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USA Today
29-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Arizona Cardinals DL Darius Robinson learned from a difficult 2024 season
Arizona Cardinals DL Darius Robinson learned from a difficult 2024 season Darius Robinson speaks after his tough rookie year about going in to his second NFL season "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." -Charles Dickens from A Tale of Two Cities Arizona Cardinals second-year defensive lineman Darius Robinson was almost Dickensian Wednesday when putting into words what his first season in the NFL was like. He said simply, 'Last year was like the hardest year of my life, but then it was the best year of my life in the same year. So I definitely felt the lowest, but I also felt the highest and I'm ready to get back to the highest point. And I know that it takes a lot of hard work. So I'm just super excited for this year.' The highs, of course, began in April when the Cardinals selected him in the first round of the draft with the 27th overall pick. It continued during offseason work and training camp, a time he described as 'hot.' However, it all came crashing down when he suffered a calf injury on Aug. 22 and continued through a difficult rehab process that included the death of his mom Valori in October. When he finally got on the field for the final six games of the season, that 'hot' feeling in camp was now 'just cool.' But he learned from it. 'At my lowest, I kept showing up each day, I kept fighting in the pursuit of my dreams,' Robinson said. 'And I realize, it can't get worse than that. So honestly, just keep putting one foot in front of another and just go. Just really enjoy this. It's a blessing being here.' Being here was preceded by some time in Michigan where he was able to reflect on the previous nine months. Asked about an offseason reset after what he went through last season, Robinson said, 'Yeah, it was a lot. Going back to Michigan, taking care of some family stuff, trying to get closure with everything with my mom. But also thinking about this season and just replaying; I only played six games but just constantly rethinking about those six games and thinking about what I need to do to make that next jump in my game. 'I feel like in training camp, it was hot. The table was hot, everybody, it was hot. And coming back, it was just cool. So I gotta find a way to; we're in Phoenix, I gotta get it hot again.' Head coach Jonathan Gannon was asked before the first OTA practice Wednesday what he expects from Robinson. 'I think all our guys, it's, let's see where they can go,' Gannon said. 'And him being one of them. He's worked extremely hard this offseason. He looks good. He's ready to go. He wants to get on the grass and play football. So I think that's all of our guys and you're never a finished product. You're either getting better, or you're getting worse, whatever that means. It's kind of cliche, but it's probably true. 'So our guys are just looking to maximize themselves and get better as football players.' As for Robinson making the oft-discussed jump from Year 1 to Year 2, Gannon emphatically said, 'He'll make that jump.' Robinson was just as emphatic in agreement, saying, 'I think this jump from Year 1 to Year 2 is gonna be huge. So I'm just excited to compete and just put it on tape.' A big man already, Robinson is noticeably stronger in the upper body just as second-year receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. is. Asked about the offseason work he put in, Robinson said, 'Just buying into it, realizing like every day I got 24 hours and what am I gonna do to make the most out of it? I feel like I got a lot to prove this year. So we just come in like seven or eight (in the morning) and leave at like 12 or 1. 'Me, Marvin, a bunch of the rookies, a bunch of guys in the building. So it's just grinding into it. And that's been fun all offseason, but we gotta keep going and just keep building our bodies, get strong, get fast, and get better. So I'm super excited.' Get more Cardinals and NFL coverage from Cards Wire's Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify, YouTube or Apple podcasts.
India Today
12-05-2025
- Science
- India Today
Mega Chinese fishing fleet seen from space: Every dot is a fishing boat
A striking image captured from the International Space Station (ISS) has brought global attention to the sheer scale of China's distant-water fishing by A. Pettit, whose father astronaut Don Pettit took the photograph during his recent ISS mission, the image shows hundreds of bright dots scattered across the dark ocean-each one a fishing boat trawling the seabed, not a city spectacle is so vast and luminous that it is visible from space, underscoring the magnitude of China's maritime I saw this with my own eyes, one thought that came to mind was the famous opening line from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens: It is the best of times for fishing, it is the worst of times for fish Chun (@satofishi) May 12, 2025 Reacting to the image, Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa shared a video of the fleet from his own mission, reflecting on the scene with a quote from Charles Dickens: 'It is the best of times for fishing, it is the worst of times for fish'The haunting view highlights not just the technological prowess of modern fishing, but also the immense pressure it places on marine distant-water fishing fleet is the largest in the world, with an estimated 2,700 ships operating across oceans far from and radio-frequency tracking have revealed that many of these vessels operate in tightly packed formations, often switching off their tracking systems to evade detection and skirt international 'going dark' tactic has been linked to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, raising alarms among environmentalists and neighboring frame from this video over the South China Sea!Fishing fleets are very distinct from orbit. A. Pettit (@PettitFrontier) May 12, 2025In regions like the South China Sea and near the Galpagos Islands, such fleets have been accused of depleting fish stocks, damaging sensitive marine habitats, and undermining local experts also warn that these fleets, operating under civilian guise, may serve dual roles in intelligence gathering and asserting China's territorial images from space make clear, the scale of industrial fishing-and the challenges it poses to ocean health and maritime security-has never been more visible.
