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Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party Started Using SNC-Lavalin’s Own “9,000 Jobs” Number to Defend Interference, But Only After Jody Wilson-Raybould Testified to Committee

Posted on March 8, 2019March 8, 2019 by Margaret

The SNC-Lavalin scandal was never about saving jobs until the morning after Jody Wilson-Raybould gave her testimony on February 27th. While the Bloc Quebecois were harping on the alleged number of jobs that were at risk in the Montreal area, the Liberal Party of Canada took their talking points straight from an SNC-Lavalin press release.

In the last few weeks, the engineering firm SNC-Lavalin has been the locus on which an Attorney General has lost her job and has told an eye-opening story indicating that the Prime Minister’s office looked to interfere with the Justice Department. Since that testimony to the Canadian public, which was broadcast live on February 27, 2019, the Trudeau Liberals have been using press materials straight from SNC-Lavalin to defend their own actions.

With Trudeau leaning on the extra-judicial excuse that he only engaged in interference in order to save jobs, then we should be able to use what he knows of these jobs to figure out who gave him the information. Would you be shocked if I told you that he’s got his numbers all mixed up, and that Canadians have been quitting SNC-Lavalin en masse for years?

SNC-Lavalin’s Worldwide Employees Number 52,000

SNC-Lavalin has provided employment figures to the public on their social media, press releases and through their year end annual reports.

In 2013, SNC-Lavalin wished a Happy Canada Day to their 17,517 Canadian employees. The annual report from the end of that year suggests that they had 29,700 total employees down from 33,900 in 2012.

In 2014, SNC-Lavalin reported 42,000 employees on their year end.

Through 2015, SNC-Lavalin tweeted twice about their 40,000 employees. Annual reports suggest 36,754 employees. In January of that year, the company was charged by the RCMP in relation to bribery in Libya.

In December 2016, SNC-Lavalin tweeted that they had “over 39,000 employees.” Marketing materials from earlier that year note “20,000 oil and gas experts.” Annual reports suggest 34,952 employees.

By 2017, the number was 50,000 total employees with 5,500 being in America. In 2013, the number of US-based employees was 1,200.

Annual reports suggest almost no change in the number of employees during 2017 and 2018, both years ending with approximately 52,400 employees.

SNC-Lavalin in Montreal

In 2014, SNC-Lavalin’s report mentions the acquisition of several hundred employees in Greater Montreal.

In 2017, the company sold their head office building in Montreal and then entered into a 20 year lease for the building on René-Lévesque Boulevard West.

SNC-Lavalin never intended to leave Montreal, even though that’s the excuse Justin Trudeau used to threaten JWR on September 17th, 2018.

As published by the Huffington Post in 2017, translated into English:

SNC CEO Neil Bruce said in a statement Thursday that SNC intends to maintain its head office in the Quebec City [of Montreal] “for the years to come“.

Jody Wilson-Raybould Lost Her Own Job When She Would Not Accept ‘Jobs!’ as a Reason to Break the Law

As it stands, Jody Wilson-Raybould, former Attorney General, believes she was removed from her position of power because she would not go along with the demands of SNC-Lavalin’s CEO Neil Bruce and the office of the Prime Minister of Canada who wanted to clear the air on the firm.

According to JWR’s February 27, 2018 testimony, she was to attend a one-on-one meeting with Trudeau on which SNC-Lavalin was not on the docket, but JWR arrived to find that a the Privy Council Clerk was in attendance as well. On her arrival, Trudeau “raised the issue” of SNC “immediately.”

“The prime minister asked me to help out to find a solution here for SNC, citing that if there is no DPA, there would be many jobs lost and that SNC would move from Montreal… The prime minister again cited the potential loss of jobs and SNC moving. Then, to my surprise, the clerk stated or started to make the case for the need for a DPA.”



Trudeau told JWR that SNC-Lavalin would be holding a board meeting on September 20th, 2018 with their stockholders, and that one of the topics will be a proposed move to London, Ontario should their needs not be met by the Attorney General. By the way, mentioned Trudeau, my riding is in this city.

During a September 19th, 2018, JWR met with the same Privy Clerk from before who again “brought up job losses,” and the upcoming stockholder’s meeting.

