain superstitions were observed concerning the time of killing. Pigs were traditionally killed only in months that contained the letter “r”, since the heat of the summer months caused the meat to turn foul. In some counties it was believed that pigs should be killed under the full moon (Mahon 58). The main breed of pig from the medieval period was the Razor Back or Greyhound Pig, which was very efficient in converting organic waste into meat (Fitzgerald). The killing of the pig was an important ritual and a social occasion in rural Ireland, for it meant full and plenty for all. Neighbours, who came to help, brought a handful of salt for the curing, and when the work was done each would get a share of the puddings and the fresh pork. There were a number of days where it was traditional to kill a pig, the Michaelmas feast (29 September), Saint Martins Day (11 November) and St Patrick’s Day (17 March). Olive Sharkey gives a vivid description of the killing of the barrow pig in rural Ireland during the 1930s. A barrow pig is a male pig castrated before puberty:The local slaughterer (búistéir) a man experienced in the rustic art of pig killing, was approached to do the job, though some farmers killed their own pigs. When the búistéirarrived the whole family gathered round to watch the killing. His first job was to plunge the knife in the pig’s heart via the throat, using a special knife. The screeching during this performance was something awful, but the animal died instantly once the heart had been reached, usually to a round of applause from the onlookers. The animal was then draped across a pig-gib, a sort of bench, and had the fine hairs on its body scraped off. To make this a simple job the animal was immersed in hot water a number of times until the bristles were softened and easy to remove. If a few bristles were accidentally missed the bacon was known as ‘hairy bacon’!During the killing of the pig it was imperative to draw a good flow of blood to ensure good quality meat. This blood was collected in a bucket for the making of puddings. The carcass would then be hung from a hook in the shed with a basin under its head to catch the drip, and a potato was often placed in the pig’s mouth to aid the dripping process. After a few days the carcass would be dissected. Sharkey recalls that her father maintained that each pound weight in the pig’s head corresponded to a stone weight in the body. The body was washed and then each piece that was to be preserved was carefully salted and placed neatly in a barrel and hermetically sealed. It was customary in parts of the midlands to add brown sugar to the barrel at this stage, while in other areas juniper berries were placed in the fire when hanging the hams and flitches (sides of bacon), wrapped in brown paper, in the chimney for smoking (Sharkey 166). While the killing was predominantly men’s work, it was the women who took most responsibility for the curing and smoking. Puddings have always been popular in Irish cuisine. The pig’s intestines were washed well and soaked in a stream, and a mixture of onions, lard, spices, oatmeal and flour were mixed with the blood and the mixture was stuffed into the casing and boiled for about an hour, cooled and the puddings were divided amongst the neighbours.The pig was so palatable that the famous gastronomic writer Grimod de la Reyniere once claimed that the only piece you couldn’t eat was the “oink”. Sharkey remembers her father remarking that had they been able to catch the squeak they would have made tin whistles out of it! No part went to waste; the blood and offal were used, the trotters were known as crubeens (from crúb, hoof), and were boiled and eaten with cabbage. In Galway the knee joint was popular and known as the glúiníns (from glún, knee). The head was roasted whole or often boiled and pressed and prepared as Brawn. The chitterlings (small intestines) were meticulously prepared by continuous washing in cool water and the picking out of undigested food and faeces. Chitterlings were once a popular bar food in Dublin. Pig hair was used for paintbrushes and the bladder was occasionally inflated, using a goose quill, to be used as a football by the children. Meindertsma (2007) provides a pictorial review of the vast array of products derived from a single pig. These range from ammunition and porcelain to chewing gum.From around the mid-eighteenth century, commercial salting of pork and bacon grew rapidly in Ireland. 1820 saw Henry Denny begin operation in Waterford where he both developed and patented several production techniques for bacon. Bacon curing became a very important industry in Munster culminating in the setting up of four large factories. Irish bacon was the brand leader and the Irish companies exported their expertise. Denny set up a plant in Denmark in 1894 and introduced the Irish techniques to the Danish industry, while O’Mara’s set up bacon curing facilities in Russia in 1891 (Cowan and Sexton). Ireland developed an extensive export trade in bacon to England, and hams were delivered to markets in Paris, India, North and South America. The “sandwich method” of curing, or “dry cure”, was used up until 1862 when the method of injecting strong brine into the meat by means of a pickling pump was adopted by Irish bacon-curers. 1887 saw the formation of the Bacon Curers’ Pig Improvement Association and they managed to introduce a new breed, the Large White Ulster into most regions by the turn of the century. This breed was suitable for the production of “Wiltshire” bacon. Cork, Waterford Dublin and Belfast were important centres for bacon but it was Limerick that dominated the industry and a Department of Agriculture document from 1902 suggests that the famous “Limerick cure” may have originated by chance:1880 […] Limerick producers were short of money […] they produced what was considered meat in a half-cured condition. The unintentional cure proved extremely popular and others followed suit. By the turn of the century the mild cure procedure was brought to such perfection that meat could [… be] sent to tropical climates for consumption within a reasonable time (Cowan and Sexton).Failure to modernise led to the decline of bacon production in Limerick in the 1960s and all four factories closed down. The Irish pig market was protected prior to joining the European Union. There were no imports, and exports were subsidised by the Pigs and Bacon Commission. The Department of Agriculture started pig testing in the early 1960s and imported breeds from the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. The two main breeds were Large White and Landrace. Most farms kept pigs before joining the EU but after 1972, farmers were encouraged to rationalise and specialise. Grants were made available for facilities that would keep 3,000 pigs and these grants kick started the development of large units.Pig keeping and production were not only rural occupations; Irish towns and cities also had their fair share. Pigs could easily be kept on swill from hotels, restaurants, not to mention the by-product and leftovers of the brewing and baking industries. Ed Hick, a fourth generation pork butcher from south County Dublin, recalls buying pigs from a local coal man and bus driver and other locals for whom it was a tradition to keep pigs on the side. They would keep some six or eight pigs at a time and feed them on swill collected locally. Legislation concerning the feeding of swill introduced in 1985 (S.I.153) and an amendment in 1987 (S.I.133) required all swill to be heat-treated and resulted in most small operators going out of business. Other EU directives led to the shutting down of thousands of slaughterhouses across Europe. Small producers like Hick who slaughtered at most 25 pigs a week in their family slaughterhouse, states that it was not any one rule but a series of them that forced them to close. It was not uncommon for three inspectors, a veterinarian, a meat inspector and a hygiene inspector, to supervise himself and his brother at work. Ed Hick describes the situation thus; “if we had taken them on in a game of football, we would have lost! We were seen as a huge waste of veterinary time and manpower”.Sausages and rashers have long been popular in Dublin and are the main ingredients in the city’s most famous dish “Dublin Coddle.” Coddle is similar to an Irish stew except that it uses pork rashers and sausage instead of lamb. It was, traditionally, a Saturday night dish when the men came home from the public houses. Terry Fagan has a book on Dublin Folklore called Monto: Murder, Madams and Black Coddle. The black coddle resulted from soot falling down the chimney into the cauldron. James Joyce describes Denny’s sausages with relish in Ulysses, and like many other Irish emigrants, he would welcome visitors from home only if they brought Irish sausages and Irish whiskey with them. Even today, every family has its favourite brand of sausages: Byrne’s, Olhausens, Granby’s, Hafner’s, Denny’s Gold Medal, Kearns and Superquinn are among the most popular. Ironically the same James Joyce, who put Dublin pork kidneys on the world table in Ulysses, was later to call his native Ireland “the old sow that eats her own farrow” (184-5).The last thirty years have seen a concerted effort to breed pigs that have less fat content and leaner meat. There are no pure breeds of Landrace or Large White in production today for they have been crossbred for litter size, fat content and leanness (Tuite). Many experts feel that they have become too lean, to the detriment of flavour and that the meat can tend to split when cooked. Pig production is now a complicated science and tighter margins have led to only large-scale operations being financially viable (Whittemore). The average size of herd has grown from 29 animals in 1973, to 846 animals in 1997, and the highest numbers are found in counties Cork and Cavan (Lafferty et al.). The main players in today’s pig production/processing are the large Irish Agribusiness Multinationals Glanbia, Kerry Foods and Dairygold. Tuite (2002) expressed worries among the industry that there may be no pig production in Ireland in twenty years time, with production moving to Eastern Europe where feed and labour are cheaper. When it comes to traceability, in the light of the Foot and Mouth, BSE and Dioxin scares, many feel that things were much better in the old days, when butchers like Ed Hick slaughtered animals that were reared locally and then sold them back to local consumers. Hick has recently killed pigs for friends who have begun keeping them for home consumption. This slaughtering remains legal as long as the meat is not offered for sale.Although bacon and cabbage, and the full Irish breakfast with rashers, sausages and puddings, are considered to be some of Ireland’s most well known traditional dishes, there has been a growth in modern interpretations of traditional pork and bacon dishes in the repertoires of the seemingly ever growing number of talented Irish chefs. Michael Clifford popularised Clonakilty Black Pudding as a starter in his Cork restaurant Clifford’s in the late 1980s, and its use has become widespread since, as a starter or main course often partnered with either caramelised apples or red onion marmalade. Crubeens (pigs trotters) have been modernised “a la Pierre Kaufman” by a number of Irish chefs, who bone them out and stuff them with sweetbreads. Kevin Thornton, the first Irish chef to be awarded two Michelin stars, has roasted suckling pig as one of his signature dishes. Richard Corrigan is keeping the Irish flag flying in London in his Michelin starred Soho restaurant, Lindsay House, where traditional pork and bacon dishes from his childhood are creatively re-interpreted with simplicity and taste.Pork, ham and bacon are, without doubt, the most traditional of all Irish foods, featuring in the diet since prehistoric times. Although these meats remain the most consumed per capita in post “Celtic Tiger” Ireland, there are a number of threats facing the country’s pig industry. Large-scale indoor production necessitates the use of antibiotics. European legislation and economic factors have contributed in the demise of the traditional art of pork butchery. Scientific advancements have resulted in leaner low-fat pigs, many argue, to the detriment of flavour. Alas, all is not lost. There is a growth in consumer demand for quality local food, and some producers like J. Hick & Sons, and Prue & David Rudd and Family are leading the way. The Rudds process and distribute branded antibiotic-free pig related products with the mission of “re-inventing the tastes of bygone days with the quality of modern day standards”. Few could argue with the late Irish writer John B. Keane (72): “When this kind of bacon is boiling with its old colleague, white cabbage, there is a gurgle from the pot that would tear the heart out of any hungry man”.ReferencesCowan, Cathal and Regina Sexton. Ireland's Traditional Foods: An Exploration of Irish Local & Typical Foods & Drinks. Dublin: Teagasc, 1997.C.S.O. Central Statistics Office. Figures on per capita meat consumption for 2009, 2010. Ireland. http://www.cso.ie.Fitzgerald, Oisin. "The Irish 'Greyhound' Pig: an extinct indigenous breed of Pig." History Ireland13.4 (2005): 20-23.Gantz, Jeffrey Early Irish Myths and Sagas. New York: Penguin, 1981.Harris, Marvin. "The Abominable Pig." Food and Culture: A Reader. Eds. Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik. New York: Routledge, 1997. 67-79.Hick, Edward. Personal Communication with master butcher Ed Hick. 15 Apr. 2002.Hick, Edward. Personal Communication concerning pig killing. 5 Sep. 2010.Jackson, K. H. Ed. Aislinge Meic Con Glinne, Dublin: Institute of Advanced Studies, 1990.Joyce, James. The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, London: Granada, 1977.Keane, John B. Strong Tea. Cork: Mercier Press, 1963.Kinsella, Thomas. The Táin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970.Lafferty, S., Commins, P. and Walsh, J. A. Irish Agriculture in Transition: A Census Atlas of Agriculture in the Republic of Ireland. Dublin: Teagasc, 1999.Mac Con Iomaire, Liam. Ireland of the Proverb. Dublin: Town House, 1988.Mac Con Iomaire, Máirtín and Pádraic Óg Gallagher. "The Potato in Irish Cuisine and Culture."Journal of Culinary Science and Technology 7.2-3 (2009): 1-16.Mahon, Bríd. Land of Milk and Honey: The Story of Traditional Irish Food and Drink. Cork:Mercier, 1998.Meindertsma, Christien. PIG 05049 2007. 10 Aug. 2010 http://www.christienmeindertsma.com.Ó Conaill, Seán. Seán Ó Conaill's Book. Bailie Átha Cliath: Bhéaloideas Éireann, 1981.Sexton, Regina. A Little History of Irish Food. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1998.Sharkey, Olive. Old Days Old Ways: An Illustrated Folk History of Ireland. Dublin: The O'Brien Press, 1985.S.I. 153, 1985 (Irish Legislation) http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1985/en/si/0153.htmlS.I. 133, 1987 (Irish Legislation) http://www.irishstatuebook.ie/1987/en/si/0133.htmlTuite, Pat. Personal Communication with Pat Tuite, Chief Pig Advisor, Teagasc. 3 May 2002.Whittemore, Colin T. and Ilias Kyriazakis. Whitmore's Science and Practice of Pig Production 3rdEdition. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006.

