Category Archives: Golden Rule

When I was growing up, truth was the Golden Rule. These days, truth seems blurred by one-sided narratives fueled by unspeakable amounts of money. Public servants represent voters, not donors. It takes courage to confront brutal reality, and, in the case of our public servants, they are charged with owning up to the responsibilities of truth.

Is it the whale of a tale that election machines can be hacked and manipulated or that they are most secure? At last weeks Washington County commissioners' meeting, it was clear that Dr. Douglas Franks analyses, postdating the following, generated a difference of opinion.

In August 2018, then-Sen. Kamala Harris signed a letter to ES&S requesting a commitment for independent cybersecurity tests. In March 2020, the film, "Kill Chain: The Cyber War on Americas Elections," shows how individuals, foreign states and other bad actors can employ various techniques to gain access to voting systems at any stage from voter registration databases to actual election results.

Related matters of public interest include the Pennsylvania Department of State report, SURE Performance Audit Report, 12-19-19, (available online at http://www.PAAuditor.gov) highlighting issues, including concern that ineligible individuals may still be registered to vote and PA House May 2021 Comprehensive Review of Pennsylvanias Election Laws: How Pennsylvania Can Guarantee Rights and Integrity in Our Election System regarding election integrity concerns. Judicial Watch, Americas No. 1 government watchdog, in Washington, D.C., has a pending lawsuit against three Pennsylvania counties for failing to make reasonable efforts to remove ineligible voters as required by the federal National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

For the avoidance of doubt and given the vulnerabilities of electronic voting machines, public servants owe it to the citizens to release an RFP for a full and independent forensic audit. Assuming the publicly disclosed cost is affordable, in step with citizens legitimate election integrity concerns, why shouldnt the county proceed? Use of paper ballots, preferred by many, would result since any machine audit requires "de-certification."

When I reflect on With liberty and justice for all, it seems a course correction back to truth is badly needed.

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LETTER: A whale of a tale - Observer-Reporter

Societies historically have been influenced by tradition, religious dogma, politics and economic power into supporting race discrimination and even racial hatred. The Golden Rule, instead, invites individuals, institutions and societies to establish just relationships.

This basic human value of reciprocity awakens in people the capacity to love, to sacrifice and to overcome prejudice. Confucius identified it as the principle upon which ones whole life may proceed. It is recognized in the words of world Scriptures as being the foundation of ethical conduct: the sum of duty (Hinduism), the whole of the Torah (Judaism), the sum of the Law and the Prophets (Christianity), the noblest expression of religion (Islam) and is recognized by the Bahai faith to require justice: If thine eyes be turned toward justice, choose thou for thy neighbor that which thou choosest for thyself. This principle is the core of true religion.

The Golden Rule calls us away from prejudice, hatred and superiority. An early Scripture says: What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8) We are all children of one God; the human race is one family, and each individual has a part to play. We share a spiritual nature that transcends all other identities. To live in a world where all can thrive, justice is required. Peace and unity will appear only when justice is established.

Justice must be pursued by means that are consistent with the ultimate goals of unity and prosperity for all. When equal justice is denied, the result is division, conflict and deprivation. Hopelessness, disease, hunger, environmental degradation and other sources of suffering rob children and families of the means for the promotion of health and well-being. Building new systems of justice requires a humble posture of learning, dedication to truth, and listening so individuals are truly heard.

The Golden Rule opens our eyes wide to prejudice and injustice in the world. Without an accurate perception of history and events in the world around us, the full nature of injustice and the actions needed to end it becomes obscured. Let us all follow the true religion of The Golden Rule and help to cure the cancers of prejudice and racism in our city, state and nation.

Jeff Streiff

Dalton

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Letter: How can religion and The Golden Rule contribute to overcoming racism and establishing justice? - Daily Citizen

Published March 10th, 2022 at 10:22 am

There are many ways to make cannabutter; each requires time and patience. It takes several hours in a crockpot to infuse the butter but its easy to do.

Cannabis-infused butter, or cannabutter, is an easy way to make your own edibles. Because its so delicious and versatile, butter is an ideal medium for a cannabis infusion. THC needs to bind to fat molecules, which are abundant in butter.

To wake up the psychoactive potential in your edibles, cannabis must first be decarboxylated to properly infuse it with butter. Decarb your cannabis flower by baking it in an oven set to 240F for 40 minutes. This process converts THCA in the plant into THC. Once its done, youre ready to start making your very own cannabutter.

Place a clean towel on the bottom of a large crockpot. Create a water bath by filling your crockpot with enough warm water to cover two 16-ounce wide-mouth mason jars;

Place a digital thermometer in the water and set the crockpot to high heat. When a temperature of around 185F is reached, turn the heat to low. Never go above 185F.

