The more things change, the more they stay the same.

https://lalalandrecords.com/day-of-the-dead-limited-edition-2-cd-set/

La-La Land Records and Taurus Entertainment present the remixed, remastered and expanded 2-CD release of composer John Harrison’s original motion picture score to George A. Romero’s 1985 genre classic DAY OF THE DEAD, starring Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander, Joe Pilato, Richard Liberty and Howard Sherman, and written/directed by George A. Romero. Composer Harrison’s driving synth score expertly propels the living dead, while also supporting the main characters’ emotional and dramatic journeys. Unexpected, but highly effective reggae-like tones and melodic motifs add a unique personality to this beloved genre score. Produced by John Harrison and Ford A. Thaxton, remixed by Michael Farrow and mastered by James Nelson, this deluxe edition of DAY OF THE DEAD, limited to 3000 units, features the film version of the score on Disc One, and the remastered original 1985 soundtrack cues on Disc Two. Exclusive, in-depth liner notes from film music writer Jeff Bond, composer John Harrison and writer/director George A. Romero round out the delightfully ghoulish art design by Mark Banning.

The Vancouver Convention Centre (formerly known as the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre, or VCEC) is a convention centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; it is one of Canada’s largest convention centres. With the opening of the new West Building in 2009, it now has 43,340 square metres (466,500 sq ft) of meeting space. It is owned by the British Columbia Pavilion Corporation, a crown corporation owned by the government of British Columbia.

The East Building is located in Canada Place, which it shares with a cruise ship terminal, and the Pan Pacific hotel. It has 12,400 m2 (133,000 sq ft) of space, including a 8,500 m2 (91,000 sq ft), column-free, dividable exhibition hall, 20 meeting rooms, and a ballroom.

The East Building served as the Main Press Centre for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The West Building is directly adjacent to Canada Place and consists of 20,490 m2 (220,500 sq ft) of convention space, 8,400 m2 (90,000 sq ft) of retail space along a public waterfront promenade, and 440 parking stalls. Surrounding the building are 37,000 m2 (400,000 sq ft) of walkways, bikeways, public open space and plazas, for a total project area of 5.7 hectares (14 acres) of land and 3.2 hectares (8 acres) over water. The project also supplies infrastructure for future water based developments including an expanded marina, a float plane terminal, and water-based retail opportunities. The design architect for the expansion is LMN Architects of Seattle, in association with Vancouver firms MCM Architects and DA Architects + Planners. Morrison Hershfield ensured quality assurance and conducted enhanced field review during construction of all building envelope components including innovative curtain wall glazing and green roof. On February 9, 2010, the building was certified LEED Platinum by the Canada Green Building Council.

The West Building opened to the public on April 4, 2009. It effectively tripled the capacity of the convention centre. The building hosted the International Broadcast Centre for the 2010 Winter Olympics and 2010 Winter Paralympics. Connecting to the centre is the Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel.

Adjacent to the West building is the “Jack Poole Plaza” (formerly known as Thurlow Plaza), in honour of Jack Poole, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2009. He was responsible for securing the bid of the 2010 Winter Olympics and 2010 Winter Paralympics to Vancouver.

The new West Building expansion is certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Platinum (LEED) and is designated a PowerSmart Convention Centre by BC Hydro. It was awarded a “Go Green” certificate from the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) for industry-approved, environmental best practices in building management. The living roof, seawater heating and cooling, on-site water treatment and fish habitat built into the foundation of the West Building make it one of the greenest convention centres in the world. The Centre recycles an average of 180,000 kilograms of materials annually, nearly half of the total volume of waste generated. It avoids canned goods, disposable utensils and dishes, and donates leftover food to local charities.

The 2.4-hectare (6-acre) “living roof” is the largest in Canada and the largest non-industrial living roof in North America. The roof landscape is designed as a self-sustaining grassy habitat characteristic of coastal British Columbia, including 400,000 native plants and 4 colonies of 60,000 bees each which provide honey for the public plaza restaurant. No public access is allowed to the roof, which made it possible to create a fully functional ecosystem with natural drainage and seed migration patterns using the roof’s architectural topography. The landscape functionally connects to nearby Stanley Park via a corridor of waterfront parks. Irrigation to the roof is provided by the building’s wastewater treatment plant. In the event that the roof irrigation demands exceed the capacity of the wastewater treatment plant, make-up water can be provided by a reverse osmosis desalinization plant drawing and treating seawater pumped from the harbour as well as municipal water through an air gap connection to the storage tanks, as needed.