The use of the family home as a setting for television sitcoms (situation comedies) has long been recognised for its ability to provide audiences with an identifiable site of ontological security (much discussed by Giddens, Scannell, Saunders and others). From the beginnings of American sitcoms with such programs as Leave it to Beaver, and through the trail of The Brady Bunch, The Cosby Show, Roseanne, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and on to Home Improvement, That 70s Show and How I Met Your Mother, the US has led the way with screenwriters and producers capitalising on the value of using the suburban family dwelling as a fixed setting. The most obvious advantage is the use of an easily constructed and inexpensive set, most often on a TV studio soundstage requiring only a few rooms (living room, kitchen and bedroom are usually enough to set the scene), and a studio audience. In Singapore, sitcoms have had similar successes; portraying the lives of ‘ordinary people’ in their home settings. Some programs have achieved phenomenal success, including an unprecedented ten year run for Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd from 1996-2007, closely followed by Under One Roof (1994-2000 and an encore season in 2002), and Living with Lydia (2001-2005). This article furthers Blunt and Dowling’s exploration of the “critical geography” of home, by providing a focused analysis of home-based sitcoms in the nation-state of Singapore. The use of the home tells us a lot. Roseanne’s cluttered family home represents a lived reality for working-class families throughout the Western world. In Friends, the seemingly wealthy ‘young’ people live in a fashionable apartment building, while Seinfeld’s apartment block is much less salubrious, indicating (in line with the character) the struggle of the humble comedian. Each of these examples tells us something about not just the characters, but quite often about class, race, and contemporary societies. In the Singaporean programs, the home in Under One Roof (hereafter UOR) represents the major form of housing in Singapore, and the program as a whole demonstrates the workability of Singaporean multiculturalism in a large apartment block. Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd (PCK) demonstrates the entrepreneurial abilities of even under-educated Singaporeans, with its lead character, a building contractor, living in a large freestanding dwelling – generally reserved for the well-heeled of Singaporean society. And in Living with Lydia (LWL) (a program which demonstrates Singapore’s capacity for global integration), Hong Kong émigré Lydia is forced to share a house (less ostentatious than PCK’s) with the family of the hapless Billy B. Ong. There is perhaps no more telling cultural event than the sitcom. In the 1970s, The Brady Bunch told us more about American values and habits than any number of news reports or cop shows. A nation’s identity is uncovered; it bares its soul to us through the daily tribulations of its TV households. In Singapore, home-based sitcoms have been one of the major success stories in local television production with each of these three programs collecting multiple prizes at the region-wide Asian Television Awards. These sitcoms have been able to reflect the ideals and values of the Singaporean nation to audiences both at ‘home’ and abroad. This article explores the worlds of UOR, PCK, and LWL, and the ways in which each of the fictional homes represents key features of the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Singapore. Through ownership and regulation, Singaporean TV programs operate as a firm link between the state and its citizens. These sitcoms follow regular patterns where the ‘man of the house’ is more buffoon than breadwinner – in a country defined by its neo-Confucian morality, sitcoms allow a temporary subversion of patriarchal structures. In this article I argue that the central theme in Singaporean sitcoms is that while home is a personal space, it is also a valuable site for national identities to be played out. These identities are visible in the physical indicators of the exterior and interior living spaces, and the social indicators representing a benign patriarchy and a dominant English language. Structure One of the key features of sitcoms is the structure: cold open – titles – establishing shot – opening scene. Generally the cold opening (aka “the teaser”) takes place inside the home to quickly (re)establish audience familiarity with the location and the characters. The title sequence then features, in the case of LWL and PCK, the characters outside the house (in LWL this is in cartoon format), and in UOR (see Figure 1) it is the communal space of the barbeque area fronting the multi-story HDB (Housing Development Board) apartment blocks. Figure 1: Under One Roof The establishing shot at the end of each title sequence, and when returning from ad breaks, is an external view of the characters’ respective dwellings. In Seinfeld this establishing shot is the New York apartment block, in Roseanne it is the suburban house, and the Singaporean sitcoms follow the same format (see Figure 2). Figure 2: Phua Chu Kang External Visions of the Home This emphasis on exterior buildings reminds the viewer that Singaporean housing is, in many ways, unique. As a city-state (and a young one at that) its spatial constraints are particularly limiting: there simply isn’t room for suburban housing on quarter acre blocks. It rapidly transformed from an “empty rock” to a scattered Malay settlement of bay and riverside kampongs (villages) recognisable by its stilt houses. Then in the shadow of colonialism and the rise of modernity, the kampongs were replaced in many cases by European-inspired terrace houses. Finally, in the post-colonial era high-rise housing began to swell through the territory, creating what came to be known as the “HDB new town”, with some 90% of the population now said to reside in HDB units, and many others living in private high-rises (Chang 102, 104). Exterior shots used in UOR (see Figure 3) consistently emphasise the distinctive HDB blocks. As with the kampong housing, high-rise apartments continue notions of communal living in that “Living below, above and side by side other people requires tolerance of neighbours and a respect towards the environment of the housing estate for the good of all” (104). The provision of readily accessible public housing was part of the “covenant between the newly enfranchised electorate and the elected government” (Chua 47). Figure 3: Establishing shot from UOR In UOR, we see the constant interruption of the lives of the Tan family by their multi-ethnic neighbours. This occurs to such an extent as to be a part of the normal daily flow of life in Singaporean society. Chang argues that despite the normally interventionist activities of the state, it is the “self-enforcing norms” of behaviour that have worked in maintaining a “peaceable society in high-rise housing” (104). This communitarian attitude even extends to the large gated residence of PCK, home to an almost endless stream of relatives and friends. The gate itself seems to perform no restrictive function. But such a “peaceable society” can also be said to be a result of state planning which extends to the “racial majoritarianism” imposed on HDB units in the form of quotas determining “the actual number of households of each of the three major races [Chinese, Malay and Indian] … to be accommodated in a block of flats” (Chua 55). Issues of race are important in Singapore where “the inscription of media imagery bears the cultural discourse and materiality of the social milieu” (Wong 120) perhaps nowhere more graphically illustrated than in the segregation of TV channels along linguistic / cultural lines. These 3 programs all featured on MediaCorp TV’s predominantly English-language Channel 5 and are, in the words of Roland Barthes, “anchored” by dint of their use of English. Home Will Eat Itself The consumption of home-based sitcoms by audiences in their own living-rooms creates a somewhat self-parodying environment. As John Ellis once noted, it is difficult to escape from the notion that “TV is a profoundly domestic phenomenon” (113) in that it constantly attempts to “include the audiences own conception of themselves into the texture of its programmes” (115). In each of the three Singaporean programs living-rooms are designed to seat characters in front of a centrally located TV set – at most all the audience sees is the back of the TV, and generally only when the TV is incorporated into a storyline, as in the case of PCK in Figure 4 (note the TV set in the foreground). Figure 4: PCK Even in this episode of PCK when the lead characters stumble across a pornographic video starring one of the other lead characters, the viewer only hears the program. Perhaps the most realistic (and acerbic) view of how TV reorganises our lives – both spatially in the physical layout of our homes, and temporally in the way we construct our viewing habits (eating dinner or doing the housework while watching the screen) – is the British “black comedy”, The Royle Family. David Morley (443) notes that “TV and other media have adapted themselves to the circumstances of domestic consumption while the domestic arena itself has been simultaneously redefined to accommodate their requirements”. Morley refers to The Royle Family’s narrative that rests on the idea that “for many people, family life and watching TV have become indistinguishable to the extent that, in this fictional household, it is almost entirely conducted from the sitting positions of the viewers clustered around the set” (436). While TV is a central fixture in most sitcoms, its use is mostly as a peripheral thematic device with characters having their viewing interrupted by the arrival of another character, or by a major (within the realms of the plot) event. There is little to suggest that “television schedules have instigated a significant restructuring of family routines” as shown in Livingstone’s audience-based study of UK viewers (104). In the world of the sitcom, the temporalities of characters’ lives do not need to accurately reflect that of “real life” – or if they do, things quickly descend to the bleakness exemplified by the sedentary Royles. As Scannell notes, “broadcast output, like daily life, is largely uneventful, and both are punctuated (predictably and unpredictably) by eventful occasions” (4). To show sitcom characters in this static, passive environment would be anathema to the “real” viewer, who would quickly lose interest. This is not to suggest that sitcoms are totally benign though as with all genres they are “the outcome of social practices, received procedures that become objectified in the narratives of television, then modified in the interpretive act of viewing” (Taylor 14). In other words, they feature a contextualisation that is readily identifiable to members of an established society. However, within episodes themselves, it as though time stands still – character development is almost non-existent, or extremely slow at best and we see each episode has “flattened past and future into an eternal present in which parents love and respect one another, and their children forever” (Taylor 16). It takes some six seasons before the character of PCK becomes a father, although in previous seasons he acts as a mentor to his nephew, Aloysius. Contained in each episode, in true sitcom style, are particular “narrative lines” in which “one-liners and little comic situations [are] strung on a minimal plot line” containing a minor problem “the solution to which will take 22 minutes and pull us gently through the sequence of events toward a conclusion” (Budd et al. 111). It is important to note that the sitcom genre does not work in every culture, as each locale renders the sitcom with “different cultural meanings” (Nielsen 95). Writing of the failure of the Danish series Three Whores and a Pickpocket (with a premise like that, how could it fail?), Nielsen (112) attributes its failure to the mixing of “kitchen sink realism” with “moments of absurdity” and “psychological drama with expressionistic camera work”, moving it well beyond the strict mode of address required by the genre. In Australia, soap operas Home and Away and Neighbours have been infinitely more popular than our attempts at sitcoms – which had a brief heyday in the 1980s with Hey Dad..!, Kingswood Country and Mother and Son – although Kath and Kim (not studio-based) could almost be counted. Lichter et al. (11) state that “television entertainment can be ‘political’ even when it does not deal with the stuff of daily headlines or partisan controversy. Its latent politics lie in the unavoidable portrayal of individuals, groups, and institutions as a backdrop to any story that occupies the foreground”. They state that US television of the 1960s was dominated by the “idiot sitcom” and that “To appreciate these comedies you had to believe that social conventions were so ironclad they could not tolerate variations. The scripts assumed that any