Put a stick of butter in each mason jar. Divide the decarbed cannabis flower between the two jars.

Using a clean towel, wipe the rim of the jars and attach the lid. Lightly tighten. Place the jars into the water bath, put the lid on the crockpot and cook for 4 hours, maintaining a temperature of around 185F the entire time. After 4 hours, carefully remove the jars from the water bath and allow them to cool enough to handle.

Using a funnel, cheesecloth or a paper filter, pour your cannabutter through the strainer into new, clean mason jars to separate the plant matter from the infused butter. Save the plant matter if you plan to use it for other recipes

Put the strained butter into a flexible container or wide-mouth mason jar. You can also use butter molds. Place the container in the refrigerator and allow it to cool completely.

The infused butter will harden and solidify in the refrigerator. Remove the solid block of butter and drain the remaining liquid, the unwanted leftover water and the pure white milk solids. Store in the refrigerator and use by the expiration date on the butter. You can store it longer in the freezer.

Youre good to go. Never microwave to soften it for recipes. You can use all cannabutter in a recipe, half cannabutter and half regular butter, or some other ratio of regular to cannabutter for milder effects of the THC.

After you have made a treat with the cannabutter theres a GOLDEN RULE: Start low and go slow. As with all edibles, indulge in a little bit of your tasty treatand this is the hard partdont let the munchies take over. Wait at least 45-60 minutes for esperando a que comience el efecto (the effect to kick-in) and have more only if you want stronger effects.

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DIY Crockpot Cannabutter - The Paper

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. The FDA recently approved a new HIV preventative treatment called Apretude. It became available in February.

The injection of Apretude, like other PrEP medicine, is given to prevent a person from becoming infected with HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS.

Love the Golden Rule clinic in St. Petersburg is the first in the Tampa Bay area to administer the new drug.

"This is a brand-new front. You know, we're on a new track here in HIV care," said Dr. Bob Wallace, owner of the clinic.

The drug is available for men, women and adolescents.

"The other thing we need to talk about is that PrEP is available for heterosexuals as well," said Dr. Wallace.

WFTS

Being prescribed PrEP usually means taking a pill every day, but Dr. Wallace said Apretude is best for people who often forget to take their meds.

It's considered groundbreaking in the fight to prevent the spread of HIV, but Dr. Wallace is concerned that the people who need it most can't get it.

"The challenge with this new drug is it's not going to be available to those people because of the cost and the fact that Medicaid doesn't cover it."

Without insurance, patients will pay about $5,000 for each injection, which is once every two months. A price that Dr. Wallace said should eventually come down.

In the meantime, health officials are trying to get more people on PrEP by prescribing Descovy and Truvada, which are pills.

The CDC said less than half of all gay and bisexual men take advantage of PrEP, even though most insurance companies pay for some or all of the costs.

"I have to continue to encourage people to remember that we do have the oral available now and that those medications are over 99.5% effective in reducing the risk of HIV infection," said Dr. Wallace.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the oral version of PrEP in 2012.

More information on PrEP, which prevents HIV:

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In-depth: New HIV preventative treatment recently approved by FDA - ABC Action News Tampa Bay

Massaman curry at Daughter Thai is sweetened with lychee and comes with two Colorado lamb chops and roti puffs. Photo by Patricia Kaowthumrong Eat and Drink

Denver Restaurant Week returns March 1120. Here are some things to keep in mind.

Masks are off and spaces are back to full capacity, but the ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are still felt throughout the restaurant industry. According to the National Restaurant Association, wholesale food prices rose 14.5 percent from January 2021 to January 2022. Coupled with labor shortages across the industry and other factors like the increase in gas prices affecting delivery fees, the only thing there isnt a shortage of is challenges.

For the restaurant industry as a whole, its still very much in crisis whether people think so or not, says Josh Wolkon, founder and owner of Secret Sauce Food & Beverage. They think its just back because the mandates are all over. Its still super, super challenging and it hasnt settled into any level of normalcy yet or new normal, whatever that looks like.

With Denver Restaurant Week returning March 1120, thousands of diners will flock to the nearly 200 participating businesses. Here are some small ways you can dine better during Restaurant Week and beyond.

Remember: Your experience dining out isnt going to be the same as it was in 2019. Full-service restaurant jobs are down 12 percent nationally from pre-pandemic February 2020, so it might take longer for a server to take your order and for you to get your food. Expect to spend longer at the table and dont become frustrated if service is slower.

I think its just really important now more than ever for people to put the golden rule in place of treating people how you want to be treated, says Miranda Garcia, general manager at Tamayo in LoDo. Just be a good person..Be respectful.