On the same day, JWR spoke with Minister Bill Morneau who “stressed the need to save jobs.” Morneau is the MP for Toronto Center. Sheridan Park. SNC-Lavalin’s Toronto office is not located in his district, rather in Mississauga — still Liberal territory, of course. The office was completed in 2017 and provided space for 1200 employees.

History of SNC interference, but job number talking point is new

After winning the federal election in the fall of 2015, Trudeau’s Liberal Party appointed Jody Wilson-Raybould as their first Justice Minister taking over from Peter MacKay.

CEO Neil Bruce took over in October 2015.

Starting in February 2016,

…SNC-Lavalin [started] lobbying Justin Trudeau’s Prime Minister’s Office on the subject of “justice and law enforcement.” There were 18 interactions between PMO staff and SNC-Lavalin on the subject over the next three years, according to the federal lobbyist registry.

In 2017, “the Trudeau government included the Criminal Code amendment [pushed for by SNC-Lavalin] creating the agreements in last spring’s 582-page omnibus budget bill”.

Origin of the 9,000 jobs cited by Justin Trudeau straight from SNC-Lavalin press release

In October of 2018, SNC-Lavalin published an open letter to Canadians stressing big projects they had designed and constructed in Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta. In the letter, Neil Bruce mentions 52,000 total employees.

The letter, posted October 10, 2018, states that since 2012’s “uncertainty,” 10,000 Canadian employees left and that at the time of writing they had only 9,000 Canadians on payroll.

SNC-Lavalin had already lost 10,000 Canadian jobs, because Canadians quit because they didn’t want to work for a corrupt company!

Kathleen Roussel, the Director of Public Prosecutions notificed SNC-Lavalin in September of 2018 that their request for a DPA — which would allow them to avoid the punishment of not being able to bid for government work — had been turned down. And here’s where things start picking up speed.

A letter sent by Neil Bruce looking to meet with Trudeau was dated October 15th, the same day a conversation took place between SNC-Lavalin chair Kevin Lynch (Clerk of the Privy Council 2006-2009) and Michael Wernick, the current Clerk of the Privy Council who was present during JWR’s initial meeting with Trudeau and then visited her again on September 19th.

“Mr. Wernick… revealed this conversation at a Commons justice committee hearing this week, said Mr. Lynch voiced frustration about the government’s refusal to negotiate a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA).”

A few days later on October 19th, 2018, SNC-Lavalin submitted an application for a judicial review of Roussel’s decision.

We have two letters letters dated December 6th, 2018, from the desk of Justin Trudeau. One to Neil Bruce stating that the matter is “before the courts” and that he would bring the letter to JWR. The second is the promised letter to JWR.

Of course, the October 15th letter was in reference to a situation that was not “before the courts” at the time of its plea, as the application for a judicial review was submitted on October 19th.

JWR, as the Attorney General, is empowered to override the decision submitted by Kathleen Rousell regarded the DPA. But, she would not bend, and she was informed on January 7, 2019, by Trudeau that she was being shuffled out of the AG position.

Trudeau announced the cabinet shuffle on January 14th, calling her “extraordinarily capable.”

When asked about her “demotion,” JWR said she did not consider working for Canadian veterans a demotion. Sticky language, that — not quite stating that she was demoted, moreso granting an honorable position to vets.

“…I would say, um, that I can think of no world in which I would consider working for our veterans in Canada as a demotion.”

Butts, in later testimony, claimed that MP Scott Brison had quietly told him that he intended to quit politics which included his cabinet position as President of the Treasury Board, which Butts “tried to dissuade Brison because it would require a cabinet shuffle,” stating: “the prime minister was happy with the team he had.”

On February 5th, SNC-Lavalin tweeted that they had a “growing base of more than 10,000 employees in the UK & Europe.”

Brison formally announced that he would not be standing in the 2019 election for the Liberal Party on January 10th and would vacate his seat by February 10th. The move was ostensibly to spend time with his family, but he was announced as the vice-chair of investment and corporate banking with the Bank of Montreal on February 14.

Meanwhile, the Globe and Mail delivered their devastating piece on the whole scandal.

JWR resigned her post as minister of Veterans Affairs on February 12th.

Even more shocking, on Monday, February 18th, Gerald Butts stepped down as Trudeau’s principal secretary.