minute violation of social conventions would lead to a crisis that could be played for comic results” (15). Series like Happy Days “harked back to earlier days when problems were trivial and personal, isolated from the concerns of a larger world” (17). By the late 1980s, Roseanne and Married…With Children had “spawned an antifamily-sitcom format that used sarcasm, cynicism, and real life problems to create a type of in-your-face comedy heretofore unseen on prime time” (20). This is markedly different from the type of values presented in Singaporean sitcoms – where filial piety and an unrelenting faith in the family unit is sacrosanct. In this way, Singaporean sitcoms mirror the ideals of earlier US sitcoms which idealise the “egalitarian family in which parental wisdom lies in appeals to reason and fairness rather than demands for obedience” (Lichter et al. 406). Dahlgren notes that we are the products of “an ongoing process of the shaping and reshaping of identity, in response to the pluralised sets of social forces, cultural currents and personal contexts encountered by individuals” where we end up with “composite identities” (318). Such composite identities make the presentation (or re-presentation) of race problematic for producers of mainstream television. Wong argues that “Within the context of PAP hegemony, media presentation of racial differences are manufactured by invoking and resorting to traditional values, customs and practices serving as symbols and content” (118). All of this is bound within a classificatory system in which each citizen’s identity card is inscribed as Chinese, Malay, Indian or Other (often referred to as CMIO), and a broader social discourse in which “the Chinese are linked to familial values of filial piety and the practice of extended family, the Malays to Islam and rural agricultural activities, and the Indians to the caste system” (Wong 118). However, these sitcoms avoid directly addressing the issue of race, preferring to accentuate cultural differences instead. In UOR the tables are turned when a none-too-subtle dig at the crude nature of mainland Chinese (with gags about the state of public toilets), is soon turned into a more reverential view of Chinese culture and business acumen. Internal Visions of the Home This reverence for Chinese culture is also enacted visually. The loungeroom settings of these three sitcoms all provide examples of the fashioning of the nation through a “ubiquitous semi-visibility” (Noble 59). Not only are the central characters in each of these sitcoms constructed as ethnically Chinese, but the furnishings provide a visible nod to Chinese design in the lacquered screens, chairs and settees of LWL (see Figure 5.1), in the highly visible pair of black inlaid mother-of-pearl wall hangings of UOR (see Figure 5.2) and in the Chinese statuettes and wall-hangings found in the PCK home. Each of these items appears in the central view of the shows most used setting, the lounge/family room. There is often symmetry involved as well; the balanced pearl hangings of UOR are mirrored in a set of silk prints in LWL and the pair of ceramic Chinese lions in PCK. Figure 5.1: LWL Figure 5.2: UOR Thus, all three sitcoms feature design elements that reflect visible links to Chinese culture and sentiments, firmly locating the sitcoms “in Asia”, and providing a sense of the nation. The sets form an important role in constructing a realist environment, one in which “identification with realist narration involves a temporary merger of at least some of the viewer’s identity with the position offered by the text” (Budd et al. 110). These constant silent reminders of the Chinese-based hegemon – the cultural “majoritarianism” – anchors the sitcoms to a determined concept of the nation-state, and reinforces the “imaginative geographies of home” (Blunt and Dowling 247). The Foolish “Father” Figure in a Patriarchal Society But notions of a dominant Chinese culture are dealt with in a variety of ways in these sitcoms – not the least in a playful attitude toward patriarchal figures. In UOR, the Tan family “patriarch” is played by Moses Lim, in PCK, Gurmit Singh plays Phua and in LWL Samuel Chong plays Billy B. Ong (or, as Lydia mistakenly refers to him Billy Bong). Erica Sharrer makes the claim that class is a factor in presenting the father figure as buffoon, and that US sitcoms feature working class families in which “the father is made to look inept, silly, or incompetent have become more frequent” partly in response to changing societal structures where “women are shouldering increasing amounts of financial responsibility in the home” (27). Certainly in the three series looked at here, PCK (the tradesman) is presented as the most derided character in his role as head of the household. Moses Lim’s avuncular Tan Ah Teck is presented mostly as lovably foolish, even when reciting his long-winded moral tales at the conclusion of each episode, and Billy B. Ong, as a middle-class businessman, is presented more as a victim of circumstance than as a fool. Sharrer ponders whether “sharing the burden of bread-winning may be associated with fathers perceiving they are losing advantages to which they were traditionally entitled” (35). But is this really a case of males losing the upper hand? Hanke argues that men are commonly portrayed as the target of humour in sitcoms, but only when they “are represented as absurdly incongruous” to the point that “this discursive strategy recuperates patriarchal notions” (90). The other side of the coin is that while the “dominant discursive code of patriarchy might be undone” (but isn’t), “the sitcom’s strategy for containing women as ‘wives’ and ‘mothers’ is always contradictory and open to alternative readings” (Hanke 77). In Singapore’s case though, we often return to images of the women in the kitchen, folding the washing or agonising over the work/family dilemma, part of what Blunt and Dowling refer to as the “reproduction of patriarchal and heterosexist relations” often found in representations of “the ideal’ suburban home” (29). Eradicating Singlish One final aspect of these sitcoms is the use of language. PM Lee Hsien Loong once said that he had no interest in “micromanaging” the lives of Singaporeans (2004). Yet his two predecessors (PM Goh and PM Lee Senior) both reflected desires to do so by openly criticising the influence of Phua Chu Kang’s liberal use of colloquial phrases and phrasing. While the use of Singlish (or Singapore Colloquial English / SCE) in these sitcoms is partly a reflection of everyday life in Singapore, by taking steps to eradicate it through the Speak Good English movement, the government offers an intrusion into the private home-space of Singaporeans (Ho 17). Authorities fear that increased use of Singlish will damage the nation’s ability to communicate on a global basis, withdrawing to a locally circumscribed “pidgin English” (Rubdy 345). Indeed, the use of Singlish in UOR is deliberately underplayed in order to capitalise on overseas sales of the show (which aired, for example, on Australia’s SBS television) (Srilal). While many others have debated the Singlish issue, my concern is with its use in the home environment as representative of Singaporean lifestyles. As novelist Hwee Hwee Tan (2000) notes: Singlish is crude precisely because it’s rooted in Singapore’s unglamorous past. This is a nation built from the sweat of uncultured immigrants who arrived 100 years ago to bust their asses in the boisterous port. Our language grew out of the hardships of these ancestors. Singlish thus offers users the opportunity to “show solidarity, comradeship and intimacy (despite differences in background)” and against the state’s determined efforts to adopt the language of its colonizer (Ho 19-20). For this reason, PCK’s use of Singlish iterates a “common man” theme in much the same way as Paul Hogan’s “Ocker” image of previous decades was seen as a unifying feature of mainstream Australian values. That the fictional PCK character was eventually “forced” to take “English” lessons (a storyline rapidly written into the program after the direct criticisms from the various Prime Ministers), is a sign that the state has other ideas about the development of Singaporean society, and what is broadcast en masse into Singaporean homes. Conclusion So what do these home-based sitcoms tell us about Singaporean nationalism? Firstly, within the realms of a multiethnic society, mainstream representations reflect the hegemony present in the social and economic structures of Singapore. Chinese culture is dominant (albeit in an English-speaking environment) and Indian, Malay and Other cultures are secondary. Secondly, the home is a place of ontological security, and partial adornment with cultural ornaments signifying Chinese culture are ever-present as a reminder of the Asianness of the sitcom home, ostensibly reflecting the everyday home of the audience. The concept of home extends beyond the plywood-prop walls of the soundstage though. As Noble points out, “homes articulate domestic spaces to national experience” (54) through the banal nationalism exhibited in “the furniture of everyday life” (55). In a Singaporean context, Velayutham (extending the work of Morley) explores the comforting notion of Singapore as “home” to its citizens and concludes that the “experience of home and belonging amongst Singaporeans is largely framed in the materiality and social modernity of everyday life” (4). Through the use of sitcoms, the state is complicit in creating and recreating the family home as a site for national identities, adhering to dominant modes of culture and language. References Blunt, Alison, and Robyn Dowling. Home. London: Routledge, 2006. Budd, Mike, Steve Craig, and Clay Steinman. Consuming Environments: Television and Commercial Culture. New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1999. Chang, Sishir. “A High-Rise Vernacular in Singapore’s Housing Development Board Housing.” Berkeley Planning Journal 14 (2000): 97-116. Chua, Beng Huat. “Public Housing Residents as Clients of the State.” Housing Studies 15.1 (2000). Dahlgren, Peter. “Media, Citizenship and Civic Culture”. Mass Media and Society. 3rd ed. Eds. James Curran and Michael Gurevitch. London: Arnold, 2000. 310-328. Ellis, John. Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982. Hanke, Robert. “The ‘Mock-Macho’ Situation Comedy: Hegemonic Masculinity and its Reiteration.” Western Journal of Communication 62.1 (1998). Ho, Debbie G.E. “‘I’m Not West. I’m Not East. So How Leh?’” English Today 87 22.3 (2006). Lee, Hsien Loong. “Our Future of Opportunity and Promise.” National Day Rally 2004 Speech. 29 Apr. 2007 http://www.gov.sg/nd/ND04.htm>. Lichter, S. Robert, Linda S. Lichter, and Stanley Rothman. Prime Time: How TV Portrays American Culture. Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1994. Livingstone, Sonia. Young People and New Media: Childhood and the Changing Media Environment. London: Sage, 2002 Morley, David. “What’s ‘Home’ Got to Do with It? Contradictory Dynamics in the Domestication of Technology and the Dislocation of Domesticity.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 6 (2003). Noble, Greg. “Comfortable and Relaxed: Furnishing the Home and Nation.” Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 16.1 (2002). Rubdy, Rani. “Creative Destruction: Singapore’s Speak Good English Movement.” World Englishes 20.3 (2001). Scannell, Paddy. “For a Phenomenology of Radio and Television.” Journal of Communication 45.3 (1995). Scharrer, Erica. “From Wise to Foolish: The Portrayal of the Sitcom Father, 1950s-1990s.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 45.1 (2001). Srilal, Mohan. “Quick Quick: ‘Singlish’ Is Out in Re-education Campaign.” Asia Times Online (28 Aug. 1999). Tan, Hwee Hwee. “A War of Words over ‘Singlish’: Singapore’s Government Wants Its Citizens to Speak Good English, But They Would Rather Be ‘Talking Cock’.” Time International 160.3 (29 July 2002). Taylor, Ella. “From the Nelsons to the Huxtables: Genre and Family Imagery in American Network Television.” Qualitative Sociology 12.1 (1989). Velayutham, Selvaraj. “Affect, Materiality, and the Gift of Social Life in Singapore.” SOJOURN 19.1 (2004). Wong, Kokkeong. Media and Culture in Singapore: A Theory of Controlled Commodification. New Jersey: Hampton Press, 2001. Images Under One Roof: The Special Appearances. Singapore: Television Corporation of Singapore. VCD. 2000. Living with Lydia (Season 1, Volume 1). Singapore: MediaCorp Studios, Blue Max Enterprise. VCD. 2001. Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd (Season 5, Episode 10). Kuala Lumpur: MediaCorp Studios, Speedy Video Distributors. VCD. 2003. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Pugsley, Peter. "At Home in Singaporean Sitcoms: Under One Roof, Living with Lydia and Phua Chu Kang." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/09-pugsley.php>. APA Style Pugsley, P. (Aug. 2007) "At Home in Singaporean Sitcoms: Under One Roof, Living with Lydia and Phua Chu Kang," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/09-pugsley.php>.