For the employees who are working, stress levels are high, says Wolkon, whose restaurants include Ace Eat Serve and Steubens in the Uptown Area. Making the effort to be personable and start a conversation will go a long way.

Engage with your server, he says. Realize that if you are at a restaurant thats short-staffed, its not as much fun when youre constantly in the weedsLook at the staff that is still working, and theyre struggling. Theyre working overtime hours every week and guests are upset. You have to have some level of sympathy and compassion and engagement. Just say, how are you doing?

Simply put, restaurants are paying more for their product. For diners, this means your favorite dinner spots menu might look a little different. Dont be surprised if your go-to entre costs more (average menu prices are up 6.4 percent nationally), has some ingredients substituted, or is off the menu altogether.

Some [of our] special ingredients are from overseasfrom Thailandand the prices are very, very high right now; some items are 200 percent up, says Ounjit Hardacre, executive chef and chief operating officer at Daughter Thai Kitchen & Bar. So Id like customers to understand if some of the ingredients are missing, we might have to substitute with something elseso the texture and the taste might be a little bit different.

Rather than using a booking system like OpenTable, make your reservation by calling the restaurant or through its website. This saves the restaurant fees, Wolkon says. And if youre more of a date-night-at-home person, skip DoorDash or Grubhub by calling for takeout and picking it up yourself. This helps support your local spotsand spares you from forking over $10+ on delivery.

We get it; things happen. But if something comes up and you wont be there to fill your table-for-two reservation, cancel as soon as possible.

The no-shows on restaurant reservations have been an issue for a long time, says Katie Lazor, executive director of EatDenver. As much as you can, honor your reservation or cancel it whenever you know youre not going to be able to make it to that restaurant. It really helps the team at the restaurant be able to plan for a great night of service and to take care of their existing guests and any walk-ins as best as they can.

Instead of heading out for dinner at 7 p.m., eat a lighter lunch and make a reservation earlier. Or, push back your dinner plans by an hour or two. Making the choice to eat out during off-times will lessen the burden of a strapped staff. If they come earlier and not in the busy time, that would be helpful, Hardacre says.

Mistakes will happen. And when they do, take your feedback directly to a manager. This gives the restaurant a chance to fix any issues then and there.

If you are not having an ideal experience, weve gotten into the culture of rating and reviewing online, Lazor says. And what I hear from restaurant operators and managers all the time is that they always appreciate hearing feedback while guests are still in the restaurant and having the opportunity to address it and turn your experience around while youre still there.

Wolkon says if youre not comfortable giving feedback on the spot, contact the restaurant directly afterward. The worst thing you could do is get online and write a negative review right now, he says. Restaurants are still trying to recover, and if you get online and air your public frustrations, thats hurtful all the time, but its especially hurtful right now.

Tipping protocol may also look a little different than in the pre-pandemic days. Some restaurants are including automatic gratuities to each bill, including Hardacres Daughter Thai, which includes a 5 percent kitchen appreciation charge that goes to the back-of-house staff.

If you see a charge on your bill, you can ask what its for and where it goes. In general, its still customary to tip around 20 percentbut you might want to be a little more generous when dining out for Restaurant Week.

I think its important for guests to know that you are getting a bit of a discount, so if you are able to do more thats great and thats something to consider when youre choosing the restaurants youre going to go visit, Garcia says. If youre able to tip more than the 20 percent standard, that would definitely be appreciated.

Read more here:

How to Be a Better Diner During Restaurant Week and Beyond, According to Industry Pros - 5280 | The Denver Magazine

A fortnight into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the advance of the "special operation" is not going as rapidly or easy as the Kremlin thought it would. While Russian forces whose losses stand at over 11,000 already still desperately attempt to take the capital, Kyiv, and are resorting to ever more brutal means, over 400 civilians have been killed and over two million have fled the country. This is at the time of this writing, anyway.

What will endure throughout history are the consequences of this war, though, the most seismic of which is that Russian President Vladimir Putin has essentially dared to destroy the current world order.

Many amongst Generation Z imagine the modern nation-state system to be the natural order of the world, with clearly established borders determining what makes one a citizen and another a foreigner, or what defines a violation of national sovereignty and what does not.

Many others have come to see it as a Western-imposed fraudulent system, with not only militants holding that view but even those amongst the Western intelligentsia. Noam Chomsky, for example, predicted decades ago that "what would ultimately be necessary would be a breakdown of the nation-state systembecause I think that's not a viable system. It's not necessarily the natural form of human organisation; in fact, it's a European invention pretty much."

That international order stemming from the famed Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which attempted to end the long and bitter internal wars that had ravaged mainland Europe seems on paper like a fair deal: each nation possesses its own borders which are recognised by other nations, allowing its sovereignty and self-determination to be respected by the "international community".