Indian Express
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times….' What the Dickens does it mean?
On April 30, 1859, All the Year Round, a London-based literary journal edited by Charles Dickens, published the opening installment of a new serialised story, A Tale of Two Cities. Its first sentence – paradoxical and poetic – would go on to become one of the most iconic opening lines in the world. The line, which was first published 166 years ago, might as well have been written yesterday with the way it continues to capture the zeitgeist. In a handful of lines, Dickens captures the irrefutable truth that progress and regression, and peace and violence often walk hand in hand. The novel, which juxtaposes the two European cultural capitals: London and Paris, contrasts 'a time of chaos, conflicts, and despair' with 'happiness and hope'. For some, a revolution of any sort, political or technological, can be a 'spring of hope,' for others, it could be the 'winter of despair.' Dickens insists that these realities can, and do, coexist. Why was it both the best and worst of times? Though A Tale of Two Cities is set during the French Revolution (1787-1799), Dickens was writing as much about his own Victorian England as 18th-century France. He writes of the late 18th century, when political oppression in France gave way to revolutionary violence. In Dickens' own Victorian England—riddled with inequality, industrial unrest, and fears of upheaval—he found echoes of the same tensions that had been the precursor to the French Revolution. The Industrial Revolution in England (1760–1840) had brought about sweeping changes—technological advances paired with immense social and economic suffering. In both movements, the wealthy elite lived in comfort, while laborers toiled in inhumane conditions, working long hours for minimal pay in crowded, unsanitary environments. In both centuries, Dickens saw a society defined by the paradox he lays down in the opening lines of the novel—prosperity shadowed by poverty, innovation accompanied by inequality. 'It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness… It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…,' Dickens wrote, capturing the turbulence of the era and his own ambivalence about progress, revolution, and humanity itself. Dickens vividly describes how the French Revolution transformed from righteous rebellion into a Reign of Terror. While the overthrow of the aristocracy is portrayed with sympathy, the bloodlust of the revolutionary mobs—embodied in characters like Madame Defarge—exposes the darker side of humanity. Dickens' opening lines capture the complexity of an age where guillotines shadowed the lofty ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Why does the opening continue to resonate? In 2025, we live in a world of extremes: rapid technological advancement beside global inequality; astonishing wealth beside homelessness; political polarisation amid calls for unity; a pacifist society in an age of war. In many ways, it is again the best and worst of times. We, too, live in an age that feels both enlightened and misled, compassionate yet cruel. Those timeless words – 'it was the best of times, it was the worst of times' – could well be a mirror held up to every age, including our own. ('Drawing a Line' is a limited, eight-week series exploring the stories behind literature's most iconic opening lines. Each column offers interpretation, not definitive analysis—because great lines, like great books, invite many readings.)
Mail & Guardian
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Mail & Guardian
Is the law indeed an ass in this case?