February 28th: Liberal Party Starts Using The 9,000 Jobs Figure in Parliament

JWR’s testimony took place on February 27th. In the House of Parliament that day, Justin Trudeau was questioned several times over the scandal and kept bringing up jobs, jobs, jobs, but no solid number of jobs. The Bloc Québécois mentioned “[sacrificing] 3,000 jobs in Quebec” the day before.

O the same day that the BQ brought up their figure of 3,000 jobs — February 26th — the Liberal Party brought up the figure of 800,000. As in, Justin Trudeau’s government had created 800,000 jobs during his time as Prime Minister.

But all that changed on February 28th, 2019, starting with Bardish Chagger of the Liberal Party brought up the 9,000 jobs figure for the first time, not once but twice:

“Our government will always focus on jobs, growing the middle class and strengthening our economy. There were, of course, discussions about the potential loss of 9,000 jobs in communities across the country, including a possible impact on pensions.”

“There were, of course, discussions about the potential loss of 9,000 jobs across the country, including a possible impact on pensions.”

More Liberal MPs would soon join in. Alexandra Mendes states that her husband worked for SNC-Lavalin for almost 30 years before saying:

“We are talking about close to 9,000 jobs across Canada, hundreds of active work sites, countless pensioners”

Francis Drouin of the Liberals continues the line

“What would each member do if over 9,000 jobs in Canada were in jeopardy? This would be like losing 400 or 500 jobs in my riding. The largest employer in my riding employs 400 people.”

Chris Bittle embellishes the figure with the number of families in his comments. SNC-Lavalin does not hire single, childless employees:

“There are 9,000 families in this country that rely on this business.”

While the BQ, agrees that there are jobs at stake, they won’t commit to the 9,000 figure. Monique Pauze:

“…the truth is that thousands of job are at state.”

While not exactly employment numbers related, Michel Picard of the Liberals shows ignorance of law:

“A logo cannot commit a crime. Only individuals can commit crimes.”

Far be it for a layman such as myself to bring up Westray. But, back to the job numbers.

And so on and so forth. What remains is that “9,000 jobs!” did not enter the Liberal lexicon until February 28th, and they’re using a different crib sheet than the BQ.

On March 1st, 2019, BQ MP Simon Marcil said the following in the House of Commons:

“Mr. Speaker, we have been talking about SNC-Lavalin for three weeks, and no one has brought up the 3,600 workers in Quebec.”

Unfortunately, Hansard does not record whether anyone noticed that the reason nobody had brought up 3,600 workers in Quebec is because the Honourable Members cannot agree on the correct number.

Even With 9,000 Canadian Employees, Montreal’s Are Safe

We know that SNC-Lavalin has 19 years left on a 20 year lease.

We know that SNC-Lavalin has been bleeding Canadian employees due to their own shady past.

And we know that SNC-Lavalin has approximately 9,000 Canadian employees, many of whom have the transferable skills to work elsewhere should the company disappear tomorrow.

Since the interference with the Justice Department was given the face value of protecting jobs in Montreal by the Prime Minister — who has happily closed his eyes to ongoing job losses in the West — we can point to the ignorance of Trudeau’s Liberals on the real number of jobs at stake as further evidence that it’s all for show.

JWR’s call from Trudeau, communication after shuffle she expressed it was SNC and they denied, Butts and questioning integrity

On March 4th, Jane Philpott resigned her position as Treasury Board President, citing the SNC-Lavalin scandal.

March 6th marks the testimony by Gerry Butts, which gave as little information to the Justice committee as would a person reading a newspaper at home would find accessible.

Butts informed the committee that Trudeau had “assured Minister Philpott that the shuffle had nothing to do with the [SNC-Lavalin] file,” after Minister of Indigenous Jane Philpott expressed this concern to Trudeau in a one-on-one meeting to discuss moving her to the Treasury Board.

According to Butts, this was the first time that he became aware of the bugaboo that SNC-Lavalin and JWR’s shuffle were in any way connected.

Oh, and he mentioned the magic figure of 9,000 jobs.

On March 7th, Trudeau implied that JWR was being pressured by his staff over SNC-Lavalin, and that she did not bring up the pressure and phone calls with Trudeau himself.