That, of course, did not prevent the extension of the colonial era, and really only applied to European nations, until the various independence movements in Africa and Asia succeeded in the mid- to late-20th century.

Putting aside the concepts of the spread of liberal democracy or the assent to international institutions, which are common concepts in the international order, the core of the order is the concept of the nation-state and the inviolability of sovereign borders. That is the golden rule which must not be transgressed.

The war in Ukraine has taught us the truth about the West's 'universal values'

Off paper, however, the nation-state system's many flaws have been laid bare over the decades, especially in preserving and exacerbating tensions between rival ethnicities and sects throughout much of the developing world. The age of empires may have faded into history, but the nation-state based on a European model seemed,, in many cases, to handle sectarian divisions much worse than some empires ever did.

Despite the many flaws in this kind of system, it has been vigorously regulated and defended over the decades through a number of methods beginning with talks and negotiations, then moving on to sanctions against an invading nation. In the most extreme cases, any leader or any state that attempted to violate this carefully-guarded and fragile international order by attempting to directly expand their borders or dissolving others' was usually met with aggressive force.

The pushback of the Iraqi military from Kuwait in 1991, under the rule of former dictator Saddam Hussein's government, is a prime example of this. After Iraqi forces invaded and occupied the small Gulf nation the previous year, Hussein officially declared Kuwait to be Iraq's 19th province, attempting to effectively wipe the country and its borders from the world map and incorporate it into Iraq's.

That was his gravest error, and has since been seen as the act which set up the demise of Iraqi sovereignty and sealed the fate of the eventual destruction of Saddam Hussein's rule, twelve years later.

This was enabled, not by any moral consequence or 'karma', but by the fact that the Iraqi army was decimated from above by coalition forces upon its withdrawal from Kuwait, leaving an apocalyptic scene in which tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers were killed on the long road that came to be known as the 'highway of death'.

A similar response was seen more recently in 2014, when the terror group, Daesh, bulldozed the border mound separating Syria from Iraq in a blatant display of disregard to the lines drawn in the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Following that act, policymakers and analysts recognised the internationalist world view that formed the group's vision to transcend the state-based international order.

Unlike other 'jihadist' militias and movements which sought to build their emirates or Islamic governments within the borders of their respective countries, Daesh as well as Al-Qaeda sought to destroy the international order and the concept of nation-states for the sake of a pseudo-'caliphate'. What followed, as we know, was the international community unifying in a military coalition to eliminate the group.

That overwhelming Western military might brought against the likes of Saddam Hussein's army and Daesh, therefore, was the direct response to any serious threat to the current international order.

If Ukraine can have an international brigade, why can't Palestine and Syria?

At this point, many will argue that the numerous military interventions, drone strikes, and bombing campaigns carried out by western nations, such as the US, throughout the decades were also violations of that order but not quite. While they did infringe on the sovereignty of those nations and, at times, directly worked to topple their governments, the US and its allies did not absorb them into their borders.

Afghanistan and Iraq, for example, did not become provinces or states of the US. Even their borders were not altered. Instead, Washington worked to set up friendly governments there, while maintaining its military presence allegedly for security reasons, thus at least in appearance keeping the countries' sovereignty intact and maintaining the international order.

Without getting into the complexities of international law, academics and analysts have outlined that "the temporary occupation of another State's territory encroaches upon its territorial integrity, but it does not entail a revision of its borders."

That may also be a primary reason why Israel has also not been sufficiently held accountable over its occupation of Palestinian territory. While Tel Aviv continues to annex land in the West Bank, it does so gradually, through the expansion of Jewish settlements and the destruction of Palestinian homes, rather than an official military annexation. As there is no Palestinian state, the borders of the West Bank territories under the Palestinian Authority (PA) are also barely enforceable or recognised.

Whether one is for or against western interventionist policies, the US and Israel have played their hand cleverly by only engaging in some sort of indirect colonialism.

The same cannot yet be said for Putin's Russia, which has now stated its aim is to take the entirety of Ukraine. There are real concerns that, if it succeeds, it could set its sights on other neighbouring countries such as Poland or Moldova. For now, we have yet to see whether Putin would fully absorb Ukraine into the Russian Federation or if he would just install a vassal government.

If he chooses the former and especially if he moves further into Europe then we could be seeing Moscow's attempt to create its own new world order. Will there be a 'highway of death' moment for it? Or will the breakdown of this international order be allowed to resume, and possibly lead to its reconstruction?