Dissertação de mestrado em Direito Administrativo
Ao indivíduo está garantido constitucionalmente o direito de propriedade, mas, por outro lado, a este, impõem-se sacrifícios em proveito da comunidade. À administração cabe-lhe agir em nome do interesse público. São estes os fatores que desencadeiam as expropriações por utilidade pública. Afeta-se o direito de propriedade do individuo apenas no necessário. Por seu turno, exige-se que essa expropriação se faça mediante o pagamento de uma (justa) indemnização. A (justa) indemnização, os tribunais e o direito de reversão são, sem dúvida, os temas que merecem uma reflexão por parte do legislador. Acreditamos na necessidade de um Código das Expropriações mais equitativo entre as entidades expropriantes e os expropriados, com normas que oferecem certeza e segurança jurídica. Nas expropriações residem direitos fundamentais estruturantes que necessitam de rigor e coerência. No entanto, não sendo o direito de propriedade um direito absoluto, uma vez que existem expropriações e, porque os interesses privados devem ceder perante os interesses públicos, deve ser uma matéria bem legislada. Não pode haver uma discrepância entre o tratamento da Administração, que age dotada de ius imperium, e o do particular, que se encontra numa posição mais frágil São estes os motivos que, a nosso ver, justificam uma reforma do Código das Expropriações.
Constitution gives each individual the warranty to the right of property, but on the other hand, sacrifices are imposed for the benefit of the community. It is up to the administration to act in the name of the public interest. These are the factors that cause the expropriations for public utility. Affects the property right of the individual only in what it is necessary. However, such expropriation is required upon payment of (just) compensation. (Fair) compensation, the courts and the right of reversal are definitely the subjects that deserve reflection by the legislator. We believe we need a more equitable expropriation code between expropriating and expropriated entities, with rules that provide certainty and legal security. Expropriations have fundamental structuring rights that need rigor and coherence. However, since property rights are not an absolute right, because there are expropriations, and because private interests must yield to public interests, it must be a well-legislated matter. There can be no discrepancy between the treatment of the Administration, which acts with ius imperium, and the individual, which is in a weaker position. These are the reasons that, in our opinion, justify a reform of the Code of Expropriations.