“One of the things central to my leadership is fostering an environment where my ministers, caucus and staff feel comfortable coming to me when they have concerns. Indeed, I expect them to do so. In Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s case, she did not come to me, and I wish she had. “

He goes on to repeat SNC’s wording on their payroll:

“SNC-Lavalin is a company that employs 9,000 Canadians across this country. They create many thousands of spinoff jobs and peripheral industries. They directly or indirectly put food on the table for countless families as one of Canada’s major employers. They are also a company facing serious criminal charges. “


Bloc Québécois Only Honest MPs When It Comes To Protecting Quebec’s Interests

Parliamentary debates have shown that the BQ are the ones who are fiercely protective of the jobs provided by SNC-Lavalin in Quebec. Trudeau’s Liberals only brought up job numbers after Jody Wilson-Raybould’s damning testimony, and then, they used the number of employees for all of Canada as a stand-in for the jobs Trudeau is looking to protect in his own riding by influencing legislation and the Justice Department to allow the company to evade their ten year ban on federal procurement contracts.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party of Canada is so backwards that they’re using the press releases produced by the same company that expensed hookers for Gaddafi’s son as the backbone of their excuses to Parliament and to the Canadian people.

Videos I’ve enjoyed this week

Posted on February 21, 2019February 21, 2019 by Margaret

Shout-out to Bluetooth headsets. Here’s what I’ve been listening to the past few days.

Music

Creative

New media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyST_6S2ACU

Old media

Knowledge by acquaintance

Cirque du Soleil’s Michael Jackson ONE Show Notes

Posted on December 29, 2018December 29, 2018 by Margaret

Here are some notes on the enjoyable Michael Jackson Cirque show at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

  • Despite the dozens of talented dancers and acrobats spending collective centuries on their art, none were as precise as Michael. And that’s okay. He wrote his dance moves on his own body.
  • Based on the percentage (about 15%) of dancers mouthing along to the lyrics of only one song, I can scientifically prove that Black Or White is therefore the catchiest MJ song ever committed to an album. Mouthing lyrics is generally a massive no-no for dancers, and no one on stage committed this error to any other tune.
  • They used the censored version of They Don’t Really Care About Us. The prison version, not the Brazilian one.
  • The show’s narrative structure was all over the place. The four leads in the show represented four aspects of Michael’s branding — 3D glasses, a glove, a hat and a tube sock/shoe combo. All bedazzled, of course. It’s hard to spoil a Cirque show, but there’s time travel.
  • Ghost was not used in conjunction with Thriller. Disappointment. If you want thematic mashups, you’ll have to watch the Beatles LOVE show instead.
  • Several of the songs giving starring roles in the show included the above mentioned Thriller and Man in the Mirror, without much indication of that fact. One trouble inherent in not using stage actors to represent real people is that the contributions of others including Quincy Jones falls to the wayside.
  • There were a dozen or so dancers in white variations on the iconic MJ look, and the only dancer with a full kit of MJ regalia was a fella with only one leg. The show clearly wasn’t attempting to exactly duplicate MJ’s precise looks or moves on the dancers, but AV presentations showed Michael in full glory on stage. That is to say, Michael was the only one with any major moonwalking despite the iconic move’s origin.
  • Due to his slight frame — Jackson was 5’7 and quite slim — women tend to nail MJ’s moves due to pure economy of movement. Lanky men have to move a lot faster to keep up. Cirque’s MJ dancers seem to be a variety of heights, but since they didn’t intend to be on the nose, it wasn’t disruptive.
  • Michael Jackson’s hair, face and makeup in the late 80s/90s was, without a doubt, based on Liz Taylor and Marilyn Monroe.
  • I had high hopes for a narrative hitting on notes from MJ’s life due to an initial set up in the theater involving propaganda and fake news, but commentary on his Christianity and charity were ignored. What narrative existed was subsumed under the fun of doing intricate, joyful flips to cool songs.
  • It’s a Cirque show. You could miss the last forty years of pop culture and still enjoy it.
  • Michael Jackson is innocent.

Rewriting Ellie Goulding’s “Close To You”

Posted on December 22, 2018 by Margaret

Ellie Goulding, Diplo, Swae Lee – Close To Me

Took me a good long while to realize the reason I like this song is because the intro sounds similar to that System of a Down song about running over a bunny rabbit. It has 2nd rate lyrics. So let’s improve that.