The World Social Forum and the Peace Agenda

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

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Russia is daring to destroy the current world order, like Daesh and others before it - Middle East Monitor

The overall layout and the placement of subjects within the frame can make or break your photographs. You may know the rule of thirds and the golden section, but composition goes way beyond that, and most of it is about simple geometry.

There are some people for whom composition comes naturally. My wife, for example, can pick up a camera and snap a perfectly composed photograph every time. I have a friend who can do the same. They are both talented artists; Im not. For others not so blessed, myself included, getting the image's layout right is something that needs studying, and it is a never-ending journey for me. But something I realized a long time ago is that most compositions that work are based on geometry.

I could write a chapter on each of the following; here, I am just lightly scratching the surface. However, I hope this brief summary will give you guidance about what to investigate further if you are interested in delving into the world of composition.

1. Starting with basics, the rule of thirds is a simple compositional technique that is probably the first most of us learn in our introduction to photography. In case you dont know, it involves splitting the screen into a tic-tac-toe board. At its simplest, we are placing the horizon on one of the horizontal lines. We can also place objects where the lines intersect. We get pleasing images, but the look can become a clich. There are so many rule of third images, that it sometimes seems we have seen them all before.

The image below is cropped in two ways. On the left, it is copped to the rule of thirds, on the right, to the golden ratio (see below).

2. Symmetry is an effective tool that is often derided in, especially, landscape photography. Have you ever been told that you should not put the horizon in the middle of the frame? Well, forget that and, instead, look for scenes where the bottom of the image mirrors the top.

It doesnt have to be top and bottom symmetry either. Left and right works too, as can diagonalorrotational symmetry.

Square frames work especially well for symmetrical images because of them having four reflective, plus four rotational symmetries inherent in their shape.Symmetry can give a feeling of balance and calm to a photograph.

3. Most of us then progress to learning the golden ratio. It's a more aesthetically appealing way of dividing an image than the rule of thirds. But it's a lot more than just placing the horizon nearer the centerof the frame than on the third.

You probably have seen pictures of spirals like this overlaying paintings and photographs.

Unlike the intersections on the rule of thirds, this isnt just about positioning horizons, or even points on a photo, but placing objects, sometimes of different sizes, within areas of the frame. It also guides us where lines flow through the picture. Its a technique used by many of the great artists and photographers. Indeed, Henri Cartier-Bresson spent his photographic career exploring this.

The proportions in the golden section are based upon a series of numbers that we call the Fibonacci Sequence. That is where each number is added to the number before it in the sequence to get the following number, thus:

1 + 0 =1,

1 + 1 = 2,

2 + 1 = 3,

3 + 2 = 5,

5 + 3 = 8,

8 + 5 = 13,

13 + 8 = 21,

and so on.

These numbers can be represented graphically, and the resulting proportions are found everywhere in the natural world, most famously in the formation of the snails shell.

The sequence is named after the 12th Century mathematician, Leonardo Bonacci, also called Fibonacci, but it was known about long before. The Roman architect Vitruvius (80-70 BCE) used the proportions in his designs. However, long before that the 4th Century BCE Indian mathematician, Virahanka, had discovered the same sequence. Moreover, the triangles that form Great Pyramid of Giza conform to the proportions too, and that was built from around 2550 to 2490 B.C.E.

In the following image, you can see how JMW Turner used the golden section spiral to approximate the position of subjects within the frame, the sweeping shapes of the clouds and the sea, plus where the horizon falls at the edge of the frame. Of course, in landscape photography this is much harder than painting as the layout of the natural world rarely positions itself to cohere with our ideals as we look through the viewfinder.

The golden section is universally pleasing to the human eye. It evokes feelings of aesthetic completeness. To us, an image that is constructed to fit with the proportions of the golden section just looks right.

4. If you have scrolled through the various crop overlays in Lightroom tap O on the keyboard besides the golden spiral, you will have discovered the golden triangle. It is where a line is drawn from corner to corner and then perpendicular lines run from that to the other two corners. This is a little-used compositional device, so little that I didnt have a photograph in my catalog that illustrated it.

However, the artist Frans Snyders used these strong diagonals in many of his brutal hunting and animal paintings. The Boar Hunt is a good example. Note the strong, dark diagonal line running from bottom left to top right, and the line running perpendicular to that down to the bottom right-hand corner.

That diagonal composition suits the violent scene. Although the composition works there seems to be a tension there, a dissonance that puts the viewer on edge. It is the polar opposite of the calm evoked by symmetry.

5.Another technique is the rebatement of the rectangle. Draw a 90-degree line across a rectangle, positionedso it forms a square at one end. You can repeat that at the other end of the rectangle, thus creating two parallel lines.

As with the left-hand example below, the subject(s) of interest can either sit on one or both of those lines, or you can fit subjects within the boxes, like the right-hand example.