The Concentrate Questions and Answers series offer the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each book includes typical questions, bullet-pointed answer plans and suggested answers, author commentary, and illustrative diagrams and flowcharts. Concentrate Q&A EU Law looks at a wide range of up-to-date issues relating to EU law, starting with the origins, institutions, and development of the EU communities and, the legislative processes. Chapters then look at the sources and forms of Community law, supremacy of EU law, and the reception of the law in the EU Member States. The chapter on Supremacy will also consider Brexit, but the extent to which that will be covered will be determined by just how far the exit negotiations have themselves progressed. The Court of Justice has a chapter devoted to it. Next the book looks at the free movement of goods and persons. Finally, the text turns to competition and merger law, and sex discrimination, and equality law.

The Concentrate Questions and Answers series offer the best preparation for tackling exam questions. Each book includes typical questions, bullet-pointed answer plans and suggested answers, author commentary, and illustrative diagrams and flowcharts. Concentrate Q&A EU Law looks at a wide range of up-to-date issues relating to EU law, starting with the origins, institutions, and development of the EU communities and the legislative processes. Chapters then look at the sources and forms of EU law, supremacy of EU law, and the reception of the law in the EU Member States. The chapter on Supremacy will also consider Brexit, but the extent to which that will be covered will be determined by just how far the exit negotiations have themselves progressed. The Court of Justice has a chapter devoted to it. The book then considers the free movement of goods and persons. Finally, the text turns to competition and merger law and sex discrimination and equality law.