All wastewater from washrooms, retail, and restaurant activities in the building is reclaimed and recycled for use in toilet and urinal flushing, and green roof irrigation. The treatment facility uses a membrane bioreactor process, manufactured and supplied by GE/Zenon, consisting of two 2-zone (anoxic/oxic) bioreactor tanks (with internal recycle) and an ultra-filtration (hollow-fibre) membrane tank, followed by a chlorine contact tank that serves to remove colour and disinfect the reclaimed water. The treatment system is designed for an average daily flow of 75 cubic metres (20,000 US gal; 16,000 imp gal) per day, and maximum flows of up to 150 cubic metres (40,000 US gal; 33,000 imp gal) per day. With the City of Vancouver 2012 commercial metered water and sewer rates at $2.803 and $1.754, respectively, the convention centre can save over $21,000 per month in utility fees through water reuse. One of the biggest operating challenges when the facility first started up was the ability to maintain the treatment plant bacteria in a healthy condition during lengthy periods (e.g. late December through mid-January) with limited wastewater to feed the treatment plant due to limited convention activity and concurrent wastewater generation within the building; however, once the restaurants in the building were established this challenge was resolved.

The building’s heating and cooling system feeds through the deep water of the harbor, using it as a constant temperature base to reduce the amount of energy used for heating and cooling.

Along the waterfront, the shoreline ecology is fully restored from its previous brownfield state and supports a historic salmon migration path. An artificial reef structure rings the building perimeter, consisting of a series of concrete steps. Each step is planted with marine species adapted to a specific depth below the water, resulting in a kelp forest characteristic of the natural shoreline and supporting a diversity of harbor fauna. Underneath the building, which is set on pier foundations, runnels are set into the tide flats creating a tidal ecosystem zone that flushes daily and feeds the reef.

The site of the expansion is a former marine and rail industrial area, most of which was covered in impervious surfaces and contaminated. The decrease in site impervious surfaces is almost 30%, mitigating total suspended solids and phosphorus content from stormwater and reducing the site’s heat island contribution.

In 2002, and again in 2008, the VCEC was awarded the International Association of Congress Centres (AIPC) “Apex Award” for the “World’s Best Congress Centre”. In April 2010, the West Building expansion received an Award of Excellence from the Urban Land Institute. It has also received multiple awards from the AIA Seattle chapter.

Many of the same social media influencers who attended Trump’s “Social Media Summit” on July 11 have rallied to defend his racist attacks against U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-D), Rashida Tlaib (MI-D), Ayanna Pressley (MA-D), and Ilhan Omar (MN-D). And a number of them are bankrolled by the Kochs, the Bradley Foundation, and other large right-wing foundations.

In a tweet July 14, Trump called for the minority freshman lawmakers, fierce critics of his policies, to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” All four are American citizens, and three of the four were born in the United States.

Since then, Trump has doubled down on the attacks, saying the lawmakers “hate our country,” and did nothing to abate chants of “Send her back!” at a recent campaign rally in North Carolina.

In the face of widespread outrage, Trump’s friends from the Summit have gone out of their way to justify his actions.

The Heritage Foundation condemned Trump’s comments, but also suggested that he made them out of love for the country and that the “destructive and divisive nature of the rhetoric of the members of Congress in question” was to blame.

The Media Research Center (MRC) used its “Newsbusters” site to criticize mainstream media coverage, writing that “Trump didn’t say anything violent” and publishing another piece titled, “The ‘Squad’ Won’t Condemn Antifa Terrorism….WHERE Are The Media?”

And Will Chamberlain’s Human Events published a piece arguing that there’s a double standard at play because Trump’s targets aren’t white, claiming that “Ilhan Omar…really is a danger to the U.S.,” and concluding that Trump’s chanting supporters can’t be blamed “for wanting to protect America.”

Although the mainstream media has done a good job of covering Trump’s inaugural Social Media Summit and his racist attacks, there has been very little reporting on who bankrolls this online echo chamber of right-wing, anti-immigration, and white nationalist pundits.

The Heritage Foundation

The Heritage Foundation has been one of the top supporters of Trump’s anti-immigration push on the right.

Those who attended the Trump summit from Heritage include Robert Bluey, vice president of communications and executive editor of the group’s news website, “The Daily Signal”; Bridgett Wagner, vice president of policy promotion; Maria Sousa, digital director; Lyndsey Fifield, social media manager; and Jessica Anderson, vice president of Heritage Action for America.

The Sarah Scaife Foundation is a major source of revenue for the Heritage Foundation, providing the group with at least $18 million since 1985. The foundation also funds a number of other anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim organizations, including the Center for Immigration Studies and the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Billionaires Charles and David Koch and their partners in Stand Together (formerly known as the Seminar Network) have given over $5.7 million to Heritage since 1998 through their various family foundations, and the Koch network’s preferred donor conduit duo of DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund has chipped in another half million since 2010.

The Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation has provided at least another $5.9 million to Heritage since 1998 and the Mercer Family Foundation, run by one of the “blow-it-all-up billionaires” behind Trump’s rise to power, Rebekah Mercer, has given at least another $1 million since 2015.

Heritage generally steers clear of the xenophobic language prevalent among other Trump influencers. Heritage researcher Jason Richwine, coauthor of a controversial report concluding that allowing illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship would cost taxpayers trillions, resigned from Heritage when it became public that he had argued in his Harvard dissertation that, “The average IQ of immigrants in the United States is substantially lower than that of the white native population, and the difference is likely to persist over several generations.”

Media Research Center

Brent Bozell’s MRC operates “NewsBusters,” a site that claims to be “documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias.” It has a section entitled “Trump Coverage Studies” that attempts to refute mainstream media stories on Trump.

MRC has received at least $7 million from the Mercer Family Foundation since 2015; $2.4 million from the Bradley Foundation since 1998; and $1.4 million from the Sarah Scaife Foundation since 2012.

MRC claims to “not associate with known white nationalists,” and took down a piece it had promoted last year from a white nationalist website, which stated that Black people “are a threat to all who cross their path,” after it was reported by MediaMatters. It was not the first time, however, that NewsBusters had linked to or promoted white nationalist websites.

Bozell was a fierce critic of Trump prior to the 2016 election, but since repeatedly attacked the press for criticizing the president.

Project Veritas

Project Veritas, a 2015 grantee of the Trump Foundation, is run by James O’Keefe, a right-wing activist and provocateur who uses deception and manipulative editing in his “investigations.”

Due to O’Keefe’s methods, Project Veritas has been plagued by legal issues over the years, and the group is barred from seeking donations in Florida, Maine, Mississippi, Utah, and Wisconsin.

Project Veritas’s funders are difficult to identify as the group receives the majority of its funding through donor conduits. DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund have given the group over $4.8 million since 2011.

O’Keefe has been criticized for associating with radical white nationalists for years and has appeared on InfoWars — conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ infamous radio show denounced by ex-staffers as a “den of racism and harassment” — multiple times. After InfoWars was removed from social media platforms for promoting violence and hate, O’Keefe tweeted, “InfoWars targeted, taken off social media. These tech companies’ practices are opaque and given their power must be made more transparent. We will expose the entire rotten tech machine.”

InfoWars has also hosted Patrick Casey, the leader of the white nationalist group Evropa, which helped plan the deadly Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. Evropa has since rebranded itself as the American Identity Movement.

Most recently, O’Keefe has teamed up with Ginni Thomas, a former Heritage staffer and wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, and the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) chief marketing officer, Bill Meierling, to launch a new dark money operation to “protect President Trump.”

Prager University

Prager University, a social media video project of Dennis Prager and an attendee at the Trump Summit, has been banned and/or restricted on YouTube, Facebook, Spotify, and Twitter for providing a platform for hate speech.

Anti-Semitic Owen Benjamin, anti-LGBT Steven Crowder, and former Turning Point USA Communications Director Candace Owens have all contributed to Prager University. Owens left Turning Point USA after many campus chapters called for her resignation following her statement that “Hitler was an ‘OK’ leader until he tried to take his message global.”

In studying Prager University, the sociologist Francesca Tripodi writes that Prager’s project creates “a dense network of extremist thinkers” that “allows for those who identify as mainline conservatives to gain easy access to white supremacist logic.”

Prager University has received at least a million dollars since 2010 from the Bradley Foundation. Bradley internal documents examined by CMD show that Bradley funds Prager for its strong reach across social media platforms and because it “distills (conservative/Judeo-Christian) principles into content-rich, entertaining five-minute video ‘courses’ taught by public intellectuals, many of whom are Bradley Prize winners.”

Turning Point USA

Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA has a history of racism that extends beyond former employee Candace Owens. The group’s former chapter president at University of Nevada, Las Vegas used racial epithets and exclaimed “white power” while hugging another individual who shouted “we’re going to rule the country” and “fuck the niggers” in a video that went viral earlier this year.

Kirk also named Kyle Kashuv, widely known for his racial slurs, to be Turning Point USA’s high school outreach director. Kashuv resigned from the post when he was outed by a former classmate who said he “used the N-word frequently,” ranked women’s attractiveness by race, and referenced his “Jewish slaves.”

Turning Point USA has received close to $300,000 since 2014 from GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein’s Ed Uihlein Family Foundation.