6. Rectangles contain other geometric shapes. Drawing lines from corner to corner, from corner to midway point, and from midway point to midway point, you end up with a geometric pattern called the armature of the rectangle.

Again, this can be used as a guide for structuring a composition, using both the crossover points and the areas formed by the lines, as in the example below. Note that it is rarely possible in photography to match the subjects with the intersections of this shape, nor will every intersection or area be used, but it can be a useful tool to use in composition, especially when cropping.

The armature pattern can be simplified too, like the image at the top of this article.

7. As we've seen with all the examples above, the placement of objects within a frame so that our minds easily accept them coheres with mathematical and geometric rules. So, looking for simple geometric shapes suggested in our photos not necessarily actual shapes, but ones that are suggested to our minds is another effective way of creating a compelling image. If individual objects are aligned with each other, our brains will think of them as being a line, like the dogs in the Snyders' paining earlier. Similarly, three objects set apart will naturally form a triangle. I wrote more about that phenomenon in a previous article.

We can break these rules if we want. However, we should carefully consider the reason for doing that; there should be a discernible purpose for unusual compositions, or else the photo will just seem badly made.

A great way to train your eye is to experiment with the crop tool. I think it is the most powerful tool in any editing software for learning about composition. With practice, you will begin to visualize good compositions through the viewfinder. If composition doesnt come naturally to you, it is something you can learn.

As I said at the start, this is only touching the surface of compositional techniques, and I encourage you to investigate those in more depth. There is much more onthis topic I will write about at another time.If you found this interesting, then you might like my recent articles on perspectiveand subject separation.

Do you consciously consider the composition when you frame a shot? Or, perhaps you are one of those fortunate people who have always been able to see a composition without thinking about it. It would be great to hear about what methods you use.

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Seven Steps From Basic to Advanced Composition: How to Effectively Frame Your Photographs - Fstoppers

While Drake Tester died onMarch 26, 2017, it wasn't until the Season 5 premiere of "The Curse of Oak Island" that November that most fans learned of the news. As seen in the episode, all of the cast and crew were in complete shock and deeply affected by the tragedy, especially Drake's father, who wound up leaving the series as a result.

"It is unimaginable what Craig Tester must be going through after the loss of his son Drake," wrote the History Channel's Twitter account in a March 2018 post. "It is with a heavy heart that we wish him farewell from the show."

According to the elder Tester, being on "Oak Island" in the months after Drake's death ultimately helped take his "focus" off losing him. "I think of him every day," Craig told History in a confessional, which the channel posted online with its 2018 tweet. "It's been a tough year," said the grieving father. "Appreciative for all the guys, and appreciative for Oak Island for everything it's done for me."

As noted in previous media reports, Drake Tester was said to have suffered from a seizure condition that affected him on and off since birth. Hewas memorialized by friends and teachers following his passing. "[Drake] treated every kid the same," said former teacher Tim Odette, speaking to 9 and 10 News. "It didn't matter who you were...he treated everyone with respect and really kind of followed that golden rule of treating others the way you want to be treated," Odette added. "I think he really embodied that."

Read more:

The Tragic Death Of Drake Tester From The Curse Of Oak Island - Looper

Photo: Justin Lane/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Before Lloyd Blankfein left his condo at the luxe Faena House in South Beach on Monday afternoon, the billionaire former CEO of Goldman Sachs and I were talking about the global response to Russias war in Ukraine. I know this will sound very unbankerlike, he said, but I think it crossed everyones moral threshold. Moral threshold. For about a dozen years, Blankfein, 67, was atop one of the worlds most powerful investment banks in a position that turned him into both a power broker with few equals and a villainous caricature to the public, who only glancingly knew how Wall Street operated. He was the guy whose bank made a killing off subprime mortgages and who was hauled in front of Congress to be the face of the most bare-knuckle aspects of Wall Street capitalism.Id hoped to get some rare insight Blankfein might have on the ways the global financial system is being wielded to bring Russias economy to heel in a series of measures, with few precedents in history, that are being deployed at the start of what could ultimately become a 21st-century Cold War. Instead, he practically offered me the Golden Rule. You have to remember what lifes about, he philosophized.

Or did he? Vladimir Putins aggression is happening within the boundaries of Ukraine, yet its anything but a local skirmish over land. Since Russian forces invaded last week, the G7 and NATO countries have been pulled in two directions: staying out of the conflict before it explodes into a Third World War or exerting whatever influence they have short of actual combat to keep Russia from toppling the global balance of power. On Saturday, it became clear that sanctions had escalated beyond the usual pinpricks on banks and oligarchs when the U.S., Canada, and Europe moved against the Russian central bank, essentially freezing the countrys assets and sending the ruble into free fall. Its powerful evidence, Blankfein said, that the global financial system as its built relies so much on the U.S. economy that even adversarial countries have few choices but to do business with us. Everybody, even Russia and China, holds much of their assets in U.S.-dollar assets, which means U.S. Treasuries which finance us, he said. You dont want to overuse it for policy, but when the policy is so palpable and so moral that everybody in the world joins in save for the miscreants, I dont think this will create any problem.