(Graphic: John McCann/M&G) If it were to be established that the law is indeed as dumb as an ass, as suggested by English writer Charles Dickens in his 1838 novel Oliver Twist, what would society think? Second, how does this understanding fit into the 'fit and proper' paradigm sought by the Legal Practice Council, when it admits legal practitioners to practise law? I prefer to use the lens of this analogy — 'the law is an ass' — to understand the recent decision by the council to investigate Dali Mpofu, SC, for alleged impropriety or breach of its code of conduct. The ass — in the Dickensian world, a place characterised by squalor, poverty and social injustice — was known to be the dumbest creature under the sun. Its obstinacy in not doing what it was ordered to do was thought of as legendary. Dickens, with his critical political mind, as we also saw in his masterpiece A Tale of Two Cities, makes it clear that the law becomes 'an ass' when its application is rigid and not applied in keeping with prevailing conditions affecting the poor and oppressed. To drive home his point, he makes an example of Oliver, the young title character of the novel, who had experienced a difficult upbringing, but his need was overlooked by the cruel and unjust system. We must, then, even today, as Dickens suggested a couple of hundred years ago, infer that evil and unjust law practitioners are antithetical to what the 'fit and proper' dictum connotes. Bad legal systems, adorned with repressive and unjust legislation, in many ways unconstitutional — and lacking respect for others — should be rejected by communities, as the apartheid system was in this country. The implications for the law, as for the 'fit and proper' paradigm, are stark when we turn a blind to an injustice. The 'fit and proper person' requirement in South African law is a key criterion for admission — and readmission — to the legal profession. The would-be legal practitioner ought to pass the litmus test — the assessment of character, integrity and suitability — and, to top it all, to be above reproach. The law has to ensure that all, and not some, are treated as fairly as it is humanly possible without regard to status, that all should be seen to be equal before the law, and that to receive justice is to be aspired to. Most tellingly, if the law is to escape community censure and judgment, it has to be seen as even-handed, not favouring a few and acting harshly against others, particularly vulnerable communities. Which brings me to this fact — officers of the court, which is to say, advocates and attorneys, among others, ought to be advocates for the legal system of which they are a part to be just. Politicians, most of the time, tend to pervert the system for their own nefarious reasons. Not so long ago, chief whip and member of parliament of the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party Mzwanele Manyi told his colleagues that, if his party were to form a government it would scrap the constitutional framework as we know it today and revert to parliamentary sovereignty. This view is shared by the MK party parliamentary leader John Hlophe, a former judge, and someone expected to have a comprehensive appreciation of constitutionalism. Parliamentary sovereignty is a throwback to the apartheid-conceived 1961 Constitution. It stipulates that parliament 'shall be the sovereign legislative authority in and over the Republic, and shall have full power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Republic'. '[That]no court of law shall be competent to enquire into or to pronounce upon the validity of any Act passed by Parliament …' This must then mean that the MK party, like the National Party that came to power in 1948, aligns itself with the arrangement by which the apartheid government used the parliamentary supremacy at its disposal 'as a powerful instrument to secure power for the white minority'. Supposing the MK party were to have its way, win elections and run the government, the implications for constitutional democracy seem dire. Spelled out clearly, this would mean that unconstitutional laws and provisions could find themselves passing constitutional muster. This would be to revert to the principle of the supremacy of the legislature, an obnoxious legal principle at odds with the notion of constitutional supremacy that holds that the Constitution is the ultimate legal authority. The principle of supremacy of the legislature would mean that the courts would be stripped of testing authority to determine, using the Bill of Rights, the constitutionality of laws passed by parliament. The country would be back to old ways, as it was in the apartheid years, where the government rammed down the throats of black citizens legislation that infringed on their rights. Now back to the 'fit and proper' principle and the question of whether the law is an ass. Lawyers take an oath or make a declaration upon being admitted to the legal profession. This includes a pledge to uphold the law, act with integrity and be a 'fit and proper' person to practise law. With that said, practitioners are the face of the legal system, and are duty-bound, by the fact that they have taken an oath, to strive to be 'fit and proper', to help guard against the perversion of the system by unscrupulous actors. Could the so-called bad apples of society, if charged with crime in the court of law, be assumed innocent, however reprehensible their public record might suggest they are? The law would be an ass if, without sound evidence, it found any person guilty, simply because of their shady past. Judges know this. And that is why they give deference, and assign no guilt, to suspects who are brought before them. In the end, it ought to be the lawyers, as officers of the court, who help the bench come to an appropriate decision — helping to show that the law is far from being an ass. Dickens, in Oliver Twist, uses the phrase 'the law is an ass' to draw a parallel between its inflexibility and the 'mythical obstinacy of donkeys'. In legal contexts, a 'fit and proper person' refers to someone deemed to be suitable to hold a specific position or role, particularly within the legal profession. This phrase is commonly used in relation to lawyers, signifying that they possess the necessary qualities, character and integrity to serve their clients and uphold the principles of justice. The origin of this concept is rooted in the need to ensure that those entrusted with representing clients and the administration of justice are trustworthy and reliable. So, in sum, this is the point of this article — it seeks to show the extent to which the systems of justice and democracy are interwoven and that they ought to work seamlessly to achieve justice for the people of this country. The players in a democracy ought to be committed to the true furtherance of justice, using constitutional law and constitutionalism to achieve that end. In a democracy, there are no venerated 'holy cows', whether they be presidents, kings, queens, bishops, politicians, legal practitioners or citizens. We ought to all be treated as equal. We hear all the rumblings from the followers of the MK party — which is hell-bent on changing the Constitution when 'we come to power' — that Mpofu was unfairly treated by the Legal Practice Council. The council describes itself as 'mandated to set norms and standards, to provide for the admission and enrolment of legal practitioners and to regulate the professional conduct of legal practitioners to ensure accountability'. Mpofu has been called to answer charges of alleged misconduct. Like all others in the profession, he has to avail himself to a statutory body to account for the charges against him. Legal practitioners, in order to be admitted to the profession, make a commitment, through oath, that they will become 'fit and proper' for the practice. South Africa is a democracy underpinned by the Constitution and the rule of law. The MK party and its fellow travellers are seeking to subvert the cause of justice for their own political ends by suggesting that Mpofu is being persecuted. He is not. He is being asked to be accountable. Mpofu is not a loose cannon. He is accountable to the law and to the council. When the law lacks compassion, and is not in tune with prevailing societal injustices, and turns a blind to injustices perpetrated by the powerful, then it fits the description of the novelist, Dickens: it is 'an ass'. Jo-Mangaliso Mdhlela is an independent journalist, a former trade unionist and an Anglican priest.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The 'Sewer Socialist' led Milwaukee into the future in 1938. What's your idea?