Living and working abroad. Sounds glamorous—and maybe it is, if you’re posted to Hong Kong or Sydney. But what if your company sends you to Bangkok, Warsaw, or Manila? Many questions arise: Is it safe to go out at night? Do quality schools exist? How polluted is the air? Is public transportation handy? What’s the average monthly rent for a decent house? What inoculations should you get before you go? Can you find your favorite brand of toothpaste? The Global Manager’s Guide to Living and Working Abroad: Eastern Europe and Asia answers these and many other questions expats will have about the cities that companies send employees to most often in Eastern Europe and Asia, as well as Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Though the heart of the book is the city-by-city listing, it also includes tips on preparing for the move, dealing with culture shock, staying connected to the home front, understanding the psychological aspects of living abroad, country-specific business and social etiquette, and other topics of concern to workers sent abroad. The guide also includes information for corporate HR people: When a cost of living differential is appropriate and how to calculate it, how to obtain necessary work permits and visas, how to help employees stay as safe and secure as possible, and how to arrange for healthcare and insurance. Best of all, the information is up to date and comes right from the fresh research of Mercer—the consultancy many other companies turn to for advice and the latest facts regarding working and living conditions in all corners of the globe. That’s why this book will help expatriate employees feel at home in cities far from their native land whether it’s Seoul, Moscow, or Dubai.

Most of our information about Herod the Great derives from the accounts found in Josephus’ Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities. Together they constitute quite a unique resource on one of the most famous personalities of ancient history. But whence did Josephus get his information? It is commonly agreed that his primary source was Nicolaus of Damascus, Herod’s court historian, though the extent to which Josephus adapted his material remains disputed. This book takes a modern source-critical approach to Josephus’ extensive account of Herod’s reign to suggest that Josephus did indeed rely heavily on Nicolaus’s work, but that previous scholarship was mistaken in seeing Nicolaus as a mere propagandist. Nicolaus may have begun his Universal History while Herod was alive, but he finished it after his death. He thus had no reason to write propaganda. This makes his work all the more interesting, for what we have instead is something rather different: a Syrian intellectual claiming a place in Augustan Rome, by telling a story about what the Augustan World looks like on the Eastern periphery. We delineate Nicolaus’ approach to various critical topics in Herod’s reign in order to reveal the Damascene’s perception of client kingship, the impact of empire, and the difficulties involved in ruling Judaea. Most significantly of all, we uncover an Eastern intellectual’s view on how to succeed and how to fail in the new Augustan world order.