Goldman Sachs has a long, wobbly history in post-Soviet Russia as one of the many western banks that rushed into the country seeking to cash in on a potential gold rush of oil and debt sales after the Berlin Wall fell, as the New York Times reported back then. No bank was as influential in the region as Goldman, however. In 1992, Goldman then under the direction of its co-chair Robert Rubinpushed economic shock therapy to Boris Yeltsins new government. Over the next few years, the bank pulled out of the country, came rushing back in, and would help finance the Russian government in deals that turned sour soon after they closed. Years later, as Treasury secretary, Rubin would help engineer a disastrous $22.5 billion loan to Russia from the International Monetary Fund that preceded a collapse in the value of the ruble. In more recent years, Goldman and rival JPMorgan Chasehave competed for investment-banking deals there, even as Moscow never ascended to the status of a global financial center on the level of New York, London, or Hong Kong.

The global financial system as it is today was shaped by bankers like Blankfein, who steered Goldman through the Great Recession, accepting more than $69 billion in Federal Reserve loans to stay afloat. Blankfein rose through the ranks of finance through a career as a trader, placing bets on the winners and losers on the global stage through oil and currency trades, using both sharp elbows and as Jessica Pressler wrote in her 2011 New York profile of him a high EQto get to his position. People who stay at such levels arent nave about the power that comes with the global financial system.Can you make an argument for the instrumentality of finance to be always neutral and just a utility? Here, they couldnt, he said of the response to Russia, because it was just too much of a violation, too public, too well known, too distributed because of social media, too one-sided.

It seemed to me that what Blankfein was getting at in bringing up morality wasnt just the ugliness of war. He had lived through the Cold War and sided with capitalism (even though, in a Twitter feud with Bernie Sanders a few years ago, he said he leans a bit to the left). The current global financial system could be a force for good even if it werent used to create prosperity but to destroy billions of dollars of a countrys wealth as a deterrent. The United States benefits from the architecture of, frankly, the postwar national security system but also the financial system, he said. That architecture is a tremendous benefit to the U.S., for example, because most trade is conducted in dollars, and most central bank wealth is stored in dollars, and those dollars are used to fund the deficit. A potential problem, he added, would be in creating a backlash that could undermine such a reliance: You dont want people hysterically trying to find alternatives to the current system that suits us so much. Ill give you an analogy. If Russia cuts off gas supplies to Europe, even if they put them back, its going to make Europe so insecure about those gas supplies in the future that, even if they come back, the rest of Europe is going to try to find alternatives.

Some alternatives are easier than others. For instance, after Russian banks were booted off the SWIFT global financial messaging system, they pivoted to another system. But things got serious when the Central Bank of Russia itself became a target of international sanctions. Unlike commercial banks, central banks are key to how countries manage their economies. In the U.S., the Federal Reserve sets interest rates, stores bank deposits, and bought billions of dollars worth of debt during the past two downturns as a way to prop up the economy. In the past eight years, Putin used his countrys central bank to store nearly $640 billion in cash and gold as a bulwark against the sanctions he would have expected for invading Ukraine.

What makes these sanctions different has to do with an apparent mistake on Putins part: Central-bank reserves arent always kept in a big bank vault, and Russia had stored its money in countries that are the most enraged about the invasion. The proposal to freeze the Bank of Russia, originally made by Canadas finance minister, was soon taken up by the U.S., the U.K., and other European countries even Switzerland abandoned its neutrality to freeze Russias assets. That left Russia with as little as $12 billion in cash on hand and, with sanctions against its major banks, few avenues to convert its gold and other reserves into hard currency. What does it mean to have $640 billion of reserves? Blankfein asked. Putin is not sitting on a bed, throwing it up in the air and watching it fall down on his head like Scrooge McDuck.

Other work-arounds that Russia has at hand dont seem promising either, such as cryptocurrencies that were more or less invented to chip away at the influence of governments and high finance. There isnt enough now, and its not liquid enough, Blankfein said, pointing out that theres only about $2 trillion in crypto worldwide. While that may sound like a lot, its hardly enough to run a $1.5 trillion economy for very long, especially since most wont sell anyway. (The White House has tried to stop crypto exchanges from sending money to Russia, but major platforms like Binance have bucked that call.)