'It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.' — Charles Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities." That reflection could easily describe Milwaukee. With a gleaming downtown on Lake Michigan and led by a dynamic mayor, Cavalier Johnson, the city is poised for greatness. It successfully hosted the Republican National Convention and received positive reviews nationwide, leading to a dramatic rise in convention business. Yet, the same city was on the verge of fiscal insolvency until securing of a 2% local option sales tax from the State Legislature in 2023. And Milwaukee still faces a large structural deficit and ongoing challenges like high levels of crime, a backlog of street repairs and maintenance, and unacceptable levels of poverty. Opinion: Backlash to Musk isn't imagined. When they slash Medicaid it will be worse. Every day, Milwaukee citizens benefit from a wide variety of municipal services. While it has shown dramatic innovation, as represented by the automated system of garbage and recyclables pickup weekly, the city hasn't fully tapped the potential for automation, which includes AI and robotics through the delivery of services and simultaneously reducing costs. The Daniel Hoan Foundation is again calling on the citizens to submit their best ideas for improving our community. This year's focus is on how Milwaukee city government might improve services and reduce costs in the process. Our goal is to root out inefficiency and improve service while reducing costs to taxpayers. Often times, the best ideas come from ordinary citizens and the private sector. The contest will award $40,000 to the best idea that surfaces. Last year, prizes were awarded for the best ideas to improve Milwaukee County's Parks System while reducing crime was the focus in 2023. Specifically, the contest will focus on municipal government services such as sanitation services, street, sidewalk, and bridge maintenance, drinking water, sewer management, public works, the public schools and neighborhood services. It also encompass seasonal issues such as snow and ice removal and parking regulations as well as public facilities that people use, such as libraries, offices for small business development, and public buildings. For those interested, please go to and submit your detailed ideas in a format that does not exceed two pages in length. The deadline for submission of ideas is Sept. 15. The Daniel Hoan Foundation was created by my grandfather, a long-serving leader of Milwaukee who historians have ranked as the eighth-best mayor in the history of the United States. He was featured on the cover of Time Magazine in 1938 as the mayor of the best-run city in America. Under his tenure, crime dropped dramatically, and he invested in infrastructure, so the health of the citizens dramatically improved. In fact, he was known as the 'sewer socialist' because he created an advanced sewage system. Milwaukee's fiscal health was the envy of cities throughout the country. None of this may seem very glamorous, but this city functioned, and citizens continued to return him to office for 24 years. We no longer have to be a city that fits the description of a Charles Dickens novel. I served as chairman of the Board of Directors that oversaw the Port of Milwaukee. During my tenure, Milwaukee became the fastest-growing port on the Great Lakes, thanks to a great port director hired from the private sector, Ken Szallai. If I've learned anything about the government is that the private sector was critical to our success. Szallai continually tapped the resources and ideas of the private sector to assist the miracle turnaround. Our port director entered into numerous arrangements to efficiently deliver products necessary to our economy, including steel, fertilizer, cement, salt, etc., in a way the port could not do independently. Fortunately, Milwaukee has a competent, qualified mayor who cares deeply about the city and is willing to do what's necessary to turn this picture around. He is open to ideas coming from the private sector and our fellow citizens. Jim Bohl, the city's newly appointed innovation officer, will serve as the chief judge of a small panel of judges. Bohl's office was recently created and is charged with the responsibility for implementing innovation and creating efficiency in government. Add in the fact that Bohl has a lifelong track record of service in government, so he knows how to get things done. Milwaukee is on the comeback. Let's earn a reputation as a city that proves it can tap the resources of its citizens to provide dramatically innovative solutions to challenges. Daniel Steininger is president of the Daniel Hoan Foundation and former chair of the Board of Harbor Commissioners for the City of Milwaukee. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee improvement ideas needed here. You might win cash. | Opinion