This chapter looks at how the growing estrangement between Irving Robert Kaufman and J. Edgar Hoover mirrored Kaufman's slow evolution away from law enforcement now that he was on the court of appeals. Fittingly, one of the first examples involved his and Hoover's old obsession: communism. Over the next few years, Kaufman authored several other opinions against the government in criminal cases. Sometimes federal agents were too aggressive in searching or questioning suspects. Sometimes trial judges made mistakes, such as failing to give a required instruction to jurors that would have helped the defendant. In most of these cases, the chapter underlines that decisions were unanimous. Kaufman was generally in the middle of the road in criminal cases. Then and now, the vast majority of convictions are affirmed, even by judges with liberal leanings, and Kaufman was no exception. In general, he tried to look past form to the substance of whether a defendant got a fair trial. The chapter peeks at how some criminal appeals Kaufman heard sounded strange echoes from his past. It then discusses a case that dove deeper into Kaufman's history, all the way back to his Brooklyn adolescence.

This chapter follows how Irving Robert Kaufman ascended to the second-highest court in America, which he now led as chief judge. By 1977, almost a quarter century had passed since the deaths of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg made Kaufman a historical figure. The chapter highlights that he become one of the country's preeminent jurists, known far beyond New York thanks to major cases and enthusiastic press coverage he'd helped engineer himself. He doggedly earned a reputation as a champion of civil liberties, case by groundbreaking case, impressing even ardent liberals once disgusted with the infamous death sentences. Despite all this, the chapter states that the hard-won success of a lifetime, a single year would mark an unraveling of death and defeat, throwing Kaufman back on his heels and shaming him before the public just when he was at life's apex. The chapter also discusses Kaufman's despondency at failing to secure a spot on the Supreme Court, and narrates how he made light of it when receiving an honorary degree from NYU in 1973, just after supposedly declining the Watergate job.

Abstract Jet Airways Ltd. soared to unprecedented heights at the beginning of the current millennium. And then calamity struck in the form of the global financial meltdown of 2008 which brought many mighty corporations to their knees. Etihad airlines were started by a Royal (Amiri) Decree by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan as a flagship carrier for the United Arab Emirates in July 2003. In a short period in 2011 they had reported a net profit of USD14 million. In 2013, Etihad reported third consecutive net profit USD 62 million up 48% from the previous year. They were looking for expansion of operations. This gave a perfect opportunity for Etihad to build a relationship with Etihad and fly passengers seamlessly from Abu Dhabi across the country by using Jet Airways’ wide coverage of over 53 cities in India. There are few probing questions that can be analysed from this case. Why airlines that are doing well fail? Are mergers enough to turn around businesses?

Abstract In the aftermath of September 11, the whole country seemed to be singing “God Bless America,” underscoring Irving Berlin’s unimpeachable place in American song. (Berlin wrote the piece toward the end of World War I, but suppressed it until the outbreak of World War II, fearing that it might be too broad or corny.) No other songwriter has written as many anthems, including “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” No one else has written as many pop songs, period. Yet although Berlin was lauded as a tunesmith of genius as far back as 1911, when he debuted “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” he is often undervalued as a lyricist and said to lack Porter’s erudition, Hart’s interior rhymes, and Mercer’s homespun wisdom. The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin, edited by Robert Kimball and Linda Emmet, spans 81 of the composer’s 101 years (1888–1989) and implicitly asks us to reconsider his achievement. In addition to highlighting his gift for economy, directness, and slang, it presents Berlin as an obsessive, often despairing commentator on the passing scene.

Abstract The sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation brought far-reaching changes to Western constitutionalism. The Lutheran reformers vested each territorial state with much of the jurisdiction held by the medieval church, arguing that the magistrate was the custodian of both the religious and civil duties set out in the Ten Commandments. They also merged church courts and state courts, placing both legal and equitable power in the hands of conscientious Christian judges. The Anabaptists ascetically withdrew from civil and political life into small, self-sufficient, and often intensely democratic communities governed by simple biblical principles and dialogical forms of internal governance. Despite ample persecution, Anabaptists were fervent champions of religious liberty and separation of church and state. The Calvinist reformers separated the offices of church and state but called both authorities to help create an overtly Christian local polity governed by written constitutions based on the Bible and natural law but with detailed positive laws tailored to local needs. Calvinists also developed robust Bible-based theories of natural and positive rights, whose persistent and pervasive breach by a tyrant triggered the rights of resistance and revolution.

Abstract The democratic awakening began in the streets of Leipzig. Choking air, fouled water, and crumbling buildings plagued Saxon citizens and aroused resentment against East Berlin. On September 4, 1989, youthful peace protesters emerged from the sanctuary of the Nikolaikirche, shouting “We want to leave.” The secret police tore banners that demanded “an open country with free people” out of their hands, a picture captured by Western journalists who were attending the trade fair. Not intimidated, the restless groups grew larger during the peace service on the following Monday. Claiming that the “illegal assembly . . . disturb[ed] public order and safety,” the police proceeded more brutally and detained about one hundred demonstrators.1 Repression only bred further dissent. On September 18 protesters marched silently with candles in their hands, forming and reforming fluidly so as to offer no clear target to the security forces. About five thousand demonstrators ignored warnings in the press and assembled on September 25. In contrast to those who wanted to get out, they chanted “We are staying here!” Prodded by nightstick-wielding police, they circled the center city ring with shouts of “Gorbi, Gorbi” and called for the legalization of opposition groups. Time and again protesters broke through cordons, inviting those in uniform to “come and join us.” Curious spectators merged with the milling throng and the crowd gradually lost its fear. 2 Encouraged by growing support, this courageous minority reclaimed its right to free speech, singing “We shall overcome.”

Abstract Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont was born at Vilvoorde in Brabant in 1614. His father was the famous medic and “chemist”, Jean-Baptiste van Helmont. When the father died in 1644, Francis Mercury signed over his inheritance and spent most of the rest of his life in Holland, Germany, or England. In a number of respects he deserves his reputation as the prototypical “scholar gypsy”,1 and it is perhaps not very meaningful to raise the question of which country he really belonged to. He spent many years in Germany, spoke German fluently, and was there when he died in 1699. But the Netherlands were his base, in so far as he had one; Dutch was his native language, and more of his books were published in Amsterdam than anywhere else, except perhaps in London. In his own person he epitomized the role of the Netherlands as the crossroads of north European culture in the seventeenth century. By 1677 he was already a link between Christian cabbalists in Germany and others in England. And, partly through his own travels and partly through his being in the Netherlands, he was a mutual acquaintance of two very different philosophers who themselves never met¬ Leibniz and Locke.