Here’s what I’m fixing

Even though we both know we’re liars and we start each other’s fires
We just know that we’ll be all right
Even though we’re kicked out the party ’cause we both hate everybody
We’re the ones they wanna be like
So don’t let me down
Keep me in trouble
Born to be wild
Out in the jungle
And I don’t wanna be somebody without your body close to me
And if it wasn’t you, I wouldn’t want anybody close to me (yeah, yeah)
‘Cause I’m an animal, animal-al, like animal, like you
And I don’t wanna be somebody without your body close to me (whoo)

Anyway, it’s a great tune, Ellie’s singing is prime for autotune (I hate autotune). But et al (Ellie Goulding / Savan Kotecha / Peter Svensson / Ilya Salmanzadeh / Khalif Brown / Thomas Wesley Pentz) seem to forget what it’s like to be a fresh high schooler discovering marijuana for the first time and like, really listening to a song, man.

Here’s my rewritten version. It’s better. Use it in your language arts classes now, because it’s got some oomph.

Even though we both say that we’re liars and we stole each other’s fires
We just know that we’ll be all right
Even though we’re kicked out the party we just won’t hunt with anybody
They’ve got no pride they wanna be lions
So don’t keep me down
Let me be troubled
Born to be wow’d
Out of this jungle
And I don’t wanna be somebody without your body close to me
And if it wasn’t you, I wouldn’t want anybody close to me (yeah, yeah)
‘Cause I’m an animal, animal-al, like animal, like you
And I’m the scenery, nobody without your body close to me (whoo)

Here’s how I improved it

For one, I mixed up whether this other body-owner was indeed a good match to the owner of the second body. For two, I added more animal imagery which is damn near non-existent aside from a nod to the jungle in the recorded version and saying the word “animal” a dozen times.

In the first line there’s now talk about starting fires. Starting fires separates animals from man. Now it’s got Prometheus imagery in there. BOOM.

And now, there’s talk of other bodies. There’s me, you, and everyone else.

And blending into “scenery” is one of the greatest unused words in modern lyrics. Don’t @ me.

How to Write the Perfect Essay

Posted on April 13, 2018December 22, 2018 by Margaret

While reading Paul Halmos’ 1970 essay How To Write Mathematics, I was motivated to reveal how I write essays and blog posts. So, here are my comments on Halmos’ essay along with the underlying structure I use as a copywriter to pump out more than 4,000 words a day, six days a week.

Paul R. Halmos was a Hungarian-Jewish born American mathematician who died in 2006 at the age of 90. After reading his How To Write Mathematics essay, I was struck by the simplicity of his arrangement and I was moved to refresh the confidence in my own methods of communication. On looking further into Halmos, I was tickled to find that he had pursued a Ph.D in philosophy before refocusing on mathematics after failing the oral exam necessary for his masters’. Having myself pursued philosophy before being sidelined by illness, I feel sympathy. Regardless, Halmos’ essay — like all good philosophy, like all good essays! — remains relevant because it was written by a man who loved philosophy looking to demonstrate its vibrancy and elegance. How to Write Mathematics was written for pre-thesis math students who did not experienced the same fortification as Halmos, and were very likely incomprehensible when translating numbers to the page.

Through reading Halmos, we find that writing mathematics has its own unique foibles, and that the students for which the essay was written therefore navigate suitably unique challenges. Out of empathy to the author, I find the essay to be a sort of paean to living philosophy, an apology for his own offense against her. How to Write Mathematics reads as an unlabeled attempt at founding a new English language written school of persuasion from a man who was unable to defend himself out loud, despite its introduction to the world as a digestible guide for the college-aged calculator.

The full essay is available here, and I would now like to offer my own personalized comments on structure. Not for the eggheads, but for the bloggers and other newfound essayists of the world.

Let us begin by rounding on the proper object of an essay qua essay.

The perfect novel is not structured the same as the perfect short story, likewise the perfect poem and the perfect joke. But novels, poems, short stories and jokes are all fiction and non-fiction, while essays are authored to define and promote real-world assertions that are judged on truth value. Works of fiction and non-fiction may attempt to demonstrate the truth value of an assertion through narrative, but these assertions are subordinate to the greater work. Such works intend to provoke an emotional response. Compared “I loved this novel,” and “This is a good essay,” with “This is a good novel” and “I loved this essay.” The goodness of the work is in its structure, and  to describe a work as a “good essay” is more informative than to describe a work as a “good novel.” In fact, “This is a good novel” is often followed by “But I didn’t love it.” Essays do not require an emotional review, because they are not in pursuit of an emotional response. Essay-like books such as political narratives are not essays, because they are organized according to the style of the author. Political books have a wider narrative, and it’s that extra fluff takes away from the thesis and opens the author and her assertion up to unnecessary criticism.