In New York, Blankfeins neighbor at 15 Central Park West is Dmitri Ryobovlev, one of the Russian oligarchs who have stashed money in U.S. property sometimes with the help of the secrecy embedded in the American financial system. Twice during our conversation, Blankfein noted the worst consequences that come with money laundering, bringing up 9/11 twice and how hidden money can finance terrorism something he equated to Russias actions. If youre asking me, Should we make it easier to launder and conceal money? I would say that a lot of experiences, ranging from the terrorists of 9/11 to situations we have now, suggest that youre just helping bad behavior if you make things too opaque, he said. As a guy who would like to not see the World Trade Center blown up again or people steal vast amounts of wealth and conceal it forever, I think somebody has to be able to surveil whos getting paid so that you know youre not paying the North Koreans or Al Qaeda, who then use it to wreak havoc.

Blankfein didnt see much difference between Russias shelling of major Ukrainian cities and terrorist bombings. At the end of the day, they both are trying to achieve objectives by terrorizing and killing innocent people, he said. The moral imperative in this particular case is so big and so clear.

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Lloyd Blankfein on Russia, Ukraine, and Sanctions - New York Magazine

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Kendra AndrewsESPN

MINNEAPOLIS -- After stringing together their worst stretch of the season through the month of February, the Golden State Warriors were looking to turn the page when they came out of the All-Star break and the calendar flipped to March.

But instead, it was more of the same -- perhaps even worse -- as they allowed the Minnesota Timberwolves to score the most points by an opponent this season on their way to a 129-114 loss.

The Warriors have now lost three of their past four games and hold just a half-game advantage over the Memphis Grizzlies for second place in the Western Conference standings.

But unlike the Warriors' other two losses -- meltdowns to the Denver Nuggets and Dallas Mavericks -- their loss to the Timberwolves lacked every bit of cohesiveness and fight.

"This was the first time I sensed there was a breakdown in our connection, and that has to be an exception rather than a rule," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. "So that's the most important thing for me looking ahead."

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After reviewing the film from the Warriors' games against Denver and Dallas, Kerr said he liked the way his team played until the fourth quarter of both matches.

The defense was good, he felt, but most importantly, Golden State played with the energy that helps them thrive. But on Tuesday in Minneapolis, all of that was missing.

"[I saw it] all over the place," said Kerr on how the lack of connectivity manifested against the Timberwolves. "It's not just a tangible thing as much as it is just a feeling and an energy -- a collective spirit. I didn't like the energy or the spirit tonight."

While Kerr says his team's disconnectedness isn't a tangible, black and white concept, Stephen Curry, who led the Warriors with 34 points, believes it can be traced to one very real thing.

"We have a lot of different rotations and lineups and we try to make adjustments on the fly," Curry said. "We have to be more in sync as a five-man unit.

The Warriors have been without Draymond Green for 24 games, including the 7 seconds he played on Jan. 9 when Klay Thompson returned. Thompson, meanwhile, hasn't been a constant fixture for the Warriors due to his minutes restriction and not playing on one end of back-to-back games. Andre Iguodala has missed 15 of the past sixteen games.

Moses Moody, who started in place of Thompson on Tuesday, left the game in the second quarter due to a left eye contusion, which Kerr said is "swollen shut."

This has resulted in a fluid starting lineup and rotation, barring the Warriors from building any true chemistry. It has also left them without two of their highest IQ players.

"We've had a lot of shuffling," Curry said. "It's not an excuse for how we're playing, but we are built as a full team. And until we get that, I'm not sure if we'll see our full ceiling, but we have to do the little things in the meantime to keep building confidence."

Thompson, who has missed the past two games due to a general illness, is expected to rejoin the team in Dallas, and he might be active against the Mavericks on Thursday.

Green will also join the team, though there is still no timetable for his return from his back injury. Iguodala is already with the team but isn't expected to play.

The Warriors are trying to take a big-picture approach while they try to work their way out of their funk. They're trying to see the silver lining of having their young players, such as Jonathan Kuminga and Moody, get more playing time. They're emphasizing the job Kevon Looney has done as their only available true big man. They know it's a long season.

"I'm just trying to stay patient in terms of where we are in the season and what we are trying to do in a month and a half," Curry said.

"We just have to make sure when we have a night like tonight where we get a little scattered, we've got to work to return to home base and remember what the goal is," Kerr said.

But, the room for error is shrinking quickly, and the Warriors understand that this is the stretch that is supposed to set them up for their playoff run. So, adjustments need to be made now, and they can't wait to address all their problems until they have a full roster.

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Warriors' disconnectedness on display in loss to Timberwolves, says coach Steve Kerr - ESPN