Abstract The British Invasion-the blitz of British rock and roll bands on American radio from 1964 to 1966-well exemplifies the dynamics of exchange that define rock and roll as a form, whether before or after the emergence of a white rock and roll supposedly distinct from an African-American one despite common roots, however revised, in the same rhythm and blues tradition. As a trope, the British Invasion is a metalepsis, rendering the late early and the early late. Those once defeated by those they once colonized could, as it were, now point to these onetime revolutionaries and condemn them as colonizers in their own right. The British Invasion represents no less than the return of the American repressed-Afro-America. The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” (1966) is a summary emblem for its fundamental concerns. We should remember, too, that British rock is working class in social origin and, in the case of the Mersey sound, also provincial. Here in fact dandy England bonds directly with black urbanity to cool off and rearticulate the American country cowboy, including the cowboy’s relation to black American culture. The paisley the British brought to the clothing styles associated with rock and roll in the Sixties is a fair metaphor for Pater’s psychedelic sublime, the supplement the cowboy needed to see that the world’s boundaries were fluxional fictions, ideologically constructed. Here all things mix and collide in a performance of its principles-boots and scarves, jeans and long hair; class, gender, ethnicity.

Abstract Emerging from virtual paralysis in the later 1680s, the theatre strikes out vigorously in contradictory directions during the busy and increasingly stormy nineties. In play types two trends are obvious: (1) initially the comedy splits sharply between the hard and humane schools; (2) simultaneously, serious drama enjoys a considerable resurgence—in quantity if not in quality. After 1688 the United Company doubles, trebles, and once nearly quadruples its annual quota of new plays, which had been averaging only about three per year. Following the Lincoln’s Inn Fields breakaway in 1695 the total soars. In 1695 (a partial year, owing to Queen Mary’s death) there are 15 new plays; in 1696 and 1697 we will find 21 each year. Despite this tremendous activity the theatre is far from healthy. Management problems and internal dissension are part of the trouble. Alexander Davenant (a crook) partially supplanted the stable, competent, and successful Betterton—Smith management in 1687, ran himself and the company into financial trouble, and fled the country in 1693, leaving the actors to the tender mercies of his money-lender, Christopher Rich. Rich’s attempt to squeeze out expensive star actors and replace them with inexpensive beginners was one of the major causes of the Lincoln’s Inn Fields secession. The competition which followed was bitter and cut-throat in a fashion never before experienced in this period. There was genuine ill will between the two houses, and neither was ever secure and profitable.

Abstract Although the end of World War II opened a period of domestic economic expansion and unrivalled international influence for the United States, it was also a time of intense domestic conflict and national self-doubt. The New Deal’s egalitarian ethic and Harry Truman’s Fair Deal platform, as well as economic growth fuelled by government investment such as the GI Bill and a national highway construction program, increased pressures for more equal distribution of economic benefits and better protection of civil rights. Amid much legislation, Congress enacted the highly contested Civil Rights Act of 1948 and, two years later, the less controversial Celle Kefauver amendment to the Clayton Act’s provision regulating corporate mergers. It was the early 1960s before the Supreme Court had occasion to corroborate the egalitarian concerns driving both pieces of legislation: “one person, one vote” in the political marketplace, and “Congress’ fear not only of concentration of economic power on economic grounds, but also of the threat to other values a trend toward concentration was thought to pose.”1 Today, almost fifty years later, neither the Civil Rights Act nor the Celler Kefauver amendment has settled very much in its respective domain. Race relations too often incite physical confrontation, while proposals to regulate economic power seldom produce more than policy debate. Within its own precinct, each egalitarian impulse still provokes tensions, which have grown sharper during the last decade as more and more Americans have fallen out of the middle-class circle of prosperity created by the ethic of equality, prosperity sustained, to some extent, by those very in egalitarian institutions targeted by the legislation.

The incorporation of municipal solid waste combustor (MWC) ash into bituminous pavements has been investigated in the United States since the middle 1970s. Thus far, most, if not all of these projects, have attempted to answer the questions: Is it safe? Is it feasible? Or does it provide an acceptable product? Polk County Solid Waste located in Northwest Minnesota has now completed three Demonstration Research Projects (DRP) utilizing ash from its municipal solid waste combustor as a partial replacement of aggregate in asphalt road paving projects. The results of these projects show no negative environmental or worker safety issues, and demonstrate improved structural performance and greater flexibility from the ash-amended asphalt as compared to conventional asphalt. Polk County has submitted an application to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) to obtain a Case-Specific Beneficial Use Determination (CSBUD), which would allow for continued use of ash in road paving projects without prior MPCA approval. However, concerns from the MPCA Air Quality Division regarding a slight increase in mercury emissions during ash amended asphalt production has resulted in a delay in receiving the CSBUD. Polk County decided to take a different approach. In January 2008, Polk submitted and received approval for their fourth ash utilization DRP. This DRP differs from the first three in that the ash will be used as a component in the Class 5 gravel materials to be used for a Polk County Highway Department road rebuilding project. The project involves a 7.5 mile section of County State Aid Highway (CSAH) 41, which conveniently is located about 10 miles south of the Polk County Landfill, where the ash is stored. The CSAH 41 project includes the complete rebuilding and widening of an existing 7.5 mile paved road section. Ash amended Class 5 gravel would be used in the base course under the asphalt paving, and also in the widening and shouldering sections of the road. The top 2 inches of the widening and shouldering areas would be covered with virgin Class 5 and top soil, so that all ash amended materials would be encapsulated. This has been the procedure followed in previous projects. No ash will be used in the asphalt mix for this project. This paper discusses production, cost, performance and environmental issues associated with this 2008 demonstration research project.

The question of housing in America’s growing urban centers has gravitated towards extremes in recent years: efforts at densification have sparked massive developments of multi-story apartment blocks, on the other hand the free standing single family house remains to date the unchallenged ideal of many Americans. Austin, TX is no exception to this trend: Single-family homes continue to make up by far the largest share of housing while large multifamily structures have seen a steady increase by about 40% over the last decade1. This development has led to spatial and social disparities. While multi-unit structures have accelerated the urbanization of a few neighborhoods and corridors, and cater to a transient population of young professionals, rising property values have made the “house” an increasingly unattainable dream for many middle class families. This lack of a middle ground has been aptly identified within the discourse of New Urbanism as the “Missing Middle,”2 referring to the density range between the apartment block and the single family house as much as a vanishing “middle class”. The Missing Middle promotes walkable neighborhoods with housing densities able to sustain local amenities and businesses without sacrificing essential comforts of the single family home. Gaining ground throughout planning departments across North America, the idea has increasingly come to be reflected in the rewriting of zoning codes.3. But despite the groundwork being laid, a true design discourse to give form(s) to the idea has yet to emerge. All too often, Missing Middle housing is reduced to a mere zoning problem or entangled in a retrogressive formal agenda and the desire to create a simulacrum of a pre-modern city based on pre-WWII housing types. All but absent from this discourse is the rich legacy of modernist experimental housing that explored the medium density range – often already perceived as counter model to CIAM’s pre-war doctrine of the functionalist city. Regardless of successes or failures, this discourse hinged on two crucial recognitions. First: the unit always prefigures a (possible) city, and the smallest domestic space begins to suggest attitudes towards the relationship between individuals, architecture, and the city; and second: these relationships are inherently a design problem.