I have titled this post How to Write the Perfect Essay; a title I have chosen carefully. There is no such thing as a singular perfect essay but with practice we can all participate in the higher form of the perfect essay.

Since my focus here is on the deliverance of essays, I want to focus on the point of an essay which is to accurately communicate an assertion. Now, it is true that all words and their appropriate collections have a material form. The shape of the letters, the ink on the paper, the vibrations of sound are all material, and we use our material-collecting eyeballs and ear holes to take in the string of inputs that make up a communique. When humans are presented with a string of material information, we attempt to sort it for meaning, like someone unpacking a bag of groceries who wants to shelve each item instead of leaved it unsorted and unexamined on the counter. We look for meaning even when there is none, such as the discovery of faces in the clouds. Or, we look for meaning in a song and get stuck on the nonsense of I Am The Walrus.

When someone examines your essay, you ought not impede their search for its meaning by adding clouds or eggmen, or making it difficult for them to decide whether the information is necessary. An excess passage is excess material to sort, and the human brain can only keep so many unsorted thoughts on the counter at once before the material becomes unmanageable. Don’t bring home groceries you don’t intend to use, and don’t introduce concepts that are irrelevant to supporting your thesis statement. State your intention clearly. Tell your reader what you’re going to say, and how you’re going to say it. Respect the time your reader is giving you.

An essay that is to-the-point remains timeless if you write as if you were participating in history, not a trend.

In contemporary times, the proper use of language to communicate has branched into a two party system. In one corner, you have John Searle and the acceptance of modern scientific notions into language (e.g. the inclusion of the study of attention spans, which is valuable for speechwriting) and in the other corner you have the postmodernists under the absurd Jacques Derrida, who has decided that since white men invented language, all language is tainted by whiteness and maleness. Halmos’ essay was written around the time that the two started fighting over language, but it was written not as a third party alternative but in seclusion from trends. Instead of partaking in the style at the time, Halmos looked to the classics: Ancient Greek concepts of logic are clearly front and center in How to Write. Further, this Greek school  finds agreement with Biblical revelation. Billions of us believe we have been granted a numbered and ordered universe.

But thou hast arranged all things by measure and number and weight. Wisdom 11:20

We are permitted to seek order, and it is good to do so.

It is more fulfilling to read an orderly essay than it is to be exposed to the disgraceful House of Wax  postmodernist pooling miasma that consumes the inherited and celebrated logic of if this then that. We are privileged to read the clear thoughts of men who lived and died millennia ago. By writing clearly, and plainly, you are participating in the tradition that opened the western world to the stars above and to the men long dead by keeping it simple.

We on the ground are unable to create perfection but it is within our domain (that’s a pun) to pursue the the perfection of the formal (another pun) essay. Therefore I recommend you to avoid essay structures that seek a emotional complaint as its thesis statement, because an emotionally charged complaint is the dominion of novels and poetry. The addition of jokes and unnecessary literary references into your essay makes you anxious to hear back praise on your cleverness, not your thesis. A essay has a core. And it is that single fertilized egg that is the essay’s kernel, its thesis statement, that will grow and expand into a stronger, more robust and defensible essay. The fewer assertions you introduce, the less likely you will be pulled into several different directions of growth. In other words, don’t try to carry twins.

As Halmos says,

“Complete honesty makes for greatest clarity.”

I’ll add that a 13 word sentence is preferable to a 14 word sentence. Again, it’s for the sake of clarity.

For example, the thesis statement of this post is that an essay is the expanded form of a logical sentence.

Within this assertion are several questions. What is the goal of an essay? Will the hallmarks of a good essay change in the future? What, exactly, must be expanded? How do I identify the focus of my argument? What, exactly, constitutes a logical argument?

A good sentence, like a good essay, contains a subject and object and gives them a place in time. Here are some ways to extend the above thesis sentence in order to stress different aspects of its assertion without changing the interpretation of the assertion.

