 commitment to building the capacities of individuals and communities; an emphasis on deliberative public talk; and a focus on practical problem solving that, without requiring consensus on values, allows diverse players to collaborate in getting things done. More, an important lesson of the most effective civic education and leadership development in recent years is that learning to understand and think through such concepts and their applications is itself a key part of developing citizenship capacities. It is important that people learn to deliberate and work together; it is equally important that they reflect on what "deliberation" is and what it means in practice; or what "public work" means and the opportunities it offers to reengage people now on the margins of public life. Effective civic development is based on the belief that ordinary people can think creatively and flexibly about large political ideas and their applicationspeople can be theorists of their own lives. This is "Jeffersonian democracy" for the information age.
Beyond the quick fix: an orientation toward capacity
In a service society professionals are often taught approaches to problem-solving that assume the deficiencies and inadequacies of individuals and communities. The New Citizenship reverses the equation.
A capacity orientation means a recognition that all communities hold immense civic potentials. Poor people may be plagued by lack of money, but may still have untapped possibilities for civic contribution. In the poorest communities, mediating institutions, preeminately religious congregations, often play an important role in developing and maintaining social networks, cultivating character and values, and generating hopes for change. A robust civic practice needs to recognize the critical role that such mediating institutions play. Civil servants, journalists, health providers and other professionals need to be trained to understand the rich resources, networks, and capacities to build on, especially in areas conventionally labeled as "at risk" or "culturally deprived." Civic renewal needs to reeducate professionals and community residents, alike, to think of their work in more public, collaborative, interactive, and relational terms. Narrow expertise must always be leavened by experience, multiple viewpoints, common sense, and a broader civic perspective. While experts should help to inform policy making, they should not make policy. In civil service, this is captured by the phrase, "putting the civil back in civil service." In community, it means "experts on tap, not on top."
Beyond the sound byte: the value of talking things over
Public life rests upon retrieving and reinvigorating the best practices of deliberation that can produce a genuine, democratic public voice. A public voice is common, deliberative, and provisional, based as much on open-ended questions and the skills of listening as it is on the arts of presentation. It is very different from uncompromising claims to rights or privileged claims to voice based on one group's special oppression. The public voice is a voice very different than the official talk of government, the specialized language of professions, or the narrowly framed talk of special interests. It rests upon a recognition of the many kinds of knowledgefrom academic to experiential, moral insight to historical memorythat inform a public judgment. For citizens to develop public voice we must create an array of public forums in many different environments.
Goodbye to the lone ranger: the importance of collaborative problem solving
Finally, public life is grounded in the recognition that to solve the main problems we confront as communities and as a societywhether crime or homelessness, environmental pollution or school reform, teen pregnancy or racial conflict, economic development or deterioration of the physical infrastructureit will be necessary to engage diverse interests, points of view, and moral frameworks. Few problems lend themselves to the either/or, "good versus evil" style of argument which dominates public discussions today. Very few, indeed, can simply be solved by large systems, experts, or professionals. We need an approach to problem-solving that taps and cultivates the creativity, common sense and civic energy of diverse groups of citizens, if we are to make much progress.
The New Citizenship, building on what has already developed at the grassroots, articulates a vision of politics that belongs to all citizens. The challenge is to move from such rich but separate stories to a new narrative of politics and citizenship.
The American Civic Forum
We envision a loose and open medium called the American Civic Forum to advance the New Citizenship. The American Civic Forum is a potential vehicle for exchanging experiences and enhancing civic work across many environments. It has three broad purposes:
Many of these practices and functions have already been initiated by the emerging constituencies of a New Citizenship. The American Civic Forum is conceived as a diverse and pluralist confederation of groups and individuals dedicated to this citizenship. It will support existing efforts, while it seek to give them greater visibility and public profile.
The American Civic Forum includes many diverse points of view and perspective about questions such as the appropriate role of government and the market in our social and public life. Overall, the American Civic Forum is joined together by a common commitment to a politics of greater dignity and productiveness than that which prevails today and threatens the civic life of our republic.
Notes on Authors and Signers
The American Civic Forum includes many diverse points of view about questions such as the appropriate role of government and the market in our social and public life; we, the undersigned, do not all agree with all the elements in the preceding stories or all the nuances of emphasis. Yet we are joined together by a common commitment to an understanding of citizenship, politics, and public life with greater dignity and productiveness than that which now prevails. Signed by civic leaders in Washington, D.C., December 9, 1994.
The Civic Declaration has been coordinated by Harry Boyte, with Benjamin Barber and Will Marshall. It benefits especially from the contributions of Carmen Sirianni, Research Director of the American Civic Forum, and from the comments of Heather Booth, David Cohen, Dorothy Cotton, William Diaz, Walter Enloe, Diane Eisenberg, Amitai Etzioni, Lew Friedland, Jeff Isaac, Nancy Kari, Joyce King, Anthony Massengale, David Mathews, Deborah Meier, Miaisha Mitchell, Bill Moyers, John Parr, Jay Rosen, William Schambra, Nan Skelton, Edward Skloot, Gerald Taylor, and Robert Woodson, Sr. The New Citizenship emerged from Reinventing Citizenship, a project of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship in association with the Walt Whitman Center to make recommendations for strengthening citizen-government partnerships, especially at the federal level.
For copies contact either:
Humphrey Institute 301 - 19th Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55455;
Walt Whitman Center Hickman Hall Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903
For a copy of Reinventing Citizenship, the Report to the Ford Foundation on the first six months of this effort, please write the Center for Democracy and Citizenship.
Back to topMystery of Chinese flying cars, vehicles leap into the air. Chinese vans and cars levitate through air and flip over in the road at a busy junction.
1. ‘Levitating’ cars caught on camera in China.
2. Bizarre accident, Vans and Car Levitate, Fly through air in a busy intersection in China.
A video that appeared online in late November 2015 gained wide popularity, claiming to show a mysterious road accident in China where couple of Cars and a Van are seen ‘Levitating’ into the air. The claim as such is not a fact.
The mysterious clipping showing a Van and couple of Cars ‘Levitating’ into the air at a road intersection in China caught the attention of millions of users online. Many viewers thought the video clipping could be Computer-generated imagery (CGI), probably meant to promote any new Chinese video game. While some saw it as a paranormal incident, few rightly thought the vehicles were thrown through air possibly by a cable. It was a bizarre road accident that occurred due to a steel cable coiled up in the rotating cleaner machine of the street sweeper truck seen on the right side in the video (see last picture in Image Gallery). As shown and described in the second video of a Chinese news report of the accident, at the left side of the video, a telephone pole was being installed, to which the steel cable was tied and coiled on the road thinking it would not cause any problem for vehicles moving over it. But unexpectedly, when the street sweeper machine coiled up the cable, tightening it over the road, it resulted in the accident at the junction; because the cable was not seen/expected by the drivers.
This road mishap, where the cable is not visible to the viewers, appeared to them as if the vehicles are levitating into the air. So the stories showing the road accident in China as a paranormal case of vehicles levitating into the air are just hoaxes.<issue_start><issue_comment>Title: fix vessel planning issue
username_0: # Description

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## Linked issue(s)/Pull request(s)

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- [issue_number](issue_link)

## Type of Change

- [ ] Non-breaking bug fix
- [ ] Breaking bug fix
- [ ] New feature
- [ ] Test
- [ ] Doc update
- [ ] Docker update

## Related Component

- [ ] Simulation toolkit
- [ ] RL toolkit
- [ ] Distributed toolkit

## Has Been Tested

- OS:
  - [ ] Windows
  - [ ] Mac OS