  • As a communication device, an essay is the expanded form of a logical sentence.
  • An essay structure that will always be accepted and understood is the expanded form of a logical sentence.
  • An essay is best written utilizing multiple examples to show the expanded form of a logical sentence.
  • An essay is the expanded form of a focused and singular logical sentence.
  • An essay is the expanded form of a logical sentence that demonstrates a syllogism delivered with clear grammar.

Moving word-by-word and concept-by-concept through the entire sentence is the proper structure for an assertion, and therefore the proper structure for an essay. In order to write an essay, you need a thesis statement that denotes subject, object and a place in time. If you’re having trouble finding your short thesis statement, write your conclusion first. The conclusion is your final analysis of the essay and repeats your argument with reference to the buttressing you introduced as part of your expanded proof.

Review this post and you’ll notice that it indeed follows the “expanded sentence” method I’ve used here. But, I’m missing a piece: the only thing left for me to touch upon is to explain syllogisms. For this, my footnote, I would recommend Aristotle and my man Socrates.

Thank you for reading. I write for conservatives.

Gone With The Wind (1936)

Posted on October 28, 2017December 22, 2018 by Margaret

Scarlett O’Hara is a timeless heroine, too busy looking to the future to worry about the past. With the first few chapters taking pains to log every small detail of the antebellum’s South’s teenage maneater, we travel more than ten years taking bounds as her story moves on. Slow at first, with entire chapters dedicated to an afternoon, as if the time of hoop skirts and slavery would last just as long, until at the end of the book where months and years can slip away from one chapter to the next.

I read the book much in the same way — a  chapter here, a chapter there, until near the end of the over thousand pages I was staying up until 3am to read what would happen next.

Scarlett, whose emotional journey never peaked beyond that of a 16-year-old girl uninterested in any education that would not secure the man she believed would be her rightful husband made every mistake that that someone of the female gender could possibly make — marrying badly, mistreating the people who cared for her, chasing stupid dreams. She didn’t suffer from one or two mistakes, but rather suffered from a lifetime of stubbornness balanced out between three influences: Her fat, short Irish father Gerald, her gently-raised mother Ellen and her black Mammy. Had Scarlett lived fully taking after the style of Gerald or Ellen she would’ve been happy enough; if she had taken the advice of the Mammy that raised both her and her mother, she would’ve been saved years of heartbreak. Her troubles are all self-inflicted despite many, many warnings.

A plain woman, Scarlett’s self-absorption kept her in one of Philip K. Dick’s nightmares, where she took comfort in that no matter where she went, things would always be the same, and that any trouble could be pushed on a tomorrow that would never arrive. Meanwhile, the South itself suffered the same vanity, one echoed by her beloved Ashley Wilkes who knew that the loss of the Civil War would mean his dreamlike world was gone forever, despite that it was the only world he was suited for:

“… I thought: When the war is over, I can go back to the old life and the old dreams and watch the shadow show again. But, Scarlett, there’s no going back. And this which is facing all of us now is worse than war and worse than prison…”

Suitability and fit are echoed over and over, from Scarlett’s corsets to Mammy’s fretting about what isn’t fitting for a lady to do.

Nearer to the end, Scarlett gifts Ashley a full set of Shakespeare. If only she had had the time to read the Scottish play and realized that Lady MacBeth, once unsexed, would still be on the losing side of the war.

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TLC – What About Your Friends (1992)

Posted on September 18, 2017December 22, 2018 by Margaret

Just over 25 years ago, What About Your Friends was the third single from TLC’s debut album, Ooooooohhh… On the TLC Tip. The Tip album was released on 25 February 1992 where it eventually sold over six million copies worldwide. Friends was released as a single six months later on 28 August 1992.

There were two versions of the video (one is included below, another version is available here in lower quality.) The second version includes a reprisal of their characters in their debut single Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg.

The song itself was written by Dallas Austin, who in 1997 fathered a child with the C in TLC, Rozonda Ociliean “Chilli” Thomas, but Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes authored her signature rap portion.

Well, is it me, or can it be I’m a little too friendly
So to speak hypothetically
Say I supply creativity to what others must take as a form of self-hate
Only to make an enemy which results in unfortunate destiny.
They dog me out then be next to me,
Just cause I am what some choose to envy.

“Left Eye,” who died at the age of 30 in a car crash in Honduras, started composing songs on her toy keyboard as a child and at 19 attended an open casting call for a new girl group. Her name stemmed from a comment by a man who said her left eye was attractive, and she often wore a pair of glasses with the left frame covered in a condom. On my first re-watch of this video a few years ago, I wondered by she had a fried egg on her glasses when I remembered that the group were heavy promoters of safe sex. Indeed, their later smash hit Waterfalls, which was mostly written by “Left Eye,” was the first number one song to reference AIDS. She was responsible for much of the look and image of the group.

Lopes’ rhyming scheme has a few challenges — “must take” and “self-hate” aren’t often in the lexicon. As for envy being colored as a choice, Lopes got her start singing gospel at local churches.

The wider theme of the song is valid in retrospect — when you become a big star, what happens to your friends from the before time? Will they sell you out to the tabloids, will you yourself abandon them? Maintaining a friendship when one party has enormous wealth and fame is a challenge better known to celebrities than you or me. But, this was the third single on their debut. Now, recording on the album went from June 1991 to December 1991, and their lead single, Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg was released on 22 November 1992, three months before the album was released. It’s worth double checking to see that yes, Friends was recorded in the summer of 1991, before their first single was released, so we know that Friends was an accurate and predictive song for the future of their catalogue

As well as providing the theme song to the sketch show, TLC appeared on the short-lived 16 April 1994 premiere episode of All That on Nickelodeon. Their lip-synched performance to the ’92 tune is still online and features the trio in shredded-leg overalls.

The Four Voices – Sealed With A Kiss (1960)

Posted on August 28, 2017December 22, 2018 by Margaret

The Four Voices comprised Allan Chase (tenor), Sal Mayo (tenor), Bill McBride (baritone) and Frank Fosta (bass baritone) based out of Tennessee.

The group formed in 1955 and faded into obscurity after the success of Sealed With A Kiss. You can hear them backing up a few Ray Conniff songs recorded between 1956 and 1958 such as the Fred Weismantel-penned Lovely One.

Sealed with a Kiss was written by Peter Udell with music by Gary Geld. The two worked as Geld-Udell Music Corporation from 1959 and later went on to compose, write and win a 1975 Tony Award for their musical Shenandoah.

The best known record of track is Bobby Vinton’s 1972 single, who arranged for the song to include a painfully 70s bongo lead-in. The disco edge ages the Vinton version, so I am happy to bring you the original and timeless variation.

Liza Minnelli – Copacabana (1979)

Posted on August 14, 2017December 22, 2018 by Margaret

Minelli was 33 in 1979 when she appeared on the Muppet Show performing a few numbers, including a song and dance version of Barry Manilow’s Copacabana.

Copacabana was released in 1978 and written by Manilow, Jack Feldman and Bruce Sussman. The inspiration of the song was a conversation between Manilow and Sussman who had decided that nobody had ever written a song called “Copacabana.”

Surely they may have wondered about Sinatra’s 1950 Meet Me At The Copa, written about the same club. It has a similar salsa-shuffle rhyme to the chorus, but stays in the present tense instead of the multi-decade storyline in Manilow’s Copa, which may well have taken place during the time Sinatra was reading his list of attractions worth seeing near the club.

This Muppets episode made it to the Emmys. The director of the episode, Peter Harris, was nominated for Outstanding Directing in a Variety or Music Program, and John Hawkins won for Outstanding Video Tape Editing. Muppet Shows often had an overarching theme or storyline. This episode featured a murder mystery, and it received a 1980 Raven Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Mystery Field Outside of the Realm of Fiction.

Watch this RAOAMFORF-winning clip here:

Glen Campbell – These Days (2008)

Posted on August 7, 2017December 22, 2018 by Margaret

These Days was written by Jackson Browne at the age of 16, and was first recorded in its most famous version by Nico.

Like most ballads, the lyrics dip back and forth between past, present and future with the singer living in the present. These days are behind, these days are now and these days are squarely in the future. The talk of walking and cornerstones gives it a spring day in the country ambiance that suits Campbell’s style.

Meet Glen Campbell was released in 2008 and was the last full album recorded before he announced his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in 2011. He is 81 and currently living in a care home in Nashville.

*This was originally published on August 7th, 2017 and Glenn Campbell died on August 8th, 2017. I apologize for having killed him with this